The conversations murmuring around her provided white noise for Erica as she sat at her laptop in the busy coffeeshop. One more chapter to finish. Then a scrap of an exchange broke through her deep concentration.
“He’d kill us if he had the chance.”
She glanced up, her eyes focusing on the photo of a sailboat framed on the wall, trying to hear what the couple said. From their voices, it was a man and a woman. They were at the table immediately behind her.
“We’ve got to do it.” The woman spoke calmly, as though they were discussing vacation get-away plans.
“When?”
The roar of the latte-maker drowned out any response from the woman. Erica shifted in her seat, feigning a look in her backpack in order to see the couple. Just a quick glance, nothing to let them know she’d overheard. Both in their mid-thirties. The woman pretty in an old-fashioned way, with dark, sculpted curls that tucked under at her neck. The man with a hint of chisel in his features, white-blond, short-cropped hair.
Erica pulled out a notebook she didn’t need to make it clear she had purpose to dig into her bag. The machine noise stopped abruptly, leaving only the gentle background jazz piped over the shop’s speakers.
With her back once again to the couple, she pretended to write.
“Do you think he knows we’re here?”
The man laughed. “Almost certainly.”
“But he can’t hear us—” The woman sounded alarmed.
“No, of course not.” The man seemed to realize his seatmate’s concern. “That’s why we chose this place. You can relax.” Erica imagined him patting the woman’s hand to comfort her.
The counter machine again kicked into action, once more damping all conversations. Squealing, a tot ran past the table, with the mother close behind.
Erica chewed on her lip. Were they planning a crime? Or just kvetching over the woman’s ex, who just happened to be violent? What should she do?
Slipping out her wallet, she rose to order another espresso. That would give her a chance to see them clearly, to make a mental note of their appearance in case she needed to report them … later.
On the way back to her table, she scrutinized the couple but kept her gaze wandering, as though she were lost in her thoughts. Which was why she failed to see the tot’s small toy on the floor. Tripping on it, Erica threw up her hands and the coffee splashed on the man’s face and down his blue polo.
“Gah,” he said, reaching for napkins to dry himself. The woman dabbed at his shirt with more napkins.
“I’m so sorry,” Erica said. So much for stealth. “I’ll go get paper towels.”
“We’re fine,” the man said. “Don’t worry about it. We were just leaving.”
They both stood. A shop server arrived with more towels and sopped up some of the liquid from the tabletop.
“Sure I can’t buy you another round?” Erica said, searching for something more to say.
The woman shook her head. “We’ve been here too long, I think.” She was studying Erica’s face. Perhaps to memorize it for later retribution.
“Well, if you change your mind …” Erica left the words hanging. “About your plans,” she wanted to add.
The man stopped his turn toward the exit and looked back at her. “We won’t.”
[Inspired by the 1974 film The Conversation]
Stories by Dianna Sinovic
-
Most of the seats at the DMV were filled when Charla arrived, license renewal form in hand, and she ended up taking an unoccupied plastic chair against the far wall. She had an hour and maybe a smidge more to get her new license before Sam started docking her pay for being late from her lunch break.
-
This is your last chance, people, to find the perfect gift! My perfect gift would be a medical miracle for my dad. He’s been unconscious for two weeks, since the car wreck on I-80. The doctors say he should recover—if he wakes up. But he’s pushing eighty. It may not happen.
That would make a good card theme, right? A get-well wish made for people whose loved one is in a coma. May they snap out of it. Or, how about: Wake up, sleepy Jean. But that’s my dark humor bubbling up. Damn it, now my eyes are blurry.
-
Thanksgiving was three days ago, and I’m still reeling at what I witnessed. My sister hosted, as she has for the last twenty years. That was the only thing predictable about the holiday, though. I was there, of course.
-
At the chiming of eleven bells, the retreat’s evening session began. Squeezed around the table, six people scooted chairs until no one brushed up against anyone else. The room’s reddish glow came from a candelabra on a nearby shelf, and the air hung thick with cedar incense.
-
A crab shell on the riverbank marked the end of day. No crab inside, just the empty carapace and claws, bright objects against the darker sandy grit along the water. Jyr laid thin branches of hemlock around the shell, then watched the river current flickering where the setting sun touched the ripples.
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