The Girl in the Coffee Shop
The coffee shop on the corner was Matt’s favorite place to write. It had good coffee, character, and a cute barista named Anya who loved to dance.
Matt was impressed with Anya's energy and optimism, her grace in movement and manner as she attended to the patrons of the shop. Anya was intrigued by Matt's personality, a reserved manner marked by flashes of extroverted exuberance. It was the look that came across his face now and then as he wrote, an externalized thought or emotion caught unawares, honest and uninhibited, that made her curious about the contents of his moleskin. Every once in a while, she tried to sneak a peek, and he would throw his hands over the page, like someone suddenly caught naked. And then they'd smile at each other. Sometimes he wrote something on a napkin and handed it to her in passing like two school kids exchanging notes in class. Then he'd watch her reaction, or just listen for it. He wasn't sure what he liked better - her smile or her laugh.
One day he was unable to engage in that world that was a wonder to him and a mystery to her. His eyes wandered around the shop. He searched vaguely out the window. He watched the snow cover the city like a scene in a snowdome.
“The words aren't flowing today?” she asked, topping off his mug.
“Not like the coffee,” he said, closing his moleskin.
"I guess you can't always have days like that," she said.
"Hey, would you like to see a play with me tonight?" he asked.
She didn't answer right away.
"I know it's short notice," he continued, "but it's the Time of Your Life --"
"Oh, really - the time of my life? How can I turn that down!"
"No," he said, laughing. "That's the name of the play - The Time of Your Life."
"Oh," she said with a laugh. "Sure. I'd love to go."
It was the first time either of them had been to the Goodman Theater. The Pulitzer prize winning play got great reviews, and the performance exceeded their expectations. The play had a large and interesting cast of characters, kind of like those at the coffee shop. Matt asked Anya which character she identified with the most. Probably a cross between Harry and Wesley, she said. Harry was not an ideal comparison because she couldn't imagine giving up dancing to do comedy. Wesley, the errand boy who plays a killer piano, was probably a closer match. Matt said hands down he would be Joe, the loafer and dreamer with a heart of gold. At this point in his life, Matt wasn't sure whether he was loafing or working, dreaming or building a new career.
After the play, they went to the Jackson Tavern for a drink. To Matt, Anya was an atypical Russian, at least compared to the stereotypes he gleaned from Russian literature or that Woody Allen movie. Her accent sounded French. She wasn’t dark or brooding or melancholic. She didn't drink Vodka. She preferred Kurt Vonnegut to Fyodor Dostoevsky. She thought Tchaikovsky was too weepy. And it wasn't ballet she was passionate about; it was jazz and African dancing. Anya asked Matt how long he had been writing. Four months, he told her. It started as a voluntary leave of absence from his consulting job. Leadership was offering a one-year sabbatical at twenty percent pay as a strategy for mitigating the effects of a declining economy. He liked the idea. It was his chance to pursue his dream of being a writer. At twenty-nine, he was still young enough to live without money. Anya was twenty-four.
It was 1:00 a.m. when they left the bar and started driving home, eastbound on Jackson.
"So, when are you going to show me what you keep in that notebook of yours?"
"When I have something ready."
"You haven't finished any of the stories you've been writing?"
"Well, they're not done done."
"Are you sure you're not just afraid to share?"
"I am if it's not ready."
Anya looked at Matt like she was waiting for him to finish, waiting for an honest answer.
"Okay," he said. "I guess I'm a little shy about sharing. Sometimes I feel such joy in what I'm writing, like I'm touching the sky, writing something brilliant, then I look at it the next day and think it's shit. But then there's stuff I wrote months ago that I thought was crap, and I pull it out and now I think it's actually pretty good."
"I'm sure that's part of the process. And it's all new to you. You'll figure it out."
The song on the CD they were listening to just ended, and Jamiroquai's Alright started playing.
“Oh, I love this song!” she said, turning up the volume and moving to the music. Even though Matt hadn't seen any of her dance performances, he could tell she was a good dancer. It wasn't just the way she moved to the music. It was the way she floated through the coffee shop like a whirling dervish as she maneuvered around the patrons with a tray or a carafe.
"Let's go dancing!" she said.
"Now?"
"Why not! I know a great place."
"Okay."
"Turn left on Michigan."
He put the turn signal on as the car entered the southbound lane of Michigan and slowed down to make the turn.
