Chapter Seven #2
The next coffee house I come to is busy.
I’m fifth in line and the line is building up behind me.
I’ve decided not to make it awkward. I smile and make small talk with people around me.
When I get to the register, I order some kind of haughty iced tea with antioxidants, overpay, and then speak quietly when I ask the clerk to apply the change to the customer behind me.
The clerk understands my meaning, and smiles quickly.
As I wait for my drink, it’s clear there’s no hiding when the guy behind me arrives at the cashier, orders, listens, and then turns to me with a nod and a “thanks.” I’m moved that all the other indicators are present: the focus shift, the body posture, the active presence.
But, the smile and kind words make it feel so grounded.
Like we’re real people and not part of some theoretical system.
It’s not awkward. It’s also not self-gratifying.
It’s just simple humanity at its finest and messiest.
As the day progresses, I make my way to several more coffee shops in town and order only water, but leave cash for the next customer. I’m so past the I’m-afraid-to-feel-awkward phase, can’t possibly drink any more coffee, and I know what I want, so I just make it happen.
Later in the afternoon, I’m ready to brave more caffeine, and decide that my pay-it-forward day needs to wrap up in a final order of my usual.
I’m at Harold’s Coffee in downtown, near Brick Street, and I decide that I’m going to buy a coffee, relax on their patio and just absorb the rest of the day.
I discover that after a full day of talking to cashiers, I have a new appreciation for all things coffee-house related, and spend more time than usual making small talk with the clerk, smiling and laughing like we’re old friends.
I order my flat white when it happens: “Your coffee order has already been paid for,” the cashier tells me.
I’m stunned. I stand erect, looking around the room quickly, then back again. I can’t move and I have no words. I think I’m trying to fumble for my wallet, and conjure up a reply, but mostly I’m just mouth breathing.
“The customer before you,” she says, “just wanted to wish you well!”
My mind spirals.
I stumble through enough words to explain that I don’t want to break the chain, and I’m still paying for the next customer. It feels like the clerk has been doing this awhile and knows what to do, which makes things easier. And hopeful!
I shuffle over to the counter to wait, my mind is a blur.
I haven’t been to Brick Street today, so this is not my doing.
This must be the work of my secret person, in this coffee house today, somewhere in the chain of paying-it-forward.
I can’t help but wonder how far away on that chain we are.
Is my secret person in the room? Or, did this chain start early this morning?
I had wondered if this could possibly happen today, and now I can’t fully process it.
I feel a strange warmth pulsing through my body as my name is called, the next customer happens to nod and thank me, and I find a quiet seat on the patio with my coffee.
I can’t stop smiling.
I’m savoring every sip, because this happens to be the best coffee I’ve had all day. I’m also wondering: Did I buy a cup of coffee for my secret person today, too? The thought is too immense for my brain, and I just enjoy the moment of wonder.
I find myself wishing for Martin, and wondering if he happened to receive a paid-for coffee today?
I genuinely hope so.
My mind is spinning with wonder and wishing when something occurs to me, something that floors me: I’ve spent the whole day drinking coffee all by myself. Totally alone. Just me and my cup.
Sure, I’ve had the opportunity to watch others experience the moment where they feel appreciated and human, but on a real level, I shared this day with no one.
I feel suddenly heavy, like my shoulders weigh a million pounds, like if I lean too hard on this table, the metal will crumple. My heart bounces around inside my chest and a surge of heat rises behind my eyes.
“I can’t do this,” I find myself saying aloud, the words painful.
I look around the patio, wondering how loud I actually say it.
No one turns to see. In fact, everyone at the coffee shop patio is neatly paired off into various groupings, and this realization punches me in the gut.
I find solace in the fact that there is one man, alone, working diligently on his laptop, but my brain justifies his solitude as productivity, which more deeply categorizes my purposeless existence as straight-up loneliness. My stomach tenses.
I can’t face it and look away, staring at my fingers as they spin my cup around and around in random intervals.
What am I feeling? Why now?
And the thought trickles down my spine like drips from a warming icicle: I haven’t done any of these adventures with my secret person. I’ve done all of them with Martin. The singing, the swinging, the thrifting. All with Martin.
