Café 508
Charlotte and Christopher turn coffee into a long conversation
Last time on Between Corners: Doug takes on an Airstream repair.
Charlotte had hastily put down her phone as Doug walked into the bedroom, her text half-composed. She finished it in the morning. Christopher suggested meeting at Café 508. A popular coffee shop near his temporary office, on Eighth.
The next morning, Charlotte worked until 10. She washed her hands at the barn sink, brushed her hair, and in the Ranger applied a careful line of mascara in the rear-view mirror. She was glad Ford’s engineers had finally figured out that women use trucks to.
She added a touch of lipstick. Light rose.
Charlotte got to Café 508 ten minutes late. She stepped inside, then stopped, her eyes adjusting to the dim light.
Her first look around was to ensure she didn’t know anyone.
Rows of white tables. A bar with low-backed stools.
All clear.
Then she looked for him.
Christopher was sitting at a small table near the window, across from the café. He stood when he saw her and waved. As she approached, he stepped forward and gave her a sudden hug.
“Oh!” Charlotte said, recoiling a touch.
“Oops,” he said.
Her arm reached out, a reflex.
“Sorry.”
She pulled it back.
“No, it’s okay,” she said, “I was just a little surprised.”
Charlotte slid her bag off her shoulder and hooked it over a chair, then sat.
Christopher sat too. “You look nice.”
“Barn clothes…” she stammered.
“I wouldn’t know. They suit you.”
The room felt warm to her.
After a beat – “What do you like?”
“A latte please, two percent.”
Christopher stood and walked to the bar. Charlotte smoothed her jeans and moistened a finger to tease back a stray lock of hair.
He was back in five minutes with two steaming cups, an array of sweeteners, and two stirring sticks.
“I didn’t know what you like,” he said, gesturing at the paper packets.
“None of those, really,” she said. “But thank you so much. These are the best lattes downtown.”
He sat down. Swung one arm over the chair back.
“Good to know. And thanks again for coming.”
He opened a sugar and poured it into his cup.
“It’s my pleasure,” Charlotte replied. “I don’t have another client until noon, and it’s nice to get out of the barn for a while.”
She sipped her latte. Perfect temperature; not too much foam.
“I bet. Although you must like your horses.”
“Love them. They’re what got me into the business.”
He took his arm off the seat back.
“Oh? How did that happen?”
“I’ve always been around horses, of course,” she said. “And then several years ago, I read about a conference on alternative therapies for people with disabilities. I have a niece with a disability. One of the presenters told a story that made me think of her. It was…about a boy who only spoke when he was brushing a horse.”
“That made a real impression on me,” she said, her voice catching a bit. “One speaker talked about horse therapy. So, I went back to school – night classes, barn hours, the whole thing. It was work, believe me. But here I am.”
Charlotte nudged her cup, so it aligned with the grain of the tabletop.
“Good for you,” Christopher said. “That is a great story. I, uh, I admire people who land somewhere by accident and stay because it works.”
She looked up and smiled. “That’s a lovely way to put it.” Voices rose and fell. A TV on the wall showed CNN.
He leaned over and spoke a bit louder.
“Did you ever work with your niece?”
“No – she’s up in Iowa.”
“Ah. Too bad. You would have been great with her, I’m sure.”
He leaned back.
“I don’t mean to pry – what were some of the problems she had?”
“She struggled when she was little – coordination, balance, all that. Horses would’ve been good for her. Even just grooming them.”
“Did she get the help she needed?”
“Yes. She’s 15 now and doing great.
“Good.”
The café noise subsided a touch.
“I really enjoyed seeing you work the other day. I could see the impact of the horse on that girl. And you were great. Very calm, very in control.”
He laughed a little.
“Even I relaxed a little.”
Charlotte laughed too. Tugged that lock of hair. It was loose again.
“Thanks,” she said. “Although, uh, I was a little surprised to see you. Like I said, it’s not a riding farm.”
“I’m sorry – I really am. I understand that now.”
