Keeping it Going

In a country cafe yesterday, I saw two old ladies waiting for their food. They talked about the weather and their ailments and then they ran out of things to say. One of them looked around the room. She stared at the curtains and the mirror on the far wall. She picked up the salt shaker and rolled it between her fingers, watching the white powder slide about inside. The other spread her hands out on the tablecloth (what an oddly detached phrase that is, as if they were something she'd just got out of a plastic bag - perhaps English needs reflexive verbs.) She looked at the gold band on her left hand and the cluster of diamonds alongside it. Inspiration came to her at last. 'Do you go to bed in your rings?' she asked.