Burnt Coffee and Bacon Grease

            It’s that feeling you get when you miss a step. You know the one. You’re moving down the stairs one moment and falling through space the next. Your stomach turns over and your hand grasps for the railing to stop you, to keep you from tumbling forward. Unprepared to land, your foot twists under you and you feel pain shoot through your ankle. You want to cry out, but then it’s over. Nothing happened, and yet your heart is beating like you ran six miles. Your thoughts are still two steps back, so you give them a moment to catch up. Then you continue on because, really, this isn’t anything. The panic that flashed through your brain in those half-seconds is meaningless.

            Erica’s hand waves too long, but then her greeting doesn’t come from a place of genuine affection. If she could, Erica would keep her eyes forward, measure her breaths, and pretend to be someone else every time she saw him. She would put her hand in front of her black hair and flip it over her shoulder, carelessly licking her lips and sighing. But she isn’t that person, has never been. Every time she sees a familiar face, Erica hears her mother’s lecture about the value of courtesy. Her hand raises, unbidden, and she tries to keep the grimace off her face as she desperately searches for the name of the person in front of her. But she doesn’t need to search for his name.

            Her hands tremor as she realizes he’s slowing down. Please, please don’t try to start a conversation, she thinks, but his lips part.

            “Hi Erica,” he says, “how are you doing?”

            Her throat is dry. “I’m good—I’m, uh, well,” she says. “Chris.”

            He frowns as he hears his name tacked on the end of her sentence. Then he nods. “That’s good to hear,” he says. She nods back. Then she realizes she’s just aping his movements, so she stops.

            “How’s your, uh, family?” she says, after a significant pause has rocked them both.

            “They’re good, they’re good,” he says. “My mom asked about you the other day.”

            “Oh really?” she says, and he nods. “What did you say?”

            “Um, just that you’re doing well, as far as I know, and that we’re still . . .” He looks at the ground to the right of her feet. “We’re still not together anymore.”

            “Okay,” she says, and stares at the way the skin just behind his ears starts to turn red. “That’s good I guess.”

            He nods and says, “Well, I should go. I’ve got meetings, and all that.” Erica stands there as he walks past her. She doesn’t know how far he gets before he rubs his left temple, his consistent sign of stress, but she knows he does it. She takes a deep breath.

            She is standing in the middle of a path in a downtown park. They never would have met here in any normal reality, so of course they met here today. Men and women in suits and workout clothing rush past her, some glaring as they observe the space she takes up on the concrete. Erica tucks a nonexistent stray hair behind her ear.

            She waits for the feeling to hit her and, when it does, she walks to a bench and sits down. Erica stares at her shoes, at the way the stitches hold them together, and tries to push it down. All of her wants to run after him, to beg him to reconsider and take her back, to remind him that there was a time when he loved her more than anyone else, but she can’t. It’s been over a year, and she knows he’s already trying to push her out of his mind. That running into her will barely be a memory by the end of the day, an unreachable detail by the next morning.

            Erica stands up and smoothes the miniscule wrinkles in her skirt. Maybe if she tells herself it’s nothing, it will be nothing. She locks eyes with a short woman carrying an expensive bag in one hand and a greasy pretzel in the other. Her stomach turns at the sight at the same time she realizes she hasn’t eaten all day.

            Erica puts her hand to her forehead as though checking her own temperature. Then she heads in the direction of a diner she knows is nearby. The crunchy natural sound of dirt beneath her feet soothes her, and Erica finds herself wishing she could walk through this park for hours. But then she reaches the edge of it and leaves it behind.

            When she puts her hand on the door of the diner, it’s no longer shaking. She pulls it open and is greeted by the universal smell of burnt coffee and fresh bacon. Her stomach growls and she feels nauseated. Erica spots an open booth in the corner and heads toward it. When she sits down, she wants to rest her head on the shiny turquoise table in front of her. Then she gets distracted by the unpleasant sticky feeling beneath her fingers, and doesn’t see the waitress approaching her table.

            “What can I get you?” the woman asks, eyeing Erica’s blazer. “Coffee?”

            Erica shrugs, then realizes this isn’t an acceptable response. “Do you have pancakes?” she finds herself saying.

            “Of course we have pancakes.”

            “Alright, then, I’ll have pancakes. The biggest stack you have. With lots of maple syrup.”

            The waitress sniffs. “You put the syrup on yourself.”

            “Okay, then bring a lot of it,” Erica says. She unconsciously reaches down and feels her stomach. But no, she deserves this.

