Coffee Break

Veronica De Simone

Translated by: Giulia Ricciardi.

I stretch my legs out under the table and look outside.

The sky has clouded over and the dim light that shines over the city isn’t enough to chase the shadows away. Maybe it’s better: the sun isn’t appropriate for this kind of visit.

“Would you like to order, Miss?” The waitress has already come twice. She’s young, with narrow shoulders and spindly pianist-like fingers. She wasn’t here five years ago.

“Not yet.” I look at my wristwatch. It’s the new tic New York has given me. “I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Would you like something while you wait?”

I glance behind her. The diner has been enlarged; I didn’t notice this when

I came in. The glass shelves loaded with pastries shine invitingly on the right side of the counter. I go closer to take a look. I smile; there’s also our “study boost,” the pistachio and almond Tiramisu that your mom used to bake when I came over to yours. “Our baker makes them,” the waitress tells me proudly. “He’s my brother, you know.” “Really?” She nods. “He’s always had a huge passion for baking, so when Mr Galimberti put up the ad that he was hiring, he immediately came forward.” She keeps talking, her mouth moves, but it’s like watching a silent film in color. I nod to make it seem as if I’m participating in the conversation. You worked here, too; you loved baking, too. All these coincidences hurt. “If you don’t mind some advice, you must absolutely try the cheesecake or the apple pie. They’re delicious, trust me.” I let a few seconds pass, as if I’m really considering her suggestion. The truth is, I’ve already chosen. “I think I’ll take a slice of pistachio and almond Tiramisu.” I smile and look at the time. 2:07pm. I take two packets of brown sugar. “And also a black coffee and a latte to go.” The waitress stares at me confused. “Aren’t you going to wait for you friend anymore?” “He’ll never be on time. We’ll eat the Tiramisu here, but we’ll never make it if we sit around and drink.” I bite the corner of my mouth. “You know… he’s that kind of guy.” “A pathological latecomer?” I nod, and in her eyes shines a knowing glint, as if she had just remembered having a friend like you herself. But no one could ever be like you. You were the only one who was able to make a strength out of your quirkiness. “Here.” She hands me the paper cups and a small plate with two forks. I smile and turn around to go back to the table.

You are there.

The words take flight and I can’t think. In my eyes and my mind there’s only you. I breathe in, breathe out and in once again. I blink but you don’t disappear. You haven’t moved an inch.

The first step is a struggle. I wish I could run away… from you, from myself, from this diner. The door is right there, close, I could reach it now. I’ve always been a coward, the scared squire who runs away before the dragon. But a promise is a promise, and today it’s my turn to wear the armour. I manage to reach the table without stumbling in fear.

“Hello, you” You say.

With my fingers I lightly trace the contour of the golden pendant under my sweater. If I were to press a little more, I’d be able to draw the face of the Virgin Mary, her hands closed in prayer over her breast. “Hello, you.”

“I was waiting for you.”

“Where did you come from? I didn’t see you.”

You smile. Two dimples appear at the corners of your mouth, rounding your cheeks. “I passed by you, but you didn’t notice me. Too busy badmouthing me to the waitress, I guess.”

I take a seat and hand you the latte, the plate with the Tiramisu in the middle of the table, forming a bridge. “You never change.”

You take the cup e put it down beside the napkin holder. “The important thing is that I’m on time for our coffee break.”

I nod, biting my lip. Between 2pm and 2:30pm, the coffee break. Mine and yours. Ours.

“I missed you, Miky.” You stretch your hand out, curl it gently around my arm, and the tension I had in my body melts away.

You’ve always had this ability to make people feel at ease with little. Everyone used to say it. But now our friends aren’t here, and you can enchant only me with your magic.

“So, how are you?” Your voice is high pitched, like a little boy at a fair. It suits you, like the light that used to shine in your eyes every time we met. It’s discernible even now: it’s a wheat stem in a field of wild weeds. It’s always summer in your eyes.