He watched two women walk past and find a table. Then he looked back at Charlotte.
“Oh,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you or Doug. Wasn’t there a bad storm near your place a while back?”
“There was,” she said. “We had a tornado pass within a half mile of the house. It was terrifying. I’ve never heard a sound like that before. The noise was deafening.”
“I can imagine. Did you have to take shelter?”
She pictured it in her head.
“We did. In the main floor bathroom. It’s right in the middle of the house and doesn’t have windows.”
She tried to remember that part. It was vague to her. The onset of the storm was clear. So too was leaving the bathroom. The branch in the window. Her arm. But in the middle, there was an odd blur.
“That makes sense,” he said. “That is where I would go. Although, in Portland the worry is earthquakes. When one of those hits, you run out of the house as fast as you can.”
She nodded.
“I bet. Have you ever felt one?”
“A few. Nothing big. They’re weird – everything is normal, then everything is shaking.”
“I can imagine. Anyway, after all of this Douglas said I suggested we play cards while we were in the bathroom. I don’t know why he said that. I almost think he made it up.”
“No,” Christopher agreed. “That doesn’t sound like something anyone would say.”
She sipped her latte. It was cooling.
“But we survived, more or less. A tree branch came through a kitchen window. I was trying to pull it out of the window and I slipped. Cut my arm on broken glass.”
She unrolled her shirt sleeve and traced her finger along a faint pink scar. “Six stitches.”
Christopher reached out to hold her arm and look more closely. “That could have been a lot worse.”
His thumb ran along the scar. After a moment he let her arm go.
Charlotte exhaled.
“I know. There was a lot of blood until Douglas got it stopped. He really knows what he is doing in situations like that. Did you know he volunteers for the National Park Service in the Grand Canyon? I visited him there a while ago and went on a patrol with him. He was like a different person. Confident, very in charge. It was interesting to see how people responded to him.”
Christopher sat back.
“No – I didn’t know that about him. He – he was an avid hiker when he was a teenager, so I’m not surprised he went in that direction. And the park service! That’s impressive.”
“It is,” she said. “And I have to be honest with you, Christopher, he looks sharp in a uniform. There was this good-looking Italian woman he talked to. She almost devoured him on the spot.”
She picked up her phone, scrolled through pictures, and found the one she had taken.
“See?”
Christopher looked, then laughed. “A man in uniform,” he said. “I like her hand on his shoulder. She was in the game.”
Charlotte took her phone back. “She was. I wanted to tell her to find her own ranger.”
“Doug looked happy too,” he said, giving her a wink.
“I know,” Charlotte said. “And get this. We went to Big Bend. Douglas found a gopher snake and picked it up. I about jumped out of my skin, but it seemed like second nature to him. It didn’t even really bother him when the snake tried to bite him. He actually got me to hold the thing. It was as big around as my wrist.”
Christopher’s latte was mostly gone.
“He had snakes as pets when he was a kid,” he said. “Lots of them. And lizards – one was just a baby that was three-feet long…”
Charlotte shuddered involuntarily.
“Lizards and snakes,” Christopher said. “What’s wrong with model airplanes?”
She laughed in a low register.
“I didn’t know that. It explains a lot.”
He listened to her
“You and Doug…Douglas,” Christopher said after a moment. “You seem like a good match. How long have you been together?”
Charlotte looked at him curiously. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason. I always find it interesting – the way people connect.”
She looked across the room. A man and a woman were sitting close together, their heads almost touching as she spoke to him. He was smiling.
“Almost two years,” she said finally. “We’re still trying to figure things out. How we fit together. Who does what around the house.”
That caught his attention.
“Well then – who does what? Now I really am curious.”
She chuckled.
“Douglas cooks, of course. Even if I don’t make it home in time for dinner he always makes enough for me. He comes to the center when I need him, to fix things. And he keeps his barn clean.”
“And what do you do?”
“I try to keep the house picked up. That can be a challenge – he’s a bit of a clutter generator. I’m also doing more of the bill-paying and so on. He forgets.”