            She glances around and realizes that she still feels that gaping hole in her chest, still hears his words echo through her brain. Erica grabs a napkin from the napkin dispenser and licks the edge of it, then rubs it into the sticky place on the table. She is so focused on her task that she doesn’t see him approach.

            “Hey,” he says, and she looks up. She almost expects it to be Chris, expects him to have walked out of her memory and through the door of the diner. But it isn’t, it’s a total stranger. He smiles so that his lips part, and she can see a gap between his two front teeth. He doesn’t wait for her to invite him to sit down. He slumps into the seat across from her and folds his hands in front of him.

            “Can I help you?” she says. She glances at the door to the kitchen.

            He smiles and nods. “I think you can,” he says.

            “How’s that?”

            “You can talk to me and have breakfast with me. Then you can give me your number.”

            They stare at each other for a moment. Then she throws her head back and laughs. “Excuse me?”

            His expression turns into a surprised frown. “What? Did I say something wrong? I don’t think so. I just want to talk to you.”

            She traces the tines of her fork and says, “Trust me, you don’t. And I don’t particularly want you to talk to me either.”

            “Why’s that?” he says, starting to lean away from her.

            She observes the way his hair stands up so casually, and watches as his piercing blue eyes flicker over the situation. “It’s not personal,” she says, “but it’s probably for the best.”

            “Can I be the judge of that?” he says, and folds his arms over his chest. She starts to wonder whether he’s staying because he still wants to talk to her, or because he doesn’t like to admit defeat. She can’t decide which she would prefer.

            “What’s your name?” she says, and pulls an anxious hand through her hair.

            “Mark,” he says. He smiles and his eyes light up. “Mark Middlefield.”

            “Good name,” she says.

            “Thanks,” he says. “The alliteration always gets people.”

            “Well, Mark Middlefield, what do you do?”

            His smile gets brighter as he thinks they are getting somewhere. “Financial consulting,” he says.

            “Financial consulting?” He nods. “What’s a financial consultant doing in a diner in the middle of the day?”

            “Hey, I gotta eat, right?” he says, and laughs as though he’s made a joke. Erica just stares at him. Then she pushes her finger through an uneven eyebrow.

            She smells her pancakes before she sees them. The buttery scent of them hits her and she knows she made the right decision. A stack of what appears to be eight pancakes is set in front of her. She glances up at the waitress.

            “Don’t worry, dear,” the woman says, “your hot maple syrup is coming.” She turns on her heel and walks across the restaurant. Sure enough, a busboy comes and sets the tiny container at her elbow. Erica doesn’t waste any time. She picks it up and pours the heavenly substance over the food in front of her. Mark looks on and opens his mouth in mock shock.

            “Want some pancakes with your syrup?” he says.

            “Absolutely,” she says, and finally sets the syrup container back down. She grabs her knife and fork and proceeds to cut her pancakes into manageable pieces.

            “How does a such a small woman put away so much food?” Mark asks.

            “She waits fifteen minutes after she eats it and then throws it up,” Erica says without hesitation. She looks up at him and gives him a satisfied smile. Then she says, “So, Mark, where did you go to school?”

            He hasn’t recovered from her previous comment. “Oh, uh, SC. You?”

            She shrugs and puts a forkful of pancakes into her mouth. “Small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania,” she says through her food. “You haven’t heard of it.”

            “Try me,” he says.

            “Um . . . no,” she says. She scrapes up syrup onto her fork and stabs another mouthful. “Listen, Mark, why are you here?”

            “I told you . . . I wanted to get to know you,” he says, a hand passing along his brow.

            “I know, I know,” she says. “But why do you want to get to know me? Why are you so thirsty for someone to talk to in the middle of a Tuesday?”

            He shrugs.

            “Oh no,” she says, “we’re getting somewhere. Come on, tell me.”

            “I—you don’t want to talk about this. You’re just trying to scare me away.” He smiles weakly.

            “So why aren’t you scared? Why didn’t you leave as soon as it was clear I wasn’t interested?”
            “I just wanted to talk to you. I don’t know what the big deal is.”

            “Well, this is what I want to talk about. So, tell me.”

            He sighs and leans forward so his face is resting against his hand. Erica knows she’s getting somewhere because this positioning makes him look unattractive. “I’m just . . . I’m just lonely I guess,” Mark says. “I feel like all I’ve ever done is pick up girls at parties, and I don’t want to do that anymore. But . . . I don’t know what else to do.”

            Erica smiles. “Can I get a coffee, please?” she asks the passing waitress. Then she turns back to Mark. “So you’re trying to pick up a random girl at a diner?”

            “I—I guess,” he says.

            “Did you come here looking for that?” she says, and leans forward.

