I first saw her in this quaint little café on the corner of town. She wore a heavy black jacket and a scarf, minding the fact that it was the middle of December. I noticed her navy blue dress and heels, so my best guess was that she was a young business woman or waiting on her husband, or something of that nature. Some make up too, and sparkling jewelry was not hard to notice. Her hair was long, dark brown and wavy, and looked as if she had spent roughly an hour on it this morning. There were still a few fly-aways she hadn’t caught with hairspray. She sat there waiting, scanning the room aimlessly, and clearly waiting for something or someone.
I was in the café for only a few minutes, came in for a coffee break. I sat in the corner, by a small fern and a big red couch. It was dark outside as a little snow fell beautifully for some time. Observing her once again, she had one leg over the other, arms crossed at a lone table. She looked down at her watch, then slowly back up into the distance, and let out a loud sigh. She spoke to no one, just listening to the soft jazz music that never seemed to stop playing. She looked uninterested so I knew whatever she was waiting for had not arrived yet. She sipped at her hot drink and glanced at her watch continuously.
She avoided all eye contact as if there weren’t about a dozen other people around. She had to have been asked to come here by a person she was meeting. She had to be waiting for something, otherwise, looking at her expression now, I could tell she’d run out of here faster than you could blink. Her mind had clearly wandered off into another universe, as she wasn’t even paying attention to the gentleman making a sad attempt to hit on her. He left, losing interest quickly after being rejected. She continued to wait as if nothing had just happened.
I tried to mind my own business, but there was something peculiar going on. After looking up a thousand times and getting no result, she looked up once more, and this time her expression was not like the thousand other ones, all the same. I studied her eyes as they suddenly widened with a glimmer of hope. She immediately smiled, her eyes locked on a figure approaching the transparent doorway.
Quickly fixing her hair, she started to make a subtle gesture, getting this person’s attention. As the figure crept out of the darkness, a man appeared to take its place. Looking at him, he was in a suit, a nice proper man it seemed. He had a big fat watch on his left wrist and his dirty blonde hair was slicked back. He walked in on his shined black shoes and made a strong attempt to smile. He approached the woman and almost reluctantly sat down next to her at the table. She started talking to him, her smile a little goofy. She reached into her coat pocket and lifted out a decent sized box, carefully wrapped in gold paper with a red bow perched on top. She extended her hand with the gift in it. He talked back, shaking his head slightly and pushing the box away.
She continued to speak, grabbing his hands tight and holding them in hers on the table. He looked at her, seeming uninterested by her words. After a few minutes of this, he abruptly cut off whatever she was saying. He let go of her hands now, making gestures toward himself and only himself. He combed through his thickly gelled hair with his fingers as he looked around the room, still making sure she was listening to him. He started to slow down his pace of speech as the woman was now utterly confused by what he was trying to get across. The expression on her face was absolutely concerning as he continued to speak. All hope in her eyes had vanished in an instant. The proper man lowered his voice, trying not to make a scene as he spoke a few more words to her. He quickly got up from his seat and turned his back to exit the quaint little café she and I sat in.
He was gone in an instant, leaving the woman exactly where she had waited for so long. Her legs were uncrossed now and she was slouched over in her seat as she slowly put face in her cupped hands on the table. When she finally picked her head up slightly, I noticed her expression once more. This time there was no impatience, no hope on her face, only tears. They were hard to miss, as she slowly turned a subtle red, still looking down at the table, occasionally glancing up to make sure nobody noticed her make-up smudged. She seemed to be concentrating hard on something. Almost as if she was trying to figure out the definitive answer to the most difficult question she had ever heard in her life. The soft jazz music continued to play without end, covering the sound of her self-pity and regret. I had still only been in this café for a few minutes. It’s amazing how quickly things happen. I kept myself seated in the corner over by the plant and the couch, and couldn’t help but be disappointed.