“Sounds pretty functional. He cooks – you clean.”
She looked at him.
“That’s not really what I meant.”
The words slid past him. Now it was Christopher looking across the room. The same couple. The man talking, the woman – a pretty brunette – leaning into his words.
He looked back at Charlotte. Took in her blue-gray eyes.
“Where were you living before?”
“I have a small house in town. Still have it, keep a few things there.”
“A backup can be handy.”
She held that thought for a beat. Considered the implications. That had in fact been one reason she kept it. She and Douglas were still new. Not fully set.
“I suppose. I don’t really think of it that way.”
“Well, it’s there,” Christopher said. “And it’s better to have it than need it.”
“That’s true, I suppose.”
Charlotte looked at her watch. “I should get going,” she said.
“You said your next client isn’t until noon. How about one more?”
Christopher raised a hand toward the barista before she could finish.
She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. One more.”
In a few minutes, their second lattes arrived.
Charlotte wrapped her hands around the warm cup. Someone who sounded vaguely like Norah Jones drifted over the sound system.
Christopher watched her, as if trying to remember something.
Then he did.
“When I was at your place a week ago, I thought I heard you say you play violin.”
“Played,” Charlotte replied. “That was years ago.”
“Do you still have an instrument?”
“I do. It’s an old D Z Strad. I have it in a closet somewhere. At my house, I think.”
“Oh! Those are nice violins, for the money. You should dig it out and let me look at it. Maybe it needs a little TLC.”
She remembered the feel of the violin’s chinrest, the way it nestled softly under her jaw.
“Well, that’s a lovely offer. I may take you up on that.”
They talked more. Christopher complained about the alphabet soup of agencies he had to work with. Charlotte had her own frustrations with permitting for her business. They agreed government wasn’t always the solution – even though it paid Christopher’s salary.
“An anti-government government worker,” she said.
“I know – that’s ironic,” he said, and laughed. She did too.
“Are you here much longer?” she asked.
“Through the week. Leave Saturday. It gets tiring.”
“I can imagine,” she said.
“Being government, I am doomed to fly coach for all of eternity.”
She smiled at that, too.
“Christopher, do you mind if I ask you something a little personal?”
“Probably not. What?”
“Your ex-wife. Peggy?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“Oh,” he said, peering into his cup. “The usual, I suppose. We just grew apart. She wanted a more solid home life, and I was gone a lot for work.”
“Kids?”
“No – fortunately. A dog, which I let her have.”
She laughed. “Did you fight over dog custody?”
He laughed. “Not really. Teddy was more her dog than mine.”
A pause.
“Do you think you’ll try again? Marriage?”
Christopher smiled. “I don’t know. I’ve had... opportunities. But nothing serious. How about you and Doug?”
“We talk about it sometimes but haven’t come to any conclusions. Definitively, at least.”
Someone dropped a ceramic mug. The room stilled, then the noise picked back up.
“Something else.” Christopher tapped the table with his hand, leaned forward. “Does Doug really know much about what you’re building with those horses? It’s real. Most people never create anything real.”
A server passed by and leaned over to wipe down the empty chair beside them.
“But maybe that’s not fair. I just saw it myself for the first time the other day.”
“He supports…” she began to say. “He helps with it. He really does. Last week he re-built some of that paddock fencing.”
“I’m not talking about fixing things,” Christopher said. “And I don’t underestimate that. My entire job is fixing things. The thing is, I think you have a vision. And it’s big. Does he understand that?”
“I think he does – I really do. But he has his own work to think about. He’s busy and has people who count on him.”
She had said that too quickly.
Chairs scraped. People came and went.
“Well,” Charlotte said, glancing at her phone, “Now I really should get back.”
“Me too.”
Outside, the sun was brighter than she expected. Charlotte leaned in to give him a hug.
He held it. Then stepped away before she did.
They parted, then walked in opposite directions.
As he walked, Christopher checked his phone. A lunch meeting. He slipped the phone into his pocket.Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.