Suddenly, it was like a scene change out of a movie. Cut. Fade in. An airbag was deflating as the scene came into focus. There was a metallic taste of blood in his mouth. The car was sitting on the street corner of Jackson and Michigan, the front end sitting on top of one of those stone pillars it had knocked down. He looked to his right to see Anya facing him, like she was sleeping, except that blood was streaming out of her nostrils. He was about to touch her neck, to get a pulse, but then he noticed her breath in the cold air. He spoke to her, but received no response. He pulled his cell phone out from his coat pocket and dialed 911, then got out of the car.
Standing nearby was a young kid, probably twenty, eyes like a deer caught in the headlights.
"Are you alright?" Matt asked. The kid looked unscathed, except for the vacant look in his stone blue eyes.
"Yeah," the kid said.
"What happened?" Matt asked.
"I don't know," he said.
Matt looked around to see if there was anyone else in the vicinity. No one. Only cars cautiously passing. The sound of the sirens grew stronger. With nothing to do but wait, his thoughts turned to himself. He wondered if this was somehow his fault. Did he have too much to drink? Would he be tested for driving while intoxicated? Would she die? Would he go to jail? He felt light headed. Spots were filling his eyes like an unfolding snow storm. He put his hand on the car to regain his balance.
Matt tried to make sense of the scene. The kid's car made impact on the passenger side where Anya was sitting. There were no brake marks in the intersection. A stone flower bed on the median could have obstructed his view of the car. The Wrigley building was lit up like a green light. It wasn't long before the police arrived and the ambulance took Matt and Anya to Northwestern hospital.
While Anya was in the emergency room, a paramedic wheeled Matt into the waiting room. Matt told the paramedic he didn't need a wheelchair, but the paramedic said it was policy. A police officer came into the waiting room to question him.
"I haven't known her long," Matt said. "This was our first date."
"Where were you coming from?" the officer asked.
Matt retraced their steps that evening.
"How many drinks did you have?"
"We had a drink during intermission and another one after the show," Matt said. Two drinks over a four-hour period, but the last one was strong.
"Did you attempt to move her or take her seatbelt off?" the police officer asked.
"No," Matt said. "She wasn't wearing a seatbelt?"
"No."
"Were they able to contact any of her family?" Matt asked.
"Yes, her mother's on the way," said the police officer.
Matt was then examined by a doctor. His right shoulder and back hurt, and he had some soreness and bleeding in his mouth; but other than that he was okay. The doctor scheduled an appointment for him to get an x-ray and gave him a prescription for Vicodin, warning him he'd probably hurt like hell tomorrow.
Back in the waiting room another doctor came out and explained Anya's condition. The severe whiplash of the crash caused her head to hit the passenger window and bounce around so violently that the brain floating inside her skull smashed into the walls of its own cage. The doctor said they were doing their best to remove the blood building up in her skull, but her situation was critical.
Matt's fears of a DUI and jail time were replaced by a new anxiety. What a horrible way to meet a girl's mother, he thought. Would she be angry? Would she be hostile? Or would she be too enervated by shock or grief to lash out? He sat in the waiting room glancing at the clock and the door. After some time passed, he heard a woman with a shaky voice inquire about Anya at the front desk. He looked up to see a woman in her late fifties with a young man and a girl around Anya's age. One of the doctors came out to talk to them. At one point they all looked over at Matt, then approached. Their faces were full of anguish and fear, but not hostility. If anything, Anya's mother, cousin, and best friend seemed appreciative that Matt was there, that he stayed. It was almost a comfort for them to talk to the last person who spoke with Anya, possibly the last person to ever speak with her again.
Around 2:00 a.m. the doctor came out to say that Anya's condition had stabilized but due to the severity of the injury, it was uncertain whether she would ever regain consciousness. Matt couldn't help but feel small and helpless in this moment. When he compared himself to a doctor who held people's lives in his hands, Matt's new career path as a writer suddenly seemed vain, childish, and self-indulgent. He wanted to go home, but he wasn't sure what to say. He wanted to come back and visit, but he tried to imagine what it would be like if this happened to his sister. How would he feel about some guy he didn't know suddenly attending the most intimate and vulnerable of family functions under these circumstances? He wasn't sure what to do, whether their grief would turn to anger, and whether he would bear the brunt of it all.
"I'm going to get some sleep," Matt finally said.
As he started to walk off, Anya's mother grabbed him by the arm. He turned to face her.
"Will you come back tomorrow?" she said. It was more of a request than a question.
"Yes," he said.
Matt returned the following day to get x-rayed, then he stopped by Anya's room. As expected, the doctor said she was in a coma. His prognosis was not encouraging. Matt tried to assuage Anya's mother by telling her that doctors present the worst case scenario.
