(no subject)
Two people, a boy and a girl, each about twenty, twenty-two, sipping on coffee or maybe tea or maybe one just has water and the other has coffee or tea, or maybe one has even indulged in a milkshake, vanilla, not chocolate. They are awkward with one another; they shift uncomfortably in their seats and avoid eye contact avidly and when the silence becomes too long to bear, they talk about the weather.
She ventures, she pipes up, she starts and the awkward stalling that follows, prerequisite to an atom bomb, comes tumbling between her lips, shiny from too much gloss, trying too hard, wanted to look too good: “do you remember…--no, I guess you wouldn’t, it was so long ago; well, I mean, do you remember the time you and I first ate here?”
And he fakes a smile; he brings his eyes to hers for a second and looks away. He comments on what she drank, coffee maybe, or did she buy a milkshake then too? He can’t remember, he mumbles, he agrees: “yes, it was a very long time ago.”
She forces a laugh, repressing the awkwardness of it, she continues: “you were wearing that…that ridiculous hat…do you still have it? I mean, well, not it wasn’t that it was ridiculous per say, well, no, it was. It was pretty silly. It was bright orange, for Christ sake.”
He clears his throat, not amused; he takes a drink, it lasts too long. She notices. She pauses briefly, takes a breath, and follows through: “I loved that hat. I loved that hat so much it made me love you.”
He fingers a gold band on his right hand, on the ring finger, and she pretends not to notice. She folds her shoulders in, smaller like, embarrassed like; she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, it gets caught on the gaudy, dangling earring she’s sporting.
“I think I gave that hat away,” he says, looking out the window, “and anyways, no one falls in love with a hat. That’s illogical.”
They stop, they mention the darkening sky, the outburst of rain they’ve had the past few days. They do not look each other in the eye. She folds the paper wrapper from her straw into a teeny, tiny square and un-folds it; he twiddles his thumbs, she makes note it’s a new habit. The waitress asks if she’d like another milkshake, if he’d like another coffee/tea; she says yes, he says no. Five minutes later and nothing has changed, except the waitress brings back a chocolate milkshake instead of a vanilla one.
“You haven’t changed a bit, though your eating habits may have gotten worse,” he notices out loud. She smiles at him slightly, flattered that he noticed, or that he didn’t notice the change, or something of the sort, but flattered that he still paid attention to details, her details.
“I’ve changed,” she counters. “Sometimes I don’t recognize myself. God knows I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Yeah, well, she’s done a number on me. She likes health foods and whatnot, organic shit, and daily exercise,” he explains, minus eye contact, his gaze falls to the window, to a car outside, to the clock on the wall behind her head, to his right hand, to his empty coffee mug. “She’s…different.”
“I knew she would be.”
“And I’m happy,” he offers quickly. “Very,” he adds. And she smiles at him, and to herself she thinks: “and I don’t miss you either,” and pulls up another memory.
“I remember,” she starts, running her finger around the top of her sundae glass, “the last time we were here…”
He catches her gaze and frowns; she smiles, she continues: “you were sitting like that, right there, and I like this, right here, and we thought out loud about my leaving and your staying and how we could work things out and the possibility of forever. And, God knows, obviously, that you didn’t find it with me, so I hope, with all my heart, that you find it with her.” And with that, she reached into her purse, and pulled out a ring and a five and sat it down on front of him on the Formica tabletop, and sighed.
“I appreciate you coming to meet me,” she said, formally, but with her shoulders back, her chest out, and her chin high. “Know that I think it’s a great shame you lost that hat. It was your best characteristic.”
His gaze still out the window as she got up to leave. When the waitress came to collect the money, and the glasses, he ignores her, dismissing her with a half-hearted smile. His fingers find their place on his right hand, at his ring, and he toys with it absentmindedly. Coming to some conclusion from some epic battle deep in his mind, somewhere right behind his eyes, he pulls the ring off and set it on top of hers, finally standing up and leaving the diner.
When the waitress comes back to wipe the table down, she finds the rings and pockets them both. She will later go home and save them in a shoebox in her closet, and tells herself that if she ever sees the pair together again, she will only rightfully give them back their rings, because she remembers them most two years ago: young, stupid and completely in love.