Table for One

I’m sitting on the wooden bench. The window has been haphazardly pushed open, my right arm dangling over the side, timidly testing the strength of the wind. The air feels like it’s been filled with ice cubes to dull its warmth, and snapshots of grimy bar windows and Cajun spice-filled restaurants flicker by. The streetcar driver calls out “Poydras,” and I inch closer to the unshaven man delicately balancing a po-boy in his lap to make room for the incoming passengers.

I would usually have just finished a dinner of over-priced portions with naked lightbulbs hanging from strings in the ceiling and a live band playing in the background, the trumpet’s exclamations rolling softly through forks and spoons. The kind of experience that leaves you feeling satisfied in a way that has nothing to do with the meager scraps of food in your stomach.

My phone lights up like a lost firefly, signaling that I have a new text.

< You sure you don’t want Chinese food? > It’s from you. Always from you.

< Yeah I’m sure > My fingers stumble trying to type a quick reply while my eyes remain focused on the path in front of me, struggling to see my feet in the impending darkness. I’ve always loved this walk. The streets contain an electrifying feeling of home, like no matter where you choose to fall apart, someone kind will pick up your pieces from in between the cracks of the sidewalk every time.

< K you’re right I had that last night, let’s change it up. Where do you want to go? > Your reply reminds me that I’m slightly starved after a long day of arguing with the dreaded high-maintenance customers over the phone; mothers with five-year-olds screaming in the background who are aiming fists full of Legos at their even younger brother, elderly men driving home to their wives of sixty-five years and who keep forgetting what it is they’ve just asked you.

I respond with the first thing that comes to mind. < I kind of want a burger > It’s just one of those nights; I can smell the scent of char-grilled meat already.

You type back in seconds. < Classic, okay >

I slip my phone into the back pocket of my high-waisted jean shorts and grab change from the plastic coin dish sitting on the kitchen counter. Streetcar money, used specifically for these nights to go pick up dinner. It’s the place we agreed on, the only restaurant in both cities with curbside-to-go.

As I’m waiting for my meal at the restaurant’s bar, I can’t help but think back to the last time we saw each other. It was the night before you were supposed to leave for Wisconsin, a Thursday to be specific. You were wearing a light blue button down, the last two buttons undone. Brown loafers covered your feet, which were tapping nervously in rhythm with the radio playing in the background, and you had a smile made of shimmering stained glass.

“I’m trying not to make this a big deal. It’s only six months, neither of us should be upset,” you had told me in a voice like sharpened toothpicks.

“I’m not upset.” My voice struggled to mask the panic that had started to grow with intensity in my chest. I felt like I had just chugged five cups full of disappointment, and now there was a monotonous buzzing feeling in my stomach that refused to subside.

“Then what are you?” Your voice contained a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

“I’m just….I don’t know. Sad.”

We had this rule where if one of us couldn’t think of a proper way to define something, we would describe what it would taste like. Like Pictionary, but for your taste buds.

Your eyes finally caught mine. “You know what? Sadness tastes like empty storm clouds and unsweetened tea,” you whispered. “Such a terrible taste to be left in one’s mouth.”

* * * * *

A lady hands me my cheeseburger – no onions, pickles on the side – from the other side of the bar, the Styrofoam box still warm from steam. She looks as if she’s been working two full shifts; her eyes are drenched in fatigue and the corners of her mouth seem to be dragged down by invisible anchors. A thin pale line around her left hand’s finger shows remnants of a marriage, but the ring is nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t give her what I expected she needed most – an all-expenses paid visit to a tropical beach, or at least a new job – so instead I just tipped her extra.

I return home after paying another $1.25 for my travels, pass through the Victorian-looking arched doorway, and kick off my shoes in a flurry to sit down. My eyes pass over the piece of paper taped to the refrigerator, a note you had written to me just before you left. For some reason we had been talking about ways to measure time with each other – not in the typical hourglass-type way, but more abstractly.

Your words were scrawled across a torn sheet of paper:

When I measure my time with you I want it to feel light, like at any moment the wind could blow it right out of my grasp. When I measure my time, I want to appreciate how hard it is to hold on to.

* * * * *

Bzzt bzzt < Are you home yet? >

My phone goes off just as my fingers are about to open the restaurant container’s lid. I’m sitting at the two-person kitchen table you built from the scraps of wood we found that day at the river. We had been sitting on a rock in the middle of the Mississippi, pulling up branches and holding them over the water, just deep enough in the flow of the river that we could feel the tremors of their fight against the current.

I asked you if you were nervous. You said, “I think it’d be unusual if I weren’t,” but you looked so calm I almost didn’t believe you. We sat on that rock for hours; you talked about what you’ll miss most, and I secretly hoped it would be me. I sat with my legs dangling off, feet in the river’s depths, facing a view people drive hours to witness. You sat with your back to the water; the only view you had was of me. It was hot and bright and the rock’s surface was making imprints on our legs but we never complained, not even when hauling the pieces of collected wood back to the car.

I set two placemats at the table; two sets of silverware, two napkins – I had even poured two glasses of champagne – a weak act of imaginary wishful thinking. Although let’s be honest, I’ll probably end up drinking them both. Either way, I know you’ve done the same thing.

I reply to the text: < Yep, let’s dig in >

I wonder if you asked for extra mustard and if your burger was still hot by the time you sat down on the blue wooden chair I painted for your twentieth birthday, or even if you remembered to give the waitress a tip. I can picture you frustratingly flicking through channels on the TV, determined to find a reasonable show to watch that will elicit at least a handful of hearty laughs before taking your first bite.

We’re sitting at different tables a thousand miles apart, separated by run-down highways and hundreds of flashing stoplights, but if I close my eyes I can picture you sitting across from me, already planning what we’re going to eat for breakfast.