Finding the One at a Café

12:59

One more minute and my shift would be over. I looked down at my smudged tennis shoes, praying some famished or dehydrated customer wouldn't show up until after a minute had passed.

Or...yeah. Sure, man in a gray suit. Of course you can stop by.

"Uh, yes," he said without a moment’s hesitation, in a deep, gravelly voice, shifting his brown suitcase from one hand to the other. "I would like..." He stopped and peered at the menu above me.

I sighed and placed my hands on the counter, looking at her out the corner of my eye. Her forehead was creased in confusion as she chewed on her pencil. A sheet of paper was in front of her on top of a large hardcover book.

She'd been in here before. Many times, actually. I recalled seeing her most mornings, dark curls out of place as she entered, flushed, escaping another windy day. She was beautiful, but I never got to talk to her outside of taking her order: always a chocolate cappuccino and slice of chocolate cake. She would normally be out the door once she had nothing left but a handful of crumbs, but not today.

I looked down at my watch. The second hand was ticking six, seven, eight seconds after 1:00. I glanced back up at my professional acquaintance to find him looking at me expectantly. I realized he had finished his order, none of which I had heard.

I began to slowly move over to my right. "Oh, I'm so sorry. But my shift just ended, and I'm in such a hurry. My replacement should be here soon. She's never late." I added a wink, just in case he needed to be completely reassured.

I turned and almost sprinted the last foot to the swinging door that led to my escape. I passed Jo on my way into the kitchen, and I reached up to squeeze her arm gently in gratitude. She gave me a quizzical look, but it didn't last long when she saw my appalled customer. I was a little surprised that he was still there, but glad none-the-less.

I stayed in the kitchen, pacing a little, until my watch told me that five minutes had passed. I opened the swinging door as little as I could to peek out. I automatically found her, head still bent over that sheet of paper. Across the room, I also found the man I had rudely ditched. He was sipping coffee and shuffling through some papers he had probably pulled out of that suitcase. His muffin was currently being ignored.

Feeling like a spy, I crouched down and moved forward. Jo watched me curiously. I opened the back glass door shielding the pastries and pulled out a large piece of chocolate cake.

Jo snorted above me. "And who is that for?" She already knew, having witnessed my occasional staring off into space, right at her.

"Put it on my tab," I told her before moving toward the small, swinging board that prevented customers from getting behind the counter. The coast clear, I slipped past it and slunk out in the same crouched position. I straightened once I reached her table, and once I was convinced that I was blocked from the business man's view.

"Hello." I tried to sound nonchalant. "For you."

She looked up, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, before eyeing the cake that I had put on her table. "I didn't order that." She returned her attention to the paper she had been focused on this whole time. I saw tiny writing scrawled out on it.

"It's on the house."

She glanced up at me again, surprise flashing across her features. "Oh. Thank you."

"Do you mind if I sit down?" I hoped I didn't sound like a creep.

She shrugged, so I took a seat across from her. I felt a stir of excitement at actually being able to talk to her off the clock, possible due to the strangeness of her visit. She came in at her regular time, around 8:30, but she had yet to leave, over four hours later. She even went as far as to order two more cappuccinos to nurse, to keep from getting kicked out most likely.

"Aren't you supposed to be working?" she asked, not quite annoyance tinging her voice.

I looked down at my green work shirt and shrugged. "My shift's over," I answered simply.

"So why are you talking to me instead of going home?"

I didn't know how to respond, so I didn't say anything. I looked around the busy cafe instead - glad to see the business man was still occupied - until she let out a sigh and turned back to the paper.

"What'cha doing?" I finally decided to ask after a few seconds, my curiosity getting the better of me.

She quickly flipped the top of the paper up to shield it from my eyes. "Why do you care?"

I raised my hands up placatingly. "Sorry. You don't have to tell me. I just noticed that you've been in here all day, and...I'm intrigued by you."

She stared at me, her expression unreadable, until a corner of her lips twitched up. She gently laid her left hand on the table between us.

I leaned forward and stared at it for a second. Her fingers were long and slender, as were her nails. I didn't understand what she was showing me. "What?"

She let out a huff of amusement and dropped the paper. I saw what looked like names. Some were scratched out, others had circles around them.

"I'm trying to figure out who my soulmate is," she stated matter-of-factly.

I looked back at her hand. "What?" I repeated.

She tapped a white mark on her ring fingernail. "Them."

I almost laughed. "I don't think that's a person," I whispered loudly.

She drew her hand back, offended, and shook her head, probably chiding herself for trusting a stranger. "It's a white mark," she insisted defensively. "On my ring finger. That means my soulmate likes me. I need to figure out who they are."

