Today is a day for a fresh cup of rich dark black coffee and a tiny rickety corner table in a cafe downtown. I have an unlined notebook and my fountain pen and while I wait, I write. I don't carry my laptop very many places, I prefer to travel a little more lightly, though you'd never know it, I carry giant bags, a holdover from the days of sippy cups and extra books/jackets/wipes/toys. Everyone hands me their stuff to hold when we're out. Me, I'm always holding someone's hand and my phone, so there's no extra arms for more things.
The pen glides smoothly over the clean paper and I smile at the page, because it's tightly packed with my unique block-printing that runs slightly uphill, the sign of an optimist. A lie I no longer believe.
The rain hits the window with force and puddles between the bricks of the sidewalk outside. I see blurry people rushing to and fro. I become mesmerized by the sheets of water pouring down over the glass and fail to notice August has joined me at the table until it bumps when he pulls his chair in and I startle back to reality, back to the warmth and dimly lit room and he shakes his hair back from his face and pulls his sweater off the boy-way, which is to reach up behind his head with both hands and pull. I love watching that. It looks neat. If I do it, I'd have earrings and hearing aids flying everywhere so I just watch instead.
I catch Michael Buble playing across the sound system, just for a microsecond. It's a strange choice of music for a Friday morning in a coffee shop but I imagine they are tuned into one of the CBC light stations that cranks out steady music that guarantees not to offend. The thought makes me smile again because I gravitate to oversexed, chaotic alternative metal that offends everyone who doesn't love it and I've never cared that I look like I'm cold, like I don't even listen to music at all, let alone immerse myself in it constantly, banging back and forth painfully between classical and that metal and sometimes mixing them together. I love noise and heart. Both kinds of music hold both absolutes, for me, at least.
August orders a coffee and a muffin with fruit from the server and then smiles at me. He is a variation on Jesus himself. A beautiful man with long hair and a no bullshit attitude mixed thoroughly with mellow. It's now been almost four years since I first met him, standing behind Jacob while I stood outside and tried to channel up the ocean and turn it into the sky somehow. He was watchful and carried a confidence that was overshadowed mightily by Jake and his movie-handsomeness. Everything paled under Jacob's halo.
Oh crap. I hear Shawn Mullins playing. One of those songs that I focus right in on and then become sad, almost unconsciously and I ask August how his day looks, if he can make it for dinner tonight, if he thinks the rain will stop and if maybe he's talked to Ben, or Seth at the very least, to get the barometer on how the building excitement might be affecting Ben's resolve. August gives me a perplexed look before disguising it with his news. He knows.
I reach up in frustration and pull the other pen out of my hair and the knot untangles itself, curls resting against my back. I let the wall come down because I feel like I'm about to cry and I have warning again, whole minutes with which to prepare and to either hide my face or find somewhere private to go. Before the tears would just come, suddenly, like a water main break on a busy street and they would stream down my face and I wouldn't feel a thing because I don't feel anything anymore and yet I feel everything sometimes, at a higher level than most. It's the tightrope. I thought I had it mastered but then I wobbled and the crowd gasped, because..she does this stunt without a net, stupid girl. One false move and the show will close forever.
August grabs for my hand and misses as I pull up my bag, coat and notebook in one shaky move, I stand and tell him I'm sorry and then I head out into the rain and run across the sidewalk to my car, fumbling for my keys, which are in my bag, buried at the bottom under the GI Joe toys from a trip to Burger King last week and all of Ben's notes from writing he was doing when he was last home and with despair I see that the ink has run because they are sodden now and I find my keys and feel a river of water running over my toes because high heels in the rain are a guaranteed disaster and I finally get the door open and jump in and slam it against the weather and suddenly the city noise is gone and then the other door flies open and August gets in and closes his door and he just stares at me.
The music.
I know, Bridget.
I'll be happy when I can't hear it anymore.
No, you won't.
Then I'm never leaving my house.
We both know that's not reasonable.
Neither is this all the time, August.
It's getting better.
Oh, don't bullshit me.
I don't.
I look up at him and he's staring back. Convicted. Reassuring.
Better, huh?
Yes. Every month I see improvements in you.
I'm getting over them? What if I don't want to?
This isn't a bad thing-
Oh, stop right there. I've heard all that.
Then you tell me.
Tell you what?
Why getting over them would be wrong?
I don't want logic right now, August. I don't want a session with you. I wanted a cup of coffee but I don't think I'm up to it. I'm sorry.
I'll call Loch to come get you and take you home.
I DON'T WANT HIM HERE! (Fuck, I kinda went off there. I didn't mean to.)
August waited for me to self-correct and I did because he doesn't need that. Composurecomposurecomposure.
I'll drop you at work and go home. I'm fine. Really.
I know, Bridget.
I drove him the two blocks to his office and he sat looking out the window at the blurry people on the sidewalk and then he turned to me. I was studying the lights up ahead. He was studying me. Green yellow red. Green yellow red. Green yellow red. Stop, Bridget. Slow down, Bridget. Go, Bridget.
The guilt is normal, you know.
He leaned over and kissed my cheek and got out of the car, slamming the door and running through the rain until he was safely inside the front door of his building. He waved once and then went up the steps and down the hall until I couldn't see him anymore.
There's nothing normal about this, August.
I said it to thin air as I checked my mirrors, and then looked over my shoulder before pulling away from the curb.
Nothing normal at all.
I came home, opened the back door and all the lights were blazing. There's only one person who turns lights on and never turns them off as he leaves a room.
Ben is home. I didn't expect him this weekend. What a tremendous and much-needed surprise.
Funny how I have no guilt when it comes to him. He's like the antidote or something. Something wonderful.
Everything okay?
It is now.
