a fine cup of tea
fiction by ann gonzalez
Normally I enjoy coming to Joe's Diner for my afternoon tea. Today it has too much chrome. I see my reflection everywhere I turn. As a result the diner seems over-crowded and oppressive. My middle-aged face, rugged and without makeup, stares at me from the silvery backsplash and a wavy fun-house grimace peers from the ribbon-edge of the chrome counter. My reflection even mocks me from the side of the mini-jukebox installed in my booth. Absent-mindedly I flip through the album choices trying to turn my dour image into an enthusiastic smile, but a snarl is all I can muster. Anyway, there isn't anything I want to listen to.
Damn I wish I wasn't so miserable.
At once I become aware that I am quite warm sitting here in my heavy wool overcoat. It has been bitingly cold these past few days. To combat the chill metastasizing in my bones I have been dressing warmly. I don layer after layer, as I prepare to wander aimlessly through the streets, each Monday and Wednesday. Week after week for six months now this has been my habit. Well I am not wandering aimlessly really; I always end up here, at Joe's Diner, for a cup of tea and a plate of cinnamon toast. I don't know why I limit my roaming to just two days per week. On the other five I do nothing more than sit in a chair and stare out a window in a kind of somnambulistic trance. I should walk every day; it feels good to get outside.
“Excuse me hon can I get you something?” I am interrupted by the stereotype of a 1950's hip-hop waitress, forty years after losing her hop and gaining her hip. She is wearing the traditional pink waitress outfit with the ridiculous white cap to match. She isn't chewing gum, but she might as well be; you think she is when she stands with her hands on her hips, holding a little green notepad in one and a pot of hot coffee in the other. As you would expect, a pencil is tucked behind her ear. She greets me with the same posture every time I eat here. Today, I glare at her.
“I act as though I have never forgotten anything, as though I have long forgotten what it means to be pleasant. ”
“Yes ma'am, I'd like a cup of tea, with very hot water please, an order of cinnamon toast and I'd like milk for my tea instead of cream, please.” I am looking down at the menu preserved under glass on the table before me. I act as though I am reading it, searching for what I want. My finger runs over the items, pausing slightly as it encounters each new word, until I find the word Tea. I point at the word, tapping it, proving that it is there as I order. I behave as though I have never seen this woman before, never sat in this booth and never looked at the menu either. She writes, flips her order book closed and walks away with a quick turn.
Maybe I need to wear more color; maybe that will brighten my outlook. I have a closet full of black, brown and navy colored clothing that in effect, make one day hardly distinguishable from the next, for me. What happened to me I wonder? When did I get so old? There was that period of time when everyone died, or it seemed like everyone. My mother, my ex-husband, my sweet adorable lover Rachel to a merciless breast cancer—in a year I lost them all. That may have been five years ago but still, how does one recover from such a thing? How long does it take?
I am not the only one eating at Joe's Diner today. A couple of regulars are twisting back and forth on their well-worn counter stools. Joe's has an interesting feel to it. On the one hand it seems very young: The black and white checkered floor, the 1950's jukebox, all give it a young sock-hop feeling that is back in style and considered fun. But it feels old, too. The chrome, the cutlery, even the menus are all worn and weary. The menus have several generations of prices scratched, erased, and covered over. These days I tend to feel at home among the antiquity and like a misfit with the young.
Suddenly a loud gaggle of teen-aged boys come splashing through the front door. It is raining outside and a storm cloud has followed them in. They are talking loud, talking at or past each other. They punch one another, laughing. They are terrified to be out of contact, to be utterly alone.
The waitress brings over my tea and toast. “Here you go Hon, anything else you need?”
“The milk, I ordered milk for my tea.” I act as though I have never forgotten anything, as though I have long forgotten what it means to be pleasant.
The waitress nods with a tight-lipped smile, “Sure, I'll get that for you.” She turns and as she passes by the young men, still standing at the front door, she gestures for them to seat themselves, to sit anywhere.
The diner is small and this group of five boys moves as one, they are like a renegade chain gang pushing at the seams of this place. I move closer to the wall as they approach my booth; somehow it feels as though that will give them more space to pass.
“Get off of me you faggot.” One boy yells as he falls forward on top of my table, with another pushing and laughing at the same time. They are all laughing, even the one whose face is awkwardly close to my cinnamon toast. “Sorry ma'am” he says as he stands back up, jostling my tea. His eye catches mine as he says this and he flushes crimson.
“Josh!” I am not certain if I have said this or merely called it in my heart. The boy does not respond, he continues to punch at his friend, continues to laugh and call his friend a jerk and a fag. As a group the five boys move away from my table to land in a nearby booth. I turn to watch them make their way to their seats. I wonder if he, the one who fell on my table, will turn around and look back at me.