I stared at her, befuddled, until realization hit me. "Wait, are you basing this on that myth that the number of white marks on your nails is the number of people who like you?" I chuckled, not quite believing she thought it was true. I stopped believing that in high school.

"It's true," she said crossly, reading my mind.

"Sure. So are flying pigs." I flashed her an amused grin, leaning back against my chair.

She exhaled sharply and crossed her arms. "What a nice first impression you're making," she retorted sarcastically.

I straightened back up. "I'm sorry," I said, trying to appear as sincere as I felt. "I'm listening."

She sighed and held her left hand out again. "These white marks only appear on my left hand," she continued after a second of hesitation. She showed me her right hand, as if to prove that there were no white marks.

"Yeah?"

"And it's accurate. My first boyfriend." She tapped her index finger with her middle finger. "My second." Tapped the middle with her index. "That son of a bitch. All my one-night stands." Tapped her thumb with her index finger. "Et cetera, et cetera."

"And you've never gotten one on your ring finger?"

"Not until yesterday," she smiled slightly at this, revealing the bottom of her top teeth.

“Why does the ring finger symbolize your soulmate?”

She laughed, but not unkindly. “Ring finger? Where you put the ring when you get married?"

"Ah, right. So...if the ring finger means your soulmate, what about the others?" I asked, starting to get drawn in by this idea. I glanced down at my own nails out of curiosity.

"It only seems to work on me," she pointed out, noticing. "I've asked a few people and it's not very accurate for them."

"Ah." I looked away, though I thought I saw a white mark on my left ring finger as well. Probably the lighting.

"Anyway..." She pointed at the thumb with her right index finger. "Like I said, one-night stands. I assume because the thumb seems to stand by itself." She made a right angle with her thumb, turning her hand so it pointed up, down, up, down. She stopped and laid it back on the table.

She pointed at her middle finger next. "The jerk partners. Two cheaters, one verbal abuser."

I thought about saying sorry or something to that effect to break the awkward silence that suddenly decided to fall upon us, but she beat me to the chase, clearing her throat.

"Anyway. The index finger was, again, my first boyfriend. And the pinky..." She titled her head ever so slightly. "Just a relationship that didn't work out, I suppose. Nothing drastically different from the others. Except..." She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

I felt compelled to ask. "What?"

She laughed a short, sweet laugh. "She was pretty short." She burst out laughing and I joined in on her easy-going laughter.

"Anyway..." She wiped a tear in the corner of her eye away and looked down at the paper. Her lips turned down into a frown.

It looked misplaced on her. "So what's that then?"

"Just a list of people I know. I mean, they might be someone I know, right?"

"I suppose." I inched my hand closer to the list and, when she didn't say anything, picked it up. I quickly ran over the names. Alex, Nate, Damien, Jessica, Diana, James, Holly, Eric, Crystal...

"How do you know which to cross off or circle?" I asked as I tried to read the scratched-out names.

"Well, ones that I've already dated or are unavailable, I cross out. And I circle the possibilities."

"The ones that are neither?"

"I'm still thinking about those."

"Ah." I ran down the list again before looking back at her hand. "Can I?"

She nodded and I took her hand in mine. It was warm.

"What about these?" I asked, pointing out two other white marks. One was on her thumb and one was on her pinky.

She studied them and shrugged. "If I meet my soulmate first, these shouldn't matter." She nodded to herself, but she kept staring at her fingers.

She gently touched where the white mark on her pinky fingernail was. "Regular relationship," she murmured to herself. "Maybe someone I know? Someone short...?" She glanced back at her paper for a second, then shook her head.

"Thumb..." She chuckled. "Probably someone I don't know." She rolled her eyes and looked around, her gaze falling on me. She cocked her head. "I don't know you."

"Er...yeah. I guess not.”

"Hey..." I cringed, recognizing that deep, gravelly voice. "I thought you were in a hurry." The business man hovered over me, eyeing me suspiciously.

"Uh...why, yes." I stood up, but any attempt to try and intimidate him didn't work considering our height difference. "We are." I turned back to the woman in front of me hopefully. I put out my hand and pleaded for her to help me with my eyes.

She raised an eyebrow and smiled, almost challengingly. She folded up the paper and stuck it between two random pages in her book, taking her time. She slowly stood up and pushed her chair in, twirling her floral-patterned skirt as she did so teasingly.

She finally took my hand and smiled sweetly at me. She was stunning. "Ready to go, uh...? What's your name, again?" She whispered the last part.

This didn’t go unnoticed by the business man, though, whose expression became even more bewildered than it already was.

"Let's go, uh, d-dear," I stammered, unsure of her name as well. Leaving the chocolate cake I had brought her untouched, she followed me out the cafe and down the street, no longer able to escape another windy day.