“Fine, all things considered. I found a job in New York at a small publishing house. I don’t earn much, but the editor told me that as soon as I finish these months of apprenticeship he’s going to offer me a permanent job.”

“Do you still write?”

I shake my head. “I don’t have much time to myself.”

You wrinkle your nose, furrowing your eyebrows. You smelled the lie. I’ve never been good at lying, especially to you. “When there ain’t no time, you just find it. It was our motto, remember?”

“We used to say it to each other all throughout school and college.” I snort. “You liked telling me so every time I refused to hang out because I had to study.”

“’Cause that was just an excuse to stay at home under a pile of blankets watching some TV show. If I hadn’t been there, you would’ve turned into a hermit during exam period.”

“I could argue that, because of you, I had to study day and night to finish preparing for some exams.”

You cross your arms over your chest and lean back on the chair. “Better stressed for a week than going missing for a month.”

I laugh, I can’t help it. “You never change.”

“You don’t either.” You brush aside a curl from your nose and lightly touch the paper cup with your index and middle finger. “So, Miky, why ain’t you finding the time to write?”

I look down at my coffee.

The smoke rises towards the ceiling in spiralling ribbons, spreading the smell around us.

I take a sip, taking longer than necessary to swallow. The truth is, I can’t string a single sentence together anymore. I’d like to, but the most beautiful words are gone. Only the ones related to paperwork, email and postal payments are left. No rhetoric, no nuances, no fanciful styles. I read others’, evaluate them, choose them. I’m judge, jury and executioner of future writers. But my words, they have dried up. Like flowers between the pages, like pepper in the cupboard, like blood on… “How about you?”

You shrug. This isn’t what you hoped I’d say to you. But you’ll answer because you have nothing to hide. “Fine, even though being here without you is awful. I miss going and pestering you at the print shop. A very serious guy with the expressiveness of a dead fish works there now. I had way more fun when you were there.”

“Yeah, I know.” I crack a smile. “You used to make me go crazy.”

“My, my, you’re so dramatic. I’ll have you know that I made your afternoons less boring.”

“And perhaps I should also thank you for all the scolding that I took.”

You wave your hand in front of your face as if you’re batting a fly away. “Mr Moore adored you too much to scold you.”

I suppress a laugh and stir my coffee. “Maybe.”

“And, I tell you, he wasn’t the only one: it’s thanks to you that many students at our college graduated. Even Edward, thanks to all the times he came to you to print his notes,” you make quotation marks with your fingers “was able to graduate.”

“You always exaggerate.”

You chuckle. “C’mon, Miky, you’re a pretty girl, smart and easy-going. Being near you made yours truly very jittery most of the time.”

“Why?”

“’Cause all our peers, or almost all of them, had a crush on you. You can’t imagine all the glares I got because of you.”

“Suuure. It wasn’t because you couldn’t shut up even while you were eating.”

“This could be another reason, but not the main one by any means.” You grab the fork by the Tiramisu and point it at me, twirling it between your thumb and index finger like a magic wand. “The true reason behind the hatred towards my person was you, Mikhaela Flake.”

I look up at the sky and shake my head. It’s difficult to remain serious around you. Or sad. Your very presence is a crucifix against all my demons.

You put the fork back down on the plate’s edge and interlace your fingers under your chin. “Speaking of boys, are you still with Andrew?”

“No, I’m not. It has been over for a while now.”

“But you were great together.”

You’re right; Andrew and I completed each other. And it’s because of that that it hurt so much to say goodbye. When we broke up, the best parts of me remained stuck in his heart, in his flesh. “I know, but it didn’t work out in the end. We fought every day. We stopped loving each other long before admitting it was over.” I sigh and rub my eyes. The Tiramisu is still between us, untouched. I grab the fork and point at it with my chin. “Do you want some?”

“Eat up. I know how much you love it. I bet that you can only dream of it in New York.”

“Only because I’m too lazy to look for a good bakery.”

