The Pregnant Pause

The Pregnant Pause.

The movie was good, if not a little long. The move of his right hand to my left knee took less time than expected then lingered far longer than I had anticipated. The topic of the movie was dark enough to not require a shoulder to cry on nor profound enough to need a talking about afterwards. It was perfect.

As the credits were rolling there was a brief discussion about the lead actor's past credits and whether or not we enjoyed his performance in said films and whether or not we thought his portrayal in this particular movie measured up. I thought that, indeed, they did, he seemed to not agree. His ability to debate on such inane matters both frustrated me and intrigued me. Why should he care so much about what I thought about Insert-Well-Known-Movie-Here, and then again, why did I care so much to dispute him. He laughed when I gave my impersonation of the final scene of the movie. His laugh annoyed me. There was something about it I didn't like. Then I felt bad and pretended I didn't really feel like that and waited till the aisles emptied enough so I could stand and stretch out my legs that were restless and cramped from too much slouching.

As the lights came up and the theatre cleared out, there was a pause. A heavy pause. A pregnant pause. Children were born during this pause. People died during this pause. The question was hanging like a hot air balloon: Is this it? Is the night over?

I collect my bag, expertly placed on the seat next to me to deter anyone from sitting there, breathing down my neck and crowding my space. I swap it from hand to hand as he assists me in the age old date ritual of putting on my coat. I thought for a moment he wanted to help me zip it up like my mom used to do, and sometimes my third grad teacher before recess. I quickly zip it up to avoid any further contact, swing my bag over my shoulder.

“Shall we?”

I make for the red glowing exit sign like a beacon of hope. We stop at the “gents” and he goes in for the third time in two hours. I wait. I do a little tap dance routine to amuse myself and pass the time. He comes out wiping his hands on his “trousers” and I smile. At least he washes his hands. Or maybe he has really bad aim...I put my hands in my pockets so he won't try to hold one. Which he doesn't.

On the street, it's pouring with rain. More rain than I've seen in weeks and weeks. The gutters are little white water rivers showing pop cans and various other bits of debris the ride of their life. The pause comes back. The big, swollen ankles, ice cream and pickles pause. This time it's said:

“Is this it? Is the night over?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty tired. I've got to get to bed. I still have to make it, too. I just washed my sheets.”

Wait! Stop. He'll think I'm trying to make my bed sound inviting...

“I mean, I'm looking forward to getting into them and stretching out...”

Shit! It's getting worse...

“You know, and just go to sleep. I'm really beat” I have never used the term “beat” before and it comes out sounding really weird. Like there was a beat before the ...beat.

He jumps over the rivers of the streets to hail me a cab. Or least I think he is. A yellow, wet and shiny taxi pulls over and I run through the deluge to get to it. He opens the door in the second tried and true date ritual of the evening and I get in shaking my short hair like a wet dog.

“We'll share it, then?”

“Ok, great.”

Shit.

He lives around the corner, just far enough that the walk would've saturated him in this weather, but still close enough that he could've easily walked. The taxi stops in front of his apartment building, the apartment building where he owns his own place with exposed brick and stone slab counter tops. The one my mom would have my stuff moved into in about 6 minutes flat. As he pays the cab driver his share of the fare, which is $2.26, he looks at me. The pre-natal breathing of the pause is in time with the bhangra music on the radio. The question starts to form on his lips. The question involving the possibility of coming in, sitting down, having a drink, sharing a kiss, then the off-taking of shoes, clothes, under-clothes and so on...


“Well, good-night”

I reach across and kiss him quickly on the lips. I make sure they're perfectly pressed together so there is no suggestion of the soft, inner part of my lower lip. This was a goodbye-grandma kiss.

“I'll talk to you soon” he says, somewhat crestfallen, and exits the cab back into the torrential downpour. I breathe a sigh of relief and exhaustion as the labour pains of the night subside. I tell the cab driver my address and off we go, not before glancing to my right to see him standing in the alcove of his building waving goodbye. I don't wave back as he wouldn't be able to see anyway, or maybe he would have.

We drive to my house, we being myself and my new best friend, Raj, the cab driver, who's telling me all about his attempts to lose weight and how his wife doesn't think he's trying.

