City of Strays Part Two... more to come later

She sauntered to the kitchen and poured herself a drink. Moving back to the window in her bedroom, she sat on the floor before it, drink in hand, and let herself get lost.

***

The bright warm orange sun woke her in the morning. Jean had finished the drink and fallen asleep where she sat. She lie awake on the floor soaking in the sun’s embracing rays hoping the new day would be better than the previous, she hoped the night’s meeting would bring a good assignment, and she hoped that Cliff would catch her hints of disinterest. Leaving her glass on the floor, she propped herself up, stumbled to the bathroom and filled the tub. After a lengthy soak, she slipped out of the towel and into a silky blood-red floor-length dress, a slit from toe to hip let flash her long leg a white leather holster attached to the thigh cradling an elaborately decorated six-shooter with a gleaming white mother-of-pearl handle. She climbed into her black heels and pinned up one side of her hair, leaving the other to rest on her shoulder and back. She dripped dangling pearls from her ears and painted her lips scarlet.

It was noon.

Jean locked up and walked to the Tea Tin, a tiny diner a few blocks away from her apartment, it was in a small one-story building that had streams of a rust-colored grime running down its once sky blue exterior walls, the interior looked like a typical roadside/airport diner from some forgotten time that had been left to devour itself. There were tears in the fabric of the booths, gum beneath the tables and bar, the walls of the restroom were layered with thousands of markings from girls with pens, and the teal and once-white checkered floor was ever-sticky with syrup and soda. The place was run by a sweet old lady named Dot who tried her best to do what she could to keep that diner going, and to keep it from going to the Rats, a band of transients who stayed in the Strays to terrorize the town into submission.