December 16, 2021 - She looked for a bench to sit down on for just a little while
An invitation to dinner arrived by text last night. She has not replied, though she did jump out of her bed and run over to the other side of the room when she heard her phone vibrate and chime. It was long overdue. Not just the invitation and her intentionally delayed reply, but also the sound of the car horns honking outside her window down below and the on again off again then on again hum of her upstairs neighbor’s a/c unit.
It was June. She was tired; and Saturdays were for sleeping. It was noon and she had already been up since eight in the morning, shuffling around her apartment, wiping down countertops and sorting the clothes in her closest between those she’d keep and those she’d haul over the Salvation Army. At first she thought she’d wait until Sunday to reply, but the deeper into Saturday she made it without responding she thought it might be better to wait even longer ––– Wednesday or Thursday. An hour later when she was walking down Tenth Avenue and hauling a bright green bag filled with clothes that were no longer any use to her, she thought it might be best to text back that night. What’s the use of waiting? She thought.
June’s heat was unlike July’s heat. In July she knew she’d never need a sweatshirt or a light jacket, not even at night. June’s question of sweater or no sweater varied; each day was different so she’d always leave the house with a sweatshirt, just in case. Small pieces of Spring and light memories from Spring were still in the air. The frigid morning in the middle of March when they met on the sidewalk outside of his apartment building wasn’t that long ago.
When she told Diana about it the next day over coffee Diana thought she’d made the whole thing up. It sounds like something out of one of your improve classes, Diana had said. And she knew Diana was right, it did sound like something out of an improve class, but it wasn’t. In real life she was walking across Eighteenth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue and was carrying a piping hot cup of coffee, which she did not want to wait until she walked back into the office to take the first sip from.
So she looked for a bench to sit down on for a moment–––– not so long that she’d have the entire cup of coffee, but just for long enough so she could take a few sips and relax for a little while. She saw a place on the north side of the street out front of this semi-fancy boutique building with gold-plated revolving glass doors for an entrance. The place looked inviting enough so she sat down there. She had taken her right glove off, set it in her lap, and then took her first sip of coffee. The coffee was still hot and it warmed her up right away. She felt a wave of energy wash over her from the coffee. She might have sighed as she reached up to take off her hat. And that’s when he walked up to the bench where she was sitting and stood there for a few moments beside her.
