Coffee Break

“There’s just been a whole lot of dying lately,” Angela said between sips of her large green tea with three ice cubes added (so she could drink it today, she’d told the barista adding, you know how HOT that water is).
“How do you mean,” David asked. He was drinking a large Americano. He didn’t care for this brand of coffee shop but Angela had made the suggestion. “I mean, Anne, sure. That was a shock. That one hit hard. But what do you mean a whole lot?”
“What about Pete?”
“Well, yeah. But he died, what? Four years ago?”
She blew over her top of her tea trying to cool it further. “Has it been four years already? Wow.”
They sat in adjoining arm chairs made from brown faux leather, two of four that were arranged around a gas-fired fireplace. The fake logs were silent behind the glass pane and brass-colored vents. A square metal end table sat between them and held their cups in between gulps. It was late April in suburban Long Island.
“And don’t forget Jim,” Angela added.
“How could I forget Jim? We were roommates for a couple of years back in Boston after school.” David turned his head left to look out the window into the strip-mall parking lot. “He was a good guy. Poor guy. Had a lot of problems. He was already drinking too much back then.” He sipped. “Just so sad.”
“How did he die?” Angela’s eyes followed David’s out to the parking lot. Looking past David’s ear she could see her Volvo wagon sitting in front of the coffee shop. David’s Lexus sedan was farther out in the lot.
“Just, you know, too much. Didn’t wake up one day. He was trying to clean up but I guess it was just too much for too long. His body said enough.” David sipped again. “Poor guy.”
Angela turned back toward the dormant fireplace and crossed her legs the other way. Left over right. “Anyway. Just seems like a lot of our friends, people our age, have been dying. I wonder how our class stacks up to other classes at this point in life. Seems like we’ve had a lot of deaths.”
“Could be.” Dave’s gaze returned indoors as well. He looked up toward the spotlights on the ceiling, to the right toward the coffee bar, beyond to where the hallway led back to the restrooms. “I don’t know.”
“What’s Diane doing today,” Angela asked.
“She’s in the city having lunch with Quinn.” David’s eyes laughed toward Angela. “She’s having a tough time now that he’s a senior.”
“What’s he majoring in?”
“Politics.”
“She gonna be all right when you two are empty-nesters?”
“It’s gonna be interesting.”
“What about Thomas? He’s still in Boston, right?”
“Yeah. Living with a bunch of guys in Medford. I guess it’s kinda the hip place nowadays. Who the hell saw that coming? When we were in school, Medford” — David pronounced it “Meh-fuh” — “was a shithole, remember?”
Angela threw her head back and laughed. It was a mostly quiet laugh, but her eyes squinted and her mouth was open in a wide grin.
“Oh yeah. In our day, leaving Cambridge was not something done lightly. How old is Thomas now? Twenty-four?
“Twenty-five. Just turned.” David shook his head.
“How can that be since you and Diane are both twenty-seven,” Angela mocked.
David turned to her and held up his coffee. “Cheers.”
They clinked cups and took a drink.
“What about you, Ang? What’s new with you? Seeing anyone?”
She raised her eyebrows. It was a gesture of hers he’d known for going on thirty years. “Oh, you know.”
“Yeah. Don’t let no moss grow on your stone.” David emphasized the no. “I just want you to be happy.” After a pause, “Whatever happened with that musician? Andy…Angus? What was his name?”
“Close. Andrew. He’s doing well, last I heard. Living in L.A., working for a nonprofit. I don’t know if he’s still playing or not. Every now and then I’ll hear a song of his on the one college station in Baltimore.”
“I liked him.”
“So did I. I still do. Love him. We just…you know.” Angela looked left and saw David was looking outside. “To be honest, I don’t know what it was, maybe it was the songwriter in him or what, but he had a dark side. He could get way down and I just couldn’t afford to get sucked down there too.”
“I get it.” David tipped his head back and held his cup vertically above him. When he returned to level. “I hear ya. Still.” The one word trailed off.
“Yeah.”
David turned and found Angela looking at him. She had a slight smile on her face and he returned her look with his broad smile beneath his bright eyes. His cheeks shaded a hint of red.
“It’s good to see you, Ang. I miss you. Diane does too.”
“I miss you guys, too.”
“I’m bummed Phil couldn’t make it. He and Deb are celebrating their anniversary. They’re on their way out to Montauk. They go out there this weekend every year.”
Angela nodded, still looking at David. “Yeah, we traded emails. Next time.”
She put her arms on the chair and pushed, rising to her feet. She turned back for her cup on the table and reached for David’s. He was rising. “I got it.”
They went to the cabinet that held cream and sugar, utensils, napkins, and dropped their cups into the circular hole that marked the trash bin. David extended his right arm toward the door and Angela nodded as she stepped past him.
David and Angela hugged as they stood beside her car. “Don’t be a stranger,” he said into her shoulder.
“You too,” she replied. “C’mon down sometime. I have a great place out on the Chesapeake. It’s awesome in the fall. The water’s warm, there’s no one around. It’s great.”
“We’d love to. Diane and I talk about it all the time. Now that we’re not going to Quinn’s games anymore, I’m sure we can get down there.”
They looked into each other’s eyes, and their smiles engulfed their entire faces and all the years they’d known each other. Their smiles, each familiar to the other and a comfort to the other, bridged the space between them.
A pause, and David took a step back. Angela opened her door and got in. She backed her Volvo out and waved to David, who had begun walking toward his own car. Angela steered toward the highway, heading west.

