No Cream, No Sugar
by Naomi Anne Goldner
“You drink your coffee black? Remind me?” she asked as they stepped into the breakfast room at the small boutique hotel she had booked herself into the evening before to get away from her family. To think. To rest. They had that touch-not-touch feel to them, her and the man who was following her trail: excited by one another’s company, freshly showered, rosy cheeks distracting from the lack of sleep in their eyes. His were older eyes, and his hair was graying handsomely. A good ten years older than this girl who was wearing a purple sparkly dress and tall cowboy boots.
She began prancing around the ornate breakfast room filling two glasses with orange juice, two mugs with coffee, smiling sweetly at the scattered couples reading their morning news, sipping coffee. She placed his mug on the table she had carefully chosen for them for this glorious morning after, and repeated her question, seemingly to herself.“Black, right?” She then chuckled, looking at an older bleached-white couple at the table next to theirs who were now looking up from their newspapers and staring at her.
“Yup. Black. No cream, no sugar.” He joined her at the table and raised his eyebrows at her secret smile. He might have known what she was thinking. “What?”
“Oh. Nothing.” But she couldn’t stop the smile that was left over from her chuckle which would soon become words jumping out of her mouth a little too soon once their food was off the plate, and the morning turned to noon.
“Why were you laughing?”
She was really a lovely girl, he liked her dimples, the way her hair fell on her shoulders at different lengths, her high cheekbones, everything that he could touch that was under her dress. Even her knees. He thought of her as the kind of girl you'd see at the market examining peaches or red apples for long stretches of time, holding them up to the light and even taking in their scent before placing them in her basket. She took a sip of orange juice and sighed, still smiling with secrecy and delight. Almost giddiness.
“I just made myself laugh at the situation. At my question.” She stabbed a cluster of scramble on her plate and took a bite, still smiling.
He watched her chew quietly, noting again the imperfections of her face that he liked from the first time he saw her.
“You know what I mean,” she continued, and leaned in to whisper, “How do you drink your coffee––as if we met just last night and don’t know a thing about each other. It’s funny.” She motioned with her eyes to the older couple who was now back deep in their food and news.
“I can only imagine what they’re thinking about us. About me.” She knew they themselves must have their coffee routine down perfectly after what was likely forty years of marriage––maybe the woman had stopped drinking coffee years ago but he knew which tea was her favorite morning substitute and he’d ask the hotel staff for honey before she’d have a chance to even pour the hot water into the hotel’s white porcelain mug that was never as satisfying as the generously rounded ceramic mugs they had at home.
Turning her attention back to the man with whom she was so happy to be sharing a morning table, she pulled her dress back over her shoulder, realizing the black strap of her bra had been exposed all this time; this affair had made her shed the last few pounds she shouldn’t have shed, her clothes fitting her differently, unexpectedly.
He smiled back at her, nodding. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” They waited before taking their eyes off of each other, lingering in this moment when the realization of how little they knew each other made the depth of their connection even more exciting.
Truth be told, she knew very well how he liked his coffee. They had shared coffee more than once before, and often first thing in the morning, hidden in the sanctuary of his city flat where they could stay in the realm of maybe, of perhaps, of is this really happening? She knew he only drank black coffee, and she knew what moved him and where he liked to be kissed, what certain music did to his insides, what kind of a home he kept, how he watered his plants with love, how he made his bed every morning. She knew which was his favorite spot on her body and how he liked to touch and kiss it, and when. She knew how his heart had been broken and that he wished he had jumped off cliffs into lakes before this pool they were now swimming in. She knew he was afraid to hurt her and that he was a good man. She knew that he knew what she wanted, and that even with his resistance, that this was not going to be their last time having breakfast together. And she knew that even if she couldn’t know that for sure, that she was ready to risk the heartache that came with unfulfilled desires.
Breakfast over now, they watched as the room emptied of others, the older couple walking slowly arm in arm up the steps to the hotel lobby. Their coffee mugs empty and bodies jittery with lack of sleep and far too much caffeine, reality began to seep in between them: his long workday, her children and husband at home, the sunny day they wouldn't be able to share. They got up––he following her up the stairs quietly––a good enough girl with questions that made them laugh. A man with a broken heart who couldn’t risk another.
Naomi Anne Goldner is a San Francisco-based writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She holds an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University, and her work has been performed, published and anthologized in various journals and publications including Entropy Magazine, The Blue Nib Literary Review, Quiet Lightning, The Festival Review, and Qu Literary to name a few. Founder of WordSpaceStudios Literary Arts Center and editor-in-chief of Chariot Press Journal, she is currently editing her first novel which spans four generations and three continents.