Nonfiction by Kate Stukenborg
I notice it for the first time, really notice it, when I get coffee with Becca. Becca is in my wider circle of friends, but we haven’t talked much outside of a group. We always like chatting though, and usually end our short conversations by insisting that we need to find a time to hang out soon. In my experience, conversations like this are more compliment than commitment. It’s always nice to hear someone would like to spend time with you; in most cases, people leave it at that. But Becca and I had empty-promised each other enough, and one day we finally decide to make plans. I get her number from a mutual friend but pretend I’ve had it saved for a while. I include my name in the first message in case she’s doing the same thing.
The text exchange between us is typical for two people who have hardly spent any time together. With unnecessary friendliness and unaddressed awkwardness, we decide on a morning right before her haircut, giving ourselves a little over an hour to get coffee and chat. I text with language I’d never use in regular conversation.
‘Fab!’ I respond to the time she suggests. I’m trying to imitate the enthusiastic way she communicates, hoping it will make both of us more comfortable.
‘Perfect!’ I text when she agrees to meet at my favorite coffee shop, a cozy place that always has enough people to feel busy but never so many that I can’t find a table. Epilogue is a café inside of a bookstore, so there are tables in front of the barista counter filled with staff picks and new releases. Fully stocked bookshelves cover every wall in the front of the store except for one painted with a huge, colorful portrait of Frida Kahlo’s face.
When I get there to meet Becca, I order a regular drip coffee because it comes with a free refill. I drink coffee quickly because I only like it hot, so I know I’ll need more than just one cup to nurse through the hour we’ve planned. In a situation like this, I like to keep time by cups of coffee. An empty mug is a natural, unoffensive end to a conversation. When I finish my coffee, I can look down at the empty mug like it’s a watch, then bring my head up quickly with eyebrows raised as if to say “Look at the time!” and promptly say goodbye. Simple. The empty mug is an easy way out if a first meeting gets awkward, too.
At the counter I order a small. Just in case.
Becca and I choose two oversized green velvet chairs with a table in between us, and I sit in my most comfortable-looking position: one foot on the ground and the other on the seat of the chair. My right knee hugs my chest, and I wrap my arms around it.
The talk stays small. She’s getting ready to travel to Europe, so I ask what she’s nervous and excited for. We talk about housemates and classes. We discover a mutual friend who plays tennis, though that’s all I know about her. It’s easy, relaxing.
After about twenty minutes, I bring my receipt to the counter, claim my second cup, and return to my green seat. Becca and I re-enter to our conversation naturally when I sit down again. She’s attentive and curious, postured perfectly in her chair while she talks. I like how gentle her presence feels, how she doesn’t expect a certain answer to her questions. She asks about the kinds of books I like reading, and lets me pause to think before answering for herself. When we find out she’s just started the latest one I’d read, we gasp as if this fact is more surprising than it is. I offer proof, pulling the yellow leather-bound copy from my backpack and opening to a dogeared page with an illustration of lilies. Our meeting feels fated, suddenly, and everything else we find in common feels like evidence of this.
I empty my second cup quickly, hardly noticing I’m drinking it. I’ve already used up my refill, but I keep sipping while we talk. The first few sips, a single drop swells at the bottom and rolls up the side. The last drops are especially bitter, powdered thick with coffee sediment. I don’t even notice the pointless sips until there are no drops left to collect. I keep doing it, even though at this point I’m only sipping on the scent of a dried brown ring crusting warm ceramic.
French philosopher Simone Weil writes of attention as “a suspension of thought,” a kind of unconscious action, “The capacity to pay attention to an afflicted person is something very rare, very difficult; it is nearly a miracle. It is a miracle.” I love the phantom sip because it’s the symptom of attention like this. It’s often automatic, unintentional. Our hour is up, my coffee is out, and I keep tipping the empty mug toward my lips as if to say, “keep talking. I’m not ready for this to be over.”
The phantom sip is the best kind of excuse. Even better than the excuse not to do: Sorry, I have family dinner tonight!—or the excuse not to have done: My dog ate my homework! It’s an unspoken excuse to prolong, to keep on—Just one more sip! Like the phrase said to eager restaurant hosts: “I’m still working on it, thank you!” The phantom sip pretends that there is an excuse when there is none, which makes it a brilliant excuse in and of itself. As long as there’s more coffee, we can keep sitting in these big green chairs and chatting. So I lie, and keep bringing the hollow mug to my face, rolling my eyes down towards the center for a moment. My silent way of saying I’m still listening. My throat doesn’t pulse when I pretend to sip; in the pantomime, I forget to swallow. The way my hands move when I talk is a dead giveaway, too. They flail with the cup in hand, fingers barely gripping the handle, and nothing spills out.
When my hands are not on the mug, I take the position I always do when I’m deep in someone else’s words. It’s the same stance I take when talking to God, or listening to a preacher in church. My elbows dig into each thigh and I’m hunched forward. My forearms are pressed into my chest, and my chin rests on knuckles that are woven together in an inadvertent sign of respect. “Absolutely unmixed attention,” Weil writes, “is like prayer.”
I wonder if Becca has anything left in her cup. We’re sitting too far from each other for me to lean over and peek. I guess it doesn’t matter. She’s probably running late to her appointment by now. Admittedly, this gives me a bit of pride. I’m interesting enough to keep her here and interested enough to keep her talking. One more time, though I don’t think for the last time, I pull my cup to my face, and smile into the coffee dregs.
