by Kim Clark (bio at end of story)
Their sandals scuffled and slapped over the uneven surface of cobbled stone as the young Canadian couple headed toward an outdoor restaurant in an urban Colombian plaza. They had been backpacking and bussing for six weeks down through Mexico and Guatemala. Then a quick Aerocondor flight spun them into the South American continent. They had the smug look of a new couple, tight yet unconnected. They had been friends for a year, lovers for half of that. A few days without travel was looking good on them.
The heavy heat of the equatorial morning was becoming familiar but the peculiar calm of the plaza twanged off key of oddity. It was one of those phenomenons of probable regularity to the city dwellers but to the two tourists it was unintended exclusion.
“Hmm. Where is everybody this morning?” Charlie commented more than questioned.
“Yeah, I wonder what’s happening. Maybe a holiday or something.” Susan responds as she sleepily observed her surroundings, looking for clues to the unusual quiet, but instead getting her first teasing whiff of morning coffee. “Ahhh, do you smell that? Mmm, heaven.”
She loved the approach to this restaurant. So different from the more familiar eateries spilling out of the marketplace, La Perla Rosa had a touch of elegance and allowed some distancing from the throngs and the edgy need to constantly communicate. Against the earthy colors of centuries-old Spanish archways and modern slate gray high rises, against the dull worn stone they walked across, the restaurant was a remarkable contrast. On a breezy day a dozen sweeping, white, linen tablecloths puffed and filled like sails on the old Spanish galleons. On that particular morning the barely perceptible movement of white reminded Susan of her grandfather’s chest, ever so slowly rising and falling in his starched white shirt, tie in hand, sitting asleep on a bench in his Okanagan apple orchard.
They sat down on wrought iron chairs, scraping jarringly until they settled and readied themselves for the waiter to take their order. He arrived with a flourish. Universal smiles and good mornings in Spanish were exchanged.
“Cafe con leche, por favor.” Susan’s little bit of Spanish sounded not too bad. Passable, as long as it was kept to a few words and required little understanding of the response. Charlie nodded his request for the same.
“¿Que pasa? ¿What’s happening?” Susan asked the waiter, gesturing around her at nothing at all. She felt silly. He seemed not to have heard as he headed away from the their table. To cover the stilted moment she dug for her cigarettes and her 1975 Handbook for South America.
She lit her Marlborough with a bending paper match , sucked and puffed, then tapped the cigarette needlessly on the edge of the glass ashtray. She tucked the matches back in the flip-top package. The initial ritual complete, she opened her book to the Colombian section in search of a holiday listing for the area. Maybe she would find a clue to the offbeat day. Seriously smoking and perusing, Susan looked up just as the coffee arrived and caught Charlie looking at her, watching her.
Before Susan could comment or question, both pairs of eyes as well as the waiter¹s concentrated gaze were drawn to the pouring ceremony. With perfect symmetry from two ivory pitchers, dark coffee and steaming white milk flowed sensually into an oversized blue ceramic mug, swirling as they blended. Susan’s hands encircled her filled mug as they all watched, mesmerized, the filling of Charlie’s mug. Coarse brown sugar was left in a dish on the still pristine tablecloth with two silver spoons and two linen napkins. Once again the waiter disappeared.
They enjoyed the taste and sensation of the first tentative sip. This early morning sharing always relaxed them again toward each other, after the night and before the day. Rather than a parallel existence, they felt their lives bend closer, curving to almost touching. This was the best kind of together, close but not too comfortable.
“I saw you watching me, Charlie. Were you laughing at me or were you looking through me?” Susan took one last drag and crunched out her cigarette in the ashtray.
“I was waiting for you to tell me about your dream. You said you’d had a strange dream, was all.”
“Oh yeah, I started to tell you, back at the hotel. It¹s almost embarrassing . . .such a short scene, just a clip of a dream really, but it left me feeling incredibly tender, lusty, loving. Oh I don¹t know how to describe it but it felt so damn good.”
“Are you sure you want to share this?” Charlie asked. He tried to feel open minded but he also wondered if this conversation was idling up the zigzag path toward the ‘feelings thing’ women seemed to love.
Oblivious, Susan tried to organize her memory of the dream into words. “All it really was . . . ” she hesitated. “All it really was, I was sitting in a car with the window rolled down and a man leaned in the car window. You know, like resting his arm on the fuzzy rubber in the opening? All I could see was this bare forearm, not muscular or anything, with these shining hairs. He had on a metal wristwatch. It looked heavy and dull. He must have been familiar to me, because we laughed together about something. I noticed the hands on his watch had stopped moving.”
“And?” Charlie sounded convincingly aloof while he stumbled across a surprising feeling of jealousy toward the dream man.
“And that was it. Like I said, it was just a tiny clip. Oh wait, there was one other thing. He breathed coffee over me when we laughed. It was such a comforting familiar smell. Sweet breath. You know.” Again she felt uncertain. Why did she even think this would interest Charlie? She knew she sometimes overstepped a person¹s comfort zone in her rush to expel or explain her thoughts.
“Susan, do you think it has some special meaning? Like, maybe you’re homesick for the cop who gave you the speeding ticket or there will be an earthquake at . . .? What time did the watch say?”
“Now you are making fun of me. I just thought it was kind of interesting, that’s all. So quick. Just a moment, really.” She looked up, almost shyly to meet his eyes, sense his response. Charlie’s sunglasses were already slipped into place. Their thoughts attempted to settle back into neutral while they contemplated a second mug of coffee.
Unnoticed by each other, both sets of eyes glanced at the braided leather watch band around Charlie’s freckled forearm. Unnoticed by either one, both preoccupied with ideations of the future, the plaza had filled with people and the cacophony of life.
~~~
“Do you remember any more about it?” Charlie asked.
“About what?” Susan seemed absent-minded. She peered over her bifocals at her husband’s familiar face.
“About the dream.” He sounded a little piqued. After twenty six years together, the Perla Rosa dream tale had taken on a significant role. It was the jumping off point for the story of the rest of their lives, surprisingly together.
The dream story had been told and transformed under the apple trees in the orchard now owned by Charlie and Susan. It was the beginning of dozens of stories transformed and told to their son and daughter as they grew up in that orchard, often draping themselves over their Great Grandfather’s bench, while their parents shared coffee from a thermos.
Over time the forearm became freckled and the watch became Charlie’s. The time on the watch changed to fit each story. The reason behind the morning “on hold” in the plaza all those years ago remained unexplained.
For Susan and Charlie, their ritual no longer needed two huge blue mugs or a plaza or a dream, simply coffee together in a moment suspended.
© Kim Clark. All Rights Reserved.
Finalist - A Moment Suspended by Kim Clark
Kim writes short fiction, poetry and vignettes. She was the winner of the 2001 Sechelt Library Contest and also a winner in the 2000 Capilano College Madrona Story Contest. Kim’s memberships include the Roberts Creek Blue Pencil Writer’s Group and the Federation of B.C. Writers. She lives with her husband and four children in the heart of Sechelt village on the breathtaking Sunshine Coast.
Editor’s Note: “Moment” was chosen for the first round for the following reasons: Solid title, interesting opening lead with an instant visual from the description. Excellent writing, correct punctuation, no spelling errors. This story had a very solid international flair, and the span of years for the couple in the story was a nice plus. This was a satisfying read, very well written, with a solid ending that wrapped the story up with a perfect “moment suspended.”
