A Table for Two

Here’s a little story I wrote based on the song “Table for Two,” by Abel Korzeniowski.

She is sitting alone by the window. Spread over the one legged table is an immaculate white cloth, and on top of that are two plates scrubbed clean, smelling faintly of soap; but in a good clean way, not the way that lets you know you will taste it when you eat your meal. Two glasses, one on her side, one on the other. Two identical pairs of forks and knives, catching the sun. She spends a moment staring at them. The silver reminds her of something, but she is not quite sure what.

In the back of her head the sounds from outside play; someone calling out prices at the butcher on the corner … a child squealing … the beeping of a car horn going down the street ... a dog whimpering at the door as it sticks its head in and savours the good smells, licking its black nose noisily. The sun is pouring in through the large window comfortingly, lighting up her dark hair and warming her bare head. She fixes her curls self consciously, pulling out a little powder compact to inspect herself in the mirror - how pretty she is! She sighs and drops the compact back into her handbag. A cheap leather handbag. She wishes she had not bought it herself. 

She is waiting at that table set for two. She has been waiting a long time, longer than she realises, while the sun drops lower in the sky and the after work traffic builds up outside her window, while the children pour out of school with excited shouts and scuffling feet on the sidewalk and the teachers tidy classrooms and prepare for the coming day. She has seen the flower seller and the balloon seller and the milk boy. And she has sighed many times while she waits, while she stares at the clock hanging on the wall until the numbers and dots and hands blend together into one black and white blur and her head begins to ache. She is waiting for another, but he does not come. He is handsome, she thinks to herself, glancing again in the mirror and wondering if she looks perhaps a little less fresh and bright than she did when she first arrived at the table. He has dark hair slicked back on his head and soft brown eyes, like a dream. Or perhaps just like a dreamer. Perhaps that is all he is. Just a dreamer who forgets his date. She wonders if she should go, but she does not move. She sits there, her back stiff and sore, and she wants to cry. He will not come. Just as the one before did not come. Perhaps the one after will not come, either, and she will remain alone. She remembers the little maple coloured puppy she saw along the street that morning as she walked and promises herself she will buy a puppy just like that, to play with her, to sleep next to her as she sits dreaming, to make her laugh when she is crying. But deep in her heart she knows there is an ache a maple coloured puppy cannot fill.

The waiter who set her table earlier takes leave of his work and begins to walk towards the door, his legs stiff from running about. He glances at the pretty girl sitting alone at the table for two and his heart throbs. She is more than pretty. She is beautiful. He wonders why she is unaccompanied. His hand is on the doorknob and he is beginning to push the door open, but something keeps him standing there, uncertain, until before he can stop himself he calls to her and she looks up curiously, eyes big and gentle. The young man finds himself making his way toward that table for two and taking his place at the other side. He finds himself laughingly ordering from a fellow waiter. He finds himself staring straight into those gentle eyes and not wanting to look away. His laughter ceases, but still he smiles, because he feels that his whole world is beautiful and his lonely apartment room is no longer inviting him home. He feels almost as though he is home already, sitting at that table for two with the pretty lady as she talks about a maple coloured puppy and a little family and children with golden curls and trivial things he never found interesting before. But somehow he is curious about everything she is, now. And he continues to sit there at that table for two. He does not want to leave. 

So he stays.