Lindsey Harding
Warm air meets Macie as she pulls open the heavy wood-framed door. Before even stepping inside, the smells of coffee and freshly baked bread welcome her. A rumble escapes her stomach. She sighs. To the elderly patron waiting for a cheese pastry and hot tea, Macie might appear to be trembling from the mid February chill, but really her body is just relaxing as she eases into her morning routine.
Behind the well-lit counter, covered with orange scones and raspberry-almond pastries and cinnamon rolls dripping with icing, two associates, the college students who open The Coffee Corner every weekday morning, greet Macie by name. She smiles a hello to petite Jill and wide-eyed, curly-haired Ted. Ted beams at her, one of his I-know-you-are-old-enough-to-be-my-mom-but-god-you-are-attractive smiles. Jill just shakes her head, already preparing Macie’s order. Ted keeps staring, and Macie waits patiently as Jill puts a blueberry muffin on a tray with two pats of butter and a white ceramic mug. Before Jill finishes ringing up the order, Macie has the three ones and seventy-eight cents in her outstretched hand. Though her medical transcriptionist salary isn’t much, Macie sets aside enough each month for her daily breakfast at The Coffee Corner. She learned months ago that punching out hematoma, headache, malaise, and morning sickness requires more caffeine and sugar than skill. While other thirty-two year old women spend their salaries on shoes or jackets or jewelry, Macie splurges on a muffin and coffee and an hour to enjoy them each morning.
Jill hands the receipt and tray to Macie, who is already moving towards the coffee bar. Ted’s eyes are trained on her still, but he is forgotten. At first, his stare had overwhelmed her, making her blush in the simple unsolicited adoration and desire of a teenage boy. Now, she barely notices it. It’s just part of the routine. Macie pours her coffee, the hazelnut aroma smooth and familiar. To the dark drink, she adds four spoonfuls of sugar and a three-count of half and half. She stirs her cloudy concoction, satisfied the color is exactly the same shade it was yesterday.
Mug in one hand, tray in the other, and tote hanging from the slight bend of her right elbow, Macie heads over to her spot. She passes the plump, leather booths and high, wooden bar stools. The tiled floor becomes carpet, and here several overstuffed couches and chairs are unoccupied. The reading nook. The chair she chooses, the chair she always chooses, beckons her with its soft, worn folds. To Macie, the chair resembles a sea of coffee: swirling, ebbing, and flowing brown. In one motion, she places her tray and mug down on an end table, releases her tote bag, and lets the chair envelop her.
Then, like every other morning, Macie reaches into her tote stuffed with case files and patient reports and pulls out a book. Today, it’s a love story. The picture of contentment, she sips coffee and flips the pages of the library hardback without thinking of either. She only makes it seem like she’s reading to make her eavesdropping more discreet, clandestine.
It no longer surprises Macie how much she can pick up from the conversations of the other early morning coffee drinkers. A fight here, a squabble there, two interns discussing their cases from the night before: every morning, Macie enters into the stories around her.
The soft voice of a woman floats through the French Roast air, drawing Macie in. The woman’s conversation is one-sided, on a cell-phone no doubt. There is no mistaking the maternal quality of her questions. “Now, Claire, do you have your lunch money? Did you remember to put your homework in your book bag? What time are you going to be done with play practice?” Macie can see a toothy, frizzy-haired fifth-grader getting ready for school while her mom, in green scrubs and Dansko clogs, stops for a cup of coffee on her way to work. She watches Claire hang up the phone to finish her Fruit Loops before heading out the door to catch her bus. When the girl arrives at school, Macie, now a fifth-grade teacher, waves from the classroom door. She wears a lilac twinset and grey pants, her hair pulled back in a clip. As Claire walks past, Macie reaches down to give her shoulder a squeeze. Before Macie’s hand ever touches her, Claire looks up. And sticks out her tongue. The girl disappears into the classroom, her pink lemonade book bag bouncing. Macie stares after her, arms folded and lips parted.
