This is a repost. This story originally appeared in the
Naked Sunfish a few years ago. I am working on another piece, which may be a companion to this one. I reserve the right to revise this one. For now-- this is as it was written a few years ago.
*****
I know it has been awhile since I have
written a letter. Email hardly counts or a quick text from the
blackberry. So tonight I am at my normal place, Rube’s Place. I
stowed the laptop and brought along the notebook you bought me in
Paris. Well you know the one, since you are holding some of its pages
in your hands now and smelling my perfume as you read the ramblings I
have set to paper. I cannot believe I have been here for three months
already; the semester is quickly coming to a close.
Maybe I have not mentioned Rube’s
Place to you. Well it is a lovely little coffee shop. She serves
sandwiches and the like and the place, well I think it is easily my
new home away from home. I feel a sense of peace here. It is homey,
like my Aunt Mabel’s, well it would be if I had an Aunt Mabel but
you get the idea. The windows have charming blue gingham café
curtains (you know the short valance across the top and then the
curtain that covers the center of the window.) The entire place is
decked out in Danish White and Blue; all sorts of china, little Dutch
boy figures, geese and their broods, little houses, like the ones KLM
used to give away, and small plates. It is homey but not overly
kitschy. The coffee comes in mixed matched mugs and there is a lot of
it. The tea is brewed right and she has begun to stock my
favorite cookies. I did not ask for them mind you, they just appeared
one day, on the plate beside my coffee one afternoon and they have
remained here ever since.
Now she does not have WiFi
exactly. But the big name coffee house around the corner does and I
poach from there and it seems everyone does, but I am a bit
concerned, as there never seems to be very many people there and well
all the people are at Rube’s, but I guess I am borrowing trouble
and will just run with it is as the natives do. What will happen will
happen. No real need to worry.
Our place is all spit spot now, well
except for the boxes and the books on the floor and the DVD player
which I cannot seem to get hooked up quiet right and then there is
the broken shelf in the kitchen cabinet above the dishwasher, but our
bedroom and office are just the way I want them and the bathroom with
the big tub is excellent. I am not in love with the arrangement of
the furniture in the living room but I am going to live with it for
awhile and just breathe and see what happens, it is not as if I
nailed it to the floor or anything. It still does not feel like home,
you are not here yet and well I am lonely in the new place and while
it is OUR stuff in the rooms, something is missing, your laughter and
your smile. I tell myself the weeks will pass quickly and they have
but still it will not be home until you are here.
So back to Rube’s Place, which does
feel like home. The tables are scattered around the room and there is
great natural light. In the morning it is too busy to actually work,
lots of people in and out, buying coffee to go. I do like to sit and
take in all the energy. I graded papers the other morning here and I
wrote in my journal the other day before my class. No serious writing
mind you. At lunch time there is also a lot of in and out traffic.
She makes the greatest sandwiches and she knows everyone by name.
When I first starting coming in she gave me the eye. Like she was a
prize fighter sizing me up. I was an outsider I guess, but then on
the third day as I walked in she called out my name and had my coffee
ready before I even had a chance to set my stuff down at what was
becoming and is now my table. (It is my table now, Rube will make
people move when I come in and they are there. I even caught her
moving the reserved sign as I walked up the sidewalk the other day.)
Now I know that you would have figured
it out right away, but I missed this for a while. Rube is a bit
different. She is very tall and a bit like Bea Arthur from The
Golden Girls. I mean very tall and a bit broader than one would
expect. I am tall but she is very tall, almost an imposing figure.
Her voice is deep but not unlike a woman who has smoked for a number
of years. I have hence learned that she has never smoked - well
tobacco anyway. She is a charmer and very warm and friendly. Many a
night of late I have stayed passed closing writing and talking and
listening to music. She has live music many nights a week and I have
once or twice on a Saturday come in a waited tables for her and made
coffee, yes I have learned to make coffee; she is a most excellent
teacher. She needed the help and well, I needed the company. I am
slowly making friends but I am lonely and I know you will be here
soon, but I am enjoying her company. She is a nurturer and a mom
figure and I love that she has taken me in and made me a home away
from the home I am making for us. It is hard to leave a place you
have been for a long time and coming here mid year has it own unique
challenges and well you know I tend to stay on the sidelines and
watch and well breaking the ice is your strong suit!
What was the TV show, with the theme
song about it being a place you can call home where everyone knows
your name? Well you know what I mean – Rube’s Place is my place
away from home and she knows my name.
The other night, while I was grading
papers and getting ready to put in my hour of writing, two men walked
in. They looked a bit uncomfortable. They were dressed very metro,
very much like back home. Black cords, black shoes, tight black
sweaters. Their hair styled just so and hipster glasses. Very slim
and lanky, you know the body type. Around here it is casual to the
point of sloppy sometimes, the college is laid back and well it
shows. I miss the trendy stuff from the old hood and I have to say
sometimes I feel over dressed, but I am not in the mood to alter my
style just yet. I mean I have my books in boxes and my stuff is all
over the place and I am just nesting, I am not going to stop matching
my socks to my outfit and I fail to see how pjs are appropriate for
anywhere but bed and well the apartment on Saturday morning. (Yes
well ok maybe there too, but as far as I can tell there is none of
that here so let’s just leave it at that.)
