People Watching

Alice spent her nights, her afternoons, her mornings, and every time in between in awe of a woman who left her. Though in her mind, she was never left, or abandoned, or forgotten, like everyone tried to tell her she was. Her mother was called on a secret mission, left with the impossible choice of her family or her country. Or, she was an undercover spy, sent to spy on the daily lives of Americans and got too far in when her home country called her back. No, she never could have just -- left. Every afternoon at exactly 3:00, Alice would go to her favorite cafe in her town in Pennsylvania and order a pastrami sandwich, always making sure to add extra mayo. She’d sit at a table in the far corner, the one that always had the most light, with her notebook, eagerly jotting down notes of the possible past lives of each and every person that walked through the cafe doors that day. Maybe, just maybe, one of those people would be her mother.

When Alice returned home in the evening, she’d carefully place her notebook on the shelf with all the others, each coded with washi tape to keep track of the years -- she had been doing this since she was 8 -- and crawl into bed to read a story. The story itself was an old one, and was recounted to her countless times growing up before she decided to write it down so she could read it whenever she wanted. It was the story of how her mom and dad met. Her mom, 22 and just graduated from Bowdoin College, was struggling to push a sailboat into the wild sea on a day when no one should have been sailing. The shore was rocky and tough, and her mother, Lydia, was pushing as hard as she could, while trying to not attract attention. Her naturally curly, strawberry blonde hair was chaotically tamed down with a bandana, her grey-green eyes matching the small flowers spread throughout it. Her father, a young, Maine native was sitting on a log in the forest writing that day. He liked to compare himself to a modern day Hemingway, writing about the wild sea with both love and fear as he’d stare at it on its best and worst days. Sam said he saw the boat first, and his writer’s curiosity led him to discovering the rest. Instead of attempting to convince Lydia that the waves were too wild for sailing, he came up behind her and offered to help, as long as he could tag along for the ride. According to Sam, Lydia fell in love with him right then. But according to Lydia, she was stubborn and tried for a little longer to push the boat in herself until relenting to the cute boy with messy dark-brown hair and a goofy smile, ink stains splotched on his hands.

When Alice turned 23, freshly graduated from college, she decided she was going back to Brunswick to find some answers. Well, the story she told her father was that she was going to gather research for writing a book, which wasn’t entirely untrue. She claimed that the history of the place sparked inspiration for writing a new story. As she got off the bus, rain was coming down in soft drops blanketing the earth and plants, making it smell greener than usual. She took a deep breath of the nostalgic Maine air -- pine mixed with the salty ocean, ferns, and dirt -- and knew she had found the place to do just that and more. This was where she would finally figure out why her mother left.

Instead of scurrying towards the nearest form of shelter like most people would do, Alice decided to take the scenic route to her hotel, walking slowly through the rain as she gazed out at the wild sea, imagining her stubborn mother attempting to push a sailboat through the rocky sand alone. While walking along Maine Street, she was drawn to a small white building with the name “Warmings Market” on the corner. The heavenly smell of pastrami was wafting out from the windows to her awaiting nose outside. Her stomach rumbled encouragingly as she half skipped over to open the charming market door. Once inside, she was greeted by a man in flannel whose kind eyes made her trust him immediately. “Welcome!” he smiled. “What brings you here today?” he asked, looking up from his work on a sandwich to meet Alice’s eyes. “Well, I was actually hoping you could make me one of those,” she answered shyly, pointing to the half assembled pastrami sandwich the man in flannel was holding. “They’re my favorite,” she added. “I couldn’t help smelling it from the street outside.” The man smiled, standing up straight to reveal his name tag, Martin. “I can definitely help you with that,” he smiled again. As Martin got to work making her sandwich, Alice couldn’t help wandering around the store, marveling at the charming and conveniently placed items on each possible surface. Freshly baked muffins lined the counter, while an array of chips and beer were stashed along the back wall. She couldn’t help wondering if her mother had been here, maybe ordering a pastrami sandwich like her, making conversation with Martin as she waited. “Martin,” Alice squeaked. “Did you happen to know anyone by the name of Lydia here? Curly blonde hair, grey-green eyes, went to college across the street?” she stammered. At that, Martin immediately looked up from his work, staring Alice deeply in the eyes until she cast her eyes downward, afraid if he looked any longer he would see straight inside. “I thought you looked a bit familiar,” he said. “You have her eyes,” he smiled, taking another moment to study Alice with growing familiarity. “Lydia and I were good friends. I worked here as a college student studying for my business degree. She’d come over almost every afternoon asking for a pastrami sandwich while pestering me for the latest gossip,” he rambled. “She always thought I had the most interesting job, Warmings being a town hub and all. Thought I’d always have the most amazing stories about the people here. Her notebook was always poised and ready to jot it down in case I said something interesting” he said, stopping to look down and smile as if in remembrance of the free-spirited blonde woman in his shop long ago. Alice stared at Martin for a long time, studying the sporadic freckles on his forehead and the bend in his fingers, the permanent condiment stains on his shirt. She wondered what her mother had thought of him. Did she wish to write him down in her book as much as she did, her fingers inching closer and closer to her notebook? Did she too, want to know what it was that made him feel safe, like all of your secrets would be kept and cared for without being asked anything in return? With that Alice turned around and headed back into the pine-scented rain, forgetting her pastrami sandwich until it was too late to turn back.