You shrug and cross your arms over your chest. Your smile has changed. You always have a different one for every occasion, and you wear them all with the same elegance with which you wear your nice pair of trousers. This smile is the one that means “I know I’m right,” with your lips curled upwards showing the thin half-moon of your teeth.

While eating, I can’t stop observing it. The taste of Tiramisu fades on my palate.

“So now you live alone?”

“Not at all. I share the rent with two other girls.”

“Do you get along with them?”

I nod. “They’re good people.”

You huff. A curl snaps upwards, hovers for a bit and falls back down on your nose. “You’re always so stingy when it comes to compliments.”

I dab my mouth with the napkin. My thoughts roll against the walls of my mind, jingling like coins at the bottom of a piggy bank. They wouldn’t be enough to buy even a bag of candies, forget satisfying your curiosity.

“Giorgia was my first roommate. She’s a tough girl, with clear ideas about what she wants to do with her life. At first we didn’t get along, but in time we learned to understand each other. Sometimes we still argue, we sulk for a bit, and in the evening we end up sprawled on the couch to watch a movie together. Lydia arrived later. She’s still a student.”

“Oh? What’s she studying?”

“Materials Science. A strange mix between physics and chemistry.”

“Sounds difficult.”

“It is. When I come home she’s often sitting at her desk doing her homework. Sometimes we even have to remind her to eat. I believe that, if Giorgia and I weren’t there, she’d even forget to dress up in the morning.”

“A bit like you the last year of college.”

I crack a smile. “I wasn’t as messed up!”

“You mean to tell me that you didn’t have to threaten her of smashing down the door?”

I bite the corner of my mouth to suppress a chuckle. “Not yet, but at this rate, I think we’ll be forced to.”

“And then you’ll have to drag her out to a pub.”

“She isn’t the type.”

“Don’t tell me that she follows the doctrine of no-alcohol, too.”

“Only during exam period. But she’s more likely to buy a beer and drink it at home in front of a movie and a big pizza.”

“Almost like you.”

“Almost, yeah.”

“Are you happy, Miky?”

That last question glides between us and lands on the table. I want it to fly away like every other, but the silence is too heavy. You look at me and I know that you won’t say any more. That the time to face the dragon has come. “Why do we have to talk about it?”

“’Cause this is the reason for your return.”

I take a deep breath and hold onto my coffee cup. The leftover heat is almost scalding my cold hands.

“It’s not that simple.”

“No, it’s not.” The dimples at the corners of your mouth deepen and your expression grows serious. “But we need to talk.”

“You… you’re wrong.”

“You scared?”

The itch caused by the tears makes my eyelids tremble. I bury my head in my hands, and my hair falls in front of my face. “It never passed.”

“Even after all this time?”

I shake my head. “I went to New York so I didn’t have to remember every day what I lost, but it isn’t enough.” I bite my cheek to hold back a sob. “It’s never enough.”

“What d’you think you’re gonna do, then?”

“Don’t know…”

My shoulders arch with me. The pain burns me from the inside out. I hug myself and hold on to the golden pendant to contain it, so that it can only eat away at my flesh and not spill out. “I… I’m not like you, Alex. I’ve tried to stay here, make things work, but I couldn’t do it.”

“Not your fault.”

“Yes, it is! If I had had even a sliver of your strength, I wouldn’t have needed to run away. Instead I ruined everything: my relationship with my parents, with our friends, with our town. Andrew tried to stay, but in the end I lost him, too.” I shiver. It’s the first time that I admit it out loud, and it’s like something has broken. Words flow up through and out of my throat like a flood that I’m incapable of stopping. “I can’t write anymore because you aren’t here. Since the day you’ve been gone, it’s like I don’t have anything more to give to the world. I stare at the blank page for hours, doing nothing but thinking about that goddamn white t-shirt.”

Tears slide along the curve of my cheeks. I wipe away one, and soon after another wets my fingers. I clench my fists and rub them against my eyes. I’m so stupid: squires can’t defeat the dragon.

You remain quiet.

I disappointed you, I know, like I disappointed everyone else. I won’t blame you if you disappear, too. You’d have every reason to. Cowards don’t deserve even a prayer.