“I try, you know this, I really do. I walk every day, every day I walk. I listen to music and I walk. She tells me I'm still too fat. What can I do? I try, you know this, I try”

I believe him and tell him it's probably just bad genes. I tell him as long as he's exercising he'll be keeping his heart healthy. A healthy heart is all that's really important.

Once at my house, I pay and tip and wish Raj well and run into my house as it's still raining household pets. My roommate is washing dishes...at 1 am. This is usual practice as we work odd hours and are rarely at home during normal dish-washing hours.

I take off my soaked coat and hang it on the back of the kitchen chair, which drives her crazy, but I do it anyway.

“Your phone is ringing.” she says through the din of dish water and clinking glasses.

“What?”

“Your phone...ringing.”

I search through my bag as the ringing continues but my new age super skinny, light weight phone seems to escape me. I get in time to hear the voice-mail beep, which is loud and annoying but i can't figure out how to change it.

You have one new message. To listen press one...

“Hi, it's Me. Just calling to make sure you got home alright. And i realized we didn't get a chance to talk about the movie. I know it takes time to digest and stuff, but we never got a chance to talk about it. Give me a call.”

Are you kidding? Seriously? It's been 10 minutes! I thought we did talk about it. The conversation went like this:

“That was a good movie. What did you think?”

“I liked it. I thought the ending was a bit....”

“Yeah, i know.”

“But it was good.”

“Yeah”

“Cool.”

What more was there to say?

I collect my clean sheets from the laundry room. They're still warm and they smell like dryer sheets.

Heaven.

Then comes the frustrating yet rewarding chore of making the bed. I think back to a not so distant time when I had help to make the bed. I think about the times we would put on the duvet cover, a job that never seems to get any easier. How good it felt to fall into the fresh sheets after struggling to put them on. How we'd make the bed just in time to mess it up all over again. I feel a little lump in my throat as I tuck in the corners of the sheet. My door suddenly gets nudged open and the lump gets frightened away. In trots my fat little cat who leaps onto the bed with more enthusiasm then I've seen from her in weeks. It's like she can sense a clean bed and can't wait to cover it with her shedded fur.

My roommate pokes her head in on the way to her room,

“So, was it him?”

“Yeah, he wanted to talk about the movie.”

“It's only been like 20 minutes since you saw him”

“I know! Whatever. He probably felt that I wasn't really into it.”

“But you're the one who asked him out in the first place, I thought you liked him”

“I did. Maybe. I don't know. I don't think I like anybody anymore. I think I'm immune to it now, liking people. I'm over it.”

“Maybe this one is just a dud”

“Yeah I guess. This sucks.” I flop down on my bed, narrowly missing the cat who is taking up a surprising amount of space.

“Are you going to call him back?”

“I don't know. I don't really have anything to say. Maybe if I just leave it, he'll stop calling me and I won't have to do anything.”

“Cause you love it when that happens to you...”

“Let's not make this about me...this is about passive-aggressively breaking up with someone I'm not really with in the first place, okay?”

“Whatever.”

With that she leaves to call her boyfriend who's probably on his way over so they can cuddle on the couch and make me feel like killing myself. Awesome. Can't wait.

My bed is warm and my cat nuzzles into my lower back as I contemplate falling asleep. From the other room, I hear my roommate giggle her you're-so-cute-that's-why-I-love-you laugh over the phone to her boyfriend then I hear the even louder, more annoying beep of an incoming text message on my phone. My roommate laughs her ha-ha-I'm-glad-I-don't-have-to-deal-with-that laugh and I bury my face in my pillow.

I wake up to three new messages of increasing impatient sweetness, the last one simply being a “ :)”

As if this constitutes a message, being that it's just punctuation.

I call him back three days later.

We see another movie.

This way we don't really have to talk too much.

I let him keep his hand on my left knee for the duration of the opening credits only because I can't be bothered to move away. Partway through the car chase scene he puts his arm around me. I find myself giving into the gravity of his weight around my shoulder. We also share a bottle of water, which in the grand scheme of things is much like kissing, what with germs and contagious diseases being passed most commonly through saliva.

