Alex
Her hair is dark brown. Sort of. A dark brown that lightens steadily so that by the time your eyes reach the end of it, it’s nearly gone blond. Ombré. It’s got a subtle wave to it, an understated wave, so you’re not really sure if it’s a wave at all or if it’s just windblown, the hair that sits below the shoulders. Brown hair to accompany the brown eyes, which—like the hair—seem to change colors the longer I stare. She arrives alone, holding the door for a couple of old fogeys who follow on the heels of her overpriced Uggs. She steps back and waits while they’re seated, though it was clearly she who arrived first. She stands there in the entranceway, somehow looking sure and not so sure all at the same time. Her stance is that of aplomb: upright posture, nothing fidgety or twitchy, simply waiting her turn.
But her eyes are aimless.
I’ve never seen her around here before, but for years now I’ve been imagining she would come.
When it’s her turn, she’s seated at a table beside the window so she can watch the same predictable customers who come and go and come and go, though it goes without saying that they’re anything but predictable to her. I watch as she slips from a black-and-white checkered pea coat. There’s a marled black beanie on her head. She removes the hat and drops it on an empty brown banquette chair beside her canvas bag. Then she peels a knitted scarf from around her neck and drops that, too, on the chair. She’s petite, though not like those überskinny models you see on the fashion magazines in the grocery store lines. No, not like that. She’s not pin thin, but her build is slight. More short than tall, more skinny than not skinny. But still, not short and not skinny, either. Just average or normal, I guess, but she’s really not any of those things, either.
Beneath the pea coat and the beanie and the scarf, there’s a pair of jeans with the Uggs. And a hoodie. Blue. With pockets.
Outside, day has broken. It’s another sunless day. There are leaves on the sidewalk, brittle, crumbly leaves; what remain on the trees will lose their hold by the end of the afternoon, if the westerly wind has any say in it. It whips around the corners of the redbrick buildings, sneaking under a kaleidoscope of awnings where it lies in wait for the perfect opportunity to snatch someone’s hat or steal scraps of paper from their glove-laden hands.
There’s no threat of rain. Not yet, anyway. But the cold and the wind will keep plenty of people inside, forestalling the promise of winter.
She orders a coffee. She sits by the window, sipping out of the discount ceramic coffee mug, staring out the window at the view: the brick buildings, the colorful awnings, the fallen leaves. You can’t see Lake Michigan from here. But people like to sit at the window, anyway, and imagine. It’s there somewhere, the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Harbor Country, we’re called, a string of small beachfront towns just seventy-some miles outside of Chicago, seventy-some miles that are somehow equivalent to three states and another world away. That’s where most of our clientele comes from, anyway. Chicago. Sometimes Detroit or Cleveland or Indianapolis. But most often Chicago. A weekend getaway because it’s not like there’s anything to do here that will keep you busy for more than two days.
But that’s in the summer mainly, when people actually come. Nobody comes now. Nobody but her.
Our café is far enough off the beaten path that where we sit at the far edge of town the shops and restaurants give way to homes. It’s an assorted mix, really—a souvenir shop to the north, a bed-and-breakfast to the south. On the opposite side of the sett street is a psychologist’s office, followed by a succession of single-family homes. Condos. A gas station. Another souvenir shop, closed until spring.
A waitress passes by, snaps her fingers before my eyes. “Table two,” she says, a waitress I call Red. They’re all just nicknames to me: Red, Braids, Braces. “Table two needs to be cleared.”
But I don’t move. I continue to stare. I give her a nickname, too, because it feels like the right thing to do. The woman staring out the window is building castles in the air. Daydreaming. It’s a big deal, really, something different happening around here when nothing different ever happens. If Nick or Adam were still around, and not away at college, I’d call them up and tell them about the girl that showed up today. About her eyes, about her hair. And they’d want to know the details: whether or not she really was different than the dime-a-dozen girls we see every day, the same girls we’ve known since first grade. And I’d tell them that she is.
My grandfather used to call my grandmother—also a brunette, though in my lifetime I’d never seen her as anything other than a mass of weblike gray—Cappuccetta. The nickname Cappuccetta purportedly came from the monks of Capuchin, or so my Italian grandfather claimed, something about the hoods they wore bearing resemblance to the coffee drink, a cappuccino. That’s what Grandpa said, anyway, when he looked my grandmother in the eye and called her Cappuccetta.
Me, I just like the sound of it. And it seems to suit this girl well, the modicum of brunette hair, the ambiguity that surrounds her like the hood of a monk’s cowl. But I’m not a coffee drinker, and so instead my eyes drop to her narrow wrist where there sits a pearl bracelet that looks much too small for even her small hand. It’s pulled taut, the elastic cord showing through the creamy beads. I imagine it leaves a red imprint along the skin. The pearl beads are worn along the edges, losing their sheen. I watch as she plucks habitually at the band, pulling the elastic up off the skin, and allowing it to snap back again. It’s mesmerizing, almost, that simple movement. Pluck. Pluck. Pluck. I watch for a while, unable to shift my eyes from the bracelet or her fluid hands.
And that’s what cinches it. Not Cappuccetta, I decide. I’ll call her Pearl instead.
Pearl.
It’s then that a cluster of churchgoers appear, the same ones who arrive every week about this same time. They claim their usual table, a rectangular slab that seats all ten. They’re delivered carafes of coffee—one half-caf, the other leaded—though no one asks. It’s assumed. Because this is what they do every Sunday morning: cluster around the same table, talking passionately about things like sermons and pastors and scripture.
The waitress Braids disappears for three consecutive smoke breaks so that when she returns she reeks of a cigarette factory, her teeth a pale yellow as she dribbles another inadequate tip into the pocket of her apron and moans. A dollar fifty, all in quarters.
She excuses herself and heads to the restroom.
The café takes on a vibe of normalcy, though with Pearl in the room—the lady with the ombré hair, staring out the window at the colorful homes and the redbrick buildings across the way—things are anything but normal. She eats from the plate of food now set before her: scrambled eggs with an English muffin on the side, smothered in butter and strawberry jam. A second cup of coffee splashed with two tubs of creamer and sprinkled with a single sugar substitute, the pink stuff, which she drinks without ever bothering to stir. I find myself staring, unable to take my eyes off her hands, and she raises the mug to her lips and sips.