The man sauntered into the cafe at noon as instructed. The morning before the girl waiting on his table insisted on showing him around town. He agreed, however reluctantly, after breaking his promise to protect his solitude at all costs.
Besides, it’d been a long time since anyone, let alone a pretty girl, had paid him much mind.
The man stood out just about everywhere he went, even back home in the states. His burden, or fortune, depending on the day you asked him was he didn’t look like anyone. His mother was from Thailand, his father a short Greek American from the West Side of Chicago.
Perhaps the only thing more unique than his face was the union of two such people in the first place.
Meet me in the back by the zebra wall, the text read.
He looked at his phone wondering if her message was a ruse, a few words lost in translation, or perhaps both.
He walked past the entrance twice before it dawned on him the exterior that reminded him of a cable car was in fact the place.
“Cafe Thuillier,” the sign read.
He made his way to the back after deflecting a few strange glances. When people looked at the man it felt less out of curiosity than an examination of his soul. By the time he’d reached his late 30s, he stopped caring what all the fuss was about.
He nabbed a corner booth by a white wall covered in black polka dots. “Ah,” he said, as a wry smile broke the plain of his lips. His first in a while.
Now he understood the girl’s reference. He even found it endearing.
He took out his red pen and began scribbling some notes before sketching his staple sunset behind the mountains picture. The image hadn’t changed nearly as much as he had since he first started doodling around the 7th grade.
After about 15 minutes the young girl appeared. She was prettier than he remembered; a recognition that quelled the anger he felt at her tardiness, and worse yet, ambivalence about it.
“See, zebra wall,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “I see what you mean.”
The two ordered a pair of coffees before the girl glanced at her touchscreen. She was texting a person the man figured to be her boyfriend. Only it didn’t bother him. The girl must have been in her early 20s, which instinctively made him feel more like protecting than courting.
“Dammit! I forgot to bring my umbrella,” the girl shouted.
The man had no clue what the she meant. The day was as clear as any he’d ever known.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked.
“I don’t mind,” he replied, not sure how much of a choice he had.
The girl spoke a mile a minute divulging facts about her family, her work, and hatred of all institutions.
“The worse thing about school is all the things you must unlearn after,” she said.
After about an hour the two decided to take a stroll along the Rance River. The change in scenery allowed the two more room to maneuver and somehow be themselves.
Any formality between the man and girl in that stuffy restaurant was now gone.
The two exchanged ideas with rare vulnerability as the girl listened with interest in what the man had to say. She hung on his every word, eager to find out why an American pushing 40 was traveling through St. Malo by himself.
“I just needed to get away,” he said.
A few months before the man’s father had lost a long battle with cancer. His father’s death shined a spotlight not only on his dad’s mortality but his own.
The man and his father had grown close over the years. Strangely, the man’s decision to move 3,000 miles across the country to pursue a policy degree had brought them closer.
During business trips to Boston, his father would occasionally find an excuse to meet his son in New York. They’d always have dinner in the same hole in the wall Italian restaurant on Theater Row. The no frills menu and irreverent wait staff somehow made the two feel right at home.
It took years of sitting huddled over a checkered table cloth for the man to appreciate he was getting to know his father for the first time.
Now he was gone.
Fortunately, the two had agreed on more than they didn’t by the time the old man passed. Still, the man harbored guilt over the things he’d planned on saying but thought he had more time to do so.
In the end, the only thing the two really had in common was that they loved each other.
The man looked at the girl as she took a long drag from her cigarette. He counted it to be her third of the afternoon.
“If I could leave tomorrow I would,” she said. “I’d never come back.”
She was a young woman with lofty goals. The way goals should be, he thought.
Her dream was to move to London and work as a make-up artist for television. The man told her it was possible as long as she had a plan but she deflected his speech, promptly naming all the reasons it couldn’t happen; a lack of money being the main culprit.
The two decided to have lunch at a nearby deli a few minutes before the girl needed to go to work. The woman behind the counter wanted to know if the man was half Thai and half Greek, the girl explained.
“There’s absolutely no way she guessed that!” the man shouted.
“Well,” she said. “She figured you’re not Japanese because you’re not short. And you have olive skin. And she can tell you are Greek by the way you dress,” referencing the man’s blazer and scarf.”
The man let it go. He was entertained but still not convinced.
The two sat eating together as if they’d known each other for a lifetime, or two. She emanated an understanding of the world well beyond her years. The man thought back on his early 20s, reminiscing about that sense of angst and longing he felt for the world to open its arms and offer a sign that everything would somehow be okay.
“I know how you feel,” he said. “It’s like you’re so young but you still feel like you’re running out of time.”
As the two finished their sandwiches, they noticed a gang of dark clouds begin to roll in.
“I told you,” she said. “It’s going to rain.”
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