Two Girls and a Birthday

They came in still in the going-out clothes, glitter on one of them, and one was crying in the way that's mostly about being tired. It was a birthday. You can tell. There's a particular flatness to a birthday at 2am, when the party is over and it wasn't enough. I gave them chips they didn't order. On the house, I said, even though Greg would dock me, and Marisol gave me a look but Marisol always gives me a look. The crying one ate three chips and stopped crying. That's the whole science of it. Nobody can cry and eat chips, the body won't do both. The other one mouthed thank you over her friend's head. Happy birthday, I said to the friend, and she laughed a wet laugh and said is it though, and I said it is now, it's 2am, technically it's the day after, you survived it.