The bottle of scotch was almost empty. As the waiter refilled his glass, the writer grinned happily. “This is one advantage of a fictional coffee house. Where I come from, the strongest thing on the menu is double espresso.”
“Definitely a perk,” the woman said. “If we’d been drinking this before, we’d probably have written an even better song.” She gazed fondly at the man by her side.
The man by her side smiled back. “I think we already make beautiful music together. Hey, did that sound as corny as I think it did?” He waved to the waiter, gesturing toward his glass. The waiter promptly obliged.
“I don’t know,” the writer said. “That song was ok, but I actually preferred the other ones.”
The woman looked at him quizzically. “What other ones?”
“You know,” the writer said, “the songs in the first act. The song about the Beatles was really clever. But to tell you the truth, the one about scary things was my favorite — a real hoot.”
They were both staring at him now. “We were singing?” the man asked.
The writer stared back. “You really don’t know, do you? Oh right, of course. There are rules about these things.”
“Rules?”
“Yeah, remember all those Hollywood musicals? They didn’t know they were singing, unless…”
“Unless, in the plot, they were deliberately writing a song,” the woman finished for him. “Oh my.” she turned to the young man at her side. “We really do make beautiful music together.”
The writer contemplated the man and woman, who were now holding hands and gazing fondly into each other’s eyes. “I guess things are going well for you two. So what about the boyfriend?”
“Oh, that wasn’t me,” she woman shrugged. “That was the character. I actually don’t have a boyfriend, fictional or otherwise.”
There was a sudden noise behind them. They all turned toward the door, only to see a woman in a red dress glowering angrily. “Yeah, but I have a boyfriend.”
The writer turned visibly pale as she fixed him a stern look. “You and I,” she said, “have a few things to talk about.”