Reflections

Maddie checked the calendar and put a reserved sign on the corner booth table. She placed an oval mirror next to it and wiped it down. She’d picked it up at a thrift store so her customer, Kathryn, wouldn’t need to bring her own each time. Maddie checked the time and sat down for a minute, facing the mirror. There was no reflection. There hadn’t been since the Crack. She was looking at the split vinyl of another diner’s booth. Morgan slid into view, smiling and chatting with her fingers. Maddie motioned the young woman to slow down. Why the youth wouldn’t use text screens to talk across the divide was beyond her. Not as intimate, they said, so impersonal. Well, she thought, we’ll see what they say when arthritis gets a grip on their supple fingers.

Maddie signed,” Think she’ll show?”

“I hope so. It’s been a couple months now. I want to know what she’s been up to. How about yours? You think she’ll still come?” Morgan signed back.

“Always does.”

The bell rang, and Katie walked in. Long brown hair framed a soft smile, one compliment away from being a frown. She pushed her thick-rimmed glasses up on her nose as she made a beeline to her booth. Without being asked, Maddie walked away to get Kathryn a cup of coffee and an apple muffin. Maddie felt sorry for the girl. All the Narcisists, really. Everyone who stayed close to their Reflections after the Crack. She’d changed jobs to get away from hers. True, it was just another diner on the other side of town, but in New York, that might as well be another planet.

Katied kept checking her watch. Picking at the top of her muffin, she alternated chewing on crumbs and the ends of her hair. Two months, she thought, two months since she’d seen her Reflection. She knew she was still on the other side, kept getting little notes from friends who’d talked with their own Reflections in passing. They used to meet every week. Talk about their jobs, the boss who just couldn’t get a handle on how they liked each other, liked to work the same tasks so they might catch glimpses of the others in empty computer screens or clean windows. Then Kathryn, no, Katie, that’s what she wanted to be called, Katie, started being late. Then she missed whole dates, and Kathryn would just sit there, staring at an empty booth on the other side of reality for hours.

When the other young woman slid into the booth on that side, Kathryn started to signal that she was waiting for someone. Then she saw the freckles on her nose, that certain crease in the forehead. It was Kath… Katie. Short-haired, blue-eyed Katie. Kathryn ran her hand through her hair and fixed her glasses. She picked up her hands, her fingers moved, but she didn’t say anything. Katie’s fingers bubbled with excitement, dancing, dressed in a shade of red they would have never worn before.

She was just in town a few days, and then she was going to head out on a train with some friends she’d met in Europe, that’s where she was, Europe, oh it was so beautiful, and she lived out of hostels and on new friend’s couches, some that she had just met that night, and they scrounged for food so they’d have money for wine, and walk and talk the night if they weren’t out dancing, and then let their hangovers dissipate like morning fog over stale bread and coffee, and oh my god Kathryn, it was so much fun, it was so different than anything we had done before, no ordinary days, no nights in, nothing routine, not like what we did before, nothing like when I had -

“Been like me,” Kathryn signed.

Katie looked away, almost reached up to her hair, but held her hand down.

At the counter, Maddie wiped at a spot until it shone and looked down at a blurry Morgan signing something like “she’s so dimpled.” Oh, she’s so different. Slowly, letter by letter, Maddie signed back “Inevitable.”

Kathryn shrank into her seat and picked at her muffin and sipped her coffee. Any excuse not to talk. Katie filled in the silence with more talk of trains, clubs, and joy. Kathryn stopped listening and stared at Katie’s face. All she could see was the slightly greasy hair, the smudge on her glasses, the acne she hadn’t bothered to cover up, and the night she’d spent alone with her favorite book after turning down an invitation from her friends yet again. Her Reflection pointed out every flaw.

Katie leaned forward, growing in the image, and signed, “You can do all of this.”

“What, just cut my hair, get a movie make-over, and live happily ever after?”

“Maybe not ever after, but for now.”

“If I do all of that, won’t I just be your reflection, a copy? I think, no, I am happy being me.”

Katie started to sign, dropped her hands to the table, and then picked them back up, “I was happy, too. Until I really looked at myself.”

“When I did that, I found someone I loved, who was just like me. I saw all my quirks, and I felt at home. Not that I thought we were perfect, but good enough. Good enough to be happy.”

“I loved that, too. At first. But stare in a mirror too long, and you lose sight of what’s real, who’s real.”

“And are you real now?”

Katie took a deep breath, “Maybe. Might still be putting myself together.”

Kathryn smiled, “So did you come here to say goodbye?”

“I think I did. But I’ll always keep an eye out for you in the passing windows, maybe on a daytime train ride if you decide to venture out of the city.”

“And I’ll keep an eye out for you when I visit old friends, just in case you come back.”

Kathryn got up and left a tip and a soft smile of thanks for Maddie as she walked out the door, ringing the bell. Maddie came by to clean up the plates and saw Morgan’s arms doing the same. They sat down and chatted for a moment. Before standing up, Maddie asked Morgan when she took her break. Morgan smiled and signed back,” Any time you want to chat, I’m just on the other side.”

Maddie could never understand the Narcissists; no one could ever look at themselves that long and come out the same. But a friend? Well, find the right one, and they can show you all the best parts.

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A/N: This story actually comes from a world I'd thought of for the story below, oh my god, three years ago now. I changed the name of the event, feeling that the Crack is better than the Split with its mirror connotations. It's a very different tone, but I really enjoy the idea of a world where our reflections are no longer in sync. Looking back at it, I see that it is a 19-minute read per Vocal, which may explain why no one bothered to read it. Ain't no one got time for that, too many other good things to find.