Cafe-Girl Novella

As they sat basking in each others' presence, drinking in the others' eyes, James sat gloomily at the patio table at the cafe. His head hurt from too much drink and not enough sleep the night before. He had stayed the night again at Sandra's house, his on and off girl-friend who was married yet in an open relationship. He enjoyed spending time with her, enjoyed the sex, for what its worth, and enjoyed the no-strings attached style of relationship. But, the days after always left him a little worn out, a little blue. For whatever reason. And, seeing Matt jaunty off with the pretty new girl at the cafe didn't make his mood any less gloomy. He picked up his coffee cup and swallowed hard a big gulp, then popped a piece of blueberry muffin into his mouth. As he chewed, he stared ahead at the world in front of him, the cracking sidewalk with the bits of weeds pushing through, (Nature always finds a way, he thought), at the cars passing by on the street on the main boulevard, the people moving from place to place busy with their lives. He closed his eyes tightly and wished with all of his might that the noise would disappear in his mind. That's how he could describe it. Outwardly, he showed a calm exterior, but that only hid the dark and wild thoughts that ping-ponged and ricocheted across his brain. There wasn't always any real cohesive thought, just rambling thoughts that trailed on and on and on without any end in sight. Right now, he was thinking of Eve, his ex-wife and surprisingly he found himself sort of missing her. Sort of. Then, as if by some supernatural force of the universe, his phone buzzed. Looking down, he saw it was her, Eve, calling.

In the depths of the park, Matt put his arm around Deborah and pulled her close to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder and placed her hand on his knee. They sat that way for a few minutes in the serenity of silence, lost in the perfection of the moment. Finally, Deborah, not moving her head, started to speak.

“So, tell me more about you,” she began.

“What do you want to know?” Matthew asked.

“Well, I don't know, maybe we should talk about our, um, past relationships,” Deborah said brokenly. She knew that in this day and age the importance of knowing one's past sexual excursions and such was quite necessary, but she always always found it awkward.

“Oh, what's to know,” he began slowly. “I mean, before you I was with a girl in high school for like four years then she went off to college up north, then there was Jamie and....ugh.”

“What's wrong with Jamie?” Deborah looked up at him, sweetly.

“Oh, don't get me started,” he snorted. “You know how you said about your ex? Sort of like that, only she also cheated on me with, like, the entire town, guys and girls!”

“Well, shit!” responded Deborah and she reached for his hand in consolation. “Sorry to bring it up.”

“Yeah,” Matthew started again, suddenly caught up in the intensity of the memory. “Had a ring ready to ask her to marry me and everything, until I found her....”

“Found her?”

“Came home one night and, well, you know,” Matthew explained.

“Shit,” exclaimed Deborah. “Say no more.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Matthew said quietly to himself.

“Well, um,” Deborah began, trying to take the focus off of him in order to ease the tension. “I just had a few sort of relationships in high school, then the long-term one in college with the no-good asshole so...”

“Let's not talk any more about the past, okay?” Matthew interjected and smiled down at her. She nestled closer to him and he held her closer and tighter. “Let's just enjoy the now.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Deborah responded.

At the coffee shop patio, James picked up the phone and answered.

“Yeah?” James barked.

From the other side of the phone, Eve began talking nervously, never sure what mood James was going to be in, an angry paranoid one or a less angry and paranoid one. At least these were the two that she saw, all the time. Other people saw a nicer, more quieter and calmer guy, but not her, at least, not anymore. She could recall, slightly, a time in her distant past when he was such a dream of a guy, so sweet, so attentive, so head over heels in love with her. She fell fast and hard when she met him, no warnings or deterrence from her friends got through. She had to learn the hard way just what kind of guy he really was, on the inside, the turmoil he kept so tightly hidden.

She wanted him to come over, to pick up some remaining things from the house they had, until recently, shared. She also wanted to let him know the paperwork from the divorce had gone through, been filed, signed, and that they were officially...over. She thought maybe he would share some sadness with her over that, some memory deep within of the happier times between them, if they were even real to him, or even to her. But, she said none of this, only asked him to come over to retrieve the remainder of his things at the house. His response was to angrily bark at her, that he would see her in a few minutes. Then, to hang up the phone abruptly. She sighed and leaned against the wall of her room, their old room, and stifled a cry. No use being the weaker of the two, not after everything they had been through, that he had put her through, had done to her.

“Okay, so you don't want to talk about the past,” Deborah said into Matthew's rough and warm skinned neck. “So tell me about your friends!”

She took a huge whiff of him and exalted in the pleasure it gave all of her.

“Well, which one you want to hear about first?” Matthew said, feeling her soft hair brush against his chin and reveling in it.

“Um, tell me about that Shaggy guy,” Deborah said, drawing one of the names he had told her about the night previous.

“We call him that because he looks like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo,” Matthew began.

“Yeah, but what's his real name?”

“Ah, that's top secret,” Matthew laughed aloud. “Or at least to him its personal. He's kind of a conspiracy theory geek who is afraid of the government finding him so he hides his identity as much as possible blah blah blah.”

“Oh, shit,” laughed Deborah. “Anything else I should know about him?”

“Eh, just started college again, online,” Matthew began, thinking about his friend, Shaggy. “Studying computer science...has this girl he sees on and off, Amy, that's about it.”

