Category: Short stories

V. (The present.)

But today, today was going to be different, he said to himself. He was going to stride up to the counter firmly once he caught her eye, say something pleasant and personal, order something sophisticated, and then engage her in witty conversation as she rang him up.

He had carefully read through several articles on various websites (always diversify your sources, he thought) on how to engage in meaningful small talk, so he felt reasonably prepared. He’d also jotted down a few notes in his perennially present notepad. Plus, after all, he had his Grenafaux-spotted, tangerine tie. That, in and of itself, was a conversational gold mine.

 He stood in place, and shifted his weight to one leg, affixing his gaze upon the menu board in what he hoped was a casual, friendly manner. From his peripheral vision, he noted that she was baking something in the back; a shimmer of heat and the scent of rising bread wafted his way as she noted the arrival of a customer and scurried his way.

Her face brightened as she saw him – whether it was familiarity or fondness, he could not tell. He hoped it was both. “Good morning!” she said heartily.

Her eyes were looking particularly richly brown today, and her hair was mussed carelessly. She wore a white tank top and black apron, her customary getup. He mused that she didn’t even wear makeup…then again, her eyelashes were so dark, and her eyebrows so prominent, she didn’t really need any. In fact, she looked better without.

He realized he was staring abstractedly at her, and said automatically, “Yes, good morning, thanks, and how’s it going?”

He felt it was too many words, but she simply said, “I’m doing well. Busy day. What can I do for you? The usual?”

“Yes, please, drip coffee, medium.” He shuffled forward a little, his voice slightly hoarse, and coughed as quietly as he could.

She turned to grab a sizable brown mug. “Some room for cream…wait…just a little bit, right?”

She tilted her head to look at him in confirmation, and he nodded dumbly. She then switched on the grinder and he closed his mouth as she quickly went back into the kitchen. He thought rapidly…comment on her clothes? Nope, she was wearing same outfit as always. Was the tattoo too personal a topic? Did it mean anything? Was it the painful residue of a drunken night?

He glanced at her as she drew the loaves of bread from the oven, and saw the tattoo shift and coil as her muscles tautened. It was an interesting spiky spiral of some sort, but most of it was obscured by her white tank top.

“Excuse me, was that all you’re getting?” Angela asked, her tone of voice somewhat off – was it amused? He quickly looked back at her, then at her hand as she slowly depressed the plunger of the French press, and the rich black coffee filtered slowly into the top of the cylinder.

“For now, yes,” he said almost absentmindedly, and Angela’s other hand darted to the cash register, danced over a few buttons, and then she announced: “That’ll be $2.10, then.”

He handed over his credit card, and the girl came back in, carrying a giant pan stacked with loaves of bread. Strong fragrant scents of wheat, ciabatta and baguette assailed his nose, and he breathed in deeply. The white receipt paper spooled out, and Angela handed it and his card to him with a smile, saying, “There you go, Percy. Nice tie, by the way!”

For a brief moment, he thought of simply asking Angela, or responding to the compliment, and hopefully extending the conversation, but the girl was right there behind Angela…what would she think if she overheard him? Moreover, even if he waited until she was gone, and asked Angela, what would he say? He was interested in her? Simple as that, wasn’t it?

He was rather a timid man.

So instead he smiled at Angela, shambled back to his favorite little table adjacent to a window half-obscured by a coiling potted fern, and collapsed into a chair. He still held the receipt and card in one hand, his coffee in the other. He stared blankly at the receipt, and wished for the dozenth time that they printed the names of cashiers at the bottom at the Corner Cafe.

A fierce internal monologue erupted:

Why the nervousness? She’s quite nice, and she won’t be taken aback if you just ask her her name, if you do it graciously, just say something like, “Pardon me, but I forgot your name”…but she knows you don’t know her name…doesn’t she? Maybe. Maybe not. Damn it. Maybe you can ask Angela. How is it so easy to ask Angela her name? Because she wears a name tag? Damn it, why doesn’t SHE wear a name tag? Too hip…wait, are name tags not hip? Wait, who says hip anymore? It’s always been cool. Don’t say hip. Say cool. Damn you, you are hopeless. Well, maybe it’s not cool to wear a name tag. Maybe not here. Maybe she doesn’t want people to know her name, and so she doesn’t wear her name tag. Or maybe she only wears it when you’re not around. Damn it. How would she know? You’re far too paranoid. Go up there, like a man.