"If they're wrong you'll be happy," he told her. "But if they tell you everything is going to be alright and it isn't, you'll be angry."
More family arrived. Anya was surrounded by flowers, pictures, and other reminders of home. It was all very warm and familial. There was also an icon of Christ by her bedside where her mother sat and read to her from a Russian bible.
By the time Matt got to the pound to retrieve the personal items from his car, it was dark and cold. As he walked through the junkyard over the frozen dirt, he passed heaps of smashed metal and broken glass. It was like a scene out of an apocalyptical movie - no green, no life, only darkness and destruction. He found his car sitting at the end of one of the aisles. He was able to turn the power on and retrieve his Jamiroquai CD. He sat in the passenger seat for a moment inhaling the cold air, remembering the summer he bought this car and all the warm memories that came with it - his first date in the new car, a road trip down Route 66, scenes of meadows and mountains, forests and lakes, all under a blue sky with the wind blowing through the cabin. He thought about how quickly circumstance changed Anya from summer to winter, how quickly the smile and sexy grooves that warmed his heart vanished in the pungent odor of nitrogen gas and burnt plastic and rubber. He grabbed his papers from the glove compartment. He gathered what was left of his CD collection and an audio bible, a dusty book of cassettes he got as a confirmation present eighteen years ago. Every tape was intact, except for the one that contained the Book of Revelation. He wasn't sure if that was supposed to mean anything.
When he got home, he pulled a tape out at random from his backpack. It was the book of James. He placed it in the cassette deck of his stereo. He took the remote with him to the other side of the room where he popped a Vicodin and sat with his back against a blanketed radiator where all the events and emotions of the last twenty-four hours suddenly erupted into tears. When he recovered, he pressed play on the remote. whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that."...Draw near to God and He will draw near to you... He listened to three books that night looking for answers, looking for hope. And then he prayed for the first time in a very long time.
It's been almost a month since the accident. They say that family voices and stories improve the chances of coma recovery. Matt visits Anya on a regular basis. He likes to go late at night when there aren't so many people there. Sometimes Anya's mother is there; other times it's just Matt and Anya. When he's not reading to her from an English bible or doing his best dramatic read-out of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, he reads to her the stories he wrote in the coffee shop.
The coffee shop on the corner was Matt’s favorite place to write. It had good coffee, character, and a cute barista named Anya who loved to dance.
Matt was impressed with Anya's energy and optimism, her grace in movement and manner as she attended to the patrons of the shop. Anya was intrigued by Matt's personality, a reserved manner marked by flashes of extroverted exuberance. It was the look that came across his face now and then as he wrote, an externalized thought or emotion caught unawares, honest and uninhibited, that made her curious about the contents of his moleskin. Every once in a while, she tried to sneak a peek, and he would throw his hands over the page, like someone suddenly caught naked. And then they'd smile at each other. Sometimes he wrote something on a napkin and handed it to her in passing like two school kids exchanging notes in class. Then he'd watch her reaction, or just listen for it. He wasn't sure what he liked better - her smile or her laugh.
One day he was unable to engage in that world that was a wonder to him and a mystery to her. His eyes wandered around the shop. He searched vaguely out the window. He watched the snow cover the city like a scene in a snowdome.
“The words aren't flowing today?” she asked, topping off his mug.
“Not like the coffee,” he said, closing his moleskin.
"I guess you can't always have days like that," she said.
"Hey, would you like to see a play with me tonight?" he asked.
She didn't answer right away.
"I know it's short notice," he continued, "but it's the Time of Your Life --"
"Oh, really - the time of my life? How can I turn that down!"
"No," he said, laughing. "That's the name of the play - The Time of Your Life."
"Oh," she said with a laugh. "Sure. I'd love to go."
It was the first time either of them had been to the Goodman Theater. The Pulitzer prize winning play got great reviews, and the performance exceeded their expectations. The play had a large and interesting cast of characters, kind of like those at the coffee shop. Matt asked Anya which character she identified with the most. Probably a cross between Harry and Wesley, she said. Harry was not an ideal comparison because she couldn't imagine giving up dancing to do comedy. Wesley, the errand boy who plays a killer piano, was probably a closer match. Matt said hands down he would be Joe, the loafer and dreamer with a heart of gold. At this point in his life, Matt wasn't sure whether he was loafing or working, dreaming or building a new career.