“Okay, and what about always wear a tie dude?” Deborah was continuing the conversation.

“Oh, that's Thomas,” Matthew laughed. “He doesn't always wear a tie--”

“Yeah, just for work,” Deborah interrupted. “But I like “always wears a tie dude”. I like to make up names for people like that.”

“Oh yeah what's my name then?” Matthew wanted to know.

“Well, that's easy, you are, or were, until we met, the “cute-coffee boy,” Deborah explained flirtatiously.

“I thought I told you we preferred the term, barista,” Matthew reminded her.

“Yes, but that was after I met you and learned the professional terminology for he who works at at the coffee shop,” explained Deborah. “So anything else I need to know about “Thomas”?”

“Eh, not much,” Matthew said distracted by her eyes looking up into his. “I mean, he just moved here after a bad break up with a girl up north and that's how we met. Shaggy knew him and said we had to go up and rescue him from this chic, so we did. You can imagine that car-ride home, all three of us, chain smoking and talking about how girls are just so shitty!”

“I'm sorry,” Deborah said and she placed a soft kiss on the inside of Matthew's neck. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against him, warmly.

James walked down the familiar street to his old house, just a five minute walk from the coffee shop. He and Eve had discovered the coffee shop together and until recently she had worked as a barista there herself. Until they had split up and she felt it necessary to look for other work. The trees were still leafy, filled with the oranges and reds of the fall foliage, the streets equal in their leaf-strewn surroundings. He kicked at the leaves as he walked and watched as they fluttered away from him. Stepping on a few, he heard the familiar crunch that left a satisfaction in his heart. Sometimes life seemed so simple to him, most of the time it wasn't.

Coming up to the little house on the corner with the blue door, he felt an inner twinge at his heart. He walked slowly up the path and knocked loudly on that same blue door. Eve came to the door, wearing a loose black shirt and jeans.

“Um, hi,” she said and bit her lip. “Come in.”

He stepped into the living room and saw the changes that had been made, notably the lack of his belongings that were now being tossed more and more into a storage unit across town. There was a box in the corner, marked “James” which he assumed was the last remaining items of his at the house. He stood in the middle of what was his living room and gazed around mindlessly.

“Um, you want to sit? You want a drink or something?” Eve was saying, somewhere in the distance.

“No,” he said gruffly and stared at her hard. She sat on the edge of the sofa and sighed heavily.

“James, I have something to tell you,” she began slowly. He continued staring at her, trying to read her thoughts and to her it felt like he was trying to intimidate her.

“Yeah?” he said at last.

“The paperwork came back from the DA's office,” she began and sighed again. “Um, its official.”

“Aha,” he said, nodding. “You happy?”

“Not really, I mean,” was all she said and stared hard at the ground. Absentmindedly, her hand reached up to her neck and she fingered a necklace. He saw a glint of silver hanging from the chain and then recognized what it was, their wedding rings hanging side by side. He grunted at that. She looked up at him, smiling sadly, he thought, mockingly. Then, she unclasped the chain from around her neck and held the necklace out to him, the rings dangled off the chain between them, somewhat symbolically. “Maybe you should have this.”

She stood holding it out to him and he stared at her, penetrating her with his eyes. He moved towards her slowly, slowly, slowly. She inhaled hard and held her breath, then released it, as if gasping for air.

“So what about that old guy?” Deborah wanted to know.

“The old guy?” Matthew asked.

“You know the old hippie? What did you say his name was?”

“Oh, that's Ray,” Matthew laughed. “Yeah, crazy hippie drunk Ray, love that guy.”

“Oh, okay,” Deborah took that in. “And what about...what about...the scary dark one...”

“Scary dark one? Oh, you must mean, James,” Matthew smiled at her. “He's not so scary when you get to know him, I mean, he's had it rough, mom just died, wife divorced him, tough times. I just cut him some slack, hope he comes around, you know?”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Deborah smiled at him, loving the goodness of heart that appeared to be Matthew.

James left his old house, letting the blue door slam angrily behind him, leaving Eve behind as well. The necklace with their rings was pushed deep inside of his jeans pocket. He moved up the street back to the patio, maybe no one would notice he had gone, it had been that short of a time. He half realized that he had left the box of his items behind, the reason she had called him over there in the first place, her rouse, as it were. Good, he thought, don't need that crap anyway? Still, he thought, I hope none of it was any of my mom's old stuff.

At the cafe, his blue coffee cup stood on the table of the patio, where he had left it, the plate with the half-eaten muffin beside it. He sat, heavily down on the chair. The necklace chain leaked out from his pocket as he sat and he pushed it back in. Peering inside the coffee shop, he noticed what's her name, the barista chic, had her ear-buds in and was listening to some music, totally unaware of the world around her. Good, he thought, good. He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. The liquid inside was still semi-warm.

Down the street came the happy pair that was Matthew and Deborah, the fresh bloom of new love upon their faces, rosy with the Fall air and the walk. As he watched them walking towards him hand in hand, his eyes fell upon the small frame of Deborah, slightly petite build, shoulder-length dark hair, dark brown eyes, and she brought to mind someone from his past, not too a distant past, and inside of him crept one thought, just one thought: desire.

The One That Got Away