by
Robert Alan Silverstein
"So,
I read your story," she said nervously, staring at her coffee
cup to avoid looking at me.
I swallowed a large sip of my own coffee, watching her nervously
myself. My previous meetings with people who'd answered my
online ad hadn't gone very well, and the obvious tension here
was definitely starting to feel pessimistically foreboding.
And yet, I was also feeling a bit cautiously optimistic at
the same time. "Umm..." I said hesitantly, "which one?"
"You
know..." she started, still staring at her cup. "The one about
the woman who answers the craigslist ad for a collaborator
to write the perfect story ..." she blurted out in an adrenalin
burst. "The story about a ragtag team working together to
change the world ..."
That was one of my favorite ones that I'd posted on my webpage.
Maybe this meeting would turn out better than the others.
She bit her lip, swallowed, put her cup down and reached into
the pocket of her jacket lying over the seat next to her.
I watched in puzzled anticpation as she pulled out some folded
pages and placed them deliberately on the table.
The buzz of conversations all around us was completely drowned
out by a growing bubble of silence as I watched her carefully
unfold the papers. She bit her lip again as she stared at
the pages and continued in another burst "... And while they're
writing it they fall in love ... and after they write it and
put it out there, that utopian team starts to come together
in real life..."
As she pressed the pages open, erasing the creases, she gazed
defiantly, almost angrily up at me. But as our eyes met, her
expression softened. "You know...'Utopian Meet-Cute'," she
added, her delivery a little more collected as our gazes lingered.
Before my brain could even form a response, she lowered her
eyes back to the pages. "It's not going to happen," she said
with a dramatic sigh.
"I...Uh..So...
you didn't like it?" I muttered, feeling dejected and depressed
as I took another long sip of coffee, totally unsure how to
read or react to her confusing emotional presentation. Like
all the others, this meeting definitely seemed to be going
about as bad as I dreaded it would when I'd received her text
to meet up.
"No.
I mean yes, I liked it," she said softly, almost smiling as
she folded the pages back into quarters, and then methodically,
unfolded them again and pressed them flat. "That's why I'm
here." She swallowed again. "It's... well. As much as I'd
like to, I don't think I'm in a place to actually dedicate
my life to trying to create a global movement...but I really
would like to collaborate to write about a team that does..."
Oh.
That sounds hopeful... Maybe this might work out after all.
Before
I could reply that I felt the same way, she continued. "But
we're not going to fall in love!" she definitively declared.
"Oh,
um... well, yeah..." I practically stuttered. "That... that
was just in the story."
We sat in more uncomfortable silence as we stared at our coffee
cups.
"Well
probably not..." I heard her barely whisper as a smile flickered
across her face.
"I
brought that sample story you requested in your ad," she said
suddenly, jarring the smile that had started to form on my
own lips. "This is something short I'd written a while ago,
but it kind of seems relevant," she sighed as she hesitantly
pushed the pages across the table.
I swallowed nervously as I reached clumsily for them. Our
fingers touched briefly in the exchange before we both reflexively
pulled our hands away. A warm, euphoria spread up my fingers
and washed over me leaving me strangely hopeful as I stared
at the pieces of paper. That euphoric excitement grew as I
pulled the pages closer and began to read. Her words took
me exactly where I'd hoped they would. With each line, I became
more and more convinced that this stranger sitting across
the table truly understood me in a way that no one else ever
had.
"You
hate it, don't you," she sighed, jolting me out of the melancholy
bliss of her story and back to reality.
I looked up. She was gazing uncertainly at me.
"No
...," I sighed contentedly, still feeling comfortably numb.
"... It's wonderful!"
We sat there in another long moment of silence, gazing into
each other's eyes.
"So,
how do we start?" she said softly.
"I
guess we already have," I replied.
We both smiled and sipped our coffees.
©
2023 Robert Alan Silverstein
