It was 4:12 in the afternoon and, thankfully, it was not quite rush hour yet. Apart from a chattering group of performing arts kids clogging the back of the car with their collective musical instruments and cases, Darren Jemison had the train to himself. And that was fine with him. Thanks to Mandy, the overzealous (and under-practiced) new dental hygienist, his gums were sore and the scalding coffee he was sipping still did not quite mask the taste of blood in his mouth.
Even though most of the seats were empty, he was standing, holding onto the rail closest to the doors. He could not wait to get home, climb into bed, and put this day behind him. He had suffered through the most boring meeting of his life that morning (with a new client...a paper company), he skipped lunch to catch up on the work that the meeting had caused him to get behind on, then he left work early to get his teeth cleaned...leaving his coat hanging on the back of the door with every intention of going back to the office afterwards. But there was some tie-up with the patient before him and their insurance causing his appointment to be delayed by almost 45 minutes, so there was no point in going back to work now. In the mid-afternoon sun, his slate gray suit had been plenty warm enough, but now that the sun was setting, it was getting chilly, and he was not looking forward to the walk from the Metro station to his apartment.
The train slowed to a halt at the station and Darren stepped out onto the platform before the doors were even completely open. He sipped his coffee again, feeling it burn in all of the tiny scratches on his gums. As he walked through the terminal, he stopped at a trash can to discard the lid from his coffee cup. It was cooling off now and he wanted to drink it all before it got tepid and gross. Turning around, he saw a yellow flier taped to a column. Walking toward it, he read the advertisement:
Farrah DuValle
One Night Only
October 3, 2010
@
Lennon's
Darren had dated a Farrah Duval in college. She was a gorgeous aspiring singer, with skin the color of tea-stained paper and long black hair that she spent entirely too much time and money on. She was beautiful, but she was a bitch, much more concerned about her hair and her voice (which belonged in a niche more adequately filled by teeny-boppers like Justin Beiber) than about him or being his girlfriend. And he got a jolt of spiteful pleasure at the thought of her having to trump up her name just to play shows at a shitty club like Lennon's. Smiling to himself, he walked out from behind the column and raised his coffee cup to his lips to take a drink.
He hit something hard and felt warmth spread across his front. Looking down, he saw his gray-and-white striped silk tie, white dress shirt and slate gray blazer now a shade darker and covered in hot coffee. He opened his mouth to accost his obstacle but was cut off by it instead. "I'm so, sooooo sorry," she said. Her voice was smooth but raspy, somewhat akin to Scarlett Johansson's voice. She was kneeling on the ground, gathering up soggy, coffee-covered sheets of paper and stuffing them into her bag. She collected the last, particularly ruined page off of the concrete and stood up again. She was wearing a pair of tailored camel colored slacks, tan high heeled boots and a navy pea coat with large, gold buttons. Her dark chestnut hair was just longer than shoulder length and fell in soft curls around her heart shaped face. She looked up at him, although she was not much shorter than he was, and looked at him exasperatedly, "I am so sorry," she said again.
Darius looked down at himself, now wearing the rapidly cooling remainder of his coffee. "It's okay," he sighed, brushing himself off as if it would help at all.
"Look at you," she said, looking ruefully at his suit. "There's a coffee shop upstairs. Can I buy you another?" she asked.
He looked down at her, meaning to tell her thanks but no thanks, and heard himself say instead, "Sure."
She smiled gratefully and he was reminded slightly of a pixie, then they were off. He walked beside her, nodding appreciatively and trying to convince her that it was an accident and it was, indeed, okay as she poured apologies all over him as she had inadvertently done with his coffee.
He climbed the escalator behind her and she looked down at him over her shoulder, "I'm Haley, by the way," she offered.
"Darren," he replied, grateful to have something to respond to other than an apology for something that was, he knew deep down, probably his fault anyway. He had not been paying attention to where he was going and since he had been caught up in a moment of internal spite about his success compared to his ex's relative failure at life as a whole, he was reminded that, as his grandmother always said, "God don't like ugly."