Practice, , ,

There Was a Time

Paul Martin’s cafe table basked in late-afternoon sunshine. He sat alone, sipping at a glass of Oregon Pinot Noir, eyes closed as he stared up into the lowering sun. A mini-Christmas tree adorned each table on the cafe’s patio, tiny LED lights barely visible in the bright sunlight. He’d been at this cafe in the neighborhood a handful of miles northeast of downtown San Diego a few years before.

Kate had been with him then. It was her neighborhood. The home she shared with her two teenagers (when they weren’t at their father’s) was walking distance from the cafe, which occupied a corner in the quaint neighborhood’s core near several restaurants, across from a small movie theater and surrounded by a handful of artsy shops. A sign comprised of white lights on green metal arched over the main road between the freeway and the lone stoplight declaring the neighborhood’s name.

It had been December then, too, and the multicolored lights draped over the sign and in many of the palm trees confused Paul’s mental calendar even though it was his second Christmas in Southern California. He wore shorts and flip-flops, but in his New England brain December meant long pants, flannel shirts and wool socks, and maybe even a hat and gloves.

Kate looked fabulous yet again, Paul thought. Her light, summery dress still managed to look Christmasy with its red and white pattern, and in her stylish sandals, blonde hair and blue eyes she looked every bit the San Diegan she’d become since leaving Long Island twenty-plus years earlier.

They each had a glass of rosé, the December evening being warm enough that anything redder seemed too heavy, and talked of things they’d always discussed: Kate’s work as a lawyer helping families and foster kids, Paul’s projects at one of the local biotech firms, politics and society, her kids, fun things they’d found to enjoy in Southern California. They laughed and bantered and worked their way through the wine before they rose and walked back to Kate’s house. Kate liked the way Paul always made sure he walked on the outside, nearer the street. And they both liked the way it felt when their fingers intertwined for the final couple of blocks.

In the kitchen, Paul opened a bottle and poured it into a decanter. Kate pulled out the lasagna she’d set to baking before they left. They ate on the back patio beneath a string of lights that ran from the house to the converted garage and on to a large tree near the back fence. After dinner, after they’d left the dishes in the sink, they settled together into each other in a lawn chair beneath the large tree. Stars peeked through the San Diego haze, the branches of the tree, and the string of white lights that ran to the fence.

