It sounds like this might be a story of infidelity.
But it's not.
The sun immerses itself below the horizon. Through the window, I hear mothers calling for children to come home. Chicken sizzles on a grill next door, and like one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons, the aroma lingers through my back door snake-like. It teases me. I salivate and close my eyes. I am reminded of last summer; when he turned the chicken and the juices made the fire hiss; when I boiled salt potatoes and decorated cold macaroni with onions, carrots, pickles and garlic powder, folded in mayonnaise; when we would pile our plates high at dusk because that was the coolest time of the day to eat. I open my eyes. The chicken I really do smell is for the family next door, and suddenly my soggy cheerios and cold toast need to be thrown away. The grill outside is cool to the touch. I haven't used it. Who grills for themselves?
Maybe this story is like one of those monologue about being single.
I suppose you could interpreted it that way.
It's a Friday evening, and it only makes sense that she and I spend it together. We are fighting sleep. Not because we're tired, but because sleeping passes the time. We flip through mindless television until it's societally acceptable to go to bed. The couches make an L shape, with an end table in the corner. Our twin bulbous wine glasses stand together at varying levels of fullness. Hers is a merlot. Mine is a chardonnay. I don't even like the taste, but it helps the eyes droop and the night end quickly. The remote should be between us, but I don't really know where it is. Maybe it fell between the cushions. Maybe it's tucked under a pillow. Neither of us care; we are waiting, not watching.
At the gym, I lay my phone next to me.
There's another girl here; she's here whenever I am. We don't work out together though. The best time to be here is now, when everyone else is home for dinner with their families. We don't have to make dinner tonight, so we are here instead. Mindlessly, I press the center button of my phone. The girl next to me does the same. We do this over and over, between set, sometimes between sit-ups. But we both know that there aren't any messages. We don't even know we're checking. Our actions aren't propelled by longing or ache; we are motivated by habit. I check my phone as often as I take a deep breath. I don't even know I'm doing it most of the time; it's just something my body does automatically.
Once, I saw her home screen's background because I was drinking from the water fountain in the same moment that she absently checked for no messages. Our phone backgrounds are the same: dusty picture of a guy in green-gray, digital-patterned garb. Tight sideburns tucked under a matching hat. The guys are different, but the photos are the same. Neither guy knows he's the subject of a camera. Just a moment capturing his routine. It makes me wonder if either of those guys know they are featured as the backgrounds of our phones. It makes me wonder if imprinting the photo as a background picture is some sort of member's card for this club we belong to, willingly or not. Perhaps it is cruel irony: his photograph is on my phone, a device I could use to call anyone whenever I want, except, of course, him.
A group of three meet on a sloppy wet morning for cold bagels and stale coffee at a corner cafe.
They just doesn't know how to make good bagels here. It's not their fault, I suppose. We're used to the Hawaiian version of breakfast: slow, inconsistent service, cramped seating, an overexerting air conditioner. Hold the rice, please.
But our table is cozy. Two teachers and an engineer. It sounds like a lame joke. The conversation is woven comfortably, like an old afghan blanket. We haven't been friends our whole lives, but nobody could guess that. In fact, it's sort of fun to wonder what people are guessing. One guy and two girls. One girl wears two rings: her wedding band and his. It could be anybody's. The other girl has a Claddagh. The guy wears no jewelry. Sometimes we arrive together; sometimes we arrive together but in three different cars. We order together. We pay together; we just take turns because we do this so often. Three different accents. Three different hair colors. Nobody looks related. We all look together. We talk about things both familiar and not, to all of us and none of us. We seem to share similar experiences, but an eavesdropper would struggle to decipher whether we went to the same school or shared relatives or possibly lived in the same town, or close. Or maybe none of that at all.
What an outsider can't feel is the presence of three more people at that table. Three more people included in the "we" part of the subject of our sentences. Three more people included in the future plans. Three more people any of us would buy bad coffee and bagels for, twice over if they'd like. In a quiet moment, just as comfortable as the fluid conversation, I make a mental note to bring him here, the owner of that masculine wedding band on my right middle finger. He'd like the atmosphere. He'd like that they served coffee in porcelain cups.
They're doing it too, making mental notes. Thinking of their others. Probably, even, subconsciously counting the number of breakfasts until they're together again. I can only assume, but that's what I'm doing.
No comments:
Post a Comment