The pause arrives at it's proper due date near the end of the movie. Right on time.

I agree to have a drink at his favorite “Watering Hole” though I make him promise not to call it that again in my presence.

It's a bench-seat style of restaurant. The idea being that the closeness of neighbouring diners might encourage a feeling of community and thus increase the over-all bohemian appeal of the establishment. Vive la Resistance and all that stuff. We get seated between two couples. One in the beginning stages of love, hands clasped across table, feet stroking legs beneath table, laughs and oh-stop-it's and coy looks above menus and wine glasses. I partly want to puke and partly want to join them in a threesome.

The other couple is young (yet older than me), married (matching white gold wedding bands), date-night (over-dressed), kids at in-laws (cell phone on table), nothing more to say, (too exhausted, maybe just sick of each other). Probably using gift certificates from said in-laws to pay for the over-priced meal that consisted of a pile of lettuce with goat's cheese for her and a clumsy tower of mussels for him. They also share a skinny, rectangular plate of chicken wings. When they're finished sucking the meat off the tiny bones and out of the greasy shells, what's left behind looks as though seagulls had eaten there first. Or an owl.

The best part about these types of restaurants is eavesdropping on other people's conversations and making silent judgments with your eyes to your dining partner. No such luck as we get a smattering doe-eyed gazes from the left and a handful of throat-clearing hums and huhs from the right, followed by at least 3 how's-he-doing phone calls when the husband gets up to smoke or relieve himself.

In the absence of such distractions I'm forced to have this conversation:

“So, you're the youngest?”

“Yep.”

“I'm the oldest. Well, kind of. I have three older half brothers, oh, and a half-sister who we're not really sure I'm related to. My dad married her mom on a Russian fishing boat in 1963.”

I look puzzled.

“You look puzzled. Well, they were only married for like a week, then she had to go back to her real husband. But one day we get this phone call from some woman claiming to be his daughter who was born in 1964...who knows. She's pretty cool. But she asked me once if I knew a good coke dealer. But other than that she's pretty cool.”

“Well, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Know a good coke dealer?”

He looks freaked out.

“Don't freak out, I'm joking.”

“Oh... Because I do.”

“Do what?”

“Know a good coke dealer.”

“Oh...Cool.”

Is he joking?

“I'm joking”

“I know”

I didn't know.

We laugh. His laugh doesn't bug as much as it did the first time I heard it. We relax a bit. I uncross my arms and cross my legs. We drink our imported beer and to the right the conversation gets interesting. Something about long hours at the office and late night phone calls. To the left, stroking feet and hands get a little too tame and ideas start to abound about where the night will lead them next. From across the table I get furtive eyes motioning me to whatever conversation is more appealing.

I laugh and the tiniest bit of beer comes out of my nose. I pass it off as a sneeze and smile in spite of myself.

To the right, the check comes and table's cleared. She puts on her own coat, picks up and dials her cell phone and announces to the listener that they are on their way home early. He is already outside smoking and watching the mob of drunk club-going girls in short dresses and high heels.

To the right, a stack of money, much more than the bill is worth, is left in haste on the table and in the blink of an eye the couple leaves, steam coming off their skin in the cool night air.

All alone. Almost closing time. Chairs on tables. Last call.

A pause.

Last last call. Money clinking in the cash register. The smell of bleach.
The cheque? One last drink? A handshake and a parting of ways? My heart beat quickens as my lamause breathing kicks in.

A long, painful pause. Fluorescent lights overtake candlelight.

The cheque? One last drink? A handshake and a parting of ways? My heart beat quickens as my lamause breathing kicks in.

Whee whee whoo...like in the movies...

Easy goes it. Just breathe.

Whee whee whoo...whee whee whoo...

But I think I'm ready to push.

“Let's go to my place for a bit. My roommate is at her boyfriend's tonight. He broke his hand playing hockey or something. She's playing nurse-maid. He's playing “pretend it hurts more than it does”. I have half a bottle of stale wine and pirated copy of insert-currently-popular-movie-here”

“That's not even out of theatres!”

“I got it at the Night Market. The ending doesn't work, but we saw it already anyway. Shall we?”