“Forcing yourself to forget is useless, Miky.” Your voice is gentle like the caress on my hand. “You must let it go.”

“I don’t know if I want to.”

“It’d be the right thing to do.”

“I don’t care. I want to keep you with me. I want to close my eyes and remember all the good times we spent together. If you go away, I…” My fingers tremble. I have to wind them around the coffee cup in order not to drown. I breathe and lift my head up again. Your face flutters beyond the wall of tears. “Do you remember our last year of college? Our road trip in Finland? I talk about it, but it’s like I’ve never lived it. I remember the names of the places, but the sounds, the smells and the landscapes are gone. And when I look at the pictures I wonder if that girl is really me.”

You stare at me, and I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I said too much. I dab my tears with a tissue and collapse on the chair with my hands under the table, like a little girl who has just been grounded.

Speak, I beg you. I know I shouldn’t demand anything from you, but I can’t stand this silence. I need your voice to fill it, and to keep breathing. You’re the only one now who can make me feel alive.

“Do you remember the year my father died?”

How can I forget? You disappeared for a whole semester.

“I had to run away from home to get over my grief, didn’t I? My therapist suggested a different path, but I was hurting too much to wait. So I took my backpack and money, and left. The destination wasn’t important.” Your fingers intertwine with mine and it’s like they fill all my voids. “I slept a bit here and there. I wanted to be alone, didn’t care about comfort. The only company that I could stand was that of booze. I often drank myself to sleep. Then, in the morning I got up, I ate and I started walking.”

I put my hand on yours to let you know I’m here.

“I walked aimlessly, looking for that reason. I didn’t delude myself by thinking that everything would go back the way it was before, but I wanted to fix myself and my inner clock before going back home and facing life.” During the pause in your breath you close your eyelids halfway, as if you’re enjoying the caress of the wind in your memory. “At the start of summer, I came across a small town in the mountains. I wasn’t sure how long it’d been since my departure. According to my phone five months, but it seemed to me that I’d left home just a few days before. Every time I considered going back, I convinced myself that I wasn’t ready. That night I found shelter under the trees not far from the road. I threw my backpack on the ground and started drinking a beer. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have given to fall asleep, but during the day the rain forced me to stop time and time again, and I’d walked less than I hoped. Inevitably, I found myself thinking of my father. I couldn’t conceive that he was dead. Even though I went to the morgue and saw his corpse with my own eyes, I couldn’t and wouldn’t accept it.”

I didn’t know that you were hurting so much. Or maybe I simply forgot. I clench my fingers and interlace them on my legs, near my stomach, where nails of shame dig in even more. Egoistically, I wonder why you haven’t shared your pain with me. Now I know that people aren’t enough if we ourselves are lost.

“It’s amazing how many things I could remember. When he took me fishing, his hands next to mine while I put the lure

in the hook, the exaggerated movement of his waist when he showed me how to throw the fishing line. I think he did that on purpose, to make me laugh, y’know. He was the kinda man who couldn’t bear seeing others sad. Some used to say that he was a bit quirky, but I believe they never understood him. I’m ashamed of having thought the same myself sometimes.” You crack a smile and scratch at a spot under your right eye. “Wanna know the weirdest thing? More moments that we spent together came back to me that night than all the other times I spent thinking of him.”

I know what you’re talking about. During these five years, I stored away all the fragments of you in my sleepless nights. I only need to close my eyes, and pictures of us pour down from the cracks of my memory like droplets. Drops that turn into a river, a sea, an ocean. When I manage to fall asleep, I fall into a dream. And there, at the bottom made of golden sand, there’s you, waiting for me with your denim jacket, black dress shoes and the nice red tie. You take my hand and we wander aimlessly, talking about us, like we did after church or at lunch at my grandma’s on Sundays. As if time still belonged to us.

“I cried that night. I didn’t at the funeral or the wake. I’d heard my mom, shut inside her bedroom, strangling her tears, but I could never do it. And when I stopped, I realized that I was ready.”

