My Usual Please
I’m sitting at Wooglin’s Deli.
The second bar stool from the cash register, where I always sit;
With my ‘veggie sandwich’ and my piece of cake and my Odawalla drink.
The girl who thought I was 24 is gone and I wonder if when she asked she was asking for him.
The three boys are still here, pretty and charming and smiling at me.
But the man with ginger hair and freckles has been cleaning the same glass for three minutes and ten seconds and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t smiled.
He has sad eyes and Celtic tattoos.
I’m willing myself not to look over at him… not to make eye contact.
Because I know I will flinch in absolute pleasure.
Does he recall when I checked his hand for a wedding band when he first took my money to make change? Or the way I lingered too long after taking the last bite of my cake?
Because he says things like ‘lovely’.
And I will wonder if he’s wondering and remembering the last time I was here.
If he will relive the way he traced his fingers across my flesh, raised with fresh ink;
And if he will feel guilty when the boy, his employee or maybe boss, I’ve been flirting with drops a glass and glares and how I’ve written too many of these based off those shards of glass… or the way he licked his lips when he brushed my collar bone.
Does he remember how soft my skin was, against his calloused tip? Or how beautifully we clashed; his pale and freckled finger against my olive and inked skin?
Is that what he’s thinking about when he casually walks by, and brushes his hand across my shoulder blade?
Because it burns.
His face is inside my head, the fringe of his hair in his eyes and their green ghosts and his full lips and his freckles, oh jesusyeshisfreckles.
Or is he thinking about how dirty he felt when he talked to me in polite tones… how lecherous he felt when he stripped me with his eyes in the middle of the lunch rush and how my eyes flashed and my lips tingled and how I shivered at his laugh lines.
There is a bead of sweat crawling down my spine and if I could look up from my carrot cake I’d wish his tongue was catching it in the dip and swell of my back.
But instead, I just shift a bit in my seat and focus on my alfalfa sprouts.
Or the way the wheat bread rebounds after my touch and the way the dark and handsome boy is offering me water with a wink and I can feel my cheeks flush.
I’m going to apply for a job here.
I imagine I’ll say: “I was wondering if you were interested in hiring me.”
I imagine he’ll smile and say: “Always.”
And he’ll take the bait and I’ll swallow my customer tendencies and that we’ll share green tea breaks on the patio behind the deli.
I bite my lip and will myself not to create too much hope.
He is busy reloading the soda machine with ice when I’m tracing the lazy hang of his kaki shorts on his hips and the curve of his calf and the purity of his feet in brown leather flip-flops with my eyes and I’m remembering the way he pressed against my shoulder blades with firm touches and created condensation on my ear and cheek with his breath.
“Be sure to come back when it’s healed, so I can see it.”
And by see he meant touch and I remember gasping at the way his voice wrapped around me like velvet and vice grips and cucumbers.
And I’m imaging him saying ‘Tejon’ and my fork clatters to the floor.
I stop breathing, just for a couple of seconds because my imagination is better than most and I can feel him in my mind, and it’s delicious and it’s not enough and it’s so wrong.
But I refuse to feel naughty because maybe he thinks I’m beautiful and he wants to see how I look and feel on his sheets and loves the way I try to read and write and eat and hold a decent conversation with Gary all at the same time and wants to trace the curve of my hip without having a reason to and wants to walk dogs in the park with me just to see me laugh and notices that my eyes turn green when I’m feeling something more than me and he wants to tattoo me on his skin in a secret way we are only privy to and maybe, just fucking maybe, he actually wants me because I’m real and beautiful and sitting at his bar after cutting open people and I could be his Joni Mitchell.
I can imagine him holding my hand and feeling satisfied.
Which is precisely why I leave my tip with graffiti dollar bills, hoping he notices the ‘foryouforyouforyou’ printed around the edges…
