The Suit

He looked good in a suit.
She was sort of surprised of just how good he did look, actually. Dressing up wasn’t the sort of thing she usually associated with him. He’d never been much for clothes.
Still, despite everything, he looked good. Though “good” in an objective, sterile kind of way. A “good” that she felt obliged to think, because other people kept saying he cleaned up so nice. Even if she did prefer him that tatty, brown coat of his.

She retraced that night at the bar.
Or was it a restaurant? It didn’t matter—the place was a dive. But the kind of dive that served burgers you’d sacrifice your arms for. The kind that looked like hell but was perennially packed to the gills.
They ended up sitting with total strangers just so everyone could order before midnight. She couldn’t recall how many were there. A man in a cowboy hat, maybe. And still strikingly clear, a stately African woman with some untraceable accent. She sometimes wondered how that refined lady had come to be eating in such a pit.
They were joking around like they did. Giving each other a hard time. Laughing stupidly. Incomprehensible fun. Even if he did make her nervous.
And the African woman said, “don’t you two like each other,” knowingly around her glass of water.
She felt exposed, but not him. He spewed some intricate speech in his voice like grass, both soft and rough. That poking buttons was just their way. And she shook her head and leaned over and kissed him on the side of his mouth. Then crumpled with her face protected by crossed arms and the greasy tabletop.
He laughed and said something she only half heard, “see? Nothing but air.” He always used words like other men used Axe body spray: wantonly and to excess.
But he still put his arm across her shoulders and she entwined her fingers with his.

He looked good in a suit.
Too good, honestly. He should look worse, not better, lying on his back and hemmed in by satin.
Her heart stuck to her ribs, a clot of soft, dead metal. Feeling was gone, besides a faint ache at the loss of his voice and the warm weight of his arm across her shoulders.
Shock should be prominent, but he always was a reckless idiot. Some days all she wanted to do was simultaneously rip his head off and press her mouth to his.
Still, this didn’t feel right. Wasn’t life supposed to be spent with the people you loved? If that was the case, then why didn’t they stick around until you could all leave together? Seemed like the polite thing to do. You shouldn’t just pack up and go.
Her eyes skated from his gray face to his neat tie. Her fingers untightened it slightly and rumpled the collar. Still, this mannequin would never look like him.