7 Up soda pop mixed with bright pink grenadine with a chemical-tasting maraschino cherry stuck to the plastic straw. It was one of those drinks marketed for children, but Mandy could see that she wasn’t the only adult ordering one. For some reason or other these old-fashioned restaurants always seemed to attract old ladies ordering strawberry Jell-O with whipped cream, truck drivers ordering “worms and dirt” (chocolate pudding with Oreo cookies squished over the top in a glass bowl, fruit-flavoured gummy worms over the cookie crumbs) and businessmen trying not to get syrup from their hot fudge sundaes on their neckties and tailored suits. Mandy figured that maybe they were all trying to grasp a time way back in the past when they were all little children, excitedly ordering desert for a special occasion under the warm incandescent light from above, cheerful and bouncing music filling their minds. Hurriedly she ate the food, paid the tab and hurried back to her car in the bitter wind, not wanting to stick around for very long. Rebecca McNutt
About This Quote

When the narrator asks the waitress to give him a beer, she says she'll bring him one in a few minutes. He asks why he wouldn't get it right away, and she says she'll be back after she does other things. The narrator replies: "I want a beer now." The waitress leaves and returns with the drink. He takes a sip, and says: "This is kind of flat." She replies: "Give it a chance to open up." He takes another sip and says: "This is okay, but it’s not quite right." After taking another sip, he says: "I guess this is as good as it gets. It might be better if I had a slice of lemon." Mandy thinks about what the waitress said as she drives home.

Source: Shadowed Skies: The Third Smog City Novel

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