Clarooscuro

“I have a tale to tell” she said, one day over coffee on a Tuesday afternoon.

I appeared intensely focused on stirring, smoothing every lump of sugar into a creamy brown vortex. Truth is, I knew something was coming. She wasn’t that hard to read. But I didn’t want to talk about whatever it was. So I asked her a question to distract her.

“Do you believe in love?” I said.

“Don’t distract me.” She said.

And so I gave up. The silence that followed must have lasted a half an hour. She had barely touched her coffee and was now staring out the window, lost somewhere in the rain.

“So, are you going to tell me?” I finally asked, dragging her back to this table, this space.

“I don’t think you want to hear my story.” She said. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or kidding.

More silence.

“Let’s just go” she proposed, “I’m not feeling so well.”

_____

We met again the following week. More rain. This time she got a hot chocolate. It occurred to me that maybe she didn’t like coffee. We sat together again at our table, and I watched her marshmallows dissolve. She looked out the window again.

“Did you watch the horse race?” She finally asked.

“No” I said. “The result was predictable anyway. And after what happened with Eight Belles, I feel like everyone is just waiting for another accident. Horse racing is turning into hockey, or wrestling, and we’re all just waiting for blood.”

For a change, she looked up from her drink. “Eight Belles is the one who died, right?”

“Yes” I responded, hoping I’d come across a topic of interest.

“Why do you always have to upset me?” She answered. “Do you slow down to look at accidents on the highway?”

“We all do.” I mumbled to myself.

_____

Some time passed. She stopped returning my calls. I worried. One day as a coworker and I sat in the café, she reappeared in a raincoat and galoshes. The sun was shining. Her hair was cut short and she looked more fragile than I remembered. “What happened to you, girl?” I remember asking myself.

I never found out what it was she couldn’t quite tell me.