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At one point, bored and with a desire to show off, if only to himself, he closed his eyes and began to reach out to the front. The noise was low. He figured maybe only one table of customers remained. The off-white frame of the doorway gave way to the sterile-bright white walls of the dining area. The stainless steel rim of the glass-topped pastry counter glinted. He sensed Candace moving on the left side of the dining area and then her form came into view. She walked smack into his projection, and he shuddered in the chair and nearly made a sound. He steadied himself, half-fearing and half-anticipating that she’d come back to check on him and talk to him — which if she did she might see on his face a look of vacuous concentration as if he was trying to pass a kidney stone — but she appeared again to the left, doing something at the pastry counter.
He looked out and saw the remaining customers — three student-aged girls sitting at a table, their lips moving in quiet talking and laughing. One of them he recognized from one of his spring classes — Penny or Polly or something like that.
A clanging noise startled him, and he jerked his reached-out attention to the right. Candace had dropped an ice cream scoop on the floor. “Shit,” she whispered. She set a tray of glasses on the counter and picked up the scoop and took it to the sink for washing. But the tray of glasses was distractingly tilted toward the edge of the counter — Candace had set it on top of a metal spoon. Ben’s projection studied the tray, willing it to come into tighter focus, and it did, sort of. He felt sure it would slide and fall, dumping all of the glasses onto the floor. He felt a bit woozy from the heavy concentration, but he reached out with his “hands” toward the tray to see if he could push it away from the edge. One of the students in the dining area laughed explosively and Ben’s vision fogged for a moment. He regained focus slowly and found that he was touching the tray. Or rather his fingers were moving through the tray’s lip, ineffectually. He bore down, intensified his concentration.
Suddenly another pair of hands appeared and picked up the tray and Ben felt dizzy at the disruption. He pulled back on the projection and then heard a chair scrape the floor seemingly inside his head. He opened his eyes to find Candace staring at him. She said something.
He blinked and said, “I’m sorry?”
“You’re scheduled until 4?”
He nodded and, forcing himself fully back in-the-moment, said, “I’m fine to work now.”
She glanced at her wrist watch. “What if you’re contagious?”
“I didn’t eat a big enough breakfast. That’s all. And it was —” he hesitated before continuing, “— a draining morning.”
She chewed the inside of her bottom lip and considered him with eyes that fairly twinkled with either concern or amusement. For a moment, he felt a shuddering certainty that she would reach out a motherly hand and tousle his hair. The possibility that she might see the expectation of that in his eyes made him blush, and he rubbed his face, coughed, and shook his head vigorously like a cartoon drunk. When he looked back at her, her expression hadn’t changed much. He sat up straighter and tried to look “fine.”
She said, “You probably need the paycheck. Prove to me you’re okay to keep working.”
He started to stand up but she waved him back into the seat. “There are no customers. I’d probably send you home to save the old man some money, but —” She left her reasons hanging.
An image popped into his head: Donna’s face just as she turned and walked away across the food court. He didn’t want to go back to his dorm room just yet.
He put a smirk on his face and said, “Top five favorite literary locations.”
She gave him a droll look, but she humored him. “You’d better go first,” she said.
“I’ve already revised my list a thousand times.”
“I bet you have. Okay, I’ll give it a shot.” She looked at the ceiling, then back at him. “Narnia. Oz.”
When she didn’t go on, he said helpfully, “Middle Earth?”
“Please,” she said, now witheringly. “This is my list.”
“Sorry.”
She had to think a long time. But then she brightened and said, “Pencey Prep. Dresden. Pianosa.”
He slapped the desktop with his palm and said, “Good!”
She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a look of impatience. “Good for what?”
“For the game,” he said.
“I suppose you should tell me yours. Beginning with Middle Earth?”
About Patrick Kelly Joyner
