Transatlantic Coffee by Neil James

by Neil James

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I’ve pictured this scene a thousand times. A table by the window, people-watching in Manhattan, waiting for Sapphire.

Rush hour’s a restless river of frantic wipers, headlights, and honking horns. Rain bounces off the sidewalk like bullets while people in raincoats rush for doorways. Meanwhile, I sip a latte, watching the grey daylight darken.

Being in New York seems crazy, but it’s a grand madness. Two old friends meeting for coffee – an everyday ritual for millions – yet I’ve crossed the Atlantic to make this happen. Five years of silence and three thousand miles cast aside to deliver a simple message – I love you. I always have. I can’t forget about you.

This is the way I’d imagined events: Sapphire won’t spot me when she first enters. She’ll look around, her hair damp, her Mackintosh doused with rain. In those fleeting seconds, I’ll savour the memories of her one last time, encasing them to keep forever. Then, as she finds me and blesses me with that smile, I’ll fall in love all over again – this time with a new her. 

The bronze hands of the clock on the wall edge forward. I will them to move faster.

Two tables away, an old couple, hunched over their drinks, hatch a plot where together they cheat time. I eavesdrop and enjoy the old lady’s delicate laugh floating over the hum like clouds on the horizon. They must be in their late seventies, yet they talk like lovers of nineteen. Instantly, I’m reminded of the days when Sapphire and I would skip lectures to talk over beers – sharing stories and dreams, like we’d never grow old.

What do their minds see when they look across the table, these elderly romantics – she with her thick, round glasses and turkey skin hanging under her chin, he with only wisps of silver hair and brown age spots mapping his scalp? I picture them as younger people. Maybe they were just like us.

“Tom?”

I break from my daydream, and she stands before me, even more beautiful than I remember. Her hair is different from how it was during our student days, pulled back into a bun, complementing her high cheekbones and those sparkling green eyes. For a heartbeat, I’m frozen. Should I stay seated and smile casually, or stand and throw my arms around her?

“Sapphire!” I rise from my seat, arms open and outstretched. Thankfully, she moves in for the embrace. She is indeed wearing a Mackintosh – a dusty pale pink. I place my hands on her shoulders, stroking the damp material as our faces touch.

“How are you?” she says, moving her head back to look me in the eye. “I can’t believe you’re here! How long has it been?”

“Too long,” I reply, and our years of silence dissolve.

“It’s lovely to see you again.” She breaks eye contact and steps back. “I’d better get myself a drink. Would you like anything?”

“No, I’m good, thanks.” I gesture to the almost-full cup, the steam still rising.

She walks to the counter with catwalk grace, heels clicking across the tiled floor, coat tightened around her waist by a thin belt. There’s no queue, and she returns with a small coffee, which she places down before removing her coat and draping it across the back of the chair.

Her work uniform – a black blouse with tiny patterns of pink, purple, and green – almost gives her a sense of the ordinary. Just another attractive woman, seeing out her twenties surrounded by phones and laptops, teenage dreams long since evaporated. Her lanyard reads Sapphire Allen. Office Manager.

Allen. She used to be Delaney. I grip the handle of my cup.

“Sorry to run off like that,” she says with a smile as she sits opposite me. “It’s been a busy day. I’m in urgent need of caffeine.”

I give her time to sip before I speak. Only…the words won’t come. How many hours have I spent reliving our old conversations in my head? Replaying her words in comfort like the hundredth viewing of a beloved old movie. Yet now, as she sits before me, the moisture has evaporated from my mouth, and my tongue sits awkward and heavy like clay. Just as the silence threatens to overwhelm us, Sapphire clasps her hands together and leans forward in her seat. I gaze into her eyes, shimmering green with secrets.

“So, tell me all about your life, Tom! It’s been a long time. What are you doing now?” 

“I’m… just enjoying myself,” I say. Sounds better than telling her I’m unemployed. “I came into a bit of money and decided it was time to see the world, so here I am in New York! What about you? I see you have a new name…”

“Yes. I got married four years ago. I know I used to say I never would, but… we say a lot of things when we’re young, don’t we?”

As she extends her fingers to show me the white gold band, I force an approving smile. 

“So tell me about your husband,” I say.

“Mitch? What do you want to know?”

