The Girl with the Red Umbrella by Nick Dow

Gazing out of the cafe window, Harmon could not help but imagine himself as a piece of driftwood upon a calm sea. His piercing blue eyes often startled passerby who happened to think that he was looking at them. This focus was effortless and not at all discrete, yet his concentration was just an illusion. Instead of glazing over, his eyes sharpened when he daydreamed, his preeminent occupation most days. Few outside Harmon’s mind could capture his attention. The street was not busy that early in the morning. Harmon observed the double lethargy of students who had just started a new semester and were recovering from a weekend of partying. He quickly sank into his daytime fantasies as he mindlessly worked. The row of stores along Witherspoon Street experienced the greater life of the neighboring university in waves of students every hour on the hour. The growing tide of hunger brought the crests of these waves higher and higher until midday, and a similar tide cycle would occur in the afternoon with a seven o’clock high. The winter only accentuated the cycle; the emptiness of the cold drove many from the university dining halls to the restaurants along Nassau. When the frost did return, a hot drink was the perfect complement to the sugary snow. The big players of Princeton Village were the cafés. Students could afford to compromise on food, sleep, and even entertainment, but never caffeine. A student himself, Harmon was more appreciative than his fellow coworkers of the free

18 hot drink the café allotted him each morning. The pay was decent enough. The most important thing the job provided him was the cafe’s ability to channel his wistfulness; the interior’s dark wood paneling, fragrant coffee smells, and cozy darkness on less sunny days was the perfect place to slip away. As a college student, he felt constantly drained of his mind, sleep, and money. The job at the cafe managed to partially mitigate all three. That was until she had shown up. It had been one of those perfectly tranquil mornings in the cafe. The rain softly struck the window in a seemingly measured rhythm while the cloudy sky cast a sheltered hue on the dimly lit tables. He had felt unusually conscious that morning. His skin had a dry freshness to it, the kind of sensation only achieved when one had the time to take a long, hot shower followed by a thorough drying and a proper shave. Harmon had been perched on a new spot that day, hunched like a sphinx with his elbows folded on the glass display case. He had been staring across at the falafel place when the red umbrella popped into view. The effect on his eyes was astounding; like steadfast anchors being dragged along by an unnatural current, his vision tracked her as she came to the entrance of the cafe. As she turned to enter, she spun her umbrella and collapsed it in one swift motion. Crossing the threshold, her long gossamer hair seemed to swoop in behind her before coming to rest just below her shoulders. Those brunette locks framed a face whose angles were a perfect balance of hardness and playfulness. With short, lithe steps, she followed a careless path to his counter. When her sea green eyes connected with his, Harmon realized that he had not known life before this moment, and he was utterly unprepared for it. -Hello! Could I get two cappuccinos with extra foam,

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please? Throughout the following week, he felt a sharp pain in his heart whenever he recalled his complete helplessness. His characteristically nimble tongue had stumbled like a newborn giraffe. -I’ll be sure to, uh, call you up when your uh… cappuccinos are done, ma’am! By the time he had crafted his response, she had already sat down. Snapping out of his stupor, he made her two drinks in a frenzy, afraid that every moment he took preparing, his visible flaws grew only more noticeable in her eyes. As he concocts, he hopes she appreciates the geometry of his skull. On second thought, it tapers too rapidly towards his jaw. Harmon grasped for the time he last went to the gym. When he was done, he caught a glance of her before calling her over. She was completely engrossed in her book. -Thank you. This simple recognition burned pathways through the nerves of his stomach. New surges of adrenaline made his sweeping glances at her bolder and more frequent. She finally left around eight o’clock, rendering Harmon’s otherwise tranquil day gloomy and empty. The daydreams that had been banished by the girl with the red umbrella came rushing fiercely back in an attempt to fill her absence. Harmon usually drifted through fantasies that pulled from the variety of sci-fi and magical novels he had read in his childhood. They invariably placed him as the protagonist fighting off a crisis with technological or supernatural prowess. Manning his cash register, he was the Admiral in charge of Earth’s last defensive fleet. As students passed through his vision, their glowing faces pricked by the cold, he

