The elderly man stirred his coffee. The spoon made a gentle tink-tink against the cup. He watched the melding of the black coffee and the white creamer. They made a quiet slosh-slosh inside the cup.
Across the table, the middle-aged woman buttered her toast. The knife made a rasping scritch-scritch across the bread. She watched the butter melt onto the charred bread. It surrendered like an eager lover to a warm embrace.
As if on cue, Lou stopped stirring, and Rita stopped buttering. They set down their utensils. He sipped his coffee and then set down the cup. She nibbled her toast and then replaced its remains on the plate. Then they looked across the table at each other.
“I should say something,” Lou thought with more than a little dread. “Something nice. Something complimentary.”
“Now I’ll have to make conversation, I suppose,” Rita thought with bitterness.
“This is the best cup of joe you ever made,” Lou offered.
“You say that every day, Lou,” Rita said without appreciation.
“Well, you make good coffee every day, love,” Lou answered. Then he settled back in the seat and grinned with self-satisfaction at his cleverness.
“Can’t you find something more interesting to say?”
Lou’s grin disappeared, and his face hardened. He looked steadily into Rita’s eyes. “What would be more interesting, Rita dear?” he asked with honest curiosity. But he did not wait for a reply.
Inspiration had come in the moment it took his grin to fade and his face to stiffen. “I know!” Lou continued with mock enthusiasm. “Let’s talk about relationships. It’s a topic you seem to enjoy greatly. You and your girlfriends are always talking about relationships.”
“Me and my girlfriends?” Rita asked with suspicion. “How do you know what we talk about?”
“Darling, you are beautiful and fairly smart, but you most definitely do not know the meaning of the word discretion. Do you even know how to whisper?” He waved her off with a gesture similar to trying to cool a hot plate of food, which was no longer what sat before him on the red apple-shaped place mat.
“But I digress!” he went on. “I want to talk about our relationship. I recall when it started. Everyone we knew thought it was madness. Even my mother, God rest her soul, wondered what had gotten into me. I admit, I wondered, too. I was nearing 65 and getting ready to retire from the university. And you were just divorced and finishing vocational school. But we were in love, weren’t we? And who was to say we weren’t perfect for each other? Deserved each other? It was about time I had a companion, damn it! All my colleagues had their wives and children and mistresses and bastard children. It was my turn. I thought we understood each other, Rita. But in these seven years, I have seen how mistaken I was; we were. I’m not going to ask you what you think. And most certainly not how you feel. I don’t really care, so why ask? But yes, I’m done with this. You make good coffee and you keep me fed. But you’re not my friend, or my partner, or even a decent companion. And you are a stingy lover. So I’m through with you. Everything, and I mean everything, I need from you, I can pay for. I have already made the arrangements , as a matter of fact.”
Lou stood up from the table and looked down at her. “That vacation we planned to the Adirondacks? You go on. You go with Jack.” He chuckled at her wide startled eyes. “Yes, dear, you go to the Adirondacks with Jack. I’ll take care of everything while you’re away. And when you get back, you’ll be free and clear.”
Lou patted the top of Rita’s head and walked out of the sunny kitchen nook.