When Macie was in elementary school, she had wanted a pink lemonade book bag, too, but her father had insisted otherwise. Before she had lost all of her baby teeth, Macie had carried her Army green backpack to five different schools on three different continents. The tooth fairy left dog tags under her pillow. By the time she was driving, her father, Captain Marshall Wallace, had set-up ROTC recruiting centers in forty states and two foreign countries. Her mother, Mrs. Marshall Wallace, never complained about their transitory lifestyle. Neither could Macie. Orders were followed, no questions asked.
As the image of the backpack fades, Macie hears a different woman speaking from across the coffee shop. The voice is dense, like a double shot of espresso: “Bob, seriously, I think we need to schedule an appointment with the therapist again. You only care about sports and your job. What about me? What about us?” Macie sees this female speaker without really seeing her: a nervous, thin-faced chemistry teacher with straight black hair spilling out of a tight ponytail as she pleads with her husband. Macie becomes their therapist, leaning forward in her executive desk chair, glasses sitting on the edge of her nose. On the wall, three degrees hang in hardwood frames, one slightly askew. The couple before her shifts on the love seat, too close to one another and not at all close enough. Macie discusses a plan to reconnect her clients, Bob and Linda. “First, you two need to reintroduce yourselves. Instead of watching SportsCenter, Bob, talk to Linda about her interests. And Linda, instead of grading tests all night, sit down to watch a basketball game with Bob.” The two ponder this idea. Macie continues, “Second, I want you to try ‘soul gazing.’ At least four times each day, hold hands, look into each other’s eyes, and gaze at one another.” Bob and Linda share an incredulous look. Before they can protest, Macie reassures them, “Now, I know this might seem silly and juvenile, but you need to be willing to try. Let’s practice once.” By the end of the session, Bob and Linda have mastered ‘soul gazing’ and have planned a date night for later in the week.
As they walk out of the office, Macie rocks back in her chair. She wonders when Linda will tell Bob that she’s pregnant. Linda’s flushed skin and repeated request to go to the restroom during the session betrayed her secret to Macie, who had transcribed enough first trimester checkups to recognize pregnancy as easily as a skin rash or bruise. Macie knows the couple will be divorced before their child’s first birthday no matter how many times they gaze at each other’s soul. Between now and then, Macie can count on at least five more sessions with Bob and Linda – maybe even more. Macie smiles, considering the income boost the baby would guarantee. She buzzes her secretary to send in another crumbling relationship.
All those hours watching Dr. Phil and typing marriage therapy notes have paid off. Macie takes a sip of coffee. According to her fifteen dollar gold watch from Target, it’s only 7:58. The Coffee Corner is already buzzing with customers, and Macie still has forty minutes before she must drag herself to her real desk and the waiting stacks of medical reports.
Another voice catches her attention: the distinct rumble of a surly businessman, complaining to a colleague about how hard it is to find a good cup of coffee these days. “They don’t make coffee the way they used to, Jim. Remember that joint over on 49th and Washington?”
“Sure, sure,” a more carefree voice returns.
“That place sure could make a mean pot of – oh hey, Mike. How’re the numbers looking this week?” A third businessman joins the group and the conversation turns to fiscal reports and quarterly earnings.
The fuse lit, Macie takes over and envisions the first man in khaki shorts, a purple Polo shirt, and a white Titleist visor, sitting in a golf cart, getting ready to tee off on the seventh hole. He and his buddies are out at the White Oaks Country Club for eighteen holes after moving papers at the office. They joke about women and sex and money: the three subjects they all think they know well. When they come into the clubhouse after nine holes for a round of beer, Macie is there. Behind the counter in a tight fitting black top and even tighter fitting black pants, she asks the men what they’re drinking. The purple Polo shirt looks her over, a total body scan. Macie stands at ease, hands on her hips, allowing him to look. Finally, he saunters over, leaning across the bar to place the order. On his skin, Macie can smell grass and sweat. Once the men have drained their Rolling Rocks and Coronas, they put their hats and visors back on and head out to their carts. The purple Polo shirt rejoins Macie with the bill and his account number. Macie can’t help but notice the lack of a ring on his left hand. Of course he is single, she thinks as he walks off. If finding a decent cup of coffee is a challenge for him, falling in love would be almost impossible. Inside the folded bill, Macie finds a business card. She looks up, hoping to catch his eye before he leaves the clubhouse. Instead of his gaze, she sees him whistling at two waitresses arriving for their four o’clock shifts. She wonders if he receives a discount for ordering business cards in bulk.