VI.

“You know he has a ridiculous crush on you, right?” Angela asked the girl, and she turned to glance quickly at Percy, seated in the corner, sipping his coffee with careful dejection.

“I’m not sure…I mean, he hasn’t even asked me my name,” she said doubtfully. “Not even a number.”

“He’s a little weird, not going to lie,” Angela stated firmly, turning her back on Percy.

“I mean, it’s probably his mother or something, naming him Percy, for heaven’s sake. But still, he seems nice, and he’s decent-looking.”

“What’s with the tie?” the girl asked with interest, rinsing out the French press. Angela carefully preserved the discarded coffee grounds in a wooden pail.

“It’s quite eye-catching,” Angela agreed. “Maybe normal for a singer. He can pull it off, though, I guess. Well, whatever.”

Percy’s vagaries were only mildly interesting to Angela; she sensed his fundamental wishy-washiness on some level, and didn’t quite care for it. She turned and faced the girl, smiling excitedly. “Did you hear back from the agent?”

“Not yet,” she sighed, “but she said she would get back to me in a few days.”

“I’m sorry,” Angela said sympathetically. “That must be frustrating.”

“It is somewhat,” the girl agreed, “but I’ll just keep shopping it around. They don’t have an exclusivity rule.”

“I’m sure it’ll get picked up,” Angela said, pushing one hand through her hair while using the other to wipe off the counter. “It was pretty damn good. Very innovative, striking style and strong voice…it’ll get picked up.”

At that moment a customer came in through the door, and hailed Angela. The girl smiled at her as she turned, and then saw Percy approach her, his jaw set, faint frown creasing his brow, with a complete focus on her present location. Such a complete focus, as a matter of fact, that he bowled over a chair in the way and nearly tripped into an elderly man’s bowl of tomato soup.

She instinctively moved forward to forestall a crisis, but Percy recovered his balance just in time, and within a few seconds stood before her.

VII.

“Could have been quite a red-letter day,” she said, with a smile, and almost immediately regretted it. What if he took that as a very feeble pun? She hadn’t even meant it that way.

But she overestimated Percy’s ability to multitask by several tasks. He pursed his lips, looked her straight in the eye, and said, with an unnaturally firm and loud tone of voice:

“I’d like your name, please.”

She was rather taken aback, and answered almost without thinking: “Erm, okay, it’s Callie.”

His face had abruptly flared with regret at his word choice, but at her statement he and his face fell completely silent. Then he moved his lips slightly, and said, diffidently, “Callie.”

“Yes, Callie.”

He fell silent once more, as a red flush began to meander up his neck, and the tips of his ears happily jumped the gun and transformed into vivid crimson.

“With a K?” he asked, after a pause for a quick gulp of air.

“Nope,” she said, restraining a wild desire to laugh, as clearly Percy was embarrassed, “with a hard C.”

He pondered that revelation for a moment, and also thought of fleeing at that point, and never returning ever again to the Corner Cafe. The snazziness of his tie could not save him in this moment. It probably was clashing horribly with his uncontrollable blush, he thought, but he was in too deep already, so some strange impulse shook his vocal cords once more:

“Any Y’s, or double E’s, or anything of that sort?”

“No, C-A-L-L-I-E.”

Percy fell silent once more. He brushed his hair back with one hand, nervously. Callie regarded him gravely, her composure impeccable.

“Well,” he said, straightening his tie with both hands, one at the knot, stiffening it into place, the other extending the tie. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Callie said, kindly. “Is there anything I can get you?”

He paused once more, and then said, “No.” He shuffled his feet slightly as he said it, and tilted slightly to the right, as if gravity was tugging him toward the floor, where he could wriggle away. But then, that would be rather noticeable, and even odder than just walking out, he thought, quite seriously. No, that was not the way.

She had fallen silent in turn, and they stood there for a moment, and she didn’t quite know how to salvage the situation without possibly embarrassing him, until she saw him fiddle with his tie, and she said even more kindly, “That’s quite a striking tie.”

