Two Clay Poker Chips

Umbra has black hair swept across her forehead and large black sunglasses like a bumble bee. She’s wearing a red shirt and white pencil-legged pants that stop mid-shin. Black slip-on shoes. She selected this outfit carefully, but forgot about it once she put it on.

She brought these things in her oversized black handbag—two magazines, a small tin of watercolor paints, a journal for journaling, a journal for making lists, a journal for documenting dreams, a tin of breath mints, two tampons, a stack of tickets (baseball, train, an opera she hated) bound by a rubber band. A black wallet long and thin as a checkbook. Two bobby pins. Her credit card statement. Two clay poker chips that she rubs together when she’s waiting for the train, standing in line, sitting alone in a movie theater.

It is a Tuesday afternoon. She’s in France or Germany. Probably France. She hopes someone will stop by and talk to her. When her server asks if he may take her extra chair (she presumes he asked this; all she understood was “chair”) she shakes her head “No,” meaning, I don't understand, which he took to mean "Go away." He goes away. She is lonely.

There are irregular cobble stones under her feet that make a very aesthetically pleasing noise at the clicking of shoes and shuffling of chairs. The café has a dozen or so tables set up outside here on the pedestrian mall. There are lovely old shops and buildings all around, close together but not so close that the sun is blocked by the buildings. She gets a slice of ripe camembert, a crusty roll and a bunch of grapes. She orders a glass of Pinot Noir and goes with the cheese, bread and fruit. She sips it and looks around to asses the prospects for friendship at the tables around her.

She takes out a notebook, the dream journal. “I dreamt that I was in Dupont riding a ferry down the river,” she writes. “Grandmother was there with Bobby, and they were wearing their church clothes. I think we were going to a funeral, but I don’t know whose. I saw rowers in pairs around us, and I recognized the running trail as the one next to the Thames at Oxford, the one Janey and I used to jog during summer school at Christ Church.” She put the pen down and sipped her wine. She tore off an edge of bread and smeared a hunk of the cheese on the broken part without using a knife. The waiter rolled his eyes. She ate it. The bite was too big and she had to chew and chew. It wasn’t very lady-like, but funny. She hid a smile behind her hand.

She stares into space internally debating this: is it better to let people come to you? Or for you to pursue them? To strike up a conversation? People have been nothing to her lately, nothing but disappointing when she tries to cultivate friendships. And men, they are always a disappointment. If she wasn’t thinking of a specific one, she was thinking about not thinking about one. What energy she could save if she forgot about them! If she could channel the energy she spent on worrying and turn it into fuel for good things, she’s sure she could save all the starving people in China. Now, she just wanted a friend. Really, it shouldn’t be that hard. She spotted a fellow with red hair and a trimmed beard. She walked over and asked to borrow the book review section of his newspaper.