Just like the purple Polo shirt, Macie, too, has never been in love; it remains an elusive dream, a fantasy, a conversation shared by the retired couple who come in holding hands every Thursday morning for their hot cocoas and bear claws. Every week, the husband holds the door open for his wife and carries her tray and mug to the table. Every week, she thanks him, a smile spreading across her drooping face. And every week, Macie knows the small, white-haired woman is saying thank you for much more than her husband’s displays of chivalry.
As Macie starts to spread butter across the crumbly surface of her muffin, two voices rise from a booth somewhere in front of her. A rich baritone chuckles, “Love doesn’t exist, Eve.”
“Now, Adrian, that is the silliest thing I have ever heard,” a pitchy female voice replies. Macie is at once their captive audience.
At a round table in the faculty house kitchen, Adrian sits straight, almost stiff, his military training now a habit. His peppery hair splashes across his forehead above a pair of thin, silver, wire-rimmed glasses. Age has been generous to him. Eve and Macie, Adrian’s colleagues in the Anthropology Department, join him at the table with their own mugs. While Adrian has been teaching for decades, Eve has been on faculty for a handful of years and Macie is new to the school, just starting her tenure track. Eve is Macie’s age, with a slight sag in the undersides of her upper arms, a neat brown bob, and an ironed Ann Taylor paisley print blouse. Steam from Eve’s decaf rises to her face as she tries to reason with Adrian before they all have to leave for their nine o’clock classes. Macie listens, rapt. “I’m sure there are plenty of women attracted to you, even at your age. Are you still going to the American Legion on Fridays for their fish fry?”
“Being around women doesn’t make love more likely, Eve.”
Eve makes Adrian a deal. “Why don’t you let me be your personal matchmaker? With my help, you’ll be walking down the aisle long before they put you in a wheelchair.”
“Skip the ceremony and the reception. Consummation is more my thing. Sex I can do. I’m just too old for love,” he says.
The coffee grinder churns to life, and the smell of cinnamon circulates the room. Macie barely notices. In the faculty house, Macie looks more closely at the professor, now resting back in his chair, arms folded behind his head. His high cheekbones give him the august distinction of a sage or nobleman. On him, wrinkles seem charming. Something about Adrian’s attitude catches her off-guard, interests her. When he speaks, his lips move deliberately, sounding out each word carefully as though tasting them first. Like a mathematician discussing integrals or a surgeon outlining an appendectomy, Adrian talks about love, sex, and himself with ease.
By now, Macie has forgotten to keep turning pages. The scene changes. She imagines Adrian in bed. She pictures him naked among crisp taupe sheets. As though she had gulped down a freshly brewed cup of coffee, her entire face burns.
Macie finds Adrian’s assurance sexy and endearing. She envies the easy confidence he wears on his shoulders like his twenty-year-old cashmere jacket. Macie could not confront her boss to ask for a raise after two years of error-less reports. She just cut out more coupons. She could not bring herself to talk to her landlord about the cracks zigzagging across the ceiling of her kitchen. She just paid off her lease and moved to a newer townhouse down the street. In third grade, when Macie sat behind Bobby Stevens and smelled his ugly gray sweatshirt, dangling like a dead fish over the back of his chair, she couldn’t bear the thought of asking the teacher to move her seat. She just breathed through her mouth. With a start, Macie finds herself wondering what it would be like to kiss Adrian’s lips. A newspaper rustles somewhere behind her.