His eyes almost lit up internally, and he said with unexpected authority, “Yes, it’s a new pattern of dots, really, called Grenafaux, almost a blend of the small diamonds on a normal paisley pattern, but combined with a polka dot. I think they’ll be quite popular this coming fall season.”

She nodded, somewhat surprised, and then he looked down at the tie, and then back up at her, and she asked curiously, “But why tangerine?”

“I thought you might like it,” he said, with disarming honesty. And then, he almost blushed once more, but manfully resisted it, and said, his voice growing hoarse, “You told me once you liked tangerines.”

“I do,” she said, touched. “You have a good memory.” She leaned back against the counter, relaxing somewhat, wondering at the rather strange yet likable person Percy was revealing himself to be.

“Only for a few things,” Percy said, feeling that this honesty tangent seemed to be developing well. “I have a small pad for most other things.”

He adroitly flipped open a small pad from somewhere on his person, and saw in it a note that he had written to himself days before, after encountering it online. A sudden fire kindled in his brain at sight of the note, and he knew exactly what to say.

“For instance, phone numbers,” he said, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, and put one elbow on the counter, directly into a glass jar of dog biscuits. He ignored the placement; this could not wait. “If you could put yours in here, that’d be great.”

Callie was quite surprised. Based on the past few minutes, she had anticipated it to be a few more weeks before Percy asked for her number. She took the pad silently, grabbed a pen from the cup crammed with writing utensils near the counter, and as she was about to write her number, saw this written in the pad:

#32. If you have your pad on you, and the topic of your bad memory comes up, say that you can’t remember all things, so you have the pad for some things, and then ask for her number.

This would have given her pause, had she not realized from the past few minutes that Percy was quite an odd creature. And after all, she had Angela to back her up or intimidate anyone who became onerous…Callie paused to glance toward Angela, who was half-hidden to the side, chopping carrots, leeks, and parsley.

Angela looked up, glanced at Percy, and nodded approval. Callie scribbled her number, and then handed the pad to Percy. Percy looked at it, almost in disbelief, and then smiled at her; not widely, not a boisterous grin, but a baffled smile of wonder. He pocketed the pad, and plunked down a five-dollar bill for no reason.

“You have a good day,” Percy said, his voice somewhat distant and dazed, and then he left abruptly. His bag was still in the corner near his seat, but that appeared to be unimportant. Callie thought of calling after him, but he had already whipped hastily around the corner.

“So he finally asked your name?” Angela stated more than asked, coming up to Callie.

“Yes, and even my number.”

“Was that what the notepad was about?”

“Yes,” Callie said, and chuckled slightly. “What an odd duck.”

“Well,” Angela said, reaching for the blender as another regular came in, “hopefully he wrote everything down, so he doesn’t forget.”

If Percy had heard her words, he would have scornfully guffawed at them. He nearly jogged down the street in his jaunty, effervescent stride, practically bleeding confidence all over the street. He had had the guts to ask her name. And even her number. He had had an honest-to-God conversation. He had even acquired the correct spelling of her name! And he mentally laid it out in giant black letter blocks:

C. A. L. L. I. E.

Or wait, was it C.A.L.L.Y.? Or even, C.A.L.I.? He consulted his notepad, and saw no hints, no clues.

Damn it.

I.

He walked with the alert alacrity of a man who had doused his morning coffee with freshly ground nutmeg. The sun already shone a warm, embracing yellow, but its rays seemed even fresher and finer to him. The sky seemed bluer, the scamper of traffic a hum of happy productivity, the passersby only a handshake and hello away from friends. And all due to one word…a name, actually.

II.

Of course, he still didn’t know how to spell her name. You never could tell with spellings these days, he said to himself for the second time that day.

He had said it to himself for the first time as he carefully Windsor-knotted his Grenafaux-dotted, tangerine tie earlier that morning while staring at his list of incoming tweets. (The spelling of Quvenzhane Wallis’ name had prompted this thought.) Given his job, he had to stay connected to the financial pulse of the world.

He took a few steps to the left, ended up in his bathroom, and pursed his lips as he eyed his reflection. Tangerine was a bold choice, but he needed something bold and eye-catching. On his wall was a diploma stating he had graduated with a degree in computational finance; when he popped up in photos of official events, editors tagged him as “Generic White Guy”; he was an ordinary-looking fellow, with dark brown hair, brown eyes, average height, and an average face; to cap it all off, his parents had once actually contemplated naming him Keith. 