“Ready for what…?”

“For letting time take my father away. This is the meaning of starting to live again, Miky. To forget is a natural process, there’s nothing we can do about that. And it’s alright, ‘cause if we constantly remember how much death is present in our daily life, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the sun.” You grab my hands, and this time there’s a new strength, a vigour which is reflected in the determination of your gaze. “But me, us, we won’t disappear, ever. Only the little things will remain, those things that warm your heart when it rains and it’s cold outside.”

“I don’t want to lose you…”

“I’ll always be here, Miky. Like when you chuck a diary away in a box and find it again years later. Wherever you decide to put me, I’ll wait for you. And when you’re happy, you’ll only need to rummage inside you to see me again.” You take my face in your hands and put your forehead against mine.

The customers at the counter resemble shadows, the music white noise. The pitter-patter of the rain fills my ears. It feels like I’m outside with you, wrapped in the same scarf, with our hair flat on our cheeks and the umbrella over us like a frame. We’re you and me once again, and the world a spectator.

“I love you…” I whisper.

“I love you, too.” A kiss on the nose. Our ‘See you tomorrow.’ You lean back and stand up, putting your imp-like red beanie on your head. “Gotta go now. See you there?”

“Yeah… Yes.” I sniff and take a deep breath to pull myself together. “I’ll go and wash my face. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I stride towards the bathroom. I look at myself in the mirror. My eyes are red, the lipstick has faded and the foundation has melted. I’m the very picture of a disaster, yet I feel better. I grab a few tissues and wipe away what is left of my make-up before exiting.

You’re already gone, obviously.

My wristwatch says it’s 2:17pm.

“Are you alright, Miss?” The waitress’ voice surprises me from behind.

I turn around and nod. “Don’t worry.”

“Are you sure? I could bring you a glass of water if you wish.”

“It isn’t necessary, really. Rather, could you give me a lid for the coffee?”

She glances at our table. Your cup is still there, full. A ribbon of smoke thins upwards. “I could put it in a bag if you want. At least it won’t get wet.”

I go to the cashier, pay and exit. Outside the drops are so many that they resemble a solid and viscous wall.

As soon as I get into the car, I open the glovebox. I leaf through all the CDs until I find the one I was looking for.

The tune of I wish you were here wafts through the air inside the car.

I stopped listening to Pink Floyd, and now, for the first time in five years, my eyes don’t get misty. My heart aches, yes, but for that it’ll take longer. I turn on the engine and leave.

I stop in front of the cemetery at 2:30pm. I enter with small steps, the umbrella in one hand and the coffee bag in the other. I walk with my head held high until I see your profile in the distance. I stop before you.

Alexander James Freeman 1994 – 2015

I take out your coffee and put it beneath your photo. You’re wearing your favorite t-shirt, the white one of Pink Floyd with the prism stamp on the front. You had it on even when you died in the car crash. No matter how much your mother tried, she could never wash away the bloodstains.

“Sorry if I made you wait for so long,” I whisper and hold the umbrella tight to my chest, over the golden pendant. I breathe in the smell of rain. I hold it in my nose and feel it spreading into my lungs. I’ve forgotten how good it could be. “I know that our coffee break has passed, but I want to talk some more with you. I’ve got so many things to tell you.”

You don’t answer, naturally, but it doesn’t matter. I know that you’re listening. That is what you always did best.

I smile, and I let the sun in.

Veronica De Simone (Milan, 1994) graduated in Biology at Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca and now is studying to become a nutritionist. A writer since 2013, in 2018 she directed “Oltre le Nebbie del Tempo”, an illustrated anthology to raise funds for charity. Her short stories are featured in various anthologies, such as “Guerriere” (Le Mezzelane, 2019), and “Prisma vol. 2” (Moscabianca Edizioni, 2020), and have been shortlisted in contests, such as Urania Short 2021 (Mondadori). In 2022 she published a novella, “I fiori di Yggrdrasill” (Moscabianca Edizioni).