Now she is with him. Alone with him. In a living room, Adrian holds her, and they move to the soft crooning of Rod Stewart. Adrian’s mouth softly sweeps her ear, whispering words she has heard before but never understood – the words of a lover. Her coffee is cold and her unread book lies face-down on the floor. Even Eve is a mere memory. The hands on her cheap gold watch have stopped. Time stands still. Macie is in love.
This new thought shocks her. She can no longer smell the nutty aroma of coffee; now she smells Adrian, having just stepped out of the shower, Irish Spring on his skin. She doesn’t feel the chair around her; instead his hand, calloused but gentle, like an invitation, folds over hers. Her senses, overcome by her fantasies, draw her deeper and deeper into the feeling she believes must be love. Even if Adrian refuses to acknowledge its existence, Macie is keenly aware of its presence for the first time. How could it not be love? How else could she account for the erotic images flooding her mind and the fire engulfing her body? If only I could touch him, Macie thinks, no longer satisfied to be on the outskirts of the story. Then, maybe I can convince him that love does exist.
Macie is giddy now, overcome by a reckless abandon she’s never known. The Macie who wore cardigans and ate Lean Cuisines for dinner and sorted her laundry by color and fabric and pressed keys all day long in front of her Dell Desktop no longer exists. In her place, a new Macie sits at the edge of her brown leather chair, almost light-headed with love.
She collects her tote, the dropped book, her buttered muffin, and her mug still half full of coffee. Hastily, she heads to the garbage and dish receptacles to unburden her hands so she can walk over to Adrian, pull him close, and kiss him – slowly, fully, like she has seen in the movies and on “Desperate Housewives.” On her way, the muffin slides off her tray, leaving a heap of sticky crumbs on the carpet. Just before she reaches the bins, she drops her book again, bending a few pages. Finally, she reaches the counter. She pours out her chilled coffee, and it sounds like the rustling of sheets. The empty cup and tray she places in the plastic bin marked “Dishes.” Then, Macie turns around. It’s not so much a turn as it is a whirl. Her shoulder length brown hair sweeps across her eyes like a curtain parting for a performance.
Only now the stage is empty.
Adrian and Eve are gone. Adrian is gone. Macie scans the crowd of people she didn’t realize had gathered in the coffee shop. No wire-rimmed glasses, no peppery hair, no erect posture. No Adrian. Macie moves closer to a vacant set of maroon cushions, heels rapidly striking the tile floor. With a little gasp, she grabs the edge of the table where his coffee cup surely had rested and falls into the booth.
Slowly, Macie’s awareness of the real world settles upon her, heavy like cream rolling through a cup of coffee. To her left, she hears the sounds of a baby wailing. All around her, she smells vanilla and blueberries. These familiar sounds and smells bring her back.
“Are you okay?” Macie looks up quickly, too quickly, hoping Adrian would be peering at her over his silver glasses, real again. Instead, Ted in his green apron stands close, balling up a dish towel in his hands.
“I’m fine,” she says, releasing her iron grasp of the wood and standing up, adjusting the tote on her shoulder before the medical reports could fall out. “Thank you,” she adds after a beat, remembering his feelings for her. Macie looks down at her watch, eyes widening as she realizes it’s already 9:02. “And, late,” she adds. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he repeats, watching her walk off with a wave.
Macie heads for the door, starting to sink back into her life’s routine. Adrian was wrong, she thinks, reaching the heavy wooden door. And she was wrong, too. Love exists, and not only in conversations, stories, and fantasies.
A trace of daring lingers. Turning around, Macie sees Ted still looking at her. Macie winks and blows him a kiss. It wasn’t love either, but at least it was something. Maybe tomorrow morning she would try the chocolate chip muffin.
© Copyright 2009 Lindsey Harding