Coffee

‘Rap, tap-a-rap-tap’, it might have been the nth time she drummed her nails on the coffee table. Untamed strands of her silken hair began to creep out of the grip of her hair clip. She pushed them behind her ear, uneasily. The air conditioner had frozen her exposed toes to numbness. Glancing up again, all around, at the door, at the other tables, all in one look and she turned her attention to the dripping glass of water that sat untouched, at her table.

‘I shouldn’t have worn white. It makes me look so fat! Oh! Why did I wear white?!’, she cursed herself.

He was five minutes late. She had been fifteen minutes early. The air was cold and heavy, with bitter coffee. The music was slow. She swayed in a daze, to “Gone with the Sin”. ‘What an odd selection!’ she thought to herself.

He peered through the tinted glass, like a curious child, at table 16. His spectacles nearly dropped out of his sweaty hands. The anxiety and the excitement was making his head spin.

“OK, she’s pretty cute”. He breathed out.
“How can you say that? You haven’t even seen her face yet!” His friend nearly pushed him in.

“No way, dude!” He struggled back, “I don’t want to meet her. Once she sees me, she won’t ever talk to me again”.

“This is stupid.” His friend grunted. “If she was as ugly as a rhino, I could understand, but she looks all right. What will it take to get you to speak to her?!” The argument continued.

She wrestled with her watch. ‘06:20pm already’, she gasped. Maybe he had changed his mind. Maybe he had seen her, and walked away, like all the others. The thought crushed her. She didn’t dare call him. Would it be easier to face rejection over the phone, or in person?

“Come on man! Just this once, I swear! You know how many times I’ve bailed you out of deeper s***”, he pleaded with his friend, “You owe me this, I won’t ask for anything, ever again.”

“What if she asks me questions? What if she talks about the things you wrote, the things she wrote?! And what happens when she finds out that, I’m not you?”, his friend raised his eyebrow.

“She’s here for one day. Her flight leaves in another seven to eight hours.” She turned. He dragged his friend to a darker corner. “You do all the talking. She’s shy, she’ll barely squeak!”

“You know what! I’m leaving”, his friend got out of his grip. “You cannot do this to her. Don’t do this to her today. Go out, show yourself. She already loves you..”

He slumped in a chair, pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his sweat studded forehead. His friend pulled him back on his feet, “You will do just fine.”

He smiled, took in a deep breath and walked through the door. He looked at table 16 and stopped dead in his tracks. She wasn’t there.

In utter disbelief, he dragged his feet to the chair, where she sat in anticipation for thirty agonizing minutes.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she got into the taxi. Her sister back at home, had been calling her frantically, for the past 10 minutes. Reluctantly, she answered, “Well? How are things so far?” She tried to suppress her tears, but she choked. Her sister understood. ‘He hid, he saw me and hid,” she sobbed into the phone.

“Are you sure it was him?”, her sister prayed that she was mistaken.
“Oh come on! Maroon t-shirt, Lee-Cooper jeans – that’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”, she blurted out.

“Its all right baby, come home. He’s just another jerk.”, her sister consoled her.

By this time tomorrow, she would be back at home, preparing for her engagement.