Chekhov's cup of coffee

Tonight I was at Barnes and Noble, having a dad's night out, and not enjoying myself as much as I would have even five years ago---browsing through the new fiction I kept coming across author biographies that began, "So and so was born in 1980..."

While I'm in the cafe drinking my coffee, a barely 20 something girl sits down at the table next to mine.  A golden blonde, with languid, shy eyes and a determined chin. She wears a black tunic dress with spaghetti straps and a slit up to her thigh, a red cardigan over her shoulders (which she lets fall to her chair and onto the floor when she gets up to go to the counter later) and she stirs the ice in her iced latte a hundred times as she looks deeply into one of the books she has brought from home in a ragged canvass pouch. She reads with her lips slightly parted in a small, enigmatic smile.

My middle aged male vanity kicks in when I notice her. There are many empty tables all over the cafe, why pick the one next to mine?  I get the answer when I go to get a refill on my coffee.

At the table behind mine, and so directly across from hers, sits a young hero, another 20 something, with a granite chin, dark wavy hair, blue eyes, broad chest, a three day stubble and black rimmed Ben Franklins on the end of his nose. On the table in front of him is an empty coffee cup and a large cup of Pepsi.

Remember these props.  The coffee and the Pepsi.  They're Chekhov's gun, the one he said that if you bring it on stage in Act One has to go off in Act Three.

The young hero appears to be making notes in a text book, but I recognize the motions of his pencil and catch the quick, assessing glances he's sneaking at her---he's sketching her on one of his 3 x 5 cards! I also know this: She knows what he's up to.

She never lifts her eyes, hardly moves her head.  She's posing.

It's getting late and I'm getting tired of feeling old and past it.  I get up to leave, but as I go out the door I looked back in at them through the window. It's closing time and I watch her start to pack up to get ready to go and I watch him trying to get up the nerve to show her his sketch.  He has it in his hand, has turned toward her. He wears a look of panic and hope as he waits for her to look up and catch his eye.

She doesn't.

She walks up to the counter to pay for a book.

He sits there chewing on the end of his pencil, smiling ruefully to himself.   I can't leave it at this. I go back inside.

She's still at the cash register. He's still sitting at his table, regretting his lack of nerve. I walk by him and say, "You should show it to her."

He jumps.  His eyes goggle at me.  I'm the voice of God.  But he doesn't move.

I shrug.  I tried.  I go back outside, and as I'm getting in my car I see her come out of the store.  She stands out on the sidewalk for a full minute.   She's waiting for him!

He doesn't show.

She begins to drift toward her car.  Halfway across the lot she stops walking and turns around and looks back at the store.  Still no sign of him.  She waits right there for another minute.  Finally continues on to her car.

But she doesn't climb in.

She waits besdie it.  Another minute passes.  By this time I'm pounding on my own steering wheel, yelling, "Come on, man!  Get out here!  She wants you to come find her!!"

Then I remember.

The coffee cup.

The Pepsi.

All that liquid!  All that caffeine!

The poor schnook's in the bathroom!

I almost jump out of the car.  I want to holler at her to be patient.  But she gives up.  She gets into her car. Takes her time starting it up though, and when she pulls out she makes a swing up toward the front doors and crawls by.

Then she drives off.

I wish we had a Miss Lonelyhearts column in our paper.  I could write a letter addressed to both of them:

"To the pretty blonde reading The Good Black and the guy who was sketching her instead of studying, both of you should return to the cafe Saturday night, and this time don't be shy!"

Crossposted at newcritics.

Copyright 2007 by Lance Mannion.

Comments

[Apostate]

She should have approached him. Men are pussies and often terrified of beautiful women (for good reason -- many of us are unnecessarily cruel). He sounds nice -- she lost out. Next time perhaps she won't be a prissy little typical blonde and will do the common-sense thing instead of the culturally mandated thing.

[Dan Leo]

They're going to keep doing this every Thursday night for forty years, and then it's going to be made into a movie starring Kate Winslet and Jude Law as the young couple and then Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins as the aged couple.

[Wren]

You know something, Lance? You claim not to like people very much, but I think you only think you don't. That you're a real sweetheart and that you really do care deeply about others comes through in your angst for both of those young people. Thanks for telling us the story and making us feel it with you, and for making us smile.

[huh]

So tying this post to your last, I suspect we all get different things from different blogs. And I come here for poignancy. . .

[Shayera]

Ohh! How sad. It's a "missed connection" on Craigslist.
What a shame.

[Manny]

Lovely, Lance

[Ken Houghton]

Back in the dark annals of history, when we were all much younger (the early 1990s), there was a panel discussion on Vampires at one of the Chicago-area SF conventions. There were some reasonable heavyweights in the field at the time--names I knew from bookstores and other conventions--and one person I didn't, a blond gamin with a cheerful attitude.

And there was a sketch artist in the back who spent his entire time sketching her in great detail.

I have no idea if he was actually Laurell Hamilton's husband, or if he became so, but you're now making me wonder.

[May]

Very nice!

[joanr16]

Aw, man. These kids today! "Too much caffeine" could sum it up.

[catherine]

Why not post a note in the cafe? don't they have a bulletin board? When something like that happened to me, I went back to the same place on the same week night for weeks on end. he never did talk to me, though.

[anita]

sorry to say this, you're way too much of a romantic, lance. be like me, a jaded cynic, and you'll realize that this probably isn't the first (and it won't be the last) lost connection resulting from mutual trepidation for either of them. it's probably all for the best.

;)

[ChaChaBowl]

Lance, those kids need less Dalai Lama and more Dolly Levi.

[rose]

Loved reading this.

How many such encounters happen (or don't) and are not so aptly captured? Many, to be sure.

[Campaspe]

ChaChaBowl is so right.

I loved this post. Like Billy Wilder and his meet-cutes, crossed with Chekhov indeed (Act 1, the three sisters want to go to Moscow, but don't go. Act 2, the three sisters want to go to Moscow, but don't go ...)

[JD]

One of your best, Lance.

[KathyF]

It was Chekhov! I've been trying to think of who said that, one of my favorite little maxims.

[Kit Stolz]

I liked that. Once in a similar (if less corporate) situation in L.A., I saw a very attractive young couple, a hero and a truly Chekhovian girl, bright and aware and lovely, and for some crazy reason told them they should get married. There's not a lot to say after you drop a verbal bomb like that, so pretty soon I walked off, but at the same coffee shop a few months later I happened to see her again, and she seemed to look at me with real gratitude, though I don't think she was with the same guy.

[Victoria]

Two reactions:

A memory: Waiting for the ferry to Catalina with my shy, gloriously good-looking younger brother in his 21-year-old prime. Young women all around the crowded ferry terminal are looking at him. Some even point and whisper to their friends. My brother seems oblivious to this Huge Obvious. Finally, I say, "Chris, are you aware that women notice you...that they actually stare at you?"

His look was so sad. "Yeah," he replied forlornly. Then added, "But they never come over."

A reflection: About your story, Lance - it captures exactly why "old" and "past it" rarely need to go together. I mean, only in the most constricted sense of things... Snap out of it, man! You were the alive person.

[Kevin Wolf]

Well told, sir.

[Dr Blight]

"She never lifts her eyes, hardly moves her head. She's posing."

At this precise moment in the proceedings, right here, is where you should have sat down in their line of sight.

And begun to masturbate.

[Jeremy]

Wonderful, wonderful story. Really well told. Thanks.