FROM THE ARCHIVES: WINTER 2003
Several years ago — seven years actually, nearly to the day — I was sitting in a coffee shop in Brooklyn, observing two young women in conversation, and I wrote the entire experience down in detail. I wasn’t so much interested in the conversation the women were having, but the way in which they were having it; even more captivating to me was the countenance of one of the girls in particular. It’s hard to explain now what I felt then. So I have to let myself, from way back then, do the explaining.
Brooklyn was hard for me then. I’d only been living there a few months, and I hardly knew a soul. I lived in a two-story loft with five other 20-somethings, but we weren’t particularly close. Everyone had their own lives, schedules, jobs, and etcetera to keep them busy. Except for me. I’d been temping for a while but the job had ended and work hadn’t picked up again. The city was still unfamiliar to me, and I spent most of my time haunting my neighborhood in Williamsburg, going from cafe to cafe to write, think, eat, and, as it turns out, develop a seriously romantic sense of observation. I admit I was lonely.
At any rate, seven years ago I wrote down the below in my small blue notebook. I don’t quite know why I choose now to share it. Maybe it’s the deep nostalgia I feel during the holidays. Maybe it’s because I can admit that I’m lonely now, too. Remember, though, that when I wrote this I had only just turned 24 — so very young, and smitten by a stranger.
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7 Nov 2003
I was sitting at the cafe, eating soup and a small half sandwich. Across from me sat a young woman, possibly my own age, with ruddy curly locks about to her chin, and bright eyes — hazel, perhaps — and large colorful hoops in her ears. Her companion was faceless to me, just long dark hair and a hand holding a cup. Her back was to me and I could barely hear her voice — not at all, actually.
But there was something about the girl with red hair, a warmth and delicate intelligence in her face and hands such that I wanted her to look at me, recognize me, smile or dip her head in some way. I looked at her when I could, small glances up from my work. I wanted to stare at her, that’s what I really wanted, and I listened to her voice and tried to cull her thoughts and history from her words to her companion.
She was beautiful, yes, but the beauty was thoughtful, and made me ashamed of my own appearance and of other things as well. I wanted to be something to her — what would that take? She spoke of many things, the bits I caught. Of a man she knew who spoke so slowly it was almost artful, but frustrating just the same. Of anorexia and how those who are “healed” belie their ongoing struggle through their language — a spoken, unconscious obsession with food. She said something that made me think her faceless companion had experience with the disease. I thought perhaps this young woman was a therapist, perhaps even the dark-haired girl’s therapist. But no, that couldn’t be right — there was a familiarity there, an intimacy. They acted close, or at least she did, almost as if they shared a secret. The girl hoped aloud her roommate would be out so they could smoke a cigarette in her room. She was cold, and wrapped a knitted shawl around her shoulders. I wanted to touch her face.
Later she spoke of stories — a writer, then? Stories she was building out of real events, a compiled narrative. But it was always too soon after the incident to begin, and “sitting there,” she said, “talking about it with you, it’s so much clearer.” She gave her friend a cigarette, and rubbed her hands for warmth.
They got up to leave abruptly, and walked away behind me so that I had to turn around in my seat, crane my neck to watch them pause on the sidewalk corner, look at each other, and embrace. Still I couldn’t see the dark-haired girl’s face. But as they hugged she wrapped her arms tightly around her friend, and then she put one hand to her face and pulled her in, and whispered into her ear. It was furtive, charged. The red-headed girl leaned into her — they were so close — and they kissed or did they? I stole glances as much as I could. They wrapped up in each other’s arms and I felt a drop in my stomach, something sad. I wanted her hands on my face — her heat and comfort, her lips on my cheek, the soft slow dip of her head, the way her red hair fell forward and the way she swayed.
They seemed like lovers right then. But I couldn’t be sure. I watched as they rounded the corner and disappeared from view — half of me wanting to leap from my seat and follow, just to keep her in sight.
It was all in that moment: the embrace and the kiss, the strange warm intimacy and the pulling of a body to hers. She would comfort me, yes. She would be a heater in the cold. She would turn and look at me and put those delicate hands to me. The red ringlets, the hoops in her ears, the knitted shawl. These things would become familiar; I would know her stories. But she had already left, and now as I write this I can no longer see her face as I could a half-hour ago. She is memory and even if I ever saw her again I might not recognize her but for the way she leans in to another to kiss them.
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