He was aware of all this, of course. So he needed something that could be a good conversation starter, something to stand out, and the tie would serve well, or so he hoped. The dots were quirky, the knot substantial, the color striking. He wagered that it had nearly as much personality as he did, at least on first sight. (He was fairly confident that he had more personality than his tie, at least, after the first hour or so of conversation had eased things.)

A fruit fly buzzed in front of his face as he took one more look in the mirror and absentmindedly swatted at the fly. He detoured into the kitchen briefly on his way out, in order to check his homemade fly trap. He had poured molasses in the bottom of a glass jar, mounted a cardboard turret atop the jar, fastened it with duct-tape, and then inserted a tube with a hole cut facing the molasses through the cardboard. The fly trap was abuzz with flies, and he thought momentarily of releasing them into the wild. (He was a gentle soul.)

But then he steeled his heart, and the tangerine tie flopped gracefully as he bent down, laced up his shoes, and straightened the cuffs of his khakis. Then he stood up, picked up his brown briefcase, stuffed one overly boisterous flap of his shirt back behind the firm barrier of his belt, and launched out the door.

Today, he was going to learn her name.

III.

The Corner Cafe couldn’t make up its mind whether it was a pub, a cafe, a coffee shop, a restaurant, or a brewery. Whether this was due to the owner’s oddities or market demand, its identity crisis had created a loyal base of customers.

After all, if you wished for a fresh cup of coffee, you could see the harassed barista tramp downstairs and retrieve some recently-ground beans from the midsize grinder. Or if you wanted a morning glass of Sangria, the kitchen in back always seemed to have blueberries and raspberries and the requisite wine and brandy on hand. There were even stainless steel vats of modest proportions down below employed for brewing some beer (although the type and composition of beer changed dramatically every week).

It was only two stories (one above ground, the other below); the upper was crammed with small wooden tables and chairs, window-seats, a long, winding wooden bar, and a kitchen, while the lower was devoted to the equipment mentioned above and supplies. Consequently it always felt jam-packed.

And despite the jam-packed-ness, it was probably teetering on the edge of financial collapse most of the time, according to the man in the tangerine tie’s odd financial intuition. After all, there was never any expansion, nor any new equipment, nor extra staff to assist the three harried baristas/barmaids/brewers. The Corner Cafe was essentially a place of stasis, with an oddball, unchanging appeal, which is probably why the man in the tangerine tie felt oddly reassured as he strolled in that fine sunny morning.

He made a beeline for his favorite spot: approximately five feet in front of the bar and the giant chalkboard menu. White words sprawled across the chalkboard with vague clarity. You couldn’t simply read off the menu; he had once ordered a blackcurrant espresso shot with mixed greens at 7pm. When it had arrived, he was so mortified (both physically and mentally) that he consumed it in silence, and then was compelled to leave by dreadful gut rumblings. (Or borborygmi, his word of the day, he thought to himself, as the memory of the incident rippled through his mind.)

It was his favorite spot, of course, because he was certain to see her.

IV.

He had no idea who she was, or even what her name was. All he knew of her was that she wasn’t new, but rather had recently returned from a vacation or other absence, which explained why he hadn’t seen her in the two months or so he had frequented the cafe. He had gleaned that morsel of information from the very first day he had seen her.

(Flash backward nearly a month.)

Her back was to him, as she spoke to Angela, who was slender, tall, animated, and remarkably quick. (She was a law student at the nearby university.) Angela always made him nervous, mainly as he suspected she already knew everything about him…her intelligence was so readily overpowering it was almost unbearable. Looking at her, he had known in his heart that the only reason women hadn’t taken over the planet was that they were smart enough to realize it wasn’t worth it.

So the conversation went on, and he was hesitant to interrupt. He normally had the confidence of a freshly neutered tomcat, and that, coupled with Angela’s proximity, led to extreme reticence. He consequently paced in place, with a sort of odd foot shuffle combined with intense scrutiny of the menu board, as if the choice between a latte and an espresso was of great importance.

“Sorry, how can I help you?”