“Sure. That sounds really good. I'll go pay the bill”

And I go outside to hail a cab.

A street kid wanders by. His shaggy hair and plaid shirt look a little too perfectly chosen to have been by accident. I realize it's not a street kid at all but a local guy heading into the bar next door. Hipster or Hobo? The line gets more blurred with every passing trend. Still, I hold my bag a little tighter to my side. He might decide it would look good with his outfit. Which it would.

A cab rolls to a stop in front of me. I look to see if it's my old friend Raj at the wheel. It's not. I climb inside and am quickly joined in the backseat by my...date. He sits not in the middle like I half expected, half hoped he would, but by the window and does up his seatbelt. This makes me like him.

The cab driver speaks next to no English and takes the wrong turn twice. Upon finally arriving we pool together our loose change to cover the fare and against our better judgment leave him a pretty good tip. Soon we're at my front door, fumbling through my bag for my keys in the dark. The motion sensor light stopped working last month and we keep forgetting to tell our landlord. The door opens and my cat bolts out into the night. I swear under my breath as I know she won't come home until morning. I can expect her meowing at my window come dawn, hungry and possibly with new scratches on her ears. She's scrappy and the cat next door has a crush on her.

Lights on, shoes off, music on.

“This is it...kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms are over th---”

I stop because I find it hard to continue my sentence with his hands around my waist.

“---um...over there....and the laundry...room....is um...out back...um....wine?”

“What?”

“Wine. Do you want some?”

“Nope”

“Ok. Um....water? Or tea? I have like, five different kinds....?”

“No thanks.” He's kinda swaying back and forth.

“Right. Ok....” He's looking at me. Like, right at me. It's do or die time. There's only two things you can do when you're standing that close to someone: Kiss them or Kill them. Although stabbing him did seem like an interesting option only because I've never killed someone before and wonder what it might be like, but instead I decide on the former and kiss him.

It's a good kiss. There are no awkward misplaced lips or tongues. No hitting of teeth. No over-salivating or over-dryness...just really good placement of inner lips and hints of tongues and ever so often the slightest idea of a biting and tugging of lower lips. Playful. Sarcastic. Cliché, even. We pull apart, we look at each other, we laugh, we kiss again. We both know it's really good. Too good. I think we both secretly hoped it wouldn't be this good. Dammit.
Time passes, standing becomes sitting, sitting becomes lying, lying becomes climbing, climbing becomes something else entirely. And so it goes.

Mouths.

Mouths on mouths, mouths on throats, mouths on earlobes, on fingertips.

Hands.

Hands in hands, hands in hair, hands in shirts, in pants.

Breathing hard, laughing harder. Clothes pile up on the floor as the grappling trek to the bedroom commences in varying states of undress.

Lights on or off?

Do I want him to see me in all my I-used-be-in-great-shape glory? My new tan lines and newer stretch marks glowing in the semi darkness? Do I want him to see my private protest against the disturbing trend of Brazilian waxing?

He flips the light on.

I flip it off.

He flips it on again.

I flip it off.

“What?”

“Nothing” I kiss him hard hoping to distract him.

“Come on...let me see you”

“How about not.”

“Why not? I think you're beautiful”

“Of course you do, You're trying to sleep with me.”

“Shut up. You're gorgeous.”

“Shut up. You look like a toad.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“That's it, you're dead!”

And with that I'm being carried like an injured soldier to the bed. I screech out in protest, but sexy protest. I get flung onto the bed, legs and arms all akimbo. I laugh as he pins me down and tickles me. I flail and scream and try to box about his ears with my panicked limbs. He laughs a slightly maniacal laugh and is determined to teach me a lesson about comparing him to warty amphibians. I make contact with my left foot to his right testical and he utters a low groan and rolls over onto his back.

“I'm so sorry! Are you ok?”

“I hate you so much right now.”

“Too late, you said I was beautiful.” I try to lighten the mood.

“I take it back” He's wincing.

“You said I was gorgeous”

“I lied. You look like a cat's butt.”

“You like me.”

“Can't prove it. Besides, I think you may have just made me into a woman...”