So they come in and they are so out of
place in Aunt Rube’s parlor, with the little Dutch Blue tea sets
and the gingham table clothes. It was like Vogue meets Country
Living and it was not a smooth integration. They sat down and
looked very uncomfortable in the wooden chairs. They shot me a look,
which if any icier could have frozen me where I sat. I could see them
in the city on velour couches or in a Bistro on a banquette, but
these cute little chairs and the tea house seemed to cause some
disease. Or was it something else. I will say that at this point I
had pulled out my journal and abandoned the papers I had been
grading. I wanted to record the scene unfolding in front of me. I
felt a bit like a voyeur, but something was making me watch this
attentively. I knew if we had been sitting together, you would have
moved your chair to my side of the table and begun narrating what we
were watching.
Rube came out from behind the counter
and said, “What do you want, boys?” Now I must say they were men
and not boys. Not really. Plus Rube was using a rough, course tone I
could not identify. I will say it was this interlude that caused the
light bulb in my head to click on. I finally figured out what should
have been obvious, but was not.
The taller one asked about the
specials. Rube announced there were none. Now that was not true, as I
had eaten it for dinner. The shorter one asked about the wine list.
Rube has some house wine and it changes every few days, depending on
her mood, but there is no list. She replies that there is no list.
So then Rube says that they can have
cheese burgers and fries and some southern slaw with vanilla Cokes
and walks off. Now I did not even know she made cheese burgers.
Killer warm sandwiches but I had never seen burgers. With a flourish
she retreats to the kitchen and the door slams behind her. Like a
DIVA exciting the stage.
Then it hits me. Are these guys metro
or are the a couple? They are dressed very sharp and well they were
together. Not that any of this matters one bit and I know I should be
working but I am intrigued, both by her reaction and their obvious
disease. Then the total picture hits me. Rube is not a she, she is a
he being a she which makes her she – but well what does it matter
and why was she being rude?
Then I pause – because I know by now
you are grasping this paper so hard as you laugh from deep within
yourself. My crazy brain – I used to say and shake my head. It is
literally like that – the ideas zing around and I write them down.
I so hoped I could write this story so that you would feel as if you
were there with me.
So after much clanging and banging in
the kitchen, which is also not usual, in general it is quiet and
peaceful a Rube’s. Everything runs smoothly and is controlled, she
emerges from the kitchen disheveled and sweaty, with two platters
heavily laden with the largest burgers I have ever seen and a
mountain of fresh cut French fries. It smelled lovely. Then Rube sat
down with the men and they began to talk in quiet hushed tones and I
decided that I was so very much an outsider, and that this scene was
a private moment and I should leave them to their time, whatever it
was. A reunion, old friends come to visit, I did know nor was it
really my affair.
I quietly gathered my belongings and
stood and slung my bag over my shoulder and made my way to the door.
Just as I reached for the handle I heard the familiar voice of
motherly authority, “And where do you think you are sneaking off to
young lady?”
I gulped and half whispered, “Home?”
“No you are going to come over here,
pull up a chair and enjoy my boys with me.” She commanded.
So I crept, rather cautiously over to
the table, where the “boys” where eating. Rube pushed a chair out
and I sat down on the edge, balancing and feeling rather like one
would when sitting in the tiger display at the zoo.
“Claire, I want you to met Byron
Landis and his partner. They have come out from the city to visit
with me. It has been a long time since we have seen one another. Life
sometimes gets in the way. Byron was the owner of your table years
ago. Showed up like you did one winter and well stayed until it was
time to go.” She says with an air of wistful calmness. The tone
carried acceptance and understanding, and curiously not a trace of
bitterness as one would have expected, at his long absence. (Yes
sweetheart I was sitting with the Byron Landis. I gathered he was
filming in the area and no I did not think to ask for an autograph!)
I nod and take a sip of the tea, which
had just appeared in front of me.
“Boys, this is Claire, she is a new
faculty member in the English Department and her special someone will
be joining her soon. She has rented the Peterson Place, doing nice
things to it as I can see. She helps out from time to time and I
think she is going to be camped out at that table for years to come.”
The men slowly turn to the table, which
has become mine, turn back and smile broadly at me and nod.
I just stare back, still rather unsure
of exactly what it is I am seeing and experiencing. Then Rube’s
son, as she calls him, smiles at me and says, “Claire, welcome to
the family. It is nice to see that the table is once again occupied
by someone who will care for it as it should be cared for.”
I blink. I sit at the table, I hardly
care for it. I write on it, eat my meals on it, and stare out the
window from the table. I fail to see the connection, but the other
three do – for they are smiling like cats who have sipped some
delicious cream.
Then Rube says to me, “Claire, life
is a puzzle and sometimes sweetie the pieces just fall together.
Sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly but when the time is right,
one knows.”
With that she gets ups, takes my half
drunk tea away and says, “You best be getting on home. I expect you
will have a special someone calling you soon.”
I nod and get up, the boys shake my
hand and Byron walks me to the door and whispers lowly, “Take care
of her, she has taken the long road and has found peace. Even years
from now you will hold a place in her heart as her daughter. She has
not had children of her own, but those of us lucky enough to know her
and be taken in for a piece, well what is better than to be chosen
and accepted? Good night Claire.”
As I walk home, my mind full of
questions it hits me, acceptance, is a priceless gift. One rarely
offered, but when offered with an open heart, there is no richer
gift.
Good Night, my love, I cannot wait
until you arrive in a few weeks. Rube has a table set for us.
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