Table for Two by Marla Miniano Page B

to
watch her watch the door every single day—whoever she was expecting never
came. He wonders if she’s still waiting.
    He is inexplicably, inadvertently
smitten with this girl now, as he was more than a year ago.

7
     
     
     
    The café isn’t quite
deserted tonight, Mandy notices. There is a couple at the table beside her: the
girl has poster paint splotches and cheese stains on her white blouse, and the
boy is teasing her affectionately—something about a blind date and
Jagermeister shots and a guy named Jack. The girl makes a face and slaps his
shoulder, and they both laugh. Near the entrance, there are two guys and two
girls. One girl is showing off her wedding ring and talking about a honeymoon
weekend in Greece while her husband keeps a hand behind her back and sips his
iced latte and smiles. The other girl and the other boy seem shy and a bit
guarded around each other, like they aren’t officially together yet, or like
they were officially together once upon a time and are just on the verge of
being officially together again. And then there’s that boy by the
window—Mandy thinks, Okay, I guess he’s sort of cute— who beat her to her favorite spot where she used to
stay and wait for her ex-boyfriend, Tristan. The seat across from him is empty.
    The café isn’t
quite deserted tonight, and Mandy wonders what story each person in the room
has to tell. She wonders how different these stories are from each other, and
she wonders if these stories happen to intersect at any point. The couple at
the table beside her and the group near the entrance, they all seem to have
found something raw and real and right in one another. At this moment, Mandy
can’t help feeling alone. She thinks, How many people find each
other every day? There
are a thousand possibilities, a thousand ways that could have led her to
someone. A thousand chances for her to meet a good guy, to clear up some space
for him in her life, and maybe fall in love with him. Mandy wonders how many she’s
missed.

8
     
     
     
    Lucas catches Mandy looking at him. She instantly drops her gaze and blushes a full-on blush, the
kind that probably went all the way up to her scalp and down to the tips of her
toes. He feels sorry for her, but he can’t help it—he laughs. He laughs
because he understands what he can do and what he will do; it seems so simple yet so daunting. He laughs
because it might just help him feel brave. The seat across from him is empty.
It doesn’t have to be that way anymore.
    Is he ready? No, probably not. But
his readiness is irrelevant, because action and inaction are posing equal
risks. Everything hinges on this moment. It might not come again any time soon.
     

9
     
     
     
    Mandy should probably get back to her novel, but she is anxious and embarrassed and can’t seem to
focus. This boy is a distraction, and she’s not used to being distracted. She
is always attempting to be productive, whether she’s finishing her reading or
picking out books for her shop or driving somewhere or talking to clients on
the phone or checking things off lists or figuring out how to make the people
in her life get along. She’s not used to being distracted, but it actually
feels kind of nice. Maybe this is what really matters: that she fills her days
with a steady stream of productivity so that when the quiet, tender moments
come in between, she can learn to pause, and feel, and be grateful that they
exist. She rarely has moments like these, and perhaps she should breathe them
in.
    Everything hinges on these
moments, these moments that might not come again any time soon. Mandy checks
her watch. It is almost midnight.

10
     
     
     
    When you think about it, everything is fleeting.
Every second of every minute of every hour. The race and the rush and the
choices and the chances. The love that grazed your fingertips, possibilities that
brushed past you on your way out to work or play or save the world, a happy
ending you may have believed