“I could swing that way...for the right girl” and I kiss him again.

I must not have injured him too badly as the rest of the night contested to that very fact.

At around 6 am, there's a meow at my window. First it's short and demanding then long and distressed. She's trying to make me feel guilty for not chasing her down through the bushes at 2 o'clock in the morning. I feel no such guilt but the meowing is a little much and I sleepily get up and climb over the semi-snoring mass of arms and legs next to me. He sleeps on his stomach, pillow pushed aside, face down, nose pressed awkwardly to one side. It looks far from comfortable but he seems not to mind. I try really hard not to wake him. I don't want it to be weird. But it will be. Of course it will be.

He slightly stirs as I open the door and leave my room. I look over the clothes strewn about the floor in a Hansel and Gretel-like path to the bedroom. I pick up random socks and errant underwear on my way to the front door, well, side door, really. Living in basement suites of rich people's homes rarely afford one the luxury of an actual front door. The deadbolt slides and I turn the door knob.

Without even having to open the door, the cat impatiently nudges her fat little face through the crack of space and squeezes past me in a huff to her food dish. She meows while eating. She's trying to tell me all about her wild night on the town but not for a second wanting to stop eating long enough to tell it properly. I shake my head as this is nothing new and I return to my room. He's still asleep, or at least he's pretending to be. I know this trick. I invented this trick. Pretend to be asleep, and then when your bed partner returns, slowly roll over and sleepily say something like “what time is it” or “mmmm...is it time for breakfast?”. The sleepier you act , the cuter you are.

I get into bed.

A deep inhale from beside me...like waking up from a dream. So fake.

“Is it time for coffee?” he stretches.

A slight variation. I like it.

“No, go back to sleep, I just had to let the cat in.”

“Mmmmm...Ok.” He slides his arms around me and I get under the covers. He feels hot from sleep and his hair is matted to his forehead like a little boy woken up by a fever in the night. His arms around me feel heavy but strong. He breathes into the back of my neck and his muscles begin the familiar twitching dance of falling asleep. My eyes feel heavy but I want to feel this a bit longer. I want to know this warmth, this heaviness, this skin upon skin stickiness, this heat in all the right places just a while longer before it's morning for real and we have to deal with tomorrow. Right now is the middle ground where we're neither here nor there, right nor wrong. We have no questions or answers just the right now. The last night. The I-can't-wait-to-brush-my-teeth feeling but enjoying the fact that I had good reason not to the night before. I feel like a job well done and night well spent. I would pat myself on the back but I prefer his stubbly cheek against it instead, scratching me gently with each inhale.

Morning does come by early afternoon as we can no longer ignore the mid-day sun blinding us through mid-closed venetian blinds or our growling stomachs who seem to be in perfect chorus with each other.

“Is that you or me?”

The cat sleeps at the foot of the bed purring as she breathes in and out.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah, I did. Did I snore?”

“Almost, but I stopped you. Three times.”

“I'm sorry. You can just kick me next time.”

Next time. Right. There it is. He put it out there. It's there and you can't take it back. It's hanging over me like a pinata waiting for me to bust it open with blind-folded questions of “what does this mean” and “so, what are we?”...Us-questions. I hate those questions. They give me anxiety.

So I ignore them. I turn on the stereo. Music. The cure for everything.

“I have to pee."

He makes a move then realizes he's been sleeping nude. There's a quick moment of hesitation, of negotiation in which to decide if was going to bare it all and forget morning after protocol, or search about the sheets for his shorts...wait...briefs? No, shorts. Probably shorts. There's a hesitation then a move. A bold naked move. For some reason men seem to have an easier time with this dilemma. I, on the other hand, have been wearing a full tank and brief ensemble since the cat first meowed my day into action. There was too much flesh on the sheets. Without the heat attached to it, the cotton against my skin feels too intimate. I need a layer of protection from myself.

I can hear him peeing and then the smallest sound of him passing morning wind. I laugh under the sheets so he won't hear my juvenile response to his basic human bodily functions. But farting is so funny. I don't care who are, it just is. I imagine cavemen sitting around their first campfire, regaling in their newfound genius, then one of them lets out an enormous fart and they all grunt low, loud cave-man laughs. Ever to go down in history as the World's First Joke.

