The Time Between Ordering and Eating
We were in a diner near St. Marks, waiting for our food to arrive. The
restaurant was set below street level, and I was looking up through the
windows at the legs of the people passing by.
"Jesus," she said. "Look at that."
"What?"
"Look at that couple over there," she said, using the slightest head
tilt to indicate two people at a booth across the aisle from us.
I looked first toward the kitchen, then back to where the bathrooms are,
then slowly let my eyes pass over the couple as I turned back to face
forward. It was a man and a woman, about our age, sitting quietly and
sunken deep into their booth. They looked tired, bored, and sad: normal,
for people in a quiet diner on a rainy day.
"I don't get it," I said. "What?"
"They're not even talking. They've been sitting there since before we
came in, and they haven't said one word to each other."
"So?"
She looked down at the table and shook her head in disagreement. "I
can't imagine sitting at a restaurant with someone and not talking. How
could you not have anything to talk about?"
It seemed to me that there could be lots of reasons why they weren't
talking. Maybe she had just broken up with him. He was thinking about
the long list of reasons she'd given him, and slowly seeing that she had
made the right decision, for both of them. Maybe he was about to leave
on a year-long trip to another country. They were each thinking of the
other, alone in a quiet apartment somewhere far away, and there was no
way to express the sadness and longing they were both already beginning
to feel. Maybe they had just come from their best friend's funeral.
They'd been driving since 4:30 in the morning to get there in time.
They'd spend hours hugging and sobbing with friends they hadn't seen or
talked to in years, until suddenly they've realized how hungry they
were, how they couldn't remember the last time they'd eaten. They were
sitting here now, in a daze, knowing they wouldn't remember any of this
later. Maybe they don't need to talk. He can tell how much she needs him
just by the way she runs her finger along the cuff of his shirt. He can
tell her not to worry, remind her that everything will be alright, just
by the way he shifts his body towards hers.
But I didn't say any of this to her. I decided to just let her go on
disapproving of them. We'd been growing apart for a while, and I knew
whatever I said would only make it worse.
Kevin Fanning live in Illinois. His writing can be found at whygodwhy.com and themorningnews.org.