“Wha— what can I get you?” she stutters and fumbles with her notepad, her eyes locked on Eric’s arms. They really are distracting. I’m pretty sure his muscles have muscles. I avert my eyes from the slopes of his arms and focus on the lopsided wind chime that dangles on the deck of the shop outside. It jingles a mesmerizing tune in the breeze.
“Kate?”
I blink out of the hypnotic clutch the chime has on me and turn back to Eric. He looks at me expectantly. “Yes?” I ask.
“How have you been?”
“Good, good. Camp has been great.” I nod erratically and take another sip of coffee.
“It has, huh?”
I nod, unsure how to carry this conversation forward. The big question of, Why are we here?weighs on my chest. His coffee appears on the table, and he takes a sip, awkward silence filling the space. I tap the rim of my mug, willing the universe to bless me with the gift of gab, like my lola, but I come up short. By how skittery Eric’s eyes are, I can tell he’s struggling too.
Another moment of silence passes. “So…” we say in unison.
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, and the sight warms my chest. It’s almost enough to dissipate the heavy weight settling there—unsure if it’s the awkward tension or a little bit of indigestion from the heavy taste of whole milk swirling within my coffee.Oat milk, Chad. I asked for oat milk.I force another gulp down my throat, wincing at the ache it leaves behind.
“What’s been new with you?” Eric asks, draining his iced latte and slurping the empty cup aggressively. The noise is loud and obnoxious, drawing attention to our table. A few patrons, including the waitress, glance at us as annoyance fills their eyes. Eric then proceeds to shake his cup full of ice at the waitress, mouthing the word,“Refill.”The scene plays in slow motion, a rerun I’ve seen one too many times. It sends a chill of discomfort down my spine. His table manners were always maddening, making me wish I could morph into a turtle and retract into my shell, or a chameleon so I can blend into my surroundings.
Instead, I just cover half of my face and look out the window, waiting for the exchange of glasses to happen without internally combusting from embarrassment.
“Thanks,” Eric says as the waitress drops off his drink, topped with extra whipped topping. Clearly, she is too infatuated with his charm to be offended by table manners. An elderly couple at the table in front of us, however, is not, as they stare daggers at him above their crossword puzzles. “So, what’s new?” he asks me again as he shifts his weight onto the two back legs of his chair.
I try not to gawk at him as the chair legs scrape the floor, reminding myself that I am no longer tied to this behemoth caveman. “Not much.” I try to clear the remains of my coffee from the inside of my throat. “We placed second at state last year. The kids have done great with their standardized tests since we changed our format. Emma stepped in to coach cheer when Maddie left, and Benny is currently interviewing to fill the vacant history position.”
“Sounds about the same.” He gives a courtesy kind of smile. “What about Malcolm?”
Malcolm.
I hesitate to respond, unsure of where to begin in regard to my friend and current room buddy. My phone buzzes a one, two, three pattern underneath my thigh—the pattern designated for Malcolm. And then another one.
Either he has me bugged and is currently listening in on this conversation, or the universe is playing me right now.
I shimmy my leg over and pull my phone out casually. “Oh, you know, Malcolm is Malcolm.” I wave my words away, as if it will be enough for me to not drift off into thinking about him in the middle of this coffee date.
Eric chuckles but says nothing, just watches me as he slurps his latte, letting the painful silence drag on.
“What are we doing here, Eric?” I finally ask on an exhale.
He takes another slow sip before responding, almost to the end of his second drink. I can’t endure another slurping debacle,so I rush the conversation along. “Look, if there isn’t a purpose to this meeting, I should really be getting back.”
I go to stand from the table, and he stops me with his big hand wrapping around my elbow. “Wait, I just…” He looks around, embarrassment pinking his cheeks, and whispers, “I wanted to catch up. I’ve missed you.” Releasing my elbow, he watches me, his dark eyes misty and weighted. Something about his admission draws me in, not because I want him to have been missing me—although it feels nice to be missed by someone—but because I know Eric. We had a life together, and that history doesn’t just go away. In some ways, I’ve missed him too. I sit back down and gesture for him to continue.
“Life has been crazy, Kate. Dawson is running me ragged. We’ve lost three scholarship donors, and my replacement backed out for next season. I haven’t been home to see my family in almost a year.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a breath.
His sweet family—the family I thought I would call my own one day. They live less than an hour from me, and the desire to run up to see them has always been in the back of my mind since we broke up. Tricia, his mom, was always so loving and supportive, filling the void my own mother left. I can remember the first time meeting her. Her curly hair was pinned back, and she was wearing a light-blue polka-dot dress with a linen apron hanging around her shoulders, untied in the back. It was covered in chocolate frosting. Vegan frosting. From the chocolate cake she made for me. Before even meeting me, she was baking for me. I can’t tell you the last time my own mother did anything remotely generous like that for me.
“Poor Trish, I bet she misses you terribly.”
“She does. And she likes to remind me every day how long it’s been since I’ve seen her,” he groans, pulling out his phone andopening up the text thread between them. The last text she sent reads,‘286 days since I’ve seen my son.’”
I choke out a laugh. “She was never one for subtlety.”
We both laugh, sharing a fondness for his mom. “I was just…” He pauses, exhaling a slow breath. “I was just so pumped when Dawson said I could come to camp. I knew you’d be here. I’ve wanted to reach out, see how you were. I figured you hated me, so I haven’t, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to bump into you.” His words flow out of him at record speed, like he’s been holding them back for days. He leans back in his chair and looks out the coffee shop window. I follow his gaze. People are starting to venture out to the shops or toward the beach to start their morning. The coffee shop sits at the top of a hill that overlooks the beach, and a walking path sits on the edge of their small parking lot. A bright, crisp blue coats the sky now with streaks of orange scattered along the lower edge that meets the shore, the sun in the midst of rising above the ocean.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Eric asks, his eyes softening as he watches the sun.
“Do you get many views like this in Michigan?” I ask, watching a family of five pile out of their minivan and race each other down the walking path.
