~JANE

She's so pretty when she flips her ponytail like that.
She's pretty when she glares at me, arms folded, foot tapping. She's pretty when she rolls her eyes.
"Can I get a name on that order?" I chirp, bat my eyelashes. Maybe this time she'll tell me for real.
"S.H.," she pronounces, unwavering.
Damn. It's gonna be like that. "I'll have that right out."

I take my time adding pumps of syrup, measuring the milk. I lean against the counter as it steams, and look at her again. Sometimes when I'm around her I have to pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming. I'm not.
She catches my eye, practically sneers at me, and looks away. I follow suit. When she looks again, I let her. Because I want her to look at me, to like me--and also because the milk is ready. I finish her drink at my leisure. I have to savor this moment with her here.
She unfolds her arms, acts like she wasn't staring. But I know she's guilty.
"Finally," she scoffs.

I pretend I didn't hear her, and wink. I can see the pink blooming in her cheeks, but this time she says nothing--the clock (let's be real, it was my fault) has gotten the better of her today. She leaves in a huff without a thank you or goodbye.
It doesn't matter what I do, how I treat her, or what I say, this girl is unpleasant one-hundred percent of the time. Every morning I play the same flirting games with her; one, because it seems to upset her so much, which is funny, and two, at the bottom of it, I want her to warm up to me. Because she's impossibly cold.

She arrives earlier than usual the next morning, and instead of ordering her coffee straight from me, she seats herself in one of the booths overlooking the trainyard. Her arms and legs cross, conserving her body heat. She's our only customer right now.
"Good morning," I say, eager to impress. "It's cold out there!"
She glares at me. I continue in spite of it. "We actually have a booth that's right beneath the heating vent, if you wanted somewhere warmer to sit," I inform her.
She does not get up. "Are you going to come take my order or what?"
I was just being nice, but suit yourself. She's already moved on from barking orders to opening her briefcase. Working again, despite waking up on the wrong side of the bed. 

I'm not one for being pushed around, but I've got a weak spot for pretty girls. On top of that, I've never seen her eat anything. Today could be my lucky day. I approach her table with my notebook, and my eyes, ready.
Her voice is cold and blunt as she proceeds to order the same exact thing she always does. It's really annoying to me that she couldn't just say, "I'll have the usual," from where she stood. It's annoying that she had to bite first, like she's punishing me for being nice.
"Alright," I say. I can match the attitude, no problem. "A... hazelnut...latte..." I take my time. I write in my best handwriting. She drums her fingers on her arm.

"Can I get anything else out here for you? We have burgers, pancakes, french toast..."
She looks straight at my face for the first time since I approached. She looks so mad, and I can't see why, because she's the one who started this with me. But her grumpy face is so cute. I can't take her seriously.
For the briefest moment, she looks at my lips. I'm chewing gum, because it wakes me up in the morning. There's something about her green eyes on my lips that makes me change my tune.
My smile is apologetic. "I'll have it right out for you, alright?"
I hope she is looking at me walking away from her. I hope she is looking at me put up my hair. I look at her often. She stares out the window.
When I deliver her coffee to her table, she seems more relaxed. 

I watch from afar, the hot drink unfolding her. This is how she looks after she's insulted me. This is how she sleeps at night.
Before long her coat is shrugged off, the papers from her briefcase spread before her, her pens black, red, blue. She's reading and rereading some important-looking documents. Taking notes, crossing things out, writing something big. A business woman, maybe? She's always dressed nice, always smells expensive. Whatever she does, she's paid well.

I wander around the diner doing detail-cleanings on the tables, prepping for the breakfast rush. I am wiping the table behind her and peer over her shoulder. It's hard to say decidedly what I am seeing. She could be a lawyer. I wish I could just ask her. I wish a lot of things.
She leaves with the sunrise, boarding a train, I suppose.
My phone vibrates in my pocket; it's a text from Mary.

work sucks :( can i come get a milkshake?

I smile. "Defo," I type. Send. It'll be good to see her.
She's here within the hour, dressed in her scrubs. She seats herself at the bar. The rush is just about over. As soon as I'm finished, we're free to socialize.

"I'd hug you, but I've been cleaning up kid vomit all night." She sighs and rests her head on the counter.
"Sometimes I wish I never dropped out," I sigh, "this is not one of those times."
"Hush, you! And get me a chocolate shake." I know she's only half-teasing. We've had this argument a hundred times over. In no time she's got her shake and she's happy as a bumblebee again.

"So," she muses, "What's new with that S.H. girl?"
As always, I give her the details. She listens, nods, maintains eye contact. She's trying to be understanding, but with each update I give on the coffee girl, Mary likes her less and less. "No way," she says. "I can't believe she treats you like that! I could never like someone who was that awful to me."
"If only you could see her," I sigh. "Then you'd understand."
Mary scrutinizes me for a moment, sucking her teeth in thought. She takes another swig and looks at her watch. "I should be getting back soon," she says. "It takes me ten minutes to walk back, and another five or so through the hospital.
"To-go cup?"
"Please."