The toilet flushes, water runs in the sink, he clears out his morning phlegm in a guttural snort and disgusting spit. He's one of those guys. I didn't have him pegged for one of those guys. I'm not too sure how I feel about that.

He comes back into my room, I have to look away from his blinding humility only because this is the first time I've really seen him...all of him...and I'm not quite sure what to do with this sight. He's so confident and makes no attempt to shield himself or cover his...parts. This makes me more uncomfortable because now I feel like I, too, should feel unabashed, uninhibited, undressed and proud of it. But I don't. I pull the covers a bit tighter around me.

“So? Coffee? Breakfast? What should we do?” He kisses me on my shoulder, my only exposed piece of flesh. A verification. A validation of last night's events. A testing of boundaries.

He smiles.

I panic.

“Actually, I have a ton of stuff to do today. I should really get moving.”

“Oh. Ok. So I guess I should go?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” And I'm talking. At least it sounds like me. I'm not even sure what I'm saying... “I have to run a bunch of errands and stuff...”

“Yeah. Sure. No big deal. Um...I guess I'll just get my stuff together.”

“I brought in all your clothes from the living room...” I point to the pile of wrinkled clothes at the foot of the bed. They still smell like last night.

“Oh, thanks.” He starts by putting on his shorts (I knew it!) and pulls on his t-shirt in the sexy way that only some guys have managed to master. As he zips up his jeans, I look out the window so he can't see me blushing. He puts on his socks inside-out but doesn't seem to notice or mind.

He puts on his hoodie by first putting in his left arm, hooking the hood onto his head then slipping in his right arm. I look out the window again until I hear the zipper reach the base of his throat.

“So...I guess I'll go.”

“Ok” I say this before even thinking it.

“Right. You're sure about breakfast?”

“Yeah. I gotta get in the shower. To get ready for the day. For the errands and stuff. Sorry.”

“Sure, so I'll just let myself out?”

“Um, yeah, ok.” Still not thinking. Going into complete survival mode. Fight or Flight.

In T-minus 10...9...8...7....

“So, can I call you later?” I look out the window again.

6....5....4....

“Yeah, sure...I've got a really busy week coming up...maybe the weekend?”

“The weekend...right...ok...sure. Well I'll call you.”

3..2..

“You've got my number” Of course he does. This is getting painful. I want to smother myself just so it will end faster.

....1.....

“Yeah. I do. Ok. So, I'll talk to you soon.” He reaches over the rumpled sheets and the sleeping cat to kiss me. I turn my face so it falls half on my mouth, half on my cheek.

Blastoff.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hear the shuffle of him putting on his shoes and then the door opens and closes.

Gone.

I sink into my blankets and bury my face into the pillow. It smells like his hair. I let out a muffled scream and thrash about enough that my cat flies out of pleasant cat-dream and bolts out of the room.

I lie there surrounded by his smell and the memory of his weight upon my mattress. What the hell just happened? For a fleeting moment I entertain the idea of chasing after him down the street, offering up some lame excuses for my behavior. Tales of broken-hearts and jaded trust and bulky baggage worn thread-bare from too many return trips from serene destinations. He would turn to me, arms open and say he accepts me for who I am and where I've been and enfold me in his embrace and we'd laugh and sigh and kiss...and spin around in a circle. And it maybe it would start to rain. And we'd just spin and laugh and kiss in the rain and the credits would roll and everything would be great.

But he's long gone. The bus stop is on the corner and the number 3 runs every 10 minutes. I'm left here to berate myself and it feels all so familiar. Defense is the best offense and I just played the game of the season. I'm the MVP of self-preservation and the trophy is a big, lonely black void where my heart used to be.

Every mistake I've ever made seems to flutter through my mind like a twisted slide-show, faces in shadow and voices long and low like their batteries are running out. All the ones who were too short, the ones who pronounced it “supposibly”, the ones who hated their mothers, the ones who had more light-sabers than books and more hair-gel than brains, ones that drank, ones that swore, ones who wouldn't give their seats to old ladies.

