Ashley stood in line at Starbuck’s distractedly scrolling through texts on her cell phone. When the line inched forward, she took too large a step and bumped into the woman in front of her causing her to drop her wallet. It landed on the floorboards, jarring the chain pouch open and scattering coins at their feet; several lost themselves under the display case.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ashley said.
She stooped and began collecting coins. After retrieving her wallet, the woman did the same. It only took a few seconds to clear the floor of coins. They rose to their feet, and as Ashley handed the woman the coins she held, their eyes met and Ashley felt a surge of untethered emotion rush through her.
“So sorry,” she stammered again. “I was distracted. Looking at my phone.”
“It’s nothing.” The woman gave a pleasant, dismissive frown. “No harm done.”
“I want to repay for my clumsiness. Can I buy your drink?”
“Not necessary.”
The woman closed her purse’s coin pouch. The line moved forward again so that only one patron stood between them and the cash register.
“I insist.” Ashley heard her voice take on a pleading tone and felt her face do the same.
“Forget it ever happened.”
The woman made a gesture as if shooing away a fly and turned to the front of the line. Before she did, Ashley caught a glimpse of a tiny butterfly tattoo peeking out above where a side of the woman’s collarbone met her neck, the same tattoo she’d stared at on the hotel room nightstand the evening before. It had appeared under the word “Wife” when a photo accompanied an incoming call on her lover’s vibrating cell phone after he’d left their bed naked to go shower. Ashley had been as struck by the tenderness in the face of the woman in the photo as she was when their eyes met just moments before.
Silently, she said to herself, I can’t forget it ever happened.
The woman gave the barista her order, opened her wallet, and Ashley tried without success to reach her credit card out to pay before the woman did the same with her own. Without turning around, the woman gently took Ashley’s wrist, lowered it, and said, “Please just stop.”
Ashley thought: I don’t know if I can do that either. She watched the woman move down the counter to the pick-up station and exchange her wallet in her purse for her own vibrating cell phone. Ashley caught a glimpse of her lover’s face on the screen before the woman smiled, raised the phone to her ear, and said, “Hi, honey.”
The barista cleared her throat, paused, then asked, “Ma’am?”Ashley snapped back around, her eyes wide and welling. She shook her head, exited the line, and hurried outside through the doors into a cold, steady rain, leaving the warmth, the good smells, the low music, the quiet chatter of voices, and the textured lives of those inside, behind.
INSTANT NOODLES 