She liked that he told her something about his family and how he blew across the top of his coffee, the ripples it made. She liked watching him finish his doughnut. Her brain fizzed. This man wanted to die less than an hour ago, but now he was sitting across from her, careful not to burn his mouth. He seemed to purposely flood himself with more gentleness as he thanked her again. His necklace had slipped to the front of his undershirt—a small gold cross winking light.
“Should we call your family?” she asked, pulling her phone out of her pocket and setting it on the table in between them, though she couldn’t say she expected him to agree. In order to keep him talking, she would have to tell him about herself. “My family is from here and Tennessee. Some are from Alabama. Do you get along with your family?”
“I don’t care about things like that,” he said.
“What do you care about?”
“I don’t care about small talk.”
“Neither do I. That’s why I’m asking you about big things. So we don’t waste our time together,” she said.
The corner of his mouth rose and twitched. “I like this song,” he said. The coffee shop speakers were playing Radiohead down low. “Knives Out.”
“I do, too. It’s so moody and strange,” she said. Commiseration. Empathy. It usually worked, got people to bloom like flowers. “Was this your…um, first suicide attempt?”
“I don’t know what it was. But I guess I feel better now. It’s hard to say.”
He felt better? This quick? She didn’t believe him.
“I’m going to the bathroom.” He stood, taking his backpack with him.
“Okay,” she said, nodding.
When he was behind the bathroom door, she immediately moved to his chair and rummaged through his pockets. A receipt for his jacket. He’d bought it that morning. What kind of person goes out in the morning and buys the jacket he wants to die in? Tallie glanced up to make sure he wasn’t opening the bathroom door. All clear. She was nervous and excited, the adrenaline rabbit-beating her heart, her hands shaking. In an inside pocket she found folded paper—a note? She didn’t have time to check. She pulled it out and put it in her pocket, glanced at the bathroom door again, and put her hand back in his jacket. Another piece of paper. Another note? She took it. No way would he not notice both of them missing, but she’d figure that out later when she could get alone and read them. They were probably nothing. She sat in her seat, drank more of her coffee. Two minutes, and he returned with his backpack, sat across from her.
“Yeah, I’m definitely feeling better now,” he said. “I splashed cold water on my face.”
“Technically, you already had cold water on your face from the cold rain.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Bridge was gaslighting her in a yellow-orange whoosh. Almost choosing suicide and now acting like it was no big deal? She was frustrated with him, felt connected to him. The idea embarrassed her. She had a habit of forming quick, intense connections to people she barely knew. Before GPS, worrying over whether someone she’d given directions to made it to their destination, or when she was in a bigger city on public transportation, not being able to stop herself from asking a crying person if they were okay, even when everyone else was determined not to speak or make eye contact with them. Occasionally, clients got intensely attached to her, emailing and calling at all hours of the night, wanting her to meet their families. She reminded them that clear boundaries were important for everyone to have, although she didn’t tell them how hard it was for her to listen to her own advice.
Right after the divorce, Tallie had gotten mildly obsessed with Joel’s new wife, going so far as to compulsively worry about her when she saw on social media that she’d been in a minor car wreck. Tallie kept checking in, making sure she was okay, reading and rereading her page, although she never posted about anything too intensely heavy or personal. Tallie learned generic things about her life by snooping around. And obsessing over those things was something that made her feel crazy. Crazier. When it got going, it was a loop she kept looping, a hoop she kept swirling around and around, never stopping.
“I like your jacket. It looks brand-new,” Tallie said, brushing her hair from her face. She was sure she looked a hot mess and couldn’t quite decide if she cared or not. A part of her wanted to go to the bathroom, fluff her hair, reapply her peachy-pink lip gloss, pinch her cheeks, but she didn’t have the time for vanity right now, not when she was trying to get to the bottom of this. To figure out and help and love her neighbor as herself.
“I bought it this morning,” he said. The receipt was from the giant camping store, Brantley’s. It was eighty dollars even, an avocado-green rain jacket. He’d paid cash for it at 9:37 a.m.
“You bought a brand-new jacket when you knew you wanted to jump from a bridge?” she asked, surprising herself. She could’ve, and maybe should’ve, asked the question differently, or even let it go completely. She didn’t want to upset him, but he didn’t seem easily upset. If she’d stumbled upon him any other way, she would’ve remarked on his chill factor, how he seemed like he never stressed about anything. He was simply sitting in a coffee shop having a cup. He was simply in a red-and-black buffalo-plaid flannel worthy of apple picking, new jacket hung over the back of his chair, boots wet, but they’d dry. Everything dried eventually. Everything was fine. Relax. Shrug.
“I bought the jacket this morning. The bridge was the bridge. This is now,” he said, as if there could be no other answer. His pacific presence soothed her, and she wanted to keep that feeling, trap it under a cup.
“So your family is from Clementine but you’re not?”
“I was born there.”
“Are you completely detached from your family? You don’t feel like you can talk to them?”
“I don’t want to talk to them right now.”
“Okay. Mind me asking how old you are?”
“Mind me asking how old you are?” he asked. Raised his eyebrow.
“Okay. You don’t want to tell me. So tell me this: Do you want more coffee? I can get you a refill. I’ll get one, too,” she said, taking his still-half-full cup.
“Sure. Thanks.”
At the counter, when she was turned away from him, she touched her pocket, checking to make sure the papers she pulled from his jacket were safe. She got their refills, performed her whole coffee ritual at the condiment counter, gave him his cup. Black. Her initial nervousness had sailed away, and she wanted to cup her hands and say Come back to that little nervous ship, because that’s what made sense. She should’ve been nervous. Was she this lonely? She had a respectable career, a nice house, her cats, her parents and brother and sister-in-law and a host of relatives and friends in her contact list. She had Aisha and a stocked pantry—which made her feel safer and better about the world. Losing her nervousness made her feel reckless, and feeling reckless fed her recklessness, leading her to feel the scariest, most thrilling thing of all: free.
“I’m forty,” she said after she’d sat across from him again.
“I’m thirty-one,” he said. Another layer peeled away.
Tallie fingered the folded papers in her pocket underneath the table, felt guilty for swiping them. She should put them back; they weren’t her business.