20 acknowledged their awe towards him. These personas shielded him from his grades, his parents, and himself. When those dreams came back that day, they had changed. They had been infected by Red. As he slipped away again, the red umbrella girl accompanied him as he progressed rapidly from one dream to the next. Bathed in moonlight, Red’s silver armor shone like a star as she readied her sword. Her hair flowed behind her like a current as she led his army to battle, their crimson standards fluttering. Gunshots dotted his chest as he lay on the gurney. Red’s furrowed brow led him away from the battlefield, her quiet concern bearing him to safety. Now on the command deck, Red brandished her datapad as she dictated her ingenious battle plan to the ship’s AI. -Commander, a slingshot around Mars would provide sufficient velocity to escape. Following his reemergence into reality, her voice continued to ring in his mind. Harmon tried to carry on like usual, but she penetrated his mind like the sun’s glow shines through his eyelids. The harsh fluorescent lighting of the university labs exposed his skull’s hard lines as he drifted through his work. Harmon’s colleagues gave him a wider berth than usual due to his intoxication. Attending dinner at the Cloister eating club, Old Glory’s red stripes brought back the umbrella. Returning to his bed hours of dreams later, his mind had already discarded the awkward birthmark that extended down her left forearm. By that Thursday her ears would be properly tucked back. A weird twitch of her eye would promptly thereafter be forgotten. It was an eternity until he would see her again. That week passed by in a mix of torturous hope and blissful escape.

21 She had seared herself onto his retinas, so any attempts at studying were futile. When cappuccinos were made, drinks would inevitably fall to the floor. The color red brought his heart to a thunder against his ribs. Harmon’s refuge, his mind, had been infiltrated by the one thing that wracked him with longing. His easy drift had borne him into a hurricane; he only sought its eye. Harmon wished to annihilate the intervening days to her potential return. His calm demeanor deserted him. Entering the cafe each day, he trembled with anxiety. Each day, the end of his shift sounded like a death knell. The growing iterations of his dreams soothed him, for she had finally become a goddess in his eyes. Dreams had built upon one another, distilling her essence into impossible perfection. He possessed strange new confidence. When the next Monday rolled around, Harmon did not recognize Sydney as she walked through the door. Figments of an Amazonian warrior slashing with her scarlet sword were still racing through his mind. Sydney approached the counter. -Heya! Nice seeing you again.” Harmon had yearned for just those few words for a week. “Two cappuccinos with extra foam, please.” As his blue eyes met her sea-green ones, Harmon felt as if someone punched him in the gut. ‘Is this Red?’, Harmon thought, ‘it can’t be.’ The taste of vomit spread from the back of his throat. Betrayal echoed in his head as the blood drained from his face. Cracks formed in the Red of his mind, revealing this girl underneath. Forcing a weak smile, he mustered up a brief reassurance to her. Her nervous laugh tore at his ears as she turned away. Failure danced along his eyebrows as he and Red had once done in his mind. Deathly afraid that the woman of his dreams might disappear, he dared not look at this girl again. Harmon handed Sydney the drinks, she sat

22 reading her book, and then she left. Red’s hair swept out the door behind her. One of his coworkers walked over. An arrogant grin plastered on his face, he misinterpreted Harmon’s apparent disappointment. -You like her don’t ya? Fat chance. Sadness rose, then receded into Harmon’s eyes. - I’d like to see you try though. You’ll get her next time she swings in. Sorting out his thoughts, Harmon calmly pushed himself back into the current. Coolly, he responded with a measured rhythm. -I don’t really like her. Just a bit of Deja vu, some superstition, that’s all. -You sure man? I saw you freeze like a deer in headlights. You can’t tell me there’s nothin’ there. -Fred, please just drop it. I really don’t have feelings for her. - Whatever you say... Mondays in the café lost their appeal. Like most mornings of the week, Harmon had taken up a spot on top of the display case. Students strolling outside would occasionally catch sight of his gaze, stop to investigate and continue walking when they realized his focus wasn’t for them. Rain struck the cafe window. The enchantingly sweet smells of coffee drifted out the front door. Dim shadows cloaked Harmon’s mind. In bliss, he rowed a small dinghy through lapping waves. Like the ocean beneath, Red’s eyes reflected the unattainable grandeur of the stars.