I half-shrug, unsure of what I want to know. Preferably, that he’s just left her and she’s emotional from the whole episode, but I ask what he does for a living.
“He’s in the police. He’s on nights this week, and we don’t see much of each other when that happens. As I’m returning home, he’s going out. This is him…”

She takes her phone from her bag and passes it to me. The lock screen is Mitch in uniform, arms folded, sitting on the bonnet of his patrol car. He looks just how I’d imagined – arms like sides of ham, dark eyes, dark hair, and wide shoulders. Handsome enough to carry a few extra pounds. I hate him already.

“Where did you meet him?” I say, passing the phone back.

She laughs and clinks her cup onto its saucer, then clasps her hands together. “Oh God. This sounds like something out of a cheesy film, but we met in Central Park, five years ago.” 

My heart stops for a second. Five years ago. That was roughly the time she stopped messaging me. I begin to zone out. Three thousand miles. A seven-hour flight. My entire redundancy payment. Sure, I wanted to see New York, but I wanted to see her more. 

She tells me the story, and I’m trying my best to nod and smile in the right places. The gist is that she was sitting in the park after work, feeding the ducks and feeling like she’d made a mistake leaving England. She was approached by two policemen who asked her if she’d seen this sex offender they were chasing, but she hadn’t. Mitch decided he’d like to ask a few different questions, so gave up the pursuit of the pervert. Instead, he walked back to Sapphire and asked her out to dinner.

Apparently, he took her to some fancy Italian place, and they got on amazingly well, which of course they would – because he was a man in uniform being forward and brash. No doubt they slept together soon after. Within weeks, she’d be so smitten that messaging some nerd in England would drop right off her agenda. Not that I’m resentful…

“What about you?” she asks, just as my fake enthusiasm about Mitch begins to eat away at my insides. “Are you married?”

“No. I was in a relationship for a while, but…”

I instantly regret mentioning it. I don’t want to discuss my failed relationship.

Blokes from northern England don’t get Hollywood romance scenarios in Central Park; we might get a snog behind a chip shop in the rain if we’re lucky. I sigh and try to deflect her questions.

“Come on, Tom! I need to catch up with your life, too!” she protests.

“Alright.” I give in. “Do you remember Lucia from uni?”

“Not Mad Lucia?” Sapphire’s eyes widen.

“Yeah, Mad Lucia,” I confirm. “Well, a couple of years after we graduated, she appeared at this conference I was at. She remembered me, and we got talking, found out we were doing similar jobs, got drunk together and…”

“…you slept with her?”

“Yeah.”

Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear that Sapphire sounds mildly upset about this. 

“So what happened then? Did you go out for a while?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

I nod. She looks at me. I look at her. We are silent for a few seconds. Then she laughs, her hand firing to her mouth to try and stifle it.

“What?” I say, in mock indignation, knowing very well why she can barely control herself.

“I’m sorry,” she squeaks, still trying to act with her usual decorum. “It’s just, you and Mad Lucia…”

“Yeah, I know. It just kind of happened. One minute I woke up thinking, “Oh my God, I’ve slept with Mad Lucia”, then the next minute she was in my flat, and her name was on the gas bill. It was weird.”

“How long did this last for?”

“About three years.”

“Three years! Tom, what the hell!?”

“I got into a rut, I suppose,” I say, aware of the understatement. “She was alright in some ways, but, you know, she was a bit…” 

“A bit what?” 

“A bit fucking mental,” I say, deadpan. 

Sapphire loves that one. It’s all in the timing. That’s what I’ve resorted to now. Turning a fragile woman who I cared for into the role of a cartoon character. There is no moral depth I won’t plunge to if it means making Sapphire laugh. I am a terrible, shallow, worthless human being.

Guilt forces me to try and redress the balance by talking about the positives of the relationship – and there were some – before describing the end, which was another episode in tragicomedy. 

“The problem was, Lucia became paranoid that I was seeing other women behind her back. She was having one of her episodes at this time and developed agoraphobia.”

I can tell Sapphire’s trying not to laugh.

“She wouldn’t leave the flat at all for about six months, and every time I got in from the office, she’d quiz me on where I’d been and who I’d seen. Back and forth it went, on and on. One day, though, I went to work as normal, but happened to have a meeting about half a mile from the flat. Naturally, I nipped home for a brew and a sandwich on my way…”

I’ve told this story a few times to different people. It’s probably my version of Sapphire’s Mitch-in-the-park tale, an anecdote that I get better at telling with every performance. 

