Re: Coffee: Noah & Bea
Bea barely felt his fingers on hers. Noah became a stranger as her emotions whirled in confusion, excitement and denial. Fear mixed up with hope and the quagmire was too much for one person right then. She couldn’t even get past the circle. Holly? Here? “Holly’s dead.” Bea pulled her hand away from his, not as if he was abhorrent, just because the whirlwind was sweeping her up, and she had to move. Automatically she swiped her phone and stuck it in her bag, and in the same series of movements made sure she had the lid on her coffee. She sharply strode out of the coffee shop, thinking there were people in there, too many people, and it was hard to breathe, or something. Maybe in the coffee shop was where Holly was, and outside was the equilibrium she had found without him.
Outside the shop, she stopped short almost immediately. It was just the coffee shop and the tiny Main Street with its string of beat-up cars, like hers around the corner. So familiar. It came to her that if Holly was back he might see her, that she might need to talk to him, and there was a stab of panic that had her looking wildly around—but he wasn’t there. Bea felt shaky, and sat on the curb before her knees gave, smoothing her skirt automatically. The paper cup of coffee was set aside. She hugged her purse a split-second, rubbing her knees, and then dug inside it. When she looked back to see if Noah was coming to join her outside, she had her box in her hand and the first cloud of blueberry muffin-scented vapor leaving her lips.
“Wild and free” was not a way that Bea would describe Noah. She would never tell him that, only chuckle the way she did when he said it. Her feelings were of affection, warmth, and inherent doubt. Wild and free, honestly. Neither she or Noah were really wild and free. She had pretended at it, in her weird road trip that lasted years, but the whole time she had missed being married. No... the dream of being married. The last time she had been mattress shopping, it had been for the tiny apartment they had been setting up, and she had been shopping for community college at the same time. Working for the temp agency, arguing stupid arguments about credit card applications or groceries, it had been the beginning to the rest of her life. Maybe that was why she was stuck here. Still at the beginning.