It can't be the Josh I know, he's much too young. He looks the way Josh, my Josh, did seven years ago when he left home disgusted that his mother had come out as a lesbian. Josh would look differently now, older. I must remind myself of this, over and over again. I froze in time and place on that day, seven years ago, when all the ugliness was tossed around until it was impossible to see anything good or kind in anyone anymore. I am still standing in that kitchen, holding that knife, not certain if I grabbed it to defend myself, kill myself, or cut at the heart of my lover's angry teenage son. I am glad Josh banged his way out of the kitchen that day. I was no longer the responsible one, the adult one or the reasonable one. I was near to hurting someone, hurting him and if he hadn't had the wherewithal to pull us apart, like a cyclone dividing into two, I surely would have. As it was I stood in the chaos tossed kitchen, holding that knife out in front of me, shaking, for close to an hour after Josh had left. I was afraid to put it down, and afraid to get too close to it. Like a civil war statue I remained with my scabbard permanently poised for battle. I don't remember how I finally let go.
But that was seven years ago. And this boy, this rosy cheeked, fare-faced boy that looked me in the eye just a moment ago, without malice or menace, is not Josh. He does look like my boy though, my stepson, who is no more.
With a sudden ferocity I knock my butterknife off the tabletop; it clatters to the floor. I then place both hands in front of me, palms down and fingers spread. I try to steady them. To this day my hands still vibrate, uncontrolled, when I remember that night.
Placing a new, clean knife to my right, the waitress says, “Hon, here's the milk for your tea. Is there anything else I can do for ya?” The waitress is a little irritated; she doesn't usually forget things.
“Yes, yes there is one more thing you could do for me,” I look as though I am holding the table down, to keep it from levitating. “Could you tell me your name, please? My name is Beth. Marybeth really but I've been called only Beth for so long I have come to think of it as my name.” I am rattling, excited in my speech. Tears escape, first from one eye, then from the other, racing their ways to my chin. My heart is racing.
“Well Beth my name is Francine. Francine Mary so you see we have something in common.” Francine is staring at me; her head cocked slightly as though she is not quite sure what to make of this new intimacy between us. She certainly doesn't trust it, or me, very much—rightfully so.
“Francine, thank you for the milk. Thank you very much.” I say, slowly lifting a hand to lift the pitcher and hold it high in the gesture of a toast. I include a slight head nod, which gives me the chance to avert my eyes. Several more tears join in the races. Then, with only the slightest quiver of hand, I pour milk, bubbling-white into my tea.
“You are welcome Beth,” Francine says as the crook in her hip relaxes a bit. “Are you okay?” She asks, taking a step forward and bending her knees so she is perched low, at the end of the table. She is looking up at me now. With her head still at an inquisitive angle she reaches into one of the deep pockets of her uniform, which is more difficult know that she is crouched, and takes out a bright yellow handkerchief. “Here you go Beth. Take this and bring it back to me next week.” I take it from her with the hand that has been released from the table; the other is still pressed there. Francine covers my unmoving hand with both of hers like she is doing a healing ritual, or a magic trick. “You know Beth, a moment ago we were all young, and, well, idiotic; all of us. I mean look at those boys over there.” We both turn to look at the ganglion of young men. They are quietly eating their food and talking to each other—they look calm and reasoned. “Those aren't the same boys that came in this here diner, just a few minutes ago. I thought we were going to have a heap of trouble with those boys.” With that Francine stands up, pats my hand a couple of times, smiles and says, “Beth, yesterday doesn't amount to a hill of beans. No use picking through it.”
Fingering the yellow kerchief, which I have used to dab the tears from my chin, I look up at Francine in her now familiar head cocked, arms bent pose “Thank you. I am sorry.” Francine stops me by tightening her lips and scrunching her nose in a friendly scowl. In the jukebox mirror in my booth her scowl looks like the enthusiastic smile I was looking for earlier.
“Thank you, Francine. I'll return this to you next week.” I say as I hold the beautiful yellow linen up for us both to admire.
“Not a problem Beth. In fact, that yellow is a good color for you. I think you should keep it.” And with that Francine nods and walks away. Her turn is soft, her back kind and I swear she playfully snaps a piece of gum when she turns her head.
With quieting hands I sip my tea. Steam rises from my cup in question marks and ocean waves. I breathe in a warm pekoe-scented question and breath out an orange-blossom whisper. This is a fine cup of tea. Francine is a very good waitress. Those boys over there are enjoying themselves and each other. Joe's is a cozy home-style diner. It is a beautiful, cold and stormy day outside. This is a fine, fine cup of tea.
about the author
Ann Gonzalez is currently a student in the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program—the first MFA program to be offered by a collective of writers outside of a university. She is finishing up work on her first book, a novel told through a collection of short stories. When taking a break from writing, Ann often enjoys a fine cup of tea.
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