That had been five years ago, Paul calculated as he took another sip of Pinot. Every so often he sought out Kate’s profile online. She looked happy in her new life in the Bay Area, the photos usually showing her with one or both of her kids, now graduated from college and on to lives of their own, or by herself on hikes in the hills of Marin County. There were also photos of her with a man. Those photos went back two years and Kate’s big smile beaming beneath her glowing blue eyes told of her happiness. There was a light in her face in those photos that he could recall, a light that shined even in the dark beneath a tree in her backyard.

The sun had set and Paul looked up to see one bright star already twinkling in the southeast. He drank the last gulp of wine, left a twenty on the table and walked to his rental car. He drove to the airport and boarded the redeye flight back to New York, where it was forecast to be cloudy with a chance of snow.

Practice, ,

The Place Dreams Come True

The jagged peaks of the mountains surrounding the valley stretched the clear sky between them like the skin of deep blue drum. The sun, pausing at the zenith, cast a shadowless bright light on the dark ice of the frozen lake in the valley’s center. A dozen or more kids and a handful of adults swarmed over the dark ice like atoms, racing from end to end of the oversized rink chasing the darting of a jet black puck.

Aside from the metal, fire-engine-red goals at each end, the only man-made structure visible was the long wooden bench Evan found himself on. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been sitting there basking in the sun, nor could he remember plodding through the deep snow from the road where he assumed he’d parked his car, but he felt happy to be here as he smiled into the warm sunshine pouring over the skin of his face. After a lung-filling breath of cold mountain air, Evan leaned over his red sweatpants to tighten the laces of his skates. Sitting back, he pulled a small toque on over the top of his head and donned his hockey gloves, then grabbed the stick leaning on the bench beside him. One step with his left foot and a push with his right and he glided out through a gap in the snowbanks and onto the soccer-field-sized rink.

Over a cotton sweatshirt and a thin under layer, Evan wore the white jersey of a team he’d played for many years before, so he angled to the right to slide in behind the team clad in white. He didn’t recognize many of the faces, but he knew enough of them that he was welcomed into the team by a shout and a pass of the puck. He took a couple of strides in the clear before a young boy of maybe 12 wearing a dark-blue jersey approached him and Evan passed the puck to an open teammate.

In addition to the standard-issue hockey equipment of skates, gloves and a stick, everyone on the ice wore a similar outfit: sweatpants, a jersey over a hoodie or sweatshirt, and a toque or baseball cap above a pair of sunglasses. Skin tones ranged from bright white to tan to red based on how long the person had been playing beneath the high-elevation sunshine. There were young boys and girls, and a couple of men and women on each team, and a fully-clad goalie at each net. The younger kids tended to swarm around the puck while the older players spread out and away from the frenzy. And like everyone else, Evan found himself unable to contain a broad smile.

The dance of offense and defense surged in either direction as the teams traded possession of the puck, and after a couple of hours after Evan had joined the game, the goalie in white made a save and steered the puck away from the net. Evan gathered up the puck and swung wide, striding in the other direction with his right hand atop his stick that pushed the puck before him as his left arm swung back and forth to generate speed. Two dark-clad kids angled toward him and Evan passed the puck between their skates to a teammate near the center. He continued his route as the kids circled to follow the puck and a moment later Evan received the puck back as his speed increased. Striding past an opposing wall of kids, Evan began to curl toward the opposing net. An adult defender angled toward him and reached out in an attempt to knock the puck away but Evan slid the disc through the gap between the man’s stick and his skate. A youngster of about 10 wearing black sweats and a white jersey received the pass in a clearing behind the defender and quickly slapped the puck past the dark goalie.

The goalscorer whooped and threw his arms into the air, hopping on his skates as the dark team regrouped and the goalie fished the puck out of the net. In the moments before the game resumed, Evan glided behind the goal and took the scene in: still the sun blazed high overhead, still the blue sky was unblemished by a single cloud, and no one on either team showed the slightest inclination to stop playing anytime soon. It seemed to Evan this game could go on forever and he hoped it might.

A moment earlier, in a hospice center in New England, the on-call doctor placed the stethoscope back around his neck before turning off the heart monitor beside him. Then he turned back to close the eyes of the now-late Evan McIlheny.

Practice, ,