She had been looking at it for an hour. The twist of light reflecting from the sun, or a patch of marsh grass standing defiant, or a line in the gull’s foot, or a small untucked feather. Details she hadn’t seen before. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
She surprised herself the day before, just as she whispered, “See you tomorrow Samuel” to herself. Or was it aloud, as she watched him walk away and he smiled back. It didn’t matter if she said it aloud because no one would have heard it anyway, just the one guy at the counter waiting to order his coffee.
Today Samuel didn’t show. He didn’t walk in the door with his pack slung over his shoulder, the pack filled with a worn copy of The Fountainhead, the big sketchbook, the charcoal pencils.
She studied the sketch he left on the table before he walked out of the cafe, the creation he left behind for her to find. Did he know she sat on her small couch that came with her small apartment, listening to a Cat Stevens CD on repeat, looking at it for an hour?
***
The next afternoon he walked in. Where she would be, usually leaning against the counter in between the espresso machine and the register, stood Lucas, the owner, yelling something about the Red Sox game. An emptiness filled the joint without Karia there.
***
She had desired several men, slept with a few of them. One called her his girlfriend for a year and wanted her to move in with him. He was interesting enough to talk to and not bad looking at all. But she never once felt like she needed him, and she thought she would never really want a man. Something inside her was broken, her heart maybe, she would joke to herself, if joking is what you can call it.
She never thought she would really want a man. That’s what she was thinking about when he entered with his shy smile, his unrushed walk, that pack slung over his shoulder.
He was wearing jeans and a flannel, prepared for the unusually cold Florida day.
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