echo A woman in a red raincoat arrives at a cafe on a humid Spring evening.
Wind whips the ends of the red raincoat about her knees and sweeps her hair back from her face, rustling the leaves of nearby trees and sweeping fallen ones across the pavement. To her left lies a street lined with benches that look out onto the gravelly beach of the seaside town she inhabits. To her right is a row of shops and restaurants, a popular site for tourists and vacationers during warmer seasons of the year. It isn’t a warm season right now, but there are still a fair number of people out and about, even excepting the woman in the red raincoat.
Pedestrian traffic flows past her, people hurrying home as the sun sets and the workday winds to a close. Slate-grey rainclouds hang threateningly overhead, speeding up the process of outdoors-to-indoors migration. This is a place where the sunny days are hot and the rainy ones are torrential. No one wants to be caught outside when the rain starts.
The woman in the red raincoat doesn’t want that either, but she stands there for a moment anyway. She has one hand in the huge pocket of her raincoat and the other held up, sleeve pulled back to expose the face of her watch. She checks the time: twelve minutes early. Perfect.
She returns her watch to its place within the voluminous red raincoat sleeve, then returns the sleeve to its place within the voluminous pocket of the raincoat. She takes one final long look at her surroundings– watches the people hurrying past her with shoulders stooped and hoods pulled low; notes the way the waves crash and recede distantly against the shingle of the beach; appreciates the dim light of the setting sun as it fights to be seen behind the dark clouds smothering the sky– before turning and entering the cafe.
The woman’s name is May, and she’s here to meet someone.
The bell attached to the door of the cafe jingles as she steps in and lets it swing shut behind her. She waves to the barista and moves towards one of the booth seats lining the wall next to the windows, thinking about the past and her near future.
Two days ago, she’d bumped into someone by random chance. It had been someone she hadn’t seen in person for six years, and hadn’t spoken to for over three. Someone who’d once occupied the passenger seat of her heart, whose laugh and smile used to be familiar to her as the sun.
Laura Kipling. Her best friend for the majority of her life; the girl she had thought would never leave her, until she did. six years ago, after high school, she’d relocated across the country due to family troubles, leaving May with a teary goodbye and a promise to stay in touch.
As promises too often go, it ended up broken. Not quickly, not all at once, not intentionally, but break it did. Slowly, over years of disjointed schedules and the mounting pressures of adult life, their time in each other’s lives lessened. Daily phone calls turned into weekly ones turned into sporadic texts turned into periods of radio silence. Neither of them were on social media much, and so it was all too easy to just… stop knowing what was going on with her friend. She’d wanted to keep close, of course, but life had been so busy, and free time in such short supply. She could barely summon the energy to make dinner for herself in the evenings, let alone call someone across the country for an hour each night.
The months apart stretched on into years. The hole in her heart left by Laura’s absence did not disappear, but became easier to ignore. She had other friends, a job, a whole life not shared with her. It became so easy to feel the tinge of regret and just think, Oh, I’ll catch up with her when I get the chance. She knows I miss her, surely. She missed her, oh yes she did. She just didn’t do anything about it.
Until two days ago, when she ran into her on her way home from work.
With her head down and her earphones in, she hadn’t noticed the woman gaping at her from across the street. But Laura– smiling Laura, loud Laura, the Laura whose voice she still heard every so often in her dreams– had shouted her name, and she had turned and looked, and they talked again for the first time in six years. They couldn’t speak for long, not on that busy sidewalk while the rest of the town was returning home from work, but managed to make plans to meet on Friday, at a place May picked.
It’s Friday now. May is at Bernadette’s– the cafe she’d picked– ten minutes before six– the time they’d agreed on. Her stomach is rumbling and her nerves are a little frayed, but she’s ready to catch up with her old friend. She attempts to reassure herself as she divests herself of her raincoat and settles into the booth seat to wait for Laura.
Twenty minutes after their scheduled meeting time, May starts to worry.