After the play, they went to the Jackson Tavern for a drink. To Matt, Anya was an atypical Russian, at least compared to the stereotypes he gleaned from Russian literature or that Woody Allen movie. Her accent sounded French. She wasn’t dark or brooding or melancholic. She didn't drink Vodka. She preferred Kurt Vonnegut to Fyodor Dostoevsky. She thought Tchaikovsky was too weepy. And it wasn't ballet she was passionate about; it was jazz and African dancing. Anya asked Matt how long he had been writing. Four months, he told her. It started as a voluntary leave of absence from his consulting job. Leadership was offering a one-year sabbatical at twenty percent pay as a strategy for mitigating the effects of a declining economy. He liked the idea. It was his chance to pursue his dream of being a writer. At twenty-nine, he was still young enough to live without money. Anya was twenty-four.
It was 1:00 a.m. when they left the bar and started driving home, eastbound on Jackson.
"So, when are you going to show me what you keep in that notebook of yours?"
"When I have something ready."
"You haven't finished any of the stories you've been writing?"
"Well, they're not done done."
"Are you sure you're not just afraid to share?"
"I am if it's not ready."
Anya looked at Matt like she was waiting for him to finish, waiting for an honest answer.
"Okay," he said. "I guess I'm a little shy about sharing. Sometimes I feel such joy in what I'm writing, like I'm touching the sky, writing something brilliant, then I look at it the next day and think it's shit. But then there's stuff I wrote months ago that I thought was crap, and I pull it out and now I think it's actually pretty good."
"I'm sure that's part of the process. And it's all new to you. You'll figure it out."
The song on the CD they were listening to just ended, and Jamiroquai's Alright started playing.
“Oh, I love this song!” she said, turning up the volume and moving to the music. Even though Matt hadn't seen any of her dance performances, he could tell she was a good dancer. It wasn't just the way she moved to the music. It was the way she floated through the coffee shop like a whirling dervish as she maneuvered around the patrons with a tray or a carafe.
"Let's go dancing!" she said.
"Now?"
"Why not! I know a great place."
"Okay."
"Turn left on Michigan."
He put the turn signal on as the car entered the southbound lane of Michigan and slowed down to make the turn.
Suddenly, it was like a scene change out of a movie. Cut. Fade in. An airbag was deflating as the scene came into focus. There was a metallic taste of blood in his mouth. The car was sitting on the street corner of Jackson and Michigan, the front end sitting on top of one of those stone pillars it had knocked down. He looked to his right to see Anya facing him, like she was sleeping, except that blood was streaming out of her nostrils. He was about to touch her neck, to get a pulse, but then he noticed her breath in the cold air. He spoke to her, but received no response. He pulled his cell phone out from his coat pocket and dialed 911, then got out of the car.
Standing nearby was a young kid, probably twenty, eyes like a deer caught in the headlights.
"Are you alright?" Matt asked. The kid looked unscathed, except for the vacant look in his stone blue eyes.
"Yeah," the kid said.
"What happened?" Matt asked.
"I don't know," he said.
Matt looked around to see if there was anyone else in the vicinity. No one. Only cars cautiously passing. The sound of the sirens grew stronger. With nothing to do but wait, his thoughts turned to himself. He wondered if this was somehow his fault. Did he have too much to drink? Would he be tested for driving while intoxicated? Would she die? Would he go to jail? He felt light headed. Spots were filling his eyes like an unfolding snow storm. He put his hand on the car to regain his balance.
Matt tried to make sense of the scene. The kid's car made impact on the passenger side where Anya was sitting. There were no brake marks in the intersection. A stone flower bed on the median could have obstructed his view of the car. The Wrigley building was lit up like a green light. It wasn't long before the police arrived and the ambulance took Matt and Anya to Northwestern hospital.
While Anya was in the emergency room, a paramedic wheeled Matt into the waiting room. Matt told the paramedic he didn't need a wheelchair, but the paramedic said it was policy. A police officer came into the waiting room to question him.
"I haven't known her long," Matt said. "This was our first date."
"Where were you coming from?" the officer asked.
Matt retraced their steps that evening.
"How many drinks did you have?"
"We had a drink during intermission and another one after the show," Matt said. Two drinks over a four-hour period, but the last one was strong.
"Did you attempt to move her or take her seatbelt off?" the police officer asked.
"No," Matt said. "She wasn't wearing a seatbelt?"
"No."
"Were they able to contact any of her family?" Matt asked.
"Yes, her mother's on the way," said the police officer.
