Who?

The gallery on my phone doesn’t get any more interesting as I scroll through it for the third time. The café doesn’t have wifi and this way I look somewhat busy, while sitting alone at the table, waiting. Putting my lips to the brim of my cup, I realize it’s still too hot for me to drink and I wonder if the other people are looking as I put it back down. I think about deleting the pictures I took with my friends on my last night out, which was months ago, and then my mother’s number lights up the top half of the screen. I tap the green icon and start to whisper into my phone, feeling the anxiety and anger start crawling up inside of me.

‘Where are you? It’s been fifteen minutes,’ I manage to whisper into the speaker in a calm voice.

‘I’m so sorry, sweetie. Something came up at work, I can’t make it today. Could we maybe do this another time?’

I don’t respond, partly because I don’t know what to say, partly because I don’t want to make a scene in front of these strangers.

‘I would love to see you, we miss you, honey, I am truly sorry. You know how it is, the ER doesn’t clock off. They still need me here. Tell me how I can make it up to you.’

I lift the phone off my ear and my finger presses the red circle, as if moving on its own. I should have known better than to agree to this. He told me not to meet her, that she was trying to get into my head and get me to go back to them. The blood starts boiling in my veins, but first and foremost I am angry at myself. What would he say?

I choose not to think about it and focus on something else, as I fear I might cry. A fly lands on my saucer and I try to shoo it away, when a woman around my age enters the backroom of the café. Aside from clocking that there are two — now three — other people in the room with me, I hadn’t really had a look at the place. For the first time, I really take it in; the walls are painted in several earthy tones of green and brown, the tables and chairs don’t fit together and the dark colour someone once put on the hardwood floor is chipping off in the places most people walk or the chairs are always being pulled back. My mother chose the place; it suits her.

In the meantime, the new woman has found who she was looking for and hugs the other woman, who was already seated at the table beside mine. They exchange the common small talk and I figure that they are friends. Is the man behind me also waiting for company? I was stood up and they know, they’re probably secretly making fun of me or, at the very least, pity me.

I should have listened to him, he always knows best and it’s so embarrassing to be here alone. They probably think that I don’t have any friends, which is true, technically.

The women talk to each other in lowered voices, show each other things on their phones and laugh in between. They look like copies of one another and the way they talk doesn’t make them unique either. I wonder who copies whom and if they talk shit and spread rumours about the other with different friends. As that thought crosses my mind, I pull my phone back out and start deleting the pictures. The people I called friends back then, whose pictures were taken that night, dropped me when I got engaged. They tried to turn me against him and claimed he was unfaithful.

The damn fly again.

The waitress comes up the steps to the backroom with a single coffee and passes me.

‘The Latte Macchiato with oat milk?’ she exclaims in a shrill tone, to which the man at the table behind me replies by thanking her.

Though I can’t see him, I still get second-hand embarrassed. Oat milk was something I drank too, when I was younger, due to my inability to digest the real thing, but now I’ve realized how embarrassing it truly is. My fiancée told me early on that he wouldn’t go out with me if I ordered it — as a joke obviously — but still, people could think I was vegan and we hate vegans.

The man must be embarrassed too: the stupid waitress let everyone know about the milk and we also know that he’s here alone, probably not by choice either. Who would be? Alone, that is. In public!

I have to get out of here. The guests, the waitress and this damn fly have cost me my last nerve, they take up all the air in this place and I can feel my chest tighten. I decide that I will not suffocate in this place, so I throw the rest of the bitter fluid down my throat and put enough money next to the cup. It would have paid for my mother’s drink as well. Good thing I didn’t tell him about the amount of money I keep for myself for these kinds of affairs. Affairs indeed, because I feel like I am betraying him. He doesn’t deserve this; it makes me sick to think about how disappointed he would be in me, if he knew that I was sneaking around. Maybe he would even be ashamed to be with a woman like that, which would be fair; shame is what I feel right now. Good thing he doesn’t know I meant to meet my mother. I am out for groceries, that is what I am doing.

As I stand up the waitress comes in and collects the tip. She thanks me with a smile that makes me want to punch her. I wonder what it is she is compensating for.

On my way out of the café I see the first leaves falling from the trees out front. On the bus I feel like crying. On the stairs to my apartment, I try to shut everything out and get excited about seeing him. I hope his day was okay, so I get to talk about mine.

When I unlock the door, I see a pair of shoes and a jacket on the ground. Both women’s, both not mine. I hear shushing from the bedroom and my stomach drops. Holding my purse with both hands, I am stuck in motion. He is going to twist this. I am overreacting, as always. He will have an explanation. I open the door and it turns out he doesn’t.