What We Tell Ourselves

A short fiction, written in one sitting, for fun

by Matt Kelzer

“—tell me, did you fall for a shooting star? One without a permanent scar, and then you miss me while you’re lookin’ for yourself out there—“

The music was an old thing that I’d heard a million times when I was young. Growing up in the 90’s everyone had these songs that they heard and even sang to, but never really understood until they grew up, got older, developed “sense”. It was never wasted on me that we never understood the best songs about love and freedom until after we’d become the classic early-20-year-old cynics. All the same, it was still something to bob your head to, and some rhythm to guide your pen across a stack of papers the size of the Webster’s dictionary.

I still remember that day clearly, all these years later. I try to pretend that it wasn’t significant. It’s what I have to tell myself, for my sake.

I was toward the end of my first year as a graduate student in the field of Ecology, doing the cliché grad student thing: grading papers from my class of undergrads at the local coffee shop, a Starbucks, naturally. I sat near the plate glass window that made up the front of the shop at one of those little two chaired tables made for dates, or business meets, or whatever else you might use only two chairs for. I faced the back wall in the corner with no other tables in my view save one of the high-topped ones on the other wall as the building wrapped around, I didn’t want distractions; my stack of papers were headed back to their owners the next day.

I pushed through the papers as quickly as I could, cutting through letters and words here and there, leaving them bleeding red ink in the wake of my destruction. Some papers had good data, good writing, a couple were even compelling in what way a mere undergrad could muster. Others, well, let’s just not talk about them.

I must have been about halfway through the stack when it happened. I went to move a paper over to the growing stack of the wounded when my arm snagged the cord to my ear-buds, yanking both out of my ears and plunking them cleanly into the gaping maw of my coffee cup. I froze. Actually sat there a few seconds with the paper hovering in my hand a couple inches over the pile, in disbelief that that could seriously have just happened right then, of all times. Just as I took a deep breath and was about to unleash a vile, albeit whispered, slew of all sorts of unimaginable profanity, that’s when I heard it.

A quiet sniffle. No, a snickering.

Without moving my head, my eyes reflexively darted up over the rim of my glasses, and there she was, at the one other table I could see. She sat there silent, eyes fixed firmly on some tablet I couldn’t identify in one hand, the other wrapped around a steaming cup of who-knows-what. Her green eyes were fixed stationary on the screen, the far corner of her mouth quivering as she tried to pretend she hadn’t just laughed out loud at me. She had bright red hair, clearly not natural, cut neck length so the tip of a tattoo could be seen as it snaked its way around the back of her neck and under her fitted black leather jacket. Her stylish jeans left little to the imagination; she was clearly in good shape. Her flats showed that she had just come in out of the rain.

I looked back to her eyes and met them; she was starting directly at me. I realized instantly that I’d been caught and finally dropped the page I’d realized I was still holding above its fallen comrades. Before I could even muster a smile I felt the heat in my cheeks and I looked down back at my papers, instead seeing my headphones still bathing in my drink, surely ruined. I cursed under my breath and dragged them out, fitting one into my right ear to see if it could possibly still be working.

Nothing.

I pulled the plug out of my iPod, dropped the stupid things on the far end of the table. Before I knew it, my corner of the shop was filled with a blaring rendition of “Welcome to Paradise” flying out of my damned player. I scooped the thing up, fiddled with the touch screen, and silenced it.

Another snickering sound, this time with a sultry note of female voice.

I looked up again, and she had her hand cupped over her mouth this time, looking right at me, not even pretending to be ignoring me this time. If she were any less pretty or any more opposite her gender I probably would have made some obscene gesture before I’d known it. The best I could come up with was to run my hands through my hair and cup them behind my head, leaning back in my chair.

“This is my life” is what it said. She turned back to her tablet, still smiling.

I leaned forward again, took a heroic gulp of coffee, and took up my red pen for another round. Just as I was about to assault the first spelling mistake I found, I heard it again.

Green Day, “Welcome to Paradise”.

I swore again, louder this time, and lunged for my iPod, knocking my cup of coffee right off the table. I didn’t see it, but I could hear it go everywhere. I pretended not to notice and flicked the screen on, and saw that nothing was playing. It registered then that the song came from elsewhere, from the other table. I looked up, and this time both hands were over her mouth. Her eyes were squished shut, holding desperately onto tears, although her shoulders were now shaking with silent laughter; her tablet lay on the table, sounding off the old punk rock anthem.

This time I sat and waited for her to collect herself, and when she did she wiped a tear from her eye and stood up.

Her voice cracked a little with laugher and asked, “Okay, okay, cream or sugar?”

“Both” I said, before I realized what was happening.

Without another word, she disappeared behind the wall separating me from the counter. She reappeared 30 seconds later with a copy of the drink I’d just dropped in one hand and a fistful of napkins in the other. She set the coffee in front of me, and knelt down to wipe up the spill.

“Stop, stop, stop” I knelt down with her. “I’ve got it, it isn’t your fault…”

I took the napkins from her hand and she stood up, and padded silently away without another word. I silently reprimanded myself for being so curt with someone so pretty and kind, and told myself I’d be apologizing as soon as I’d soaked up my mess.

I swung back up into my chair and as I came fully upright I jumped a little. The girl with the bright red hair was now sitting in the chair opposite me, smiling brightly.

The rest of the night is a blur, really. We stayed there all night, sitting, talking, and laughing about school and work and nonsense we heard on the news. The specifics of the conversation are meaningless now; there was the bright smile, almost as bright as her hair; there was my stack of papers, unfinished but recombined messily, with our hands around coffee cups in the center of the table; there was the way she would throw her arm over the back of her chair and lean back when she told a story.

Toward the end of the night I got up to use the bathroom, telling her I would be right back.

When I came back she was gone, no trace she was ever there aside from her empty coffee cup, still on the table. I hadn’t even asked her name, we didn’t even act at any point like we didn’t already know each other.

I never saw her again. My papers didn’t get graded either, but that doesn’t matter so much now. I came back to that spot, that exact table again for nights on end, and again every now and then after I’d had no luck for a month. A short eternity later, my schooling was done and I’d gotten some entry level job I barely remember anymore down south. It was then, after I’d moved, when I emptied my old canvas school bag of all its old contents, and among the crushed pages in the bottom I spotted a folded shred of yellow legal paper.

I unfolded it, and it was a name, “Emily”, and a phone number. It hit me like a lightning bolt, even after the years had passed, that I’d seen a yellow legal pad sticking out of that girl’s bag. It didn’t take long for me to reach for a phone and dial the number.

A female voice came on.

“I’m sorry, the line you are trying to reach has been disconn---“

I hung up before it could even finish.

I guess it just goes to show you that this world is full of great, tragic, random happenings. I think that night over every now and then, now probably a decade ago, and wonder what would have been. Maybe I’d still know her, maybe we’d be married or have kids, maybe we’d be estranged and never speak again anyway.

Maybe it’s better this way. Of course it is. It has to be. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

It’s what I have to believe.