He tipped his head at me and walked over. He pulled the chair out then lowered himself into it.
‘Andrew Boyce-Jones. We’ve never officially met, even though I seem to speak to you more than anyone else in my life.’ He reached out a hand for me to shake. I tapped it with my elbow, like we’d all been directed to do during the pandemic. It was a great way to touch a person without having to stick your whole hand into theirs, which was a feeling I absolutely hated. Flightbird looked at my elbow and then let out another small laugh. The waitress cleared her throat. I’d totally forgotten she was still standing there.
‘So?’ she asked.
‘So what?’ I replied.
She pointed at my Coke and raised her brows. I raised mine back.
‘Do you want the Coke or not?’
‘No, thank you. I’ll have a glass of water though, please. Sorry. And thank you. Very much.’ I was overcompensating with placating words. Too many placating words.
‘Ice and lemon?’ she asked.
‘Ice, no lemon.’
The waitress walked off but, before disappearing, she shot me a glance over her shoulder.
‘So what brings you to my newly favorited coffee shop?’ he asked.
‘This is my favorite one too,’ I echoed. ‘I’ve tested most of the ones in the airport, and this one definitely has the best coffee.’
‘Totally agree,’ he said.
‘I was going to be flying to Cape Town on the 13:15 flight, but now I’m not,’ I stated, looking down at my small suitcase, which was just the right size to be taken as carry-on.
‘Flight A356?’
‘Yes. That’s the one.’
‘That’s my flight. I was getting a coffee before take-off. Why aren’t you going any more?’
I put my hands under the table and fluttered my fingers together a few times to calm me down. I had not expected to bump into someone that I didn’t know today, and I hadn’t expected to now be having a conversation with that person in a coffee shop that did not stock the thing I usually drank. I hated bumping into people I knew when I was out and often pretended not to recognize them when they looked in my direction. I’ve mastered the art of quickly generating a sudden blank look in my eyes, as if I’m seeing through them.
‘High-school reunion. But I’ve decided not to go.’
‘Why? I loved mine. I’m still really close to my friends from school. In fact, we have our annual get-together coming up soon.’
I looked him over. ‘You were popular in high school.’ It was a statement, not a question. A man that looked like he did had no doubt been incredibly popular. A man that sat at a chair with such a sense of belonging and purpose, who spoke with ease and smiled so freely, he was the kind of person who’d enjoyed his high-school experience.
‘I was fairly popular,’ he replied with a smile he was clearly trying to hide, which I interpreted as an attempt at modesty.
‘You loved school.’ I took it a step further, and he did not disagree. ‘I did not love high school, nor was I very popular. Not that I wanted to be popular, but I’ve observed that the more popular you are, the more you seem to enjoy your high-school experience. Don’t you think?’
Flightbird took a sip of his coffee and stared at me over the rim, as if he was considering something. His stare made me uncomfortable, and I felt that swell of words in my brain. Those over-explaining words that I throw out into empty, quiet and awkward moments when I can’t cope with the silence. The longer he kept quiet, the more I was going to be compelled to open my mouth and totally overshare, something I always regretted later. The words dropped out of my brain and into my throat. I could physically feel them wiggling around in my mouth, trying to come out . . .
‘When you’re popular, school is easy. When you don’t fit in, it’s not. And I don’t really have anything in common with the girls I went to school with, not then and certainly not now. In fact, they couldn’t be more different from me if they tried. They’re all married and seem to be breeding like small rodents. Everyone seems to have a husband, or a fiancé, or a small human, and that is all they’re going to talk about at this reunion. And they’re going to ask me all sorts of questions, the kind of questions I hate – why don’t I have a fiancé and a husband and a small human in tow? – and I will be forced to answer them and then be pulled into talk about how I should be on a dating app or they have a friend/ brother/cousin that maybe I would like. I’ll be dragged into small talk. And I hate small talk. And there’s going to be champagne, and everyone will be all “wine o’ clock” – a saying I hate, by the way, but that I think is pretty apt here. And it’s going to get very celebratory and loud and I’m afraid I’m going to be forced into some kind of drunken dancing and reminiscing, and then I’m going to feel pressured to say something worthwhile, and not just one of my awkward gap fillers, like this rant clearly is.’ I took a breath, a quick one, and continued. ‘I just hate this pressure, you know. To be in a relationship, get engaged, get married, have a baby, have another baby. You start to feel that there might actually be something wrong with you because you don’t want those things, and without those things you just stick out even more.Notbeing in a relationship seems to have become an open invitation for others to tell you why youneedto be in a relationship. Take my mother, for example. She’s so desperate to throw me a wedding.’ I stopped talking as abruptly as I’d started. I was about to say something else, something way too personal, and was glad that I’d managed to stop myself from saying it.It was perhaps the main reason I hated being asked why I wasn’t in a relationship.
‘There’s nothing wrong with you for not wanting to be in a relationship,’ Flightbird said.
‘I know that logically, of course, but when everyone carries on and on about it, sometimes you feel . . .’ I paused, not able to find the word.
Flightbird put his coffee down. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘You do?’ That was somewhat hard to believe.
‘I have three sisters, all married, all with kids, and parents who keep asking me when I’m going to find someone to settle down with and have kids. It’s their greatest disappointment that I haven’t found a “nice girl” yet, and they remind me of it constantly. They’re concerned that my career takes up too much time and energy and I don’t put enough time and energy into my personal life.’
