We stood at the head of the zebra in Fayetteville, Arkansas, about to
tie the sema with over a hundred faces staring at us. I was
nervous; kept moving my weight from leg to leg atop hand-painted zebra
“rug” on the glazed concrete floor. The coffee house, Common
Grounds, had an exotic traveler motif in their side room - the room
where we met, the room we chose for our ceremony.
It was Brian’s idea to incorporate the sema - a hieroglyph of
intertwined lotus and papyrus plants representing the unification of
Upper and Lower Egypt. We used ribbon and literally tied the
knot. I was used to Egypt being an ever-present force. She
was ‘the other woman’ in our male-only relationship. She almost
kept us from being together at all.
When we met, three years earlier, I had been drinking a latte and
reading some novel that hasn’t survived in my head. Brian was
across the room, near the large, dark-with-night, plate glass window,
at a table of loud-talkers. It was the risk I took reading in a
public place. I attempted the same paragraph for a third time
when a loud, hearty, genuine guffaw filled the room. I looked up
and saw it erupt from the center of his tanned face. Someone
shushed him and his head turtled in giddy embarrassment. He
caught me right there.
I made myself look back to the page. My eyes ran over the
familiar, tired tracks of words. When chairs vibrated against the
concrete floor, my head darted up. A couple and their teenage
daughter moved toward the door. Brian’s eyes caught me keeping
track and he smiled. I awkwardly smiled back. He turned
away. The redheaded big guy at the table had stood up to tell
some tale that required space. I watched Brian listen – his elbow
on the forest-green-trimmed cherry wood table, his chin in his hand,
his eyes pointing up waiting to be filled.
I forced myself to look back at the page. I’d drive myself crazy
looking at him and wondering if his smile meant something. Could
he think I’m cute? Could we date? Would we celebrate our
first home together with wine or champagne? Okay, enough - read.
The counter – biscotti, chocolate-covered coffee beans, ‘Common
Grounds’ embossed matchbooks – was behind me. I was in eyeshot of
revelers passing to recaffeinate. I tried to look approachable,
tried to look interesting, tried to look
Hey-why-don’t-we-invite-him-over worthy. Brian passed twice and
each time, he made eye contact and the corners of his mouth hiked
up. But, he didn’t stop, or talk, or club me over the head and
drag me off or anything.
I was driving myself crazy. I was not being rational. It’s
a guy in a coffee shop. I’m already planning for our retirement
together based on a couple of smiles that were probably just polite,
I-give-this-to-everyone smiles. I had to reign in my emotions,
keep my feelings in check. Make sure I didn’t care too
much. Keep it calm. Just let it flow.
I was opening the novel again when I lifted my head and saw arms motioning me toward them. “C’mon,” they said.
A chair was wedged in for me, across from Brian but not directly.
He asked me who I was and why. A girl with short, blonde,
cropped-to-the-head hair punched him in the arm and shouted,
“Rude.” I talked and they listened, they talked and I
listened. I glanced at Brian – a lot. I think he was
glancing at me too. The large conversation broke down into a
half-dozen and faces paired up; do-si-do and they swung to new partners.
I was trying to listen to his friend Beth tell me about how she came to
own a dove, a lizard and a rabbit at the same time. I was nervous
and wondering if Brian would ask me out or how I might ask him
out. Faces melted away for me and soon I glanced at him so much I
was basically staring. Beth’s animal stories were the
soundtrack. I don’t think anyone noticed that I was
pathetic. I think I was playing it cool, keeping feelings in
check. The line blurs for me though. I had to make sure I
wasn’t caring too much, but I also didn’t want to leave without
trying. Before the roulette wheel took him away, I took a deep
breath, turned away from Beth and spit it.
“Would you like to go out sometime?” There, it’s out on the table
– the forest-green-trimmed, cherry wood, coffee-ringed table.
Silence. Not just the silence of him not answering, but also the
silence of the conversations not conversating. I had busted right
in – they had been talking and I blurted, busted, vomited the question
between them all.
“Um,” Brian hesitated and his eyes darted between faces. Was he looking for someone to rescue him? “I have to be honest.”
This is where he says it. I’m not attracted to you? I’ve
got a boyfriend? You’re not my type? I knew it. I
shouldn’t have done it. I had let my thoughts run wild. I
let myself care too much.
“I’m leaving for Egypt in two weeks,” he said.
This was worse than I thought.
“You know,” I said, opening my wallet and throwing cash onto the
table. “You don’t have to make up stories about leaving the
country. That’s a bit extreme. If you don’t want to go out
with me, just say so.”
I was turning away, resigned to a world of paperback romance, when my world switched.
“No, really. I’m going to Egypt.” His eyebrows rose, “I
just wanted you to know. After our date, I’ll be gone, out of the
country, for five months.”
“Oh. So, tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, tomorrow night’s great.”
And then I allowed myself to care.