And he pulled his gaze down, and met hers, and then frozen. She had the most striking eyes and eyebrows, you see: dark and strong and thick, tapering off at the ends (her eyebrows, that is), while her eyes delicately teetered on the fine line between darkest brown and lightest black.

He became aware that the dark eyes were growing puzzled, and he promptly said the first thing that came into his head: “Chocolate.” (He had been mentally categorizing the color of her eyes.)

“Hot chocolate?” she had asked, and he had realized what he had said, but there was no way out now, so he mildly had said, “Yes,” even as a hot breeze from the 80-degree morning wafted in to punctuate his sentence. He wasn’t quite sure why he was unable to speak casually with her, but then his tidy, orderly mind rustled around for a moment, and efficiently produced the answer: he found her so attractive he had absolutely no desire to say or do anything that could be wrong, in her eyes.

She smiled pleasantly, displaying white even teeth, and then promptly whisked around to the refrigerator. Her hair was a thick dark shining mass, while her faintly freckled nose was firm, small, and pert. A tattoo stretched in some spiraling pattern on her brown left back shoulder, exposed by her white tank top and black apron. He had sufficient time to contemplate the ramifications of his decision, as she grabbed a small iron pot and a bar of chocolate. (They made real hot chocolate at the Corner Cafe.)

Meanwhile, Angela took over the register and rang him up. She coughed significantly, and his gaze ambled over from the tattooed brown shoulders moving briskly behind the bar.

“That’s all you’re getting?” Angela asked, with a cheery smile, adjusting the comb in her Afro.

“Yes, for now,” he said, and automatically reached for his wallet.

“So that’ll be four dollars, then.”

“Sounds good,” he mumbled, and placed a five-dollar bill in front of her. She regarded him with interest, one eyebrow that had been plucked into skinny submission arching slightly, even as she handed him one dollar back. He promptly deposited the dollar in the tip jar, and then an inactive silence congealed between them in a fatty, leering manner, until he could stand it no more.

“Seems like a hot day,” he said, feebly, conscious of her gaze, and knowing that it was most likely related to his order. What business had a grown man ordering hot chocolate on a hot day? Why mention the weather? Weather talk was the stale toast of conversation. He cleared his throat with a skittering hrrrmmph, aware of sudden dryness in his mouth.

“Yeah, but you don’t seem to mind the heat,” Angela said, glancing back at the stove. “Hot drinks cool you down somewhat, I guess.”

“It’s for my throat,” he said, for some reason. As the words left his mouth, he looked down at his paisley-patterned blue tie and contemplated a self-gag.

“Do you have a cold? Are you a singer?” Angela asked, her keen mind already leaping to deductions.

“Yes, a singer,” he stated, and his mind, somewhat removed from the conversation, watched the falsehood exaggerate with the fascination of an engineer eyeing a trainwreck. “Dry, strained throat.”

“Did you just get out of a performance, or have you been rehearsing a lot?”

“You know,” he said, vaguely gesturing, and then, mercifully, the chocolate had been ready. The girl came over, and placed a thick green porcelain cup filled with hot brown liquid chocolate right next to him. Her slim brown fingers moved deftly and accurately. He idly noted her fingernails had been nibbled down to the thinnest line of white.

“There you go,” she said kindly, and then added, “watch out, it’s really hot.”

Indeed, wisps of steam curled up from the hot chocolate, yet he willfully ignored them, and grasped it firmly about the base. Slow heat began to assault his fingers, and he immediately realized he had made a grave miscalculation. Yet he had already begun the slow shift of his heel to turn, and so he smiled almost helplessly at Angela and the girl.

“Do you want a tangerine slice?” the girl asked, looking down at the chocolate almost critically. “I always like pairing it with a little fruit.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, and thought for a moment he could see his knuckles smoking. She plopped a few tangerine slices down on his plate, and smiled at him once more. He would have smiled more nicely in return, had moisture not begun to collect in the corners of his eyes.

“Thanks, have a nice day,” he said, then quickly pivoted, and scurried for a table in the darkest, deepest corner of the cafe, where he could blow on his hands, and pretend to drink his piping hot chocolate. He managed to actually down some of it before he realized with a jolt that he hadn’t even had the balls to ask the girl her name.