She’s drunk two glasses of water and been to the bathroom once in the time since she entered the cafe, and there’s been no sign of Laura whatsoever. She’s privately thankful that Bernadette’s is not one of the more popular eateries on this street, because she’s already immensely self-conscious of every customer that’s arrived since she has. Townsfolk all around her – parents eating out with their kids, salarymen cooling off after work, young couples eyeing each other across their own booth seats– are engaged in lively conversation, immersed in their own little worlds of personal connection. May is the only person here at a table by themselves. She must look like a fool.
For the tenth time since she sat down, she fights the urge to call Laura.
She could walk in any second now, she reminds herself. I don’t want to be rude. I can have some faith in her, for old time’s sake, right? She tries not to watch as the couple sitting at the table in front of her order their meals from the smiling waitress. She knows that waitress. Melanie, her name was. Please don’t ask me what I’m doing here all alone, Melanie. A different server, Daniel, had already come by and refilled her complimentary glass of water with a quirked brow. Those few seconds of eye contact had been the most stressful part of her day.
It had started raining, just after six. The patter of it on the roof and the street outside had added a secondary chorus to the low chatter of conversing patrons. It was a constant buzz of noise that might ordinarily have been soothing to May, but which now only contributed to the fraying of her nerves. She hates being alone, but more than that hates feeling alone when surrounded by other people. She takes a distracted sip of her complimentary water and sighs, letting her head fall back against the back of the seat. Laura, dear, where are you?
At long last, her question finds its answer.
A woman without a raincoat pushes into Bernadette’s on unsteady feet, a blur of wet cloth and shaggy hair. She sputters inelegantly, brushes her drenched away from her face and blinks owlishly at the bright lights and warmth of the interior. She’s dripping onto the carpet, May thinks to herself with a grin. Maria, the barista May’d greeted when she entered, tosses Laura a towel and nods at May with a smirk. “Dry off before you drip all over my floor, yeah? And hurry up. She’s been waiting for you.”
Laura nods, face obscured by the towel as she hurriedly dries her head and hair off, then freezes as she processes the words. She lowers the towel and spots May waving at her from across the room. “May!” she exclaims, sounding exactly like she had on that busy street two days ago. “Oh god, I’m so sorry!”
She shakes her head like a dog drying off as she jogs over, getting water all over the floor and eliciting a groan from Maria. She peels off her drenched jacket and balls it up, setting it on the floor next to the seat as she slides in across from May. Her mouth is already running.
“May! Oh my god, you won’t believe what happened! Sorry I didn’t call to tell you earlier, I was scouting out the place for the band’s next show– I mentioned a while back that I was in a band, yeah? Well, that one went down in flames. I’m with new guys now. Anyway, we were checking in to see if the setup would be ready by the weekend, and things ran a little late. By the time I left, it was already five-thirty and you know I don’t have a car, right, so I had to book it all the way here. Missed the bus, didn’t wanna fork over the cash for a taxi, you know how it is. Anyway, I wasn’t super sure if I’d got the right place– should have asked for directions– so I really did go into the wrong place at first, and man, the look on those guys’ faces–”
“Laura,” she cuts in, struggling not to laugh. “Hi.”
Laura pauses, mouth hanging open for a second before it curves into a bashful grin. “Hey, May.” She lets out a breath. “Sorry I’m late.”
Then they both chuckle, the hilarity of the situation washing over them, tension diffusing. Then they chuckle harder as they both notice all the ways the others’ laugh has changed since they last saw each other, feeling how utterly strange it is to see so much familiarity in someone they haven’t seen in so long. The laughs are different, but the way Laura covers her mouth with her hand as she does is the same, and the merry twinkle in her eyes is the same as well.
May’s anxiety dissipates over the course of that laugh, years of guilt and awkwardness thawing as she’s reminded of what it’s like to be with one of her favourite people in the world.
“So, tell me about the band.” she says. “Or… bands, plural?”
After Laura and her had finished with their shared fit of laughter, things had fallen back into the way they used to be. The flow of conversation felt natural, instinctual. As if they’d only been apart for a weekend instead of half a decade. Melanie the waitress had come around and taken their orders.
