the cafe's bassinets of mixed perennials - pink asters, black eyed susans - obscured me completely from the sidewalk pedestrian traffic. L, as he crossed the street towards the cafe', did not see me beckoning at him from this table drenched in the early afternoon sun.
i looked at this man, slow, catlikely making his way to the the cafe' and i wanted to wave wildly at him, to make him blush at my unrestraint, the way, perhaps, a serviceman surprised at the enthusiasm of his relations welcoming him from a deployment somewhere in the middle east. and yet, something in me didn't want to startle the straight couple at the next table and force them to look up from their menus just to see who i was waving at.
instead, i, cool, aloof, almost contemptuous of the turmoil of my excitement, just stood up from my table and made this movement with my hand at L like i was a traffic cop making a riotous flow of pedestrians stop.
L saw me and gave me this smile, this knowing smile, like saying he knew, he knew we are not in our people's place.
later in our lunch, just before the check came, L tried to reach over the table to touch my left hand. without thinking, i just withdrew my hand from his reach. in this straight cafe', it was the logical thing to do and yet it was also the most grotesque, so unnatural like this one sickly black eyed susan in the bassinet refusing to strain its face toward the sun.
