Coffee

Well, Sarah; if you like her, I think you should go for it—just call her and ask her out.

That's what he told her, over coffee. They were always over coffee; they never socialized at bars or at school or at either one's home. Everything they had was created, lived, and hoped over cups of coffee.

This time, Sarah went to meet him for advice. She was a grad student in a brand-new curriculum, being paid (marginally) to guinea pig an academic experiment. She was also falling in love. This left the year to result in a nebulous mishmash of outlines, syllabus, gestures, and guessing. It left her in the world of abstraction over which she wanted to pour concrete, but her construction materials were incomplete; she had only a spoon for application.

This time he went to Sarah to give advice, to build a dam in her river of over-analyzed and over-dramatized situations. That was her job, he thought; she was in a sub sect of film studies; her thesis: The Penis, The Lens, Capitalism, and Counterrevolutionary Antidisestablishmentarianism. Or something similar. In film studies, she learned that anything worth telling needed its own narrative, its own genre. This necessitated everything be filmed dramatically, with zoom shots of crow's feet, lip quivers, darting eyes, and fluttering eyelids. Perhaps a lace handkerchief twisted into a shoelace. Directionally, Sarah required complete and utter control. She was always twisting her love life into two categories, the first narrative was an incessant clawing for clues that would produce certainty of the other person's thoughts, feelings, needs, desires. The other narrative was the one she fought against; it was not hers, thus deserved criticism and scorn. It was the commercialized product of punk-assed pinstriped MBAs that twisted love into a bottom dollar and turned it into products, movies, songs, shoes, and deodorants. It was Lifetime TV's unraveling of the first bunch of flowers and the automatic tumble into bed that she hated the most, but wanted so urgently to believe in. He advised her on the flowers.

What should I do, she asked him, dragging solace from a cigarette, blowing a nervous comfort away with the wind.

Well, Sarah; if you like her, I think you should go for it-just call her and ask her out. Tell her how you feel; who cares about convention. You want her, she obviously wants you; she makes you feel good; she's wanted, she makes you feel special. Tell her before this devolves into the obscurity and ambiguity of Platonica.

She got up to get a refill. Pouring, she thought about what he said, and what she would say. She didn't want to be too eager with her and frighten her away. She's seen that done in movies, she's had that done in her movies. She scanned her mind for clues, like the way her eyes lingered on her for a second longer than appropriate; but maybe it was just her contacts drying out; maybe she had to sneeze but fought it away by focusing on something else; she just happened to be there. But then there were those four days without the phone call, there was that dinner where she seemed to look at other people. Should she have brought up that line from her profile when they were at the movies? Did she know she looked through her profile? Is stalking attractive?

He looked at her, putting the finishing touches on her coffee-wild free-trade Atlas mountain powdered hazelnuts-and watched her arguing with what he said. He thought of the way Sarah looked at her, how she looked at Sarah. He thought of the way they did favours for each other; the random flowers, the giggly e-mails, the "discreet" hand holding under the table. His mind was made up; she wanted Sarah, and Sarah needed to act or forever be relegated to the tepid position of friend. Sarah needed to challenge the What If, slaughter it, destroy it, and if the aftermath were bad, then the better for it that she may move on and find someone else. She came back to the table; he gathered his bag to go home.

So, go home, call her, talk to her.
Ok. Thanks, I'll talk to you later.
Of course. And if you don't have her, you'll always have caffeine.
I guess so.
Pick your addiction. Later!

He felt satisfied on his walk home, having deciphered the mysteries of the dance of romance to Sarah. He turned the corner onto his street and was struck by the residue of desire that still lingered at the corner. Two nights ago, he wanted to kiss Jack there, between the 2nd and 3rd square of sidewalk, under the fragrance of the Mock Orange, but didn't. The moment wasn't right, he reminded himself. He had garlic that afternoon and didn't want the first kiss to be polluted. Besides, how did he know that Jack would even want to kiss him? He continued past the blossoming Rose of Sharon, the fading Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Jack was already dating someone, wasn't he? Seeing someone? That's what he suggested, anyway, from the references he made about Jack. Or maybe it was Terry he was dating. Or maybe they were friends. But he didn't know that; or did he? Was Jack being coy? What did he say the other night...but that was the night they saw Monster, and who wants to flirt after that movie. But maybe Jack wanted to flirt but thought that he didn't want to so he didn't, so no one would be offended. But those compliments from the other night, those were a good sign. Weren't they?

This carried him back to his apartment. There was a message on the answering machine; he listened to it; it was from Jack. He replayed it seven times, committed it to memory, and saved it, with his others. He sat down to think how long he should wait before calling him back, what he should say, and how not to appear too eager. He hated vulnerability. Settling into the couch, he remembered last night's dream about him, powdered and misty, a dream complete with assumed names, train rides, vacations, and a tacit enjoyment of merely being close.

On her way home, she thought of what he said. He made sense, he was logical; he had it figured out. She picked up the phone and called her. They made a date for that evening.