“Hello, Julia. I’m so glad you returned my calls I thought you may have thought I was insane.”
“Well, to be honest, the thought did cross my mind. I’ve never exactly been offered anything like this. At least I think so, but I’m not even sure what this is…” Julia tapped her nails on the table. Across from her, a man she’d never met before was hanging his coat on the back of the chair. Out of his coat pockets he pulled a worn out notebook, a pen and a small, old cell phone. He opened the notebook and started scribbling, looking up at Julia every few seconds. She immediately took note of his dirty fingernails, old sports coat and yellowing button-down.
The inside of the coffee shop in which they sat was just as unfamiliar to Julia. She would pass it every day on her way to work, but never thought to look, let alone venture inside. The only thing that had ever stuck in her mind about the shop was the beautiful tiles on the tables in the outside eating area. She had only seen them with her peripheral vision, but that day she was given a chance to see them in full view on her way into the warmly lit building. She was disappointed that she was going there for a coffee on a day too gloomy to eat outside.
The coffee shop was hardly inhabited, just a few struggling artists with their computers and sketch pads, desperately caught up in their own masterpiece. Julia had found a table closest to one of the large windows that covered the front, so she could watch people pass by. The two sat at the table right by the window, close enough that she, on the far side, could reach out and smear her fingerprints down it.
Julia was terribly nervous to meet this man, the man who had been calling her apartment and demanding to see her. She wasn’t good at meeting new people, but she’d tried to convince herself that she wasn’t really meeting him, since he clearly knew her already. Maybe she already knew him, and was just totally unaware of it. He could have been anyone, maybe she did a favor for him which he was trying to repay, or maybe she lost something and he had tracked her down. She shivered, he nerves twisting in strange, awkward shapes.
The unfamiliar friend spoke, “I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Pete, as you know from my calls and emails, and I have been watching... Well, more observing you now for three and a half months. It started where I would just watch you pass this coffee shop.”
Julia stood up to leave dramatically, as if she had been rehearsing her exit in her head since he sat down. Her nerves shone brightly through her coffee-colored skin. Pete placed his hand on her side of the table, directing her back into the situation she was so desperately nervous to comprehend.
“Just listen. I promise I haven’t done anything gross. I don’t know where you live and I’ve never gone through your trash or anything. I’m not a stalker. I’m a writer.”
Julia slowly sunk back into her seat, “A writer? Like a successful writer? What have you written?”
“Nothing yet.”
“So you’re not a writer.”
“Yes, I am.”
Julia laughed, “You can’t be a writer if you haven’t written anything.”
“Well, physically I haven’t.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Physically I haven’t been able to write anything. As I’ve said, I’ve been observing you. And by observing you I’ve had a rush of ideas brought to the front of my brain where I can see them. But I just can’t get any of them down, and they’re all wonderful. I would make a fortune if I could write down the thoughts you give me.”
“This is all happening too fast.”
“You’re turning red, Miss. I’ll order us some coffee.” Pete turned and located the nearest waiter. Waving him over, Pete was calm and collected, as if he hadn’t divulged any secret or possibly illegal activities at all in the past few moments. He ordered two regular coffees and a cheese danish for the lady.
Once the waiter had left, Pete turned to Julia and smiled.
“I’m just proposing that you let me follow you for a while. You’ll act normally, do everything you usually do. And perhaps we’ll meet occasionally in case we have any issues to work out. Allow me to become comfortable with your surroundings… meet your friends…”
“Oh god.”
“Learn all of your favorite things, you favorite hangout places, learn about your childhood, your friends and foes…”
“Oh god.”
“I just want your permission to follow you more, and perhaps get to know you inside and out.”
“Oh god.”
“Am I making you uncomfortable, Julia?”