Laura laughs– it’s still that strange, disconcerting mix of foreign and familiar that has May’s insides twisting in confusion and fondness– and says, “Oh, right!”
She goes on to regale May with her recent history of musicianship. Back in their childhood, she’d played acoustic guitar, but since parting ways May was aware that she’d started playing bass. A couple years back she’d wound up in a band with some college friends. As so many college bands do, they had high aspirations and low talent, and ended up parting ways after a spell of failed attempts at breaking out. But, Laura says, she’d gotten the itch in her after that. She loved playing, loved collaborating with people. She was a sociable sort and found her skills to be of use to different sets of folks. So off she went, landing spots in a variety of bands, each with their unique blends of ambition and dysfunction that saw them inevitably petering out. Laura didn’t mind though. It was about the journey to her.
In between this run of musical escapades, she got into all sorts of mischief and curiosity. May remembers well how animated she used to be as a teen, always ready to relate to May a goofy anecdote about some moment or another, and now she has six years’ worth of stories to jam into the conversation.
Some things don’t change, she thinks fondly as Laura makes an exaggerated hand gesture to punctuate an absurd moment in her story. May’s never been a very loud person, and always preferred listening rather than leading a conversation. Laura had always been the excited, outgoing counterpart to her soft-spoken bookish self. Most people didn’t understand how they got along so well. May doesn’t really get it either, but there is that saying about not looking gift horses in the mouth. She’s intensely glad for whatever strange alchemy goes on between their brains that makes them click together so easily. The small spark of warmth in her chest can attest to that.
“… and so that was that.” Laura says, coming to the end of another tangent. She drains what’s left of her water and smacks her lips. “Whew. I am thirsty. This is a cafe. They have coffee here, right?”
“Come see for yourself,” May replies, rising to her feet and nodding at the bar next to the cafe’s entrance.
“If you’ve been wondering about the, ah– decor of the place, there’s a story about that.” She tells Laura as they thread their way between tables and servers. She goes on to tell Laura about the different permutations Bernadette’s has gone through in the time since she started coming here, a couple years back.
May has never met Bernadette herself– if indeed she even exists– but she knows that the woman was always chasing her latest fixation. She was clearly well off, with enough funds available to not only keep a cafe running for over a decade, but to completely redecorate it on a bi-annual basis (meaning every two years, in this case). The cafe had initially been themed like a classic french coffee shop, then was transformed into a japanese izakaya, and then a british teahouse. The only thing that remains constant is the name on the shopfront, and the coffee they sell at the bar. The part that’s funny to May was how the establishment kept the menu items of each theme even after repainting the walls and moving in new furniture. Laura, perpetually hungry and never more curious than she needs to be, had not looked twice at the fact that fettucini carbonara shared space with tonkotsu ramen on the same menu page.
Right now, Bernadette has the place decorated to look like a mid-20th century American diner. Classic red booth seats line the walls and yellow lights hang low, painting the place in warm, nostalgic tones. The floor tiles are a checkerboard pattern, the walls a vibrant red. The bar they arrive at is red too, curving smoothly to enclose the barista with her machines.
“And that’s part of what I like about the place,” May says, finishing her explanation as they arrive at the bar. “It’s always changing, always trying out something new. Like someone I know.” She smirks meaningfully at Laura, who cups her cheeks in pretend bashfulness.
“Oh, please, spare me the praise.” She sidles up to the counter and glances up at the drinks menu, red neon text on a white board. “I just go with the flow is all. And today, that means… a matcha latte, please?” She smiles at Maria, who nods and keys in her order.
“But, I thought you didn’t like coffee, anyway.” Laura asks after they collect their drinks and have returned to their table. The place has gotten busier by now, but May doesn’t mind waiting a while for her food. She’d scheduled out extra time in case dinner dragged on. “What made you try this place out? Coworkers at the bookstore drag you here to test your book-lover credentials?”
May smiles wryly. “Bingo”, she lies. She can’t bring herself to spit out the actual truth, can’t find the right words. How does one say Every time I smelled coffee, I thought of you, so I started coming here every time I missed you to someone you haven’t been talking to for three years?
