James Hynes - Next

And before Kevin has a chance to think, he’s pulled the door open and entered. Empyrean is self-consciously contra-Starbucks, aggressively laid-back, an echoing old warehouse with a high ceiling and bare rafters, a scuffed hardwood floor in need of a sweeping, mismatched tables and chairs. Earnest and slightly amateurish paintings in black and red line the bare brick wall along one side, each with a little card announcing its asking price with calligraphic self-importance. Even the air-conditioning is laid-back, a dank, shadowy breeze instead of the industrial, fluorescent deep freeze of Starbucks. The counter is an old wooden bar top, and the boy behind it is slender to the point of gauntness, with sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin and a high forehead. His narrow sideburns hang as low as the tips of his earlobes, his black T-shirt hangs from his collarbone, his jeans from the points of his pelvis. He’s puckering his lips and thumbing through The Joy Luck Club, as if trying to figure out what’s wrong with it. As Kevin crosses the creaking floor, the boy stows the paperback out of sight and lifts his eyebrows.

“Iced tea,” Kevin says. The boy carries Kevin’s glass in knuckly fingers; Kevin drops his change in the tip jar. The boy nods, then stoops to retrieve the paperback from under the counter. Sweating tea in hand, Kevin plucks a disheveled newspaper out of a rack and sinks into a worn corduroy sofa the color of oatmeal, just inside the door, facing toward the back. Knees higher than his lap, he grunts to set his tea on the scruffy little table before the sofa. Then he spreads the paper in front of his face, watching for Joy Luck over the top of the page.

The only other customer is a guy with a shaved head, who is slightly older than the barista, though not by much, and who slumps in his chair at another table, nodding slowly to himself as he peers into a laptop. His clothes seem to have just barely survived some apocalyptic blast — his short-sleeved shirt is faded blue plaid, and the knees of his jeans have simply vanished. He’s crossed an ankle over the other leg, exposing his entire knee and a long reach of white, hairless thigh. He extends his long arm to the laptop and gives the keyboard a sharp tap.

Just then Joy Luck reemerges from the hallway at the back, and Kevin ducks behind his paper. Without thinking, he’s picked up a section of the Wall Street Journal, and his leathery middle-aged pupils laboriously refocus on the close-ranked print, his heart racing at the sight of Joy Luck, at the memory of Lynda, at the mild thrill of his own shamelessness.

“So.” It’s Joy Luck’s voice, he recognizes it from the plane: flat, midwestern, uninflected. “Any more sentimental crap you want me to read?”

Maybe not midwestern, thinks Kevin. Midwesterners aren’t that tart, usually. Maybe she’s a Texan, maybe he got the accent all wrong. Kevin risks another peek. The gaunt barista is shrugging. The book is out of sight.

“Thought you’d like,” he says. “Sorry,” he adds, though he doesn’t really mean it.

“Whatever,” says Joy Luck, waving her fingers. It might almost be an apology. Then, “Where’s Ian?”

“Ian,” says the barista. “Oh.”

“Tall guy?” says Joy Luck. “Kind of funny-looking? Claims to be my boyfriend?” She’s standing at the counter now, hip canted, fingertips just touching the countertop.

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“Didn’t he tell me what?” She’s doing it again, that Lynda thing she does, twisting her hair one-handed away from her neck, her long arm bent at the elbow in a perfect triangle, a taut triceps displayed.

“I so don’t want to be in the middle of this.” The barista backs away from his side of the counter, as if he expects her to reach across like Lee Marvin grabbing the barkeep by the lapels.

“He knew I was coming back today, right?” She looks like she might do it, too. She’s certainly got the upper-body strength for it. “He had the flight number and all?”

The barista glances away toward Kevin, who ducks behind his paper.

“He started at Gaia last week,” Kevin hears him say. “Didn’t he tell you?”

There’s a long, tense silence.

“Gaia?” she says at last. “Since when?”

“Since last week?”

“Is that where he is now?” For the first time she sounds not just angry, but hurt.

“Sweetie, I don’t know his schedule.”

The Wall Street Journal swims before Kevin. Joy Luck and the barista lower their voices, their exact words lost in the rafters, under the hum of the AC and the music on the sound system. Kevin’s surprised to realize that this self-consciously hip little coffeehouse is playing an oldies station — some ironic whim of the gaunt barista, no doubt — and the song that’s drowning out the conversation he’d like to hear is, of all things, “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.” Jesus Christ, when was the last time he heard that? He peeks around the left edge of the paper. Barista and Joy Luck are leaning toward each other over the counter. Barista’s eyes are wide in sympathy. He nods slowly as he speaks. Joy Luck’s kneading the edge of the counter with her fingers. She looks stricken.

Whatever she says next is drowned out by the rat-a-tat beat of the idiotic song, and Kevin thinks, these two weren’t even born yet when this song was on the charts. I’m the oldest guy in here. I’m the oldest guy for blocks in any direction.

Kevin turns the page and sees his tea, untouched, sweating on the table beyond his knee, but he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself by reaching for it, doesn’t want to reveal his face. The sweat along his hairline is evaporating in the AC; the smell of his armpits rises from between the lapels of his jacket. Tucking his chin, he leans slowly to the right to peek around the paper.

“Can I leave this here?” Joy Luck has pushed away from the counter, but she sways on her long legs, almost as if she’s going to fall over. Almost as if someone has hit her. She gestures wanly to her duffel. There’s a tremor in her voice.

“Bring it around,” the gaunt barista says. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”

With a thump like a body hitting the floorboards and a long, gritty scrape, Joy Luck drags her duffel one-handed around the far end of the counter. Kevin dips guiltily to the paper again.

“That’s fine, sweetie. It’ll be fine with me.”

Now she’s sailing down the length of the coffeehouse, and Kevin can hear the creak of the floorboards, the rhythmic slap of her sandals.

“You good?” the barista calls after her.

“ No, ” she says.

He peeks, not a good idea because she’s headed in his direction, but it doesn’t matter. He could be right in her path and she’d never see him. Her eyes glisten, her gaze is fixed straight ahead. Behind her the barista blows out a sigh. The other customer, the laptop guy with the shaved head, is watching her sidelong as his bony fingers tremble over his keyboard.

“Hey,” he says, with the ghost of a smile.

Joy Luck pauses, glances, then says, “Hey!” and breaks into a sad, heartfelt smile and pivots on the toe of her sandal. She coos at the laptop guy, who murmurs something back, and Kevin’s heart tumbles again in his chest. Joy Luck is smiling down at the guy, and he’s beaming shyly up at her as if he can’t believe his good luck. She’s holding his hand by the thumb and waggling his long arm playfully back and forth. Laptop grins sheepishly, baring his pink gums. Even at this distance, in the crepuscular cool of the café, Kevin can see the guy blush. Joy Luck’s eyes have brightened and she’s laughing — a musical laugh, a charming laugh, a laugh that makes Kevin’s balls tingle — and the laughter and the carefree grasp of the man’s hand pierce Kevin right through to his spine, because it’s a gesture that reminds him of another old flame — not Lynda this time, but the Philosopher’s Daughter, his great unrequited crush, the girl that got away. She had a laugh like that, mocking and affectionate all at once, and an effortlessly flirtatious manner. Kevin never made a bigger fool of himself over anyone than he did over her.