            “I don’t know,” he says, and won’t meet her eyes. He glances at the clock on the wall, the painting behind her, the kitchen window.

            “Oh, Mark,” she says, shaking her head. “This isn’t the place.”

            “Well, then where’s the place?” he says, raising his voice. “I’m so sick of this bullshit. Everyone always criticizes, but no one ever gives any actual advice.”

            “No one has any advice to give,” she says. The waitress places a hot cup of coffee in front of her hands. “Everyone’s fucked up. That’s the secret.”

            He sighs again. “Then what’s your deal?” he says.

            Erica burns the roof of her mouth with her coffee. “What’s that?” she says.

            “Why are you getting so much pleasure out of asking me these questions?” Mark says.

            It’s her turn to shrug. “I’m just interested,” she says.

            “No, come on,” he says, “what’s your story? Why are you sitting here, totally willing to talk to some strange guy?”

            “Because you won’t go away,” she says.

            “It has to be more than that.”

            Erica shakes her head. She takes another sip of coffee and lets the hot liquid run through her scalded mouth.

            “I told you. Now you tell me.”

            She touches the sticky place on the table. “Alright. If you must know, I ran into my ex today.”

            He nods, completely unsurprised. “That’s always hard,” he says.

            “Right,” she says. She pushes the remnants of her pancakes around her plate, her appetite suddenly gone.

            “So . . . what happened?” Mark says.

            She shakes her head again. “Nothing happened, but it was still weird.”

            He stares at her.

            “Like . . . you said it’s always hard to run into your ex,” she says. “But it’s harder for me. Nobody’s ever really . . . ex . . . to me.”

            His brow furrows. “What does that mean?”

            She sets her fork down on her plate. “It means that as soon as I saw him, I missed him. Not in the ‘I want to be with you’ kind of way, but . . .”

            “But you do?” he says. “You do still want to be with him?”

            “No,” she says, and looks at the entrance, “no that’s not it at all. I don’t want to be with him. I know why it doesn’t work when we’re together, but . . .” She grasps the side of the table and presses her fingers into it. Then Erica looks up at Mark and discovers there are tiny gold flecks hidden in his eyes.

            “But . . . what?” he says. “You miss him the way everyone misses someone they loved.”

            “No, it’s more than that,” she says. “Like, this has happened before.”

            “You’ve had an ex before?”

            “No, this feeling has happened before. I . . . I used to have this friend. This friend that I met and immediately knew inside and out. You know how that happens? You spend so much time trying to make a connection with strangers, and then one day you stumble upon someone who was made for you.”

            Mark laughs. “I don’t think guys have friends like that.”

            “No, they do,” she says, “you just don’t, apparently. Anyway, so this girl and I have this crazy friendship that lasts for a year and then ends in a huge fight and heartbreak and all that . . . We haven’t spoken in maybe four years, but . . . the way that I felt about my ex today. That’s also the way I feel about her.”

            “So you’re a lesbian?” he says. “You could have led with that.”

            “No,” she says, “but it wouldn’t matter if I was. I feel that way about other friends I’ve had, other people I’ve dated. It’s not so much to do with the romantic things that passed between us as . . .” She sighs.

            “I think I picked open something that maybe I shouldn’t have,” Mark says.

            “It’s that everyone I’ve ever loved . . . I never really let that go. I can move on to other friendships, to new relationships, and I can be happy in them, but . . . I always have these gaping wounds.”

            He stares at her.

            “But how many wounds can you collect like that, and still survive?” she says. “That’s what I’m worried about today, and most days. That’s what keeps me up at night.”

            Mark clears his throat and raps his fingers on the table. Erica splits open a pancake with her fork. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but I think I should go.”

            She stares at him. “I’ve been telling you that since you sat down.”

            He nods. “It was nice meeting you,” he says, and stands up so quickly that he bumps the table and causes her plate to jump. Erica watches as he stalks toward the door without looking back. She wants to shrug, but doesn’t know who she would be doing it for.

            “Do you want anything else?” the waitress asks, reappearing at her side.

            “Um, no,” Erica says. “I think I’m good.”

            “Well, here’s the check,” the waitress says, placing the black booklet on the table. “You can pay at the bar whenever you’re ready.”

            Erica nods and the waitress disappears. She glances at the window to her left, and winces at the glint of the sunlight. She has fallen out of time, and she wants to sit here and watch until the sun goes down. But she doesn’t. She does her best to clear her mind and forget the conversation. The fear she carries with her will still be there when she wakes up the next morning. At least she will always have that.

            Erica stands up, grabs the booklet, and walks to the bar to pay the check.