It was probably a bad idea to pour blueberry syrup on the table. Rude, in fact. But there was no better way to get her to my table. It worked like a charm really, a quick sweeping motion of my left forearm clumsily tipped the dispenser on its side. I fumbled for a moment while the blue goo followed the slant of the warped tabletop.
She was over in an instant because she is that kind of waitress, attentive and courteous. She couldn’t bear to stand by drying the heads of bent forks while a customer sat one moment in filth. I like to think that she only felt that way about me, but she doesn’t know me. She’s seen me before and affords me the kind of casual, friendly smile and slight nod of recognition one gets from being familiar. I’m the billboard she passes on the way to work.
I don’t need to be eating pancakes four days a week that’s for sure. But I don’t come for the food or the coffee that goes cold just out of the pot. I come for Sarah. I come for the blond streaked brunette hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. I come for the dark eyes and strong nose and the bottom lip that dangles in a constant pout. I come to count the freckles on her chest that speckle her neck when she gets sun on the weekend. I come for the strong thin arms weighed down with bracelets and pitchers of water with lemon.
I live for days like last Tuesday when she reached up high for a box of straws and dusted herself with the powdered sugar they save for the fancy Belgian waffles. She huffed and giggled a bit and dabbed herself clean with a wet cloth except for some white on the back of her calf. I meant to show her what she missed but I figured it might look suspicious paying too close attention to the areas off limits to the casual spectator. I hoped it would stay there and get moist from the glisten of sweat on the back of her knee. It would be a sweet surprise for me once we were alone in the grass.
We belong in the grass. Anywhere away from here where a steady breeze can lift the smell of grease and bacon fat from her apron and take it faraway to someplace else. I want us to get lost on that knoll by the riverfront. The one with the wildflowers like they plant in the median of interstates. I want us to smile in slow motion like some romantic version of a detergent commercial where everything is clean and breezy and natural.
I’m worried that the smell of pigs in a blanket is turning me on. I don’t want to get hard strolling past an International House of Pancakes. I don’t want to associate eggs and cheese with carnal delight. I don’t want sex to mean breakfast.
Sarah doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t belong in these clothes. These starched god awful uniforms with the puffy sleeves and the stiff flared skirt. I’m sorry for her and I’m sorry that someone like her is hidden by such unfortunate commercial wardrobe. It’s like wrapping a dozen roses with the New York Post. She needs draped linens, tailored suits or at the very least a willing man who will hold and cup and cover her parts so the wind is free to blow her hair and the tourists who walk by can appreciate the beauty of a naked goddess by the 24th Street grassy knoll. She could also use my quilt.
I’d prefer her to use the quilt. I’m sure Sarah would prefer the velvet feel of the patchwork of hundred-year-old fabric scraps to the scratch blend of orange plaid. We’d burn her clothes in a bonfire by the rocks. I’d even burn my own shoes if they weren’t brand new.
I just want time with her on my quilt, the two of us flattening a patch of three foot high grass. A room in the middle of outside with no roof warmed by the afternoon sun. We could exist in that quiet, tracing paths on each other’s bare skin. I’d give her slow open mouth kisses up and down her back like I was eating strawberries from the vine. She would close her eyes and I’d know things were just fine.
It would be nice for her to know my name. It would be nice to hear it tumble over that bottom lip. It would be nice but not necessary. We would keep silent on our picnic. No talking on our quilt. In our
The damp rag is bright blue and sticky. I’ve been leaning back curved with the arc of the booth holding my newspaper and coffee in mid-air while Sarah mops up my mess. I tricked her just so that she would be stuck here for a minute and half. Ninety seconds that I could use to watch her neck tighten, her tiny bicep flex and the gentle sway of her breasts trapped beneath stiff polyester. It’s hot today and I want to lick away the beads of sweat racing down the back of her neck. I want to peel her out of her clothes and clean her with my tongue so that there is no trace of breakfast, lunch or dinner left on her skin. I want her clean like a peach pit sucked too long.
Then I want her splayed out on my quilt with her arms over her head sucking spring air and laughing and not fumbling for one of the pens jammed in her hair. I want to drink from her belly button and draw slow circles radiating from her nipples. I want to be on her and in her and breathing so close that she’s breathing my breath and when she closes her eyes and smiles I’ll know my work is done.
In the meantime I get fat on butter and biscuits and tip more than I can afford. She knows my face and I see hers every time I close my eyes at night. I’ll make messes and ask dumb questions as long as it brings her close.
--Frank Grooms, Punchline,
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