Lydia always said she was afraid of being a mother. She laid in the middle of the floor of her art studio, sun filtering through the north-facing windows with her curly hair strewn in all directions as she wondered how she was going to tell Sam she was pregnant. Splotches of blue and green paint speckled her face and button down, and a paintbrush was stuck in her hair. She listened for the familiar sound of the creaky staircase leading up to her painting loft, knowing that Sam’s first instinct would be to laugh when he saw her like this. She didn’t blame him, she would have too. Lydia didn’t like the idea of responsibility. Life to her was meant to be full of freedom and adventure. She wanted to paint and she wanted to travel, and being a mother didn’t seem to fit into that equation at all. Sam gathered her up in his arms like he always did and buried his face in her hair, not even bothering to remove the paintbrush, saying how she was his adventure, and this was only an additional chapter. It was then on the floor of the studio that Lydia decided to no longer be afraid.

Alice wandered the singular street of Brunswick for half an hour until she noticed that she was hungry. She did abandon her pastrami sandwich after all. A building sat directly to her left, and without looking at the name, she entered, realizing at this point that she didn’t care what she ate. A small stool welcomed her at a bar facing towards the street, and a waitress took her order as Alice ordered soup. A pastrami sandwich was on the menu, but she no longer felt like one. While staring listlessly out the window, she failed to notice that an older woman was sitting beside her, looking at her as if waiting for a response to a question. “Are you okay dear?” the woman gently asked. “You’ve been staring straight ahead for quite some time,” she said. “Oh, I’m sorry, yes. Totally fine. I’m Alice by the way,” she nervously stammered in response, starting to wish she hadn’t picked a seat that stereotypically welcomed interaction. “I’m Lois,” the woman answered, warmth radiating from her brown eyes. Alice’s eyes traveled to the woman’s stool, noticing the paint stains on her hands and fingernails. “Are you an artist?” she asked suddenly, startling herself at her sudden need to talk. “I am,” the woman answered. “How lovely of you to notice. Are you an artist as well?” she smiled. “I’m a writer,” Alice answered. “But my mother, Lydia, was. She was actually a student here 30 years ago,” she ventured, narrowing her eyes in question. “Oh, Lydia!” the woman exclaimed, eyes widening in surprise. “She was one of my favorite students. Always asking questions and getting paint brushes and pastels in her hair, but she had an eye for places many failed to notice,” the woman continued, looking out the window with her pointer-finger in the air as if she were giving a lecture. She suddenly looked back at Alice as a look of confusion settled upon her face. Alice’s soup landed with a thud on the table in front of her, abruptly disrupting the conversation, but she was too hungry to care. She quickly ate her soup and left, leaving Lois stunned and contemplative in the chair beside her, realizing she didn’t ask her if she had seen Lydia again in the past 18 years.

After another hour of aimless wandering, Alice found herself standing on the same beach she imagined her parents meeting at long ago; an old mossy stump sitting near the edge of the forest, the sand rocky and hard beneath her feet. The rain had stopped, leaving the ocean the color you get when you mix too many together, deep, and uninviting. The waves crashed against the large boulders on either side of the bay, making a loud thudding sound while spray flew up in a fan, falling with a sound like beads dropping to a hardwood floor. Alice stood and waited for a while, whispering to herself the time in between each crash. She realized then what she had come here to do. She was where it must have all begun. Staring out at the wide expanse of sea, she wandered over to the wet tree stump and sat down. She thought of Martin then, spine bent with the years of making sandwiches, palms permanently dyed red and yellow. Then Lois, stained fingers bent as if permanently holding a paintbrush, eyes amber, youthful, and questioning. Her hands took out her notebook and pen as she kept an unwavering stare at the waves, the washi tape patterned with grey-green flowers on the spine. With a final glimpse at the scene before her, she took a deep breath, and began to write.