“You must be Jim,” she said, startling him from his daydream.
“Is that an order?”
He had always been quick, which should have been an advantage, or so he had thought. But the reality was that, at least in the world he inhabited, others were painfully slow. And so this time, like most other times, he suspected his wit passed over her head like a hummingbird, easily missed unless you knew what you were looking for and, even when seen, easily mistaken for a moth.
“James,” he said, sticking his neck forward to begin the process of standing up. And, when she didn’t encourage him to stay seated, he continued the process, his head leading his neck leading his arched back outward and upward; and then the rest of him followed and he was like a building of sorts, all six feet and three inches of himself, unfolding upward like, well, like an old lighthouse.
“James,” she repeated, and he thought he detected a note of satire, as if she found his preference for the formal name a touch much.
“Emily,” she said, absent the note. “I’m Emily.”
“You must be,” he said, “otherwise you’re some kind of psychic!”
“Are you hungry?” she said, with a nod toward the counter.
“I’m lonely,” he said without thinking, then tried to turn it into a joke by arching his eyebrows.
#
Each year James was convinced he’d figured it all out. Which meant, he supposed, that each of the previous years he’d been sorely mistaken.
Could be worse, he thought to himself. At some point I might just accept how deeply skewed my own sense of self must be. I might realize how wrongheaded I am most of the time, how grossly incapable of gaining wisdom. And then what?
Suicide had occurred to him, but only in the abstract. He could imagine how it might play out, as in a scene from a movie. He was the audience in these scenarios, and also the actor. He envisioned a handsome if stooped man walking up a long, winding staircase, walking and walking, upward and upward, his breath heavy but also steady, his gait determined, climbing a tower, maybe it was an old lighthouse even, its interior dark and damp, occasional slats of light cutting across his path as he rose to his imminent demise, the long fall from a great height, the brief, bloody tumble onto the rocks below, the sea spray mingling with his bodily fluids, and legions of tiny clawed creatures scurrying about as if setting places at an impromptu picnic.
#
“Please, sit,” he said, magisterial.
She sat quickly. Her body, unlike his, still seemed to operate as a single fluid unit. They were roughly the same age, he knew, but he was surprised that she appeared perhaps a decade younger. Did women cheat their ages upward on these dating sites, he wondered. And what would be the point of that? And what was she after, his money? If so she’d be sorely disappointed. What money?
“Is this a restaurant?” she asked, closing the question with pursed lips, meant to indicate…what exactly he didn’t know. He was bad at all of this, he was certain.
“Hard to say exactly what it is,” he said, sounding more frustrated than he’d intended. “They serve coffee, they serve food, and so I suppose it’s a restaurant, although there’s not always a waitress.”
He took a moment then to look at her, to finally take her in. She was right in front of him, which is exactly where he intended to focus for once.
Her face, her hair, her mouth, all of it was…pleasantly rumpled. Like a comfortable, lightly faded shirt you’ve thrown on the bed with some care, so that you can wear it again. Not wrinkled, not very wrinkled at all. But there was something nicely worn to her, like she’d lived a while, softened, gained character without…well, without wearing out.
He felt worn out most of the time, and he was afraid he was starting to look like it, too.
Her hair was a dappled grey, a mix of colors, like someone had made one of those sand creations in a bottle, with the various layers, and then shaken it. It fell in clumps, lovely clumps, across her head. Curly clumps, quite pleasant, quite remarkable really, if she was as old as she had made herself out to be.
She had what you would describe as “good hair,” at least for someone her age. Their age. His hair, on the other hand, was more like the scene of a hastily broken-up party. No matter how he tried, it seemed to want to pop up in patches, and so he had taken to wearing it quite short, although he would never have described himself as “bald.” Old man hair is what he called it. But enough about him…
The lightest freckles danced across her nose and just beneath her eyes — which shone like porch lights in the rain. Freckles! What was this, junior high? Freckles!
She was compact but not squat, like a laborer or a gymnast. Stretching to his full height, he was at least a foot taller than her, maybe more. Nonetheless, it was clear that, in just a few small moments, she’d taken the reins in this maybe relationship. Was that what she wanted, or would she already be judging him too passive?
“Maybe we should go order,” she said, already standing up. And so he followed her to the counter, falling in behind like a toddler on a rope line.
They stood studying the chalkboard that was suspended behind the register, angled slightly downward, all manner of powdered hieroglyphics spelling out offerings he could barely hope to read, let alone understand.
“What’s good here?” she asked.
“If I had any idea what any of this was, I’d tell you.”
“You don’t come here very often, do you?” Emily was smiling as she said it, without reproach or judgment, he felt.
Just… smiling.
“I had another date here a week ago,” he said, surprising himself with his honesty.
“How did it go?”
“I’m a sucker for beauty,” he said. “And she was beautiful.”
“And?”
“She didn’t care for suckers, apparently.”
Emily laughed, and it came out in a snort, which was an ugly sound that was as captivating as anything James had heard in a long time.
“I know what an avocado is, and I know what toast is,” he said, sensing momentum. “So that’s what I had last time.”
“In that case you can have anything but the avocado toast,” she said, her voice not entirely recovered. “This isn’t last time.”
“Who died and put you in charge?”
“My husband did,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a reflex, and she nodded.
“Yes,” she said.
“What was he like?”
“He was a good man most of the time,” she said. “And I loved him.”
“Did he like avocado toast?”
“I’m afraid it wasn’t a thing while he was alive. But I would guess he would not have cared for it.”
“I can’t say I do, either,” said James. “But I understand it.”
“You must be a hipster?” she said, pronouncing it with emphasis. “Is this your hipster place?”
He was 73 years old, wearing a navy quarter-zip sweater, loose tan khakis, and a pair of trendy Swiss running shoes that were all the rage among people he knew at the club he could no longer afford.
She was sassy, he determined. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Yes,” said James, smiling despite himself. “I’m a hipster, and this is where hipsters like me order hipster things.”
“And is that why you go by James?” she asked.
“Is it what?”
“It’s kind of hipster to use your formal name. Otherwise why not be Jimmy?”
“Jimmy is the name of a boy. And I am not a boy anymore.”
“What if I called you Jimmy?” she asked, smiling some more.
She was quick, much quicker than he had initially thought. She was not here for his money, the money he didn’t have. She was not even here for the avocado toast. She was here to, well, to be here. He was willing to bet on it.
“I suppose I’d be your boy,” he said. And then a kind of stillness overcame him, as if someone had turned off a porch light, and so he could rest.
#