Matt was then examined by a doctor. His right shoulder and back hurt, and he had some soreness and bleeding in his mouth; but other than that he was okay. The doctor scheduled an appointment for him to get an x-ray and gave him a prescription for Vicodin, warning him he'd probably hurt like hell tomorrow.
Back in the waiting room another doctor came out and explained Anya's condition. The severe whiplash of the crash caused her head to hit the passenger window and bounce around so violently that the brain floating inside her skull smashed into the walls of its own cage. The doctor said they were doing their best to remove the blood building up in her skull, but her situation was critical.
Matt's fears of a DUI and jail time were replaced by a new anxiety. What a horrible way to meet a girl's mother, he thought. Would she be angry? Would she be hostile? Or would she be too enervated by shock or grief to lash out? He sat in the waiting room glancing at the clock and the door. After some time passed, he heard a woman with a shaky voice inquire about Anya at the front desk. He looked up to see a woman in her late fifties with a young man and a girl around Anya's age. One of the doctors came out to talk to them. At one point they all looked over at Matt, then approached. Their faces were full of anguish and fear, but not hostility. If anything, Anya's mother, cousin, and best friend seemed appreciative that Matt was there, that he stayed. It was almost a comfort for them to talk to the last person who spoke with Anya, possibly the last person to ever speak with her again.
Around 2:00 a.m. the doctor came out to say that Anya's condition had stabilized but due to the severity of the injury, it was uncertain whether she would ever regain consciousness. Matt couldn't help but feel small and helpless in this moment. When he compared himself to a doctor who held people's lives in his hands, Matt's new career path as a writer suddenly seemed vain, childish, and self-indulgent. He wanted to go home, but he wasn't sure what to say. He wanted to come back and visit, but he tried to imagine what it would be like if this happened to his sister. How would he feel about some guy he didn't know suddenly attending the most intimate and vulnerable of family functions under these circumstances? He wasn't sure what to do, whether their grief would turn to anger, and whether he would bear the brunt of it all.
"I'm going to get some sleep," Matt finally said.
As he started to walk off, Anya's mother grabbed him by the arm. He turned to face her.
"Will you come back tomorrow?" she said. It was more of a request than a question.
"Yes," he said.
Matt returned the following day to get x-rayed, then he stopped by Anya's room. As expected, the doctor said she was in a coma. His prognosis was not encouraging. Matt tried to assuage Anya's mother by telling her that doctors present the worst case scenario.
"If they're wrong you'll be happy," he told her. "But if they tell you everything is going to be alright and it isn't, you'll be angry."
More family arrived. Anya was surrounded by flowers, pictures, and other reminders of home. It was all very warm and familial. There was also an icon of Christ by her bedside where her mother sat and read to her from a Russian bible.
By the time Matt got to the pound to retrieve the personal items from his car, it was dark and cold. As he walked through the junkyard over the frozen dirt, he passed heaps of smashed metal and broken glass. It was like a scene out of an apocalyptical movie - no green, no life, only darkness and destruction. He found his car sitting at the end of one of the aisles. He was able to turn the power on and retrieve his Jamiroquai CD. He sat in the passenger seat for a moment inhaling the cold air, remembering the summer he bought this car and all the warm memories that came with it - his first date in the new car, a road trip down Route 66, scenes of meadows and mountains, forests and lakes, all under a blue sky with the wind blowing through the cabin. He thought about how quickly circumstance changed Anya from summer to winter, how quickly the smile and sexy grooves that warmed his heart vanished in the pungent odor of nitrogen gas and burnt plastic and rubber. He grabbed his papers from the glove compartment. He gathered what was left of his CD collection and an audio bible, a dusty book of cassettes he got as a confirmation present eighteen years ago. Every tape was intact, except for the one that contained the Book of Revelation. He wasn't sure if that was supposed to mean anything.
When he got home, he pulled a tape out at random from his backpack. It was the book of James. He placed it in the cassette deck of his stereo. He took the remote with him to the other side of the room where he popped a Vicodin and sat with his back against a blanketed radiator where all the events and emotions of the last twenty-four hours suddenly erupted into tears. When he recovered, he pressed play on the remote. whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that."...Draw near to God and He will draw near to you... He listened to three books that night looking for answers, looking for hope. And then he prayed for the first time in a very long time.
It's been almost a month since the accident. They say that family voices and stories improve the chances of coma recovery. Matt visits Anya on a regular basis. He likes to go late at night when there aren't so many people there. Sometimes Anya's mother is there; other times it's just Matt and Anya. When he's not reading to her from an English bible or doing his best dramatic read-out of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, he reads to her the stories he wrote in the coffee shop.