From Q7:
In the breakroom, he re-tucked his shirt and adjusted his sweater, arranging and rearranging the cloth so it wouldn't cling so stubbornly to his fat. It defeated him, the greenish lighting in the mall's bowels. His pants, pinching tight at his waist, barely reached his shoes - none of this cute skinny jeans made it past the bulb of his belly anymore. He couldn't help envisioning his useless mouse of a penis, cowering in fat beneath his (shudder) pleated khakis. He's never realized that they were designed to hide the fat.
Flushed, he noted the clock - he'd managed to kill four of his 15 minutes. He'd only have to talk to Marina for 10.
She was in Reference, flipping through a thick book.
"Listen to this," she commanded when he walked up. "'As only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night.'" She stared him down. "Dorothy Parker. So, advice from a soused literati. Maybe you'll listen to her since you won't talk to me."
"Marina..."
"Nope. Stupid quotations aside, Danny, I've had enough." She put her arm through his and jerked him into the mall. A Muzak version of Madonna's "Holiday" eked through the air. "Listen, this whole... thing of yours.. quitting your job, moving out here to the suburbs..." he waited, but she specifically did not mention his weight, "I get it, I guess. You lost Roddy. You feel- You're dealing with a lot. But it's been months, Danny. You know this isn't your life."
"Not 'my life'?" Danny took back his arm. According to the faux-Victorian clock at the mall's central rotunda, he had only six minutes until he could head back. "Marina, you don't know 'my life' at all."
She stopped, creating a ripple in the stream of shoppers, disrupting the carefully calibrated flow. That's what life is like, he thought. Interruptions. Obstruction. Being dislodged.
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