I wrote this, inspired by a light exchange I saw between two people, an elderly man and woman, in a coffee shop. I love the idea of reunion, and that is what sparked this piece. Sidenote: this entire this was formatted correctly, but WordPress suddenly erases the formatting when I copy + paste, so forgive the tab errors and whatnot. Enjoy!
She didn’t like coffee anymore. She felt she had outgrown the froufrou selections; a shot of this, a swirl of that, a cappuccinio espresso whatever-it-was. She was simple, she always had been. She ordered a simple cup of coffee– hold the sugar, I’ll put it in myself, thank you–and sat down with it, in the far corner of the café, where she could watch the door.
She had contemplated going by her neighbor’s, Ms. Whitman, to pick up the morning paper. She stopped getting it delivered to her house years ago, when Vern died. It made her think of him sitting in his arm-chair in his white and blue striped boxers with his pipe, spilling out the contents by his feet to get to the sports section. She had always nagged at him for it, but she didn’t realize how much she’d miss it when it was gone.
However, she always thought it was prudent to keep a respectful eye on what was going on in the world. Keeps you centered, she’d say. At least that’s what she told Ms. Whitman, who agreed to let her have the paper after she finished it.
But she did not stop this morning, because Ms. Whitman was not out in her garden among her dahlias and geraniums like usual. She was inside, presumably; the car was in the driveway, and Ms. Whitman hated to walk anywhere.
“I did my time walking all my life. And now it’s my right to sit down and let other people take me places,” she would say. And if Ms. Whitman was inside, she was most likely fussing around the house, cleaning non-existent messes. Alice did not feel like barging in on a woman’s cleaning, nor did she particularly want to partake in a one-sided conversation about the proper cleaning product to use. The smell of ammonia did not agree with her.
And so she sat, without the paper, staring blankly at the wall. She wrapped her weathered fingers around the porcelain of the white mug, the warmth brushing against her skin. She studied her hands; the skin was soft but loose, wrinkles rippling around her knuckles every time she moved them. Her veins bulged from her skin. It seemed that she had been young all of her life until suddenly, bam, she had woken up with old ladys’ hands. When did that happen? She couldn’t remember.
A small tinkling of a bell rendered her attention to the door. Its heavy frame was pushed open and in stepped an older man. As the door shut behind him, he adjusted his keys nervously in his pocket and exhaled slowly, looking around the shop. His eyes caught Alice’s, and she could still see the irreverent twinkle in his eye as his lopsided smile expanded over his face. He loped over to the table, where she stood up with some difficulty–the chair was too close to the wall–and before she could utter a word she was swooped up in a bearlike embrace.
“Alice Gardyner. Jesus Christ, how are you doing?” he released her, and she found her way back into her seat, smoothing her hair as she did so to regain some composure.
“Your language has never been delicate, Oscar.” she scolded. He laughed, and the twinkle showed again; however this time he was close enough that she noticed the rippling of wrinkles across his face as he displayed his teeth.
“Thirty-something years later, and you’re still on my case about my language,” Oscar chortled to himself, before his face froze seriously. He took her hands, and she felt the tenderness of his fingers enfolding over hers. There was no wedding band.
“But, honest. How are ya?”
The depth of the questions startled Alice; nobody had asked her that with such deep care in their eyes for a very long time. Not since Vern died. The neighbors had stopped dropping by her house, leaving lasagnas and mince pies on the doorstep. When she went out to church, which she only did from time to time now–nobody said “God bless your heart” to her as she sat down. It was in this question she reflected on her life since that time; turning pages in her mind. There was the gardening. The bills. Her son away in New York making his fortune. Her daughter and her husband Phil were trying again.
“Mundane.” she admitted, through the palm of her hand. She giggled as she said it; the noise escaping her throat startling her. She had not ‘giggled’ for years. Oscar laughed right along with her.
“Good.” he nodded, clearing his throat a couple of times. Alice waited for him to say something, but he merely stared at her. As his eyes fluttered from her hair to her face, she looked away. Something red and embarrassing turned her eyes away from his. But before long she looked back, and he was staring out the window. She took in his features; remembering them slowly as her eyes retracted their patterns. The gray stubble lining his square, handsome jaw. The tuft of hair on his forehead. The arms, somehow still muscular through the faded flannel of his navy shirt. He still looked the same, she reckoned. He was just given the same beating from time as me.
“How’s the old friend?” he asked her suddenly, teeth breaking from his lips in a big smile once more. Alice’s eyes snapped forward.
“Ms. Whitman? Why, she’s fine….”
“I don’t know any Whitmans,” he stopped her. “I mean, how’s Vernon?”
She felt her blood pressure rise…had nobody told him? Suddenly something shifted inside of her, and she felt a squeezing pressure around her throat.
“Oscar…” she began. He smiled encouragingly at her, before his expression started to fade. The color in his face melted away, and she could hear her heart hammering. She never had to do this part.
“No,” Oscar said. It wasn’t a question.
“Vernon passed away, three years ago.”
A flutter of shock overwhelmed his face, and he pressed his hands to his mouth. Alice took her empty hands off the table, restoring them in her lap. She could feel her heartbeat subside. She had not really admitted Vern’s death aloud before–but now that the words had left her mouth, she felt fine. Normal, even. What was this?
“How?”
His voice was pale. The question wheezed from his lips.
“The doctors said—–”
“No, no. I want to know how he died. In a bed? Hospital? How did he die?” his voice came out harsh and angry, but his eyes were soft. She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands, once more.
“We were in the car….” she said. Oscar closed his eyes. “I was driving. We were arguing, I told him he was horrible with directions.” She held her breath for a moment, and then laughed. She felt the hot swell tears overcome her eyes. “And he was.”
She paused for a moment. Oscar kept his eyes closed, nodding.. She continued.
“Then he stopped talking. He–he,” her voice faltered. Tears ran down from her eyes now, she felt the brutal pain twist itself around her chest again. “I stopped the car, I could tell something was wrong. He just started shaking, and clutching at his arm.”
She was crying, fluidly, openly. Nobody blinked an eye in the coffee shop. Nobody noticed, except for Oscar. He put his hand on her face.
“It’s okay, Alice.” he said softly, the old in his voice grating against the young. “You are so strong.”
Alice nodded into his hand, the threads of tears still spilling down her cheek. Thirty-something years later, and Oscar could still lull the harshest of heartbeats, the worst of nightmares.
Thirty-six years, and she still loved him.