Mary watches me transfer the liquid. She's being oddly quiet.
"Hey Jane?"
I look up.
"Do you want to come over tomorrow night?"
"I would, but I've got the night shift."
"Well what about tonight? I've got wine," her voice is melodic and inviting. "Too much wine to finish by myself, I mean."
She's cute, and she's Mary, so I give in. "Yeah, I guess we can do tonight."
"Great! I'll text you," she says. Then she leans over the counter and hugs me goodbye.

After all these years, Mary and I still have chemistry--though there are things the two of us know not to bring up with each other.
The break-up, for example.

She welcomes me in to her warmly-lit apartment. She's wearing the same Hello Kitty crop top she's had since college, and black yoga pants. She's already handing me a glass of wine. I almost forget to take off my boots.
She's watching The Kardashians and eating popcorn. Back in the day, Paris was her poison. She looks at me sheepishly. "Do you wanna watch something else?" she asks.
"No," I say, "I want to watch this with you."

What do you call an ex-girlfriend you still sleep with? Exes-with-benefits? I don't know. Mary and I are that. With us, one thing has always lead to another.
She was my first girlfriend. I've got a soft spot for her.

We drink our wine and eat our popcorn and let the tv wipe the day from our brains. It feels like college again. Admittedly it has been a while since we've hung out in person. Mary was in another relationship for a while, but she ended it a few months ago. I thinks she's recovered from it by now.
When Mary is seeing someone else, she doesn't see me as often. It rubs people the wrong way when they find out Mary's best friend is her ex from college. I understand that she wouldn't want to be seen too often with me. Mary says if they're the right person for her, they'll understand what we have. So far, it's been none of them.
On my end, I've been chronically single my entire adult life. Not for a lack of trying. No one has excited me as much as I need them to.
I push S.H. out of my mind. I'm with Mary tonight.

We refill our glasses between commercials, hang out in the kitchen. In college, when we were roommates, we used to stay up and talk all night. We'd take turns sitting on the counter, the floor. We watched cookies bake, ate pickles out of the jar. We got drunk a lot. We laughed a lot.
These days we're less spontaneous, more reserved. She sits tall on a stool at the breakfast bar. I face her from the other side, leaning on the kitchen counter between us. We talk about work, the news, the internet. Soon there is nothing for us to talk about. And then for a little while, it's like old times again.

I wake up in her bed the next morning. She's showering with the door open, an invitation, I assume. I do consider it for a moment, but decide against it. I pull on my pants and help myself to a bowl of her Special-K cereal. I pop my knuckles, my back. Mary left me little time to rest.
I listen to the hushed drizzle of the shower, the water churning though the pipes in her apartment walls.
It slowly comes back to me, as I stand and eat my breakfast; I woke up this morning from a dream about the girl at the diner. And that feels significant to me.

I pop into the bathroom and raise my voice above the shower. "Hey! I'm heading out, okay?"
"Oh, already?" she says. "No breakfast?"
"I ate cereal," I tell her.
"Oh," she says, "okay, well, be safe."
"You too," I say. "I'll see you later!"
I shove my sneakers on and slip out the door.

I do feel guilty. I can tell Mary wanted me to stay a while longer. But this is the way it has to be now.
There's snow on the streets, the morning sky grey and overcast. I slosh onward, hands in pockets, yank my beanie down over my ears. This is the lesbian walk of shame.
I've never been more eager to ride a humid bus. We hang tight and sway on the straphangers, bump one another in a benign, lazy way. I have a few stops to go, so I take this time to close my eyes, enjoy the morning, and try to recall my dream.
I dreamt of my night with Mary, but it was not Mary I was with. It not only felt incredibly real, I felt sadness when it was over. I woke up this morning longing for someone I don't even know. Worse yet, I'm not even mad about it.
I've caught myself slacking. It's something too deep and too far away to scratch at on a city bus at 10am. 

When I get up to my apartment, I kick off my shoes and crash into bed. I think very hard for a while in an effort to continue my dream. Elements of her appearance, like her dark curls, or her pointed lips. It doesn't work. I don't wake up again until the sky is dark.
I try to eat a good dinner, but the energy drink derails it. I've got a long night ahead of me. I head out again to catch the next bus. We got more snowfall while I slept.