“Terribly.” Julia twisted her hair nervously, she was becoming increasingly flustered, “This is a lot to take in, Pete. I’m not sure I’m ready for any kind of relationship with any kind of a stranger. Especially one who comes off as a stalker.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re confessing your sick love fantasy to me in a coffee shop for god sake. This is not at all how I’d imagine it. And I don’t even know you. You seem to have the entirely wrong idea of me for I do not go out with random slobs who think they’re writers I’ll have you know, Pete, that being literate doesn’t make you a writer. And since the only thing I’ve seen you write in the entire time of knowing you was a few chicken scratches in a notebook allows me to believe that you aren’t in fact a writer. If you were a writer you would be writing much more often and with a lot more gusto or passion. Do you think that William Shakespeare or Earnest Hemmingway would meet random women in coffee shops to discuss this suggestive love affair that they’ve made up? Do you think they carried a tiny little notebook and pen in their ratty old jackets and... And being a stalker doesn’t make you… whatever you think this is coming to,” Julia cringed and squeezed her eyes tightly, “My god I think I’ve pulled something. I’m not a hussy, Pete, I’m not a slut. I’m a lady and I like my coffee with flavoring in it but thank you for the cheese danish because that’s about the only thing you’ve done right so far.” Julia took a deep breath, but continued to pant. She held her arms close together and tried to center herself.
“I’m so sorry, Julia. You’ve totally misunderstood my intentions. I’m not in love with you; I’m just in love with the words in my head. If it wasn’t for the promise of riches and fame that would come along with writing down my story I would find you totally insignificant, maybe even stupid.”
Julia sniffled and perked up slightly, “You mean it?”
“Trust me. You would just be another skinny, unimportant girl that I’d never give a second glance to.”
“Oh thank you, Pete.” Julia smiled.
Julia silently judged his attire, his approach and his slight, Boston accent. Pete searched Julia’s eyes, finding vulnerability, distrust and false confidence.
The waiter brought over their coffee and they sipped loudly for a few moments before Pete finally spoke again. “I was hoping to ask you few quick questions/”
Julia folded her hands on the table and cocked her head slightly left to appear professional.
“Proceed.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Ohio.”
“Where in Ohio?” Pete opened his notebook and began scribbling things down.
“Why does it matter, it’s Ohio. It all looks the same.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”
“How do you know? Have you ever been to Ohio?”
Pete stopped writing for a minute and looked straight at her. It was silent for a moment and then he said, “I actually don’t think I have ever even been close to Ohio.”
“Then I guess you should trust me when I say that it doesn’t matter.”
“Well, I can tell you right now that people will be a lot more comfortable knowing what town you’re from. The more detailed the better, in order to give the audience a better picture.”
“…the audience?” Julia turned her head and stared at the others in the coffee shop. Most people were sitting alone, typing on their laptops and drinking various uppity drinks. “Are they the audience?”
“I guess they could be.”
Julia twisted around in her chair and pulled her knees under her to get a better look. “I don’t think they should be.”
“Julia, get off the chair.”
“They’re all stuck up and snooty, sitting there, with their noses in their laptops as if whatever their typing has a critical importance. Hey, that’s what you should be doing, Pete. Where’s your laptop?” Julia turned her head back to see him; her chair creaked awkwardly under her.
“I don’t have one, now please turn around and eat your danish, that chair doesn’t look stable and you’re making me nervous.”
Julia turned and loosened her legs, “You don’t have a laptop?”
“I can’t afford one. And I don’t like them anyway.”
“Why not? Your writing would be a lot cleaner if it was on a computer.”
“I don’t feel connecting to it. I’d rather write it by hand. Plus, it strengthens your fingers.”
Julia shot him confusion, “You’re odd, Pete.”
“I know. Can we please get back to the questions now?”
Julia rolled her eyes, “Okay whatever.”
Pete smiled scribbled something down, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No, but I have very close friends.”
Pete put down his notebook, “How old are you?”
“Young, enough.”
“I need an age, Julia”
“I don’t think our audience would mind if you estimated. So what if I’m fifty-eight, thirty-two or twenty. I’ve been a child, I’ve been a teenager and now I’m a young adult. Technically, you could write me as any age I’ve been and I could tell you all about my experiences at that age. Writing me as an age slightly or drastically over what I am would be far more difficult, but you’re pretty creative, aren’t you Pete?”
Pete leaned forward, “Twenty-three.”
“Warm.”
“Nineteen?”
“Warm.”
“Twenty-eight?”
“Stone cold.”
Pete half-smiled and sat back in his chair, “So you’re young. Got it.”
He opened to a clean sheet and wrote ‘young’ in large, capital letters. “Do you live alone?”
Julia pulled apart the cheese danish and shoved the entire half in her mouth. Her eyes opened wide, as if she was surprised by the question.