Ever since I stole that dumb book, I haven’t been alone with my secret person. I’ve had Martin with me, either by coincidence or invitation, and I’ve loved every minute of it.
Except today.
Today was just me. And my secret person, of course, but only felt as an absence.
I sip my coffee as my mind grows numb from the weight.
I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this alone.
This time the thought spirals through the patio around me.
I can’t think straight and I’m being pummeled with a million questions: Do I even want to continue with my secret person?
Can I change the game? How do I communicate with them?
How much of this should I share with Martin?
What kind of ungrateful person am I that I would respond this way to such a great gift?
I’m not even sure where to start. The spiral is so overwhelming, I focus on just finishing my coffee. Alone.
The afternoons at the gym are busy, so we’re fortunate enough to snag a flat bench for pressing.
Usually I work out in the afternoons and Martin mostly goes early in the morning, and I mean early.
He’s a crack-of-dawn riser whereas I can’t make much sense of the world until I’ve had some caffeine and some daylight for a while.
Today we’re working out together just because we’ve both been busy and figure it’s a good way to hang out.
“How’s your mom doing?” I ask in-between bench press sets. Martin can lift heavier than me, so we’re always loading and unloading the bar as we take turns spotting for each other. Today is chest and shoulders day.
“Better,” he says, huffing a weight plate off the bar, leaning it nearby because it will go right back on after my lift. “She’s almost feeling like herself again.”
“It was her heart?” I take my spot on the bench, aligning myself with the bar.
“Cardiac arrhythmia, they call it. She just mostly felt run-down, a little dizzy. Then she started experiencing a shortness of breath, but they’ve looked her over, gave her something, and she’s back at home.”
“Glad to hear,” I say. I watch as his eyes seem to focus on some distant place, well beyond anything in the gym.
Martin has always been close with his family. His mom and dad live in town and he keeps in contact with his brother and sister even with their families and all. I’m always hearing stories about his nephews, who are toddlers.
“Me too,” he says distantly. “Dad is really worried, like something more might be up. Hope not. Sometimes he has a sixth sense about things.”
I finish my set, rack the bar with Martin’s help.
“Hope she’s okay,” I say.
We retreat to our places on each side of the bar to reload for Martin’s set. The benches on either side of us are being used, so we try to stay clear of the other moving parts of the gym. Martin takes his turn, lifting and heaving, stretched out on the bench.
This process repeats itself for several sets, and we snag an incline bench just as another pair are wiping it down and gathering their things.
We begin loading the bar.
“So what’s the latest with your secret person?” he asks, slamming the plate flush.
I freeze for a moment, looking at the floor.
I feel the ghost of a coffee cup in my hand, the vapor of loneliness rises in my chest, mixing with the shadow of joy I feel about the possibility that my secret person bought me a coffee, maybe.
My chest tightens and I look at Martin, who is casually waiting for my response.
My brain tries to assemble the words to explain all this to him, but I hear myself saying instead, “Coffee.”
The clinking sound of weight plates echo around us for a moment.
“We bought coffee for each other, I think.” Martin looks at me like he knows something.
There’s a twinkle in his eye I can’t identify.
Can he read my thoughts? “We spent the day buying coffee for the person behind us in line at coffee shops. Sort of a pay-it-forward day to see how many chains of kindness we could start. It was fun.”
How can I possibly explain to him that I wished he was there?
That this was the first time my secret person and I were actually together-separately alone?
Instead, I take my place on the bench, searching the bar with my thumbs for the best grip angle, and maybe other answers, too.
On an incline press you sit at, well, an incline, so it’s easier to have a conversation which somehow helps me focus on the details.
“I tried to buy a coffee at Harold’s, you know, in Bricktown, and my coffee was already paid for. ”
He looks at me, smiling.
“I think it was my secret person,” I say flatly, lifting the bar with a grunt.
There’s an unwritten rule about lifting: when your partner is lifting, the conversation stops, so Martin says nothing. We let the rep-counting speak for itself. I rack the bar again, standing to help reload the weight.