I continue. “As I opened the front door, this noise came from the living room. It was a horrible, honking noise, a bit like a seal. I thought that Lucia was maybe having a panic attack or something, so I rushed in, and there in front of me was this bare arse going up and down on top of my girlfriend. It was the postman’s.”

“Oh my Goodness! No!” 

“Yeah. Lucia hadn’t left the flat for six months, and she still managed to get more sex than me.”

Sapphire’s shaking. I put my hand on the table when I finish the story, and she clasps my wrist as she laughs. The moment feels amazing, just like when we were younger. The more we speak and the more we laugh, the less time it seems has elapsed since we were last together. Years seem like weeks, and our initial awkwardness melts away. A breathless, brilliant hour together flashes past, that I never want to end. 

But of course, it must. The bronze hands make their way to half past six before either of us even knows it. 

“It’s been absolutely amazing to see you again,” says Sapphire. “But I’ve got to go.” 

She looks remorseful, and I dare say that I look devastated. “Mitch is on shift tonight, so I need to go home and see him before he leaves. I’m sorry…”

She slips her coat back on. 

“No, no, I understand,” I say, lowering my gaze slightly. “You… erm…” 

I take a deep breath, my throat drier than sand. 

This is the moment – the one I’ve always pictured. The stolen glances in lecture halls, those late-night conversations that seemed to mean more, the years of silence when she moved to New York…all roads lead to this second in time, when I finally say, “I love you”. This is the moment when she’ll gasp, eyes glistening, then throw her arms around my neck, to whisper that she’s always felt the same… 

I gaze into her eyes, but I know. In my heart, I already know. 

This is not the movies. 

I swallow hard.

“You honestly don’t know how happy it’s made me, seeing you,” I say, my voice faltering. “Not a day’s gone by that I haven’t thought about you. Seeing that you’re happy… that you have a wonderful husband and a career… It’s what I’d hoped for.”

I mean it too. At least I think so. If she’s happy, then I’m happy. I don’t want to be selfish or self-pitying anymore. For whatever reason, we aren’t meant to be. This is the end of the dream.

Tears form in her eyes.

“Stop it,” she says, “You’re making me cry.”

She holds a hand to her eyes but can’t stop the tear that rolls over those perfect cheekbones and down towards her neck. 

At that moment, she places her arms around me and holds me, her face buried into my shoulder. This isn’t like the polite embrace that we greeted each other with; this is an embrace filled with longing, of feelings repressed for nearly a decade starting to bubble and fizz under the surface, a surge that may burst the dam at any moment. I run my hands gently over her shoulders. I mean this with affection, nothing more, but her body pressed so tightly against mine starts to have a natural effect. I step backwards, loosening our contact to save the embarrassment for both of us.

Sapphire wipes her cheeks. “I’ve got to go,” she says. “It’s been so lovely seeing you. It really has. We’ll text…”

“We will. Definitely.”

She turns and walks away, her shoes once again clicking across the tiles. As I watch her approach the exit, I wish that I could rewind time to live this hour repeatedly for the rest of my life.

In two days, I’ll return to England, and the promises we’ve made will evaporate like steam from coffee. Deep down, I know we’ll never see each other again.

Two tables away, the old couple have just finished their drinks, and the husband totters behind his wife. She’s using a wheelchair, which I hadn’t noticed initially. With what seems like intense concentration, the old man releases the brakes on the chair and weakly pulls the handles to move his wife away from the table. He hasn’t noticed Sapphire walking in their direction, and she’s forced to stop as he pushes out into the walkway.

“Watch you don’t take these cups with us,” the old lady says, scolding him for not giving enough clearance to the table they’ve just vacated. “Fifty-five years we’ve been married, and he still can’t drive this thing.” She shakes her head and chuckles to Sapphire as her husband finally musters enough strength to get the chair moving towards the exit. He reaches the door, and Sapphire strides around them to hold it open. She smiles at me as the old man gracelessly bundles his wife out of the coffee shop.

Then, without another word, Sapphire is through the door and onto the busy street. She hurries past the window, glancing up at the darkening sky. Through the rain-smeared glass, I watch every step she takes, hoping for her to turn and smile – just once more – but she doesn’t.

In an instant, she’s gone, like she was never even here. Under the watchful gaze of the skyscrapers, the stationary traffic resumes its crawl.