Pouring rain, walking outside, it was late We were on a date? Late night coffee but both had to be somewhere
Gold shirt, button up flannel overshirt
Sitting with the class, theater, which monologs will I do
Sorry 1 1 m late I was...with a very beautiful women
Would you like to meet her? I blush
His wife comes out and starts talking
I stand up as surreptitiously as I can and leave the classroom He follows me
It was pouring outside which made traffic a nightmare, so I had to hurry if I was going to be on time. Though for a first time meeting (a date?), wasn't it considered coquettish of a co-ed to be a few minutes late? Then again, it's just "coffee". [It's never just coffee].
The cafe's bright neon sign advertising their name illuminated the night through the haze of raindrops. I stomped my boots in the entryway to flick the damp off them and contemplated shaking out my leather jacket. I ran my hands through my hair instead, going for a disheveled-but-still-cute look. I took a shaky breath and shivered from nerves before stepping inside. The chime of the entryway bell sounds defeaning and definitely alerts him to my prescence. As if on cue he looks up from what he was reading (probably notes?) it was hard to tell from here.
I approach his table and he turns his body toward me, lighting up the room and instantly filling me with warmth from just his smile.
"Hello," he said. And my entire life seemed to begin from hearing just that simple phrase.
"Hello, yourself," I said back, putting my bag down and sitting across from him. He hadn't ordered yet which was brownie points for him, the gentleman. "Studying this late?" I inquired, nodding toward his papers.
"Ah, these" he said moving his papers aside. "Just some notes I'm trying to put together before a lecture."
I pretend to study the chalked menu above the bar knowing full well I was going to need a triple shot espresso to even contemplate surviving a 2 hour seminar at 8:00pm, that I would almost be late to at this rate. A little tardiness was worth it though as this was the time he'd set to meet when we'd spoken earlier. I was the one who suggested this cafe as it was near my seminar and a familiar, late night haunt for me when I couldnt' sleep.
I'd been caught in a daydream and snapped back to attention, struggling to come up with something witty to say. God how had I been so forward and confident only a few hours before?
"SO" I said, a bit too forcefully, scraping my chair closer to the table to cover my awkwardness. "Are you reading or writing?", glancing down at his notes.
He waved his hand toward them in a sigh of dismissal, "Just some overbloated notes I have to pare down before my first class."
Coming to his first class prepared with notes was a bit overzealous, but then again, he could be a student (although a much older one) I thought. His brown wavy hair was greying at the temples and his soft , crows flecked eyes had a rich, oak palate to them which made you feel like you could get lost in in a deep wood, swirled with flecks of verdant green. His voice had a melodic, vibratto timbre to it which made me wonder if he had acted or sang in a previous verve. The way he carried himself was what had drawn me to him in the bookstore, looking over his shoulder as he perused Proust while I flipped through Flaubert. He was dressed down for our "coffee" with a golden colored button up shirt and a flannel overcoat to fight off the creeping night air.
I tried to nervous smile behind my hands as I blew into them to warm them up. He took note and abruptly shifted, "But never mind all that, we should probably order, you look frozen." He turned to wave down the server, whom I recognized as a suite-mate's boyfriend, Charlie. Charlie also knew me from coming here regularly during hell week to study and he hurried over to take our orders. Triple shot espresso for me, an Americano for the Gentleman. We hadn't exchanged names beyond our favorite authors and playwrights as we'd gotten further into that discussion on the bench outside the bookshop and had agreed to meet for coffee later that evening. As my companion looked to be both a gentleman and a scholar I had taken to referring to him in my head as "Verona" from the Shakespeare play, though I swear I had recognized his face from somewhere on campus.
Charlie brought back our drinks and nodded a silent greeting at me, thankfully reading my gaze that I was on a "coffee" and wanted to keep my anonimity at least for a little while, to see how things went. But my companion's eyes were sharp. "They seem to know you well here," he said, nodding to Charlie and then to the pierced, tattooed Barista [Mina] who was smiling and waving at me from behind the espresso machine." "I come here a lot", I confess, "lots of papers to write and my room is too cramped. Sometimes I just need the noise of the outside to kickstart me."
"I can understand that," he agrees, learning toward me putting his hand close to mine. "Sometimes when I'm struck by inspiration I have to stop whatever I'm doing and write with whatever I have on whatever I'm holding."
"No laptop, no tablet?" I ask, "Is your preference a scroll and parchment?"
He laughs, "Not quite that archaic, just a pen and pad of paper though sometimes napkins, receipts, or ticket stubs work just as well. I'm more of a Luddite than a technophobe. I feel too much exposure to technology gets in the way of how we process our emotions and relate to one another. Nothing can replace being around other people and the proximity of human contact."
I nod, sipping on my espresso, impressed and conceding his point. "But there's also the benefits of losing onself in binge watching something mindless like Bridgerton or Breaking Bad," which makes him laugh again and his fingers brush mine.
"You seem to have me at a disadvantage" he goes on, "As everyone here seems familiar with you but I have yet to discover your name."
Thinking back to the Shakespeare section I had perused for textbooks before moving on to French Literary critics I was struck by a play title I'd skimmed. "You can call me Kat".
"Kat," he repeated, "not Kate?"
"Just Kat" I reitereated, touching my fingertips to his.
"But that's too simple for such an enigmatic beauty like you [brownie points for not calling me a girl]. Kat could be short for many things, but I could see why you'd prefer Kat to Kate."