Pete sat posed, with his pen at the ready. They were still.
“Are you going to chew?”
Julia shook her head no, and proceeded to chew and swallow.
“I live alone.”
“You’re a liar.”
“No, I really do.”
“I don’t mean that. You lied about whether or not you were going to chew.”
“I was saying ‘no’ to the question about my living conditions.”
“Well, that was confusing wasn’t it? You should always answer the most recently asked question. I would hate to have to cross out my notes. It’s like killing a loved one.”
Julia pulled the danish into another two pieces, “You’re becoming increasingly stranger.”
“I know.”
“Pete?”
“Mhm?” Pete sipped his coffee, holding the mug from the side, away from the handle, with his pinky in mid-air pointing straight out.
Julia glanced behind him at the people passing. She wondered if Pete had sat in her place, watching her pass the coffee shop everyday, the same way that she was watching the people on the busy streets of the city.
“How long will you be following me?”
“As long as it takes.”
“That’s not a very good answer. I can’t do much with that. Will it be all day?”
“Probably from the morning to when you get home.”
“Will I be compensated?”
“I’ve thought long and hard about that. I mean, you can’t just be expected to inspire a best seller without some kind of compensation.”
“Exactly.”
Pete flipped a few pages back in his notebook and started reading his scratching, “Julia, that’s you, will receive an envelope every Sunday containing ten dollars for each successful idea I had in the past week. I will not deliver the money myself because I don’t want your neighbors to know I exist.”
“Well, if it’s ten dollars an idea I’ll have to know how many ideas you’ll have, to know it’s fair.”
“There will be good days and bad days. Good weeks and bad weeks. I can’t really give you an estimate. Also, you can’t tell anyone I exist. Now that you already know you’ll naturally try to make yourself look better than usual. I can’t have you tampering with your environment.”
“Why didn’t you just go on following me without telling me?”
“You would’ve started to notice.”
Julia looked out the window again. Busy people flooded the streets, rushing to catch a cab, make a meeting, meet a friend for lunch. They were all totally unaware that Julia even existed, although she was within their reach, just a single side glance away and they’d know of her. But no one glanced as she was watched them pass. Julia was familiar with the impatience and punctuality the crowds of people all shared. Those people were oblivious of her; she just blended into the background. She tried to think of all the faces she’d passed by on her morning commute, how many of them had snuck into her unconscious, her dreams, only to go unrecognized?
“Maybe, but I’ve always been told that I’m oblivious to my surroundings.”
The two strangers sat in the coffee shop for another two hours, going over details of the quest to riches they were about to take. Pete left the shop in hurry, saying he had another meeting, and Julia was reluctant to let him go. They shook hands as he left and Julia wrote her personal number on his notepad in case of emergencies. She thought that maybe they should have hugged, now that he knew details of her life, and would rapidly discover more. There were no secrets in this arrangement, and for the first time in years she felt like being honest would be worth her while.
Julia left the coffee shop with a smile on her face and started making her way down the street towards her apartment. The sky was clearing up into the lightest of blues and the sun let out steady warmth that just barely pulled at her tanned skin. It was the kind of day that deserved birds singing, but even if there were they were blotted out by the eruptions of car horns and harsh words. Julia pulled the string of her trench-coat tightly around her waist.
She had always been plump because, although she weighed as much as the average healthy woman, she was unreasonably short. She liked the word “unreasonably” to describe it, because her mother had tried on many occasions to reason with her height. But her precisely five foot measurement would not budge an inch, and had not budged since she was in eighth-grade.
Her mother would buy her all sorts of dieting tools, height-raising herbal supplements, big-hair spray and high heels, in order to at least fake a respectable length, and Julia would accept them somewhat willingly. Her mother still sent her a new pair of heels on every gift-giving holiday, and sometimes without an occasion to justify them. Since most of them were tasteful, Julia became very fond of shoes and their company, to the point that they replaced laughing at others on her list of most commonly used stress-relief methods. And thus, every bad day was religiously ended with a new pair of reasonable pumps to fill out Julia’s height. The shoe business had not only taken a toll on her wallet, Julia’s number of shoes increased rapidly making closet space hard to come by, and her mental health has become a popular topic to debate at her family’s Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners.