The ones I loved too much.

The ones who didn't love me enough.

The ones I pretended to be in love with.

The ones who loved me enough to let me go.

They all glare at me from their boxes of old letters and ticket stubs in the cobwebbed corners of my memory. The what-could-have-been gets more and more fantastical; the would-be love affairs make mockeries of the ones I've actually managed to experience and still I'm left with nothing but a rumbling stomach, hungry and unsatisfied.

Then.

A ringing.

Loud and annoying. Insisting and alarming. My phone is ringing from somewhere unseen. I leap out of bed and dig through the discarded clothing and condom packages on the floor. The ringing reaches the familiar frantic point where the voice-mail kicks in. I keep searching, swearing under my breath and cursing technology for making my phone so fucking small. Then the unmistakable beep. I really wish I knew how to change it.

One new message. To listen press one...

“Hey. It's me. I know you said you're busy, but listen, I'm at the place down the street you said was good. I ordered the omelet...the one with the strawberries you told me about. And I ordered you the waffles. With a side of sausages. And the biggest coffee I've ever seen. Now if you don't come down and eat all this, I'll look like a complete idiot, which I'm fully prepared to do. Hell, I have no problem eating the waffles and sausages too...but I'd really like you to join me. It's ummm...12:30...I hope you'll come down.”

It seems as though this particular game has gone into extra innings. Maybe it's sudden-death overtime. Maybe the whole game will be called due to inclement weather but for some reason, I don't care.

He ordered me waffles.

I love waffles.

I throw on some jeans and pull on my t-shirt in the usual way that all girls do, and I put on a toque so as not to announce to the whole world that I haven't washed my hair yet. I opt for boots rather than shoes, faster, easier, it's 12:36, my waffles might be getting cold.

My feet, weighted with heavy sleepiness and heavier boots trip along themselves as I make my way to the cafe. It's cooler than it's been all week and my breath forms quick-lived clouds with each exhale. Tomorrow it will be winter and I'll be left to wonder where my year went. But today it's 12:45. I'm imagining the cream swirling in my coffee.

The neighborhood black cat crosses my path but the day is too lucky for me to even care. She presents her soft belly to me on the sidewalk as she does whenever I pass her, but I have no time to stroke her humbleness today. It's 12:49. I can almost see his gapped smile and his messy hair.

The cafe is crowded and I maneuver around people on bikes saying goodbye to each other. I open the door, it's warm inside and smells like coffee and sausages. It's 12:52. I'm sweating from the rush and the sudden change of temperature. I'm panting slightly as the wind seems to have been sucked from me. I'm nervous. I'm embarrassed. I'm starving.
I see him. By the window, leaning on his elbow, looking out into the world. There's a untouched omelet and a similarly untouched stack of waffles and two giant cups of coffee, each steaming white swirls into the atmosphere.

“Hi”

“Hi”

“You're here. I wasn't sure...”

“I'm just here for the waffles.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought. Good thing I didn't eat them or I guess you would've just left.”

“Probably. I just really love waffles.”

“Well, I guess I chose right then. Sit down, you're making me feel like a jerk for not standing up
like a gentleman.”

A gentleman. Who says chivalry is dead? I got myself a knight in shining waffles. I grin in spite of myself and sit down.

“I'm sorry I was such a...that I acted so...I'm just so....”

“It's ok. I get it. Don't let me push you.”

“Don't let me push you away.”

“Deal.”

A pause. A long pause. From across the cafe, someone sneezes really loud, someone laughs, the
clanging of pans from the kitchen, the clamour of coffee pots and the rise and fall of collective conversations. All of the sudden the pause seems so much less important. So much less dense.

Life continues to pulsate around us and the decisions we make seem infinitely small in comparison. This realization makes me smile.

Just then our pregnant pause crowned.

“What?”

And it's a boy. A beautiful boy.

“Nothing. Thanks for the waffles.” I put my hand on his which is wrapped around his coffee cup.

“Anytime...Like seriously anytime. This place has all day breakfast.”

“Awesome.” And we're holding hands. Holding hands with interlocked fingers. Holding hands the real way.

And life continues on.

But just a little bit better.