The moment is broken when Melanie arrives with their food. Three piping hot plates of good cooking are set down on the wood tabletop before them, and for the next few minutes few words are exchanged between them as they dig in.
May takes the opportunity to study her friend between bites.
Conversation starts up again after a few minutes of relishing their food, but May’s attention isn’t fully on what’s entering her mouth or her ears. Instead, she’s committing every detail of Laura’s new self to memory.
She internalises the new thinness of her face, with fresh bags under the eyes and laugh lines beginning to form at the sides. She takes note of her newly tanned, repeatedly sunburnt skin. She takes in the way she holds herself with new confidence, no longer the gangly youth of six years ago. She smiles internally at her dry, sort of brittle hair, the result of years of experiments with dye-jobs and curling. May gathers every detail and holds them close, just in case.
In case they drift apart again. In case the distance widens again.
Laura notices eventually, because she knows May as well as May knows her. “Hey,” she says, through a mouthful of roast chicken. “What’s on your mind?” She watches with curiosity in her gaze as May distractedly fiddles with her fork, absentmindedly twirling pasta.
“It’s—” nothing, she wants to say, but Laura deserves the truth. May doesn’t know what she’s hiding from, anyway. If she’s ever going to close the distance and make sure they stay in touch, she’ll have to be honest with Laura, and with herself. The truth spills from her, an ocean of feeling contained in three whispered words.
“I missed you.”
A beat passes. Rain patters outside, drumming on the roof of the cafe like television static. The other dinner guests continue chattering, oblivious to the emotion passing between the two of them. Nothing and no-one bats an eye at the quiet statement, but for a moment, the two of them are suspended in emotional amber, alone in their own private universe.
Laura swallows, clears her throat. A deep mixture of emotions swirls in her eyes. Her lips part and begin to form a grin, as if she’s about to make a joke and dispel whatever this moment is– but then they freeze. Laura Kipling sighs and lets her mouth curve into a softer, truer smile.
“Yeah.” she replies. “I missed you too.”
All good things must come to an end, and their dinner does as well. Eventually.
Most of the diners who were present when May and Laura first sat down have left now. It’s getting late. Their bodies, fed and watered and content after their meal, are ready to head home and rest.
“Oh, god.” Laura sighs after letting out a body-trembling yawn. “I feel like my dad after Christmas dinner.”
May snorts, finishing the last dregs of her americano and setting the empty cup back on its saucer with a clatter. “Just don’t snore like him, and I’m sure your bandmates won’t mind.” She turns and glances out the window, at the streetlamps glowing through the haze of rain. Night has fully fallen now. She sighs. “I hate to say it, but–”
“We should go, yeah.” Laura’s already out of her seat, stretching her lanky legs. May shuffles out of her own side of the booth and collects her things. Her body is tired but her soul is soothed, heart feeling whole for the first time in a long while. She lets Laura sling an arm around her shoulder like she used to when they were still kids, and lets herself be walked over to the front of the cafe.
“Hey. Before we go our separate ways again,” says Laura soberly once they’re at the door. “Promise me we’ll keep in touch this time. For real. And– uh…” She makes a vague gesture towards May’s arm, upon which her handbag and unused raincoat has been slung. “Can I..?”
May sighs fondly for the final time that night and hands her the red raincoat.
“I swear I won’t be a distant idiot again,” she promises. “And I hate that you know I brought a backup, by the way. This is the last time I lend you a coat.” She reaches into her handbag and pulls out an extendable blue umbrella as Laura sheepishly zips herself into her coat.
“See you soon.” she says, hoping the words will come true.
“See you soon,” Laura echoes. She flips the raincoat’s hood up, pushes the doors open, and steps back out into the rain. She waves at May as she pads off into the hazy, wet darkness of the night.
May waves back until she can’t see her anymore, then opens her umbrella.
A woman with a blue umbrella steps out into the rain.
She takes a deep breath, gathering her thoughts.
Then she begins her long walk back home, out into a night that feels just a little less lonely than it did before.
Written by: Ryan Kong