By the looks of S.H., you'd never assume she voluntarily chose to stay up all night mysteriously doing paperwork in some dump near the train station; and you'd never guess she does it almost every night of the week. And yet here she sits, glowing like the fairy from Pinocchio, granting wishes I never knew I had.
As the hours pass I mop the mud from the floors and bring her refills and clear the empty cups from her table. Each cup is less and less smeared with lipstick as the night wears on. When this lady is in the zone, there's no getting her out of it. Everything disappears off her radar until she decides she's ready for contact again.
Sometimes she gets up and paces. We've got a rack of postcards and souvenirs by the door, which she thumbs through absentmindedly. She never buys any. My coworkers think it's annoying, but she's so graceful when she walks, I don't mind monitoring. When she's thinking, she hugs herself, and gnaws on her lips.

I wonder often what she looks like at home. On a couch. With her shoes off, when no one is watching.
I wonder how she reacts to runs in her stockings. I fantasize about her begging me to run to the drugstore for her, it's an emergency, and me saying yes dear, of course, and then going and doing that for her. In my mind she exists as this dark heiress, and I'm feeling more sycophantic than usual lately. At this point, it's her own constant bitchiness that fuels this fantasy.
I wipe the clean counters, fold silverware into napkins. She's standing at her table now, which she's covered with photographs. Her lips are moving rapidly, her finger pointed, connecting imaginary dots. She picks up a photo and examines it. Reads the paperwork underneath. Flops it on the seat.
She goes on like that, creating a discard pile, scrutinizing all these photos, and then it dawns on me that if I don't seriously try to get through to her, I will never really know what she's doing. And that would be a major failure on my part. I need to break the silence.

"You know," I say, raising my voice, so she can hear me from here. "Since you're the only one here, it feels rude of me to not talk to you at all."
"Not rude," she drones.
"Well, I think it is."
She turns around to look at me. Her eyes are squinted, hands poised with attitude. She looks annoyed she even has to deal with me. "Remember like, five seconds ago," she says, "when you were working quietly? That suits you."
Uh huh. Without taking my eyes off of her, I let the cook know through the window that I'm taking my lunch. Mrs. Hudson gives me the okay. I remove my apron and approach her table, and she watches, dumbfounded.

"Take your break somewhere else," she says. "I'm working."
I can't give up yet. I need to press just a little further. I've got a good feeling about this. "Come on, would you really be doing all this at a diner if you didn't want people to be curious about it?"
"Be curious all you want, just do it away from here. And leave the reverse psychology to the professionals."
"See, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. You just gave me this little breadcrumb of mystery to follow, and now you're not letting me follow it! Did you expect me to ignore it? Like you didn't say anything?"
She looks at me, and for a second, it's different. "I was being condescending," she says.

My phone vibrates in my pocket.
"I know," I tell her. "Are you gonna invite me to sit or do I have to stand here for half an hour?"
I hold my breath. If she says no again, I'll have to stop. She's looking me over, but it feels more like my character is being combed through.
"Mystery breadcrumbs," she repeats, laughing to herself.

My phone vibrates a few more times. It really is not an ideal time. I stare into her face.
"Go on, now," she says. She has ended the conversation.
I stand there, not knowing what to say. I totally failed. Do I apologize? For talking to someone I like? I don't want to. I put my hands up, in surrender, and back away into the kitchen.

When I get to my locker, I yank out my jacket and my wax pen. I open my phone to distract myself from my own clacking knees. Mary's been blowing up my phone with memes. I guess she's on her break, too.
I ask her when she's getting off. A few hours after me.
I tell her to be at my place. She doesn't refuse me.
I smoke outside. When I return, her table is vacant.

I'm angry. I feel inadequate. What do I have to do to get her to like me?
"Jane, go slower," Mary tells me. I have to cool down.
"Sorry." I'm just so frustrated.
"What's wrong with you?" she demands. "You seem angry."
"I'm not," I say.
"You are!" Mary argues.
"No more talking," I say. It is not a question. I end the conversation with Mary the same way S.H. ended it with me.

The next day, S.H. orders her coffee from me. She still won't tell me her name. I don't say anything to her. I don't play the game.
Why does she come back? To torture me? To feel wanted?
I see her on my next graveyard shift. I mind my business, keep my nose clean. Does she notice how much I'm leaving her alone right now?

She's sat at her table, reading a singular piece of paper.
She doesn't order coffee. She doesn't open her briefcase. There is no color in her face.
I've never seen a woman dressed as nicely as her lay her head down on a table in public. She sits like that and I really try to ignore it. I wait on other guests, clean things. But she lays like that for a while, facing the window. I doubt she's asleep.

People file in and out. She sits up every now and then, and stares forward, but she always ends up laying back down again.
I can't take any more of it. It feels wrong of me to not act.

I do the least confrontational thing I can imagine. I put a piece of our special chocolate cream pie in a small to-go box, and place it on her table as I walk by.

She startles. I pretend not to see her as I take another order at a different table. In the back of my head, I am aware of her opening the box. Closing the box.
Leaving.

I put in the order for the other table.
I expected her to leave without the pie. She didn't.
S.H. accepted my gift.