2/14/12

Four More Words
By Gil C. Schmidt


    “Would you like a refill?”
    I’d forgotten where I was. When I looked up, the waitress was a different one. Finally. After the long wait, I was nervous. “Uh, yes. Please.” I didn’t really want the coffee. I think she knew that. In fact, I know she did.
    She filled the cup with steamy ink and walked away, her stride slow and steady. I thought about her face, the near-smile it showed when she offered me the coffee, the deep blue of her eyes like a summer lake. I put too much sugar in the ink and had run out of cream, so I drank slowly, barely tasting the darkish brew.
    She returned. I saw tiny lines around her eyes and a redness in them that I hadn’t noticed before, a tightness around her mouth that spoke of things best left unsaid, a kind of heaviness in her walk that seemed new. “Been here long?” she asked, her voice low in the pre-dawn softness.
     I nodded, my eyes on the table. “Very much so.” I felt her smooth her apron with her hands, her body shifting to face me. I looked up, searching for kind eyes. “My girl just….left...”
    The waitress, her badge saying “Virginia,” pressed her lips together, but didn’t say anything. The door opened, its tinkling bell shattering the mood. “I have to take that,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
    The coffee still steamed, but it made no difference to me. I thought of the one who’d left me, choosing her own path to security over life with a freelance writer. And maybe choosing the new vice-president of her daddy’s firm over me. She talked about it enough, God knows. I should have believed her. I felt the deep smash of loss in my gut, again. I had chosen her--or perhaps she had chosen me--but in any case, I had a relationship where I thought I could make her happy and would make me happy, And I’d been wrong. On both counts. And the pain in me just grew.
    “Have you eaten anything?” I shook my head. “How about some eggs over easy and toast?” I glanced up, nodded and as I was about to say something, Virginia walked away.
    She came back in a couple of minutes with my second breakfast of the short day and I thanked her. She sighed a “You’re welcome,” then looked around the near-empty café. “So why did she leave you? Do you really know?” Her hands clutched at the apron.
    I forked eggs into my mouth to give me time. The first answers that tumbled through my mind seemed trivial, beside the point, wrong. An honest answer came to me. “I didn’t make her happy.” I sipped some coffee and found some more truth. “And she didn’t believe in me.”
    Her eyes darkened, a distant storm on warm seas. “Did she want you to make her happy?”
    I started. That made me look up into a face filled with the sadness of understanding. “I...don't know,” I mumbled, “I hadn’t thought of that.” The new thought opened a floodgate of feelings that grew and grew. Virginia looked behind her and saw the counter was empty. My words now tumbled out. “I thought I was supposed to make her happy. And that doing so would make her believe in me. Because I love her and I need for her to believe in me.”
    There were tears in Virginia’s eyes, tears from a pain that recognizes itself in another heart. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, her voice breaking. “Maybe--maybe it will work out.” Seeing her, it was all I could do to keep from crying.
    “How will I know? When?” My voice seemed so small, so… hurt. So…lost.
    Virginia quickly wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “I have to go now. People are waiting.” She turned and practically fled to the counter, her body stiff and tight.
    I finished my cold meal and when I asked for the check, the beefy cook dropped it on my table. Instead of numbers, there were five handwritten words on it. One was “Paid.”
    The others were Yes. I believe. And the lovely signature: Ginny.
    I dashed out to find a jewelry store.


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Gil C. Schmidt has been a regular submitter to Yesteryear Fiction since the early days when it was a daily magazine. His story "Initial Quantum State" is also featured in his book "Thirty More Stories." Get "Thirty Stories" and "Thirty More Stories" for free: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/gil-c-schmidt or http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/gilthejenius