"Why is that?" I ask him bemused, leaning forward to see if he'd mirror my proximity and to see where he was going with this.
"Well," he explained, "There's plain Kate, And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the cursed."
I jump in, "But not Katherine the curst! A title for a maid of all titles the worst! This Gentleman of Verona knows his Shakespeare."
He hand fully covers mine and has a lingering warmth to it from holding his coffee and my smile broadens. "He's not my favorite playwright, but almost impossible to ignore in my field."
I'm tempted to ask him what field that is exactly, but looking at the clock overhead and seeing how late it's gotten jolts me into a panic, pulling our hands apart and nearly spilling my espresso.
"We'll have to table our fields for another time," I suggest, seeing if he'll take the hint at another "coffee", Sir....," stretching the sound out so he can fill in with his own preferred Moniker.
We both stand and he comes around the table to help me into my jacket, "Hugo", he states and the sound imitates the whispering leather sliding on my shoulders. I feel another shiver forming but manage to tamp it down as we head outside back into the cold and damp. Before we run into the torrential downpour I remember his last comment to me and turn toward him, "Is that your name or your favorite playwright?"
He winks at me and smiles though this doesn't seem like a goodbye as much as a "see you soon", "Another time, dear Kat." He turns to walk down the street toward the main part of campus. I practically float in the opposite direction, knowing it's further from the lecture hall, but still being a woman at a university, aptly paranoid of my safety, especially concerning a gentleman I had only met twice before.
I'm the last person to arrive in the auditorum fifteen minutes past the start of the seminar and hear the students around me murmuring as they wonder the same thing that dawns on me when I take my own seat, where is the professor?
I glance at the syllabus passed down each aisle by the TAs and read "Introduction to Classic Theatre", presented by Dr. Gerard Hemerick with special guest lecturers. I'm skimming down toward the assignments, specifically concerning choosing a monologue to present, when I hear a familiar voice filled with warmth and flannel, resound from the lectern, though slightly out of breath.
"Good evening, fellow thespians, and welcome to our little theater in the round! My name is...."
My heart skips at the recognition when it hits...Oh shit...I glance up and see what my shock has already confirmed. Hugo IS Dr. Hemerick. I went out for "coffee" with my professor!! As he continues his introductions I slip lower into my seat and hide my face behind my hand as if shading my eyes from the glaring stage lights. I struggle to come up with a way to gracefully exit when my brain tunes back in to hear him continue,
"I must beg your forgiveness for my belated arrival, for I was delayed by a very stunning, charming, and thoroughly enigmatic woman."
The class waits with baited breath, unsure if they've fallen into a play or just under his spell, as I did.
He claps his hands together, delightedly. "Would you like to meet her?" My heart goes from stuttering to full stop. I can't breathe. My face is flushed. I become one with the floor. It's me it's me oh god it's....
"Dr. Katherine Hemrick!, my beloved wife and your guest lecturer for this evening."
My heart jerks to life again only to crawl up my esophagus and turn to ash in my mouth. I choke but it's covered by the sound of clapping as the students welcome both Doctors to the stage.
His wife, his WIFE! SHIT! FUCK! That's why his face seemed to familiar, they're often together doing various plays, read-alouds, and charity events across campus and I must have remembered seeing them a festival or a Shakespeare in the park earlier that summer.
The female Dr. Hemerick approaches her counterpart looking absolutely put together in a silk suit and heels, and kisses both of his cheeks before he leans in for a kiss on her mouth. The claps turn to "woooooooooooos!" and I take advantage of the distraction to start edging my way past everyone's knees toward the aisle. Dr. Katherine motions for quiet as she moves toward toward center stage.
"Thank you, darling for that marvelous introduction", she begins, gazing at him with such intimacy and affection, which I had only glimpsed from him less than an hour before.
I'm at the last, thankfully empty, seat when my boots snag on one of the auditorium chairs and my body careens forward leaving my feet planted solidly behind me. I catch myself on one knee going down hard and cry out with a shock of pain.
"Oh, my dear!", Dr. Katherine shouts, pausing her introduction mid-sentence with genuine concern, "Are you all right?" Everyone swivels to look at me and all the color drains from my face. I find myself trapped beneath everyone's else's voyueristic schedenfraude at my second hand embarassment that I'm pinned to the spot. I'm about to string together a mumbled apology while dragging myself the rest of the way outside when everything stops...the auditorium is absolutely silent.
Hugo (for he's still Hugo in my mind)'s eyes have met mine. Recognition dawns on his face and the shock in his face mirrors my own. My bravery returns and in those few seconds I give him a look injected with as much confusion, hurt, and sheer what-the-fuck before realizing I've been staring at him for too long...
Dr. Katherine is staring, everyone is staring, Hugo is staring, he's starting to move toward me does his wife notice? I can't look at her face can't see if she knows because would that be worse?
"I'm so sorry," I say and turn and run. I make it to the rear of the auditorium and push open both doors. Racing through the lobby my boots pound across the marble floor toward the street and my dignity. Did she know? What did I expect? What am I doing? I hear footsteps keeping pace with mine and wonder if it's Hugo behind me, ready to confort me with his kind eyes, his melodic voice, a romantic declaration or plausible explanation, or is it just echoes?
His reaction when he recognized me was magnetic, as if we were two opposite poles drawn toward each other. Or maybe this is all wishful thinking and I'm having an aneuryism on the auditorium floor. Either way, when I wake up, will his face be looking into mine or fading from the echoes of such stuff as dreams are made of?