Haley reached the coffee shop first and wrenched open the heavy glass door, holding it aside for him. "After you," she said earnestly. Darren walked inside and looked around and the bright yellow room. "What were you drinking?" she asked from behind him. He turned around, "Just plain old coffee," he lied. It had had some fancy name but he did not remember what it was.
"Okay. You run to the bathroom and get cleaned up. I'll get your coffee," she said, getting in line behind four of five other people.
Darren turned, locating the unisex bathroom and weaved his way through the clusters of little round tables and spindly metal chairs trying way too hard to look like props from some twisted, live-action episode of the Jetsons. He knocked on the bathroom door, got no response, and opened it, stepping inside. It was stark white in there, an uncomfortable transition from the surface-of-the-sun ambiance that the café interior provided. He looked at himself in the mirror over the white sink. His white shirt was now almost the same mahogany color as the rest of him. Reaching up, he pulled a few paper towels out of the dispenser that was surprisingly not already empty. He blotted at his shirt a few times, but it was already too dry to make any difference. Tossing the towels into the almost overflowing trash can, he ran his hand over his close shaven head and looked at himself in the mirror. His high cheekbones and straight nose, a genetic gift from his French grandmother, framed the dark, chocolate brown eyes that he had inherited from the rest of his African-American ancestry. He was a pretty good looking guy, with reddish undertones to his brown skin. Clenching his teeth, he opened his mouth and looked at his throbbing gums in the mirror. He could not see that they were bleeding, but it still tasted like they were. With a sigh, he closed his mouth and accepted that he could not salvage his suit by himself in an off-brand Starbucks bathroom, so he washed his hands and turned to go back out into the café.
He walked out of the bathroom and looked around the small café. Haley's coat was draped over the back of a chair at one of the tables, and her bag was sitting in the seat of the chair. Darren sat down at the table and looked around. Haley was still waiting at the counter, smilingly making small-talk with the barista. Her arms were folded on the counter and she was standing slightly on her toes, leaning forward to hear the barista over the sound of the coffee grinder. Now that she had shed her coat, Darren got a better view of her body. She was tall, even if she had not been wearing heels, with a lean build, like a soccer player. And as he studied her, he could not help but notice how perfectly round and firm her ass was.
The barista slid two large cups of coffee across the counter and Haley thanked her genuinely before turning around to walk back toward the table. As disappointed as Darren was that he no longer had the view of her from behind, she was equally impressive from the front. The ruffled dark blue and gray paisley patterned blouse she was wearing had a matching sash which, along with her wide hips and large chest, accentuated her already narrow waist. Haley put Darren's coffee down on the table in front of him and he noticed her pale gray fingernail polish. She sat down across from him and smiled sheepishly, "I'm so sorry about your suit," she apologized again. "It's fine. Really. It needed to be cleaned anyway," he lied. It was one of his favorite suits and this was the first time he had worn it since it had come out of the cleaners last. But he knew the whole incident had been an accident and she had been so nice about the whole thing that he did not see the use in being a dick about it.
She smiled knowingly, as if she somehow knew that the dry cleaning tag was still pinned to the label of his blazer, "Well, then, I'd like to pay for it."
"No, you don't have to do that."
"I want to. I feel awful. Coffee is a bitch to get out."
"I'm sure they can fix it. And anyway, my suit wasn't the only casualty of our collision," he said, gesturing to her bag.
"Oh, yeah," she laughed as if she had forgotten she had it. "It's fine. My students are used to getting their papers back with pizza sauce and gravy on them. I like to multitask."
"You're a teacher?" He was truly surprised. She was so trendy that he had her pegged for a graphic designer or something artsy like that.
"Sure am. I teach history, government and economics at Llewellyn."
"That's a really good school, right?"
She stuck out her chest in a dramatic show of pride, "Number four in the country. And rising," she said matter-of-factly.
"Do you like it?"
"I love it. I get paid to make a difference, you know? It doesn't get any better than that."
He nodded appreciatively. All of his teachers had been old ladies with blue hair who had been in the game for so long that they hated children almost as much as they hated the subjects they taught. None of them had been particularly bothered with making a difference.
"And what is it you said you do?" she asked, sipping her coffee.
"I work at Preston-Brewer."
"Oh, cool. Advertising or legal?"
"Advertising."
