I pondered as I drove there, what if things had gone wrong and I had misread it, was I about to find that Anna was going to somehow ambush me there? The thought of a couple of police officers wandering into the swanky espresso cafΓ© seemed sort of hilarious. And a couple of them and Anna? I could talk my way out of that, I was pretty sure. Though there might be a lot of paperwork I'd have to convince them to clean up. Still, that seemed like the sort of thing where if three unfriendly people suddenly became three very friendly and accommodating people then they could most likely clean up whatever mess they had started making. Zoltan had made that happen back in the day, I told myself I wasn't going to worry about it, and mostly I didn't.
I was there a couple minutes early and parked; her car wasn't in the parking lot but it was full of an assortment of Teslas. Audis, Volvos, and other high end cars, with fewer BMWs than I would have expected. I got an Americano and a lemon scone and sat. Her car pulled in outside and she set the parking brake and bustled in, coat over one arm and purse over the other. I watched her cross the parking lot and climb the stairs and head straight to the barista. And yeah, I was curious and trying to be prudent, so I peeked. It wasn't quite as easy as it was with Tullie, but I'd gotten very used to peeking in Tullie's head, and Anna was still new. But her thoughts were a jumble of "well his car's here" and "oh my god we're actually going to do this" and "I so need coffee" and "come on Anna don't back down now". It seemed ok.
I wasn't quite in the same seat as before but the moment she left the barista she spotted me, and I didn't need the gift to know that she didn't have it in for me: her eyes lit up like a child's on Christmas morning and her smile beamed across the room. I gave her a big grin and waved. And kept peeking between her ears anyway. It was a bit of a jumble in here, really, with all the immaculately-dressed people busily caffeinating and gossiping, but I could make her out well enough: "God he looks good."
She got the same vanilla latte, weaved her way across the room, and sat across the table from me, leaning in. She put her hand on my hand and held it tightly. "Tymon." Her smile was enormous.
"I thought you'd appreciate this," I said, and handed her the plush Energizer Bunny.
She laughed, perhaps louder than she should have but the cafΓ© was abuzz with other people, and no one seemed to notice. Her thoughts rattled through "mischievous" and "that's so cute" and "I didn't know they actually made these" and "does this one vibrate too", and she almost said that last one before realizing she might be overheard. So she settled for "Oh, that's adorable" and squeezed it gently.
I took a bite of my lemon scone and gave her a bite too. She took it without any prompting.
"Did you want to enjoy our coffee here or someplace more private?" I asked.
"Oh yes, let's go." She rose, arms full of rabbit and coffee and coat and purse. I took her coffee, winked, and headed out the same back entrance as before. She followed, watching my butt, and fitting the plush bunny into her purse. When we got to the back door I turned and she raised her head as if to meet my lips, but I just held the door open and said "After you" and she stepped on out, thinking that yes I suppose lots of potentially curious eyes around.
I opened the passenger door for her like a gentleman, handed her back her coffee once she sat and stored her purse at her feet, closed the door and went around to my side of the car, scarfing down the rest of my lemon scone on the way. She'd set her coffee into a cup holder; I climbed in, did the same, and started the car. I looked over at her, took her hand and kissed it. She gazed at me. I pulled her in and kissed her properly; the tinted windows could keep our privacy from anything except someone with their nose to the glass. She kissed back passionately. This didn't end quickly. But after a couple of minutes of kissing, I pulled back and said, "We should be on our way."
I pulled out into the parking lot and signaled for a turn onto the street. "Your house again, or did you want to come by mine?"
"Mine please, Tullie's at yours, right?"
"She is. But I'm sure she'd join us."
"Uh. Not this time." She paused. "Did you tell her?"
"Yes. Did you tell Jeff?"
"Of course not!" She laughed, nervously.
I raised my coffee cup to her. "Cheers. To another wonderful day."
She raised hers. "Cheers. And to us."
I grinned. "And to Kim."
She took a huge gulp of coffee. "And to Kim." She took another. "Tymon this is going to sound weird. Was that real? It almost seems like a dream."
I took her free hand and put it in my lap. "Feel real to you?"
She squeezed my cock through my slacks and I twitched it at her and she smiled. "Yes."
I peeked. She was still half convinced she was dreaming, and she was still also thinking about our high school friend Kim. I changed lanes, signaled for a left turn, and headed off course.
"Where are we going?"
"Let's go pay our respects to Kim."
The graveyard wasn't far. The place was immaculate, neatly mowed lawn, mausoleums and obelisks and crosses and conventional gravestones depending on which way you looked. We pulled up at the end of one of the little roadways and walked across the grass to the site, holding our coffees.
The view was nice. You could see the water sparkling in the sun, and the hills in all directions, and the trees both above and below the graveyard. It was quiet, it was peaceful, there was no one around but Anna and myself. We wore our jackets in case it was breezy but so far it wasn't. I took her hand as we walked. She held it tight.
The plot of land was sizable and had only the one headstone thus far. I suspect it is intended to be a family plot of land, but Kim was the only one who'd left us. When Matt bought it he was probably planning to be buried alongside her. I wondered if he'd bury his second wife here too and smirked. Anna didn't notice, she was looking at the headstone and then out over the water and slowly sipping at her vanilla latte.
The headstone was simple, just her married name, years of birth and death separated by a dash, and below that "Beloved Wife and Mother" in some serif font that I knew I should remember but my area of expertise never extended to typography.
"It's definitely his memorial to her," she was thinking.
I put my arm around her from behind. "No maiden name," I said out loud. "No Dr. or PhD on the tombstone either."
Anna took another sip. "Maybe a line from one of her poems would have been nice at least. Something to remember who she was."
"I liked the ones you recited at her service."
Anna sipped again and looked at the headstone, her eyes bright. She cleared her throat. "It was hard to choose."
"So many good choices. She was a really talented writer."
"I think the best were her writings about childhood with her family."
I hugged her with the arm I had around her. "It might sound like an artist stereotype but I think her best work was when she was dying."
She finished her latte. "So many good choices."