New Day with Pancakes

NEW DAY WITH PANCAKES

I wake up to sunlight nuzzling my face. I roll out of bed, change back into my clothes from yesterday and pull my hair into a sloppy bun.

I didn’t sleep well.

At all.

This is made painfully obvious by the dark circles under my eyes. A germ of a hangover floats behind my forehead.

As I step out of the room, I realize I don’t know where I’m going. Left, I think? I need to get to the main staircase.

I’ve never been in a house so big there’s a danger of getting lost.

I find the staircase, go down the hall of mirrors and into the kitchen. I find Sophie there, kneading dough. Her hair is in a French braid that snakes down her back. She’s wearing one of her signature long black dresses, protected by a burlap apron. She doesn’t have a single speck of flour anywhere on her.

“Morning!” she says. “Oh, pet! You look tired. Did you not sleep well?”

“I slept okay,” I say. “I have trouble sleeping sometimes.”

“Was the bed not comfortable? I’ll beat the mattress. Or I can put you in a different room,” she says, “if you’ll ever want to stay again. Perhaps it was too poor an experience.”

“No, no,” I say, my voice in its lying pitch. I imagine dogs around the world pausing in unison to consider the sound. “Not poor at all.”

“Would you like to go to the diner? It’s a lovely day,” she says, “though it might still be muddy.”

“That’s okay. I’ll go.”

“All right,” she says. She sets the dough in a ceramic bowl and puts a damp towel over it. “Let’s go.”

She leads me back through the woods. She was right about the mud. By the time we get to pavement, my boots are covered in sludge.

When we arrive at the diner, Sophie introduces me to the owner, a tiny bald man named Tom.

He bows to Sophie multiple times as he leads us to a booth in the back corner.

“I’ll bring coffee right away,” he says, hurrying off.

“Do you own this building?” I ask her.

“I own the land it sits on,” she says. “Why?”

I shrug. “Just wondering.”

I’m curious to know exactly how much real estate she owns, how much of this town, but I think it’d be rude to ask outright.

“I like to get pancakes with strawberries and a side of bacon,” she says. “But you can’t go wrong, really.”

“All right. Sold on the pancakes.”

Tom is back with the coffee, and Sophie orders for both of us.

“Coming right up,” he says. He won’t make eye contact with her. Or me.

“He’s funny,” I say.

“Nervous personality,” she says. “Annie. What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem yourself this morning. Is everything all right? Did I do something?”

“No,” I say. “No, I’m fine.”

As the words “I’m fine” leave my mouth, I realize how untrue they are. Sophie’s right. I’m not myself. I’m hungover, and I’m ashamed to be hungover.

I sigh. “I had too much wine last night.”

“My fault,” she says. “I’m a bad influence. I’m sorry, pet.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m the one who drank it. I guess . . . this is the second time in the past week that I’ve gotten drunk. I don’t want to be this sad, single thirtysomething getting wine drunk multiple times a week. I don’t know.”

“Do you not like wine?”

“I do.”

Sophie takes a slow sip of her coffee. “Annie, why would you say ‘sad, single thirtysomething’?”

I’ve offended her. “I’m sorry. I just meant that’s how I feel.”

“No. No, I don’t think you did,” she says. She slowly unfolds a grin. “You think being single is a sad state of being. I promise you, it’s not.”

“No, I know.”

“Do you?”

Honestly, I don’t. I don’t want to end up alone. I don’t want to be an old maid. I want to be with someone. Share my life. Have someone love me. Want me.

“But why?” she asks.

“Sorry?”

“Why do you feel you need someone to love you, to want you? Why are you seeking that outside yourself?”

I’m confused. Did I say it out loud? Did I think out loud?

She puts her elbows on the table and leans forward. “You think you need it, but you don’t. I’m proof enough of that, don’t you think?”

“We’re different.”

“We’re not.”

Our pancakes arrive. They’re the thickest, fluffiest pancakes I’ve ever seen in my life. They swim in a garishly pink strawberry compote. A fat dollop of cream sits on top of the pile.

“You want to think we’re different, Annie. I’m telling you, we’re not.”

“Sophie,” I say, “you’re beautiful. You could have anyone you want. It’s not like that for me. I’m not . . . I’m not like you. I want a relationship. I want to love someone and have them love me back.”

“You want sex?”

“What? No. Well, I mean . . . that’s part of it, I guess. But no.”

“Sex is easy,” she says. “I, personally, find I can do it better myself. But I understand wanting it from someone else.”

She takes a big bite of pancake. A drop of pink strawberry goo oozes out of the side of her mouth. She scoops it up with her tongue.

“It’s love,” I say. “I want love.”

“You want validation.” She’s not being mean. Her tone is as soft and warm as ever. She’s being honest. Only the honesty is just as bad.

“Yeah. Maybe I do.”

“You’re never going to get it. Not from someone else, darling. Not from Sam.”

“He did love me.”

“No, pet,” she says, “he didn’t. Or else you wouldn’t be here crying over pancakes.”

I bring my hand up to my face. My cheeks are wet. I didn’t realize.

“Annie, I only say this because I know you’re above what you seek. Meaning, you’re . . . What’s the word? Lowballing? Is that what it is?”

“I guess.” I can’t help but laugh a little. It’s funny hearing her say it with her haughty accent.

“Your life can be so much more than chasing after some domestic fantasy.”

“I don’t think that’s what I . . . I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing.”

She skewers a strawberry with her fork. “All right. I don’t presume to know everything.”

She winks at me.

I reach with a shaky hand for my coffee. I drink it black.

“I just ask that you hear what I’m saying to you, Annie. Yes?”

“I hear you.”

“Good,” she says. “Now, onto other things. How’s work? How’s your class?”

I feel my face fall, my muscles drooping in defeat at the thought of school.

“Oh, dear, I’ve done it again!”

“No, it’s fine. Work is fine. There are a few kids in my afternoon English class who are . . .”

“Fucking assholes?” she asks.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Want me to curse them for you?”

“Sure,” I say.

“Done.”

In the morning sun, her skin is flawless. Pearlescent. She doesn’t have a single wrinkle, a single pore. She keeps insinuating she’s old, older than me, but she doesn’t look it.

“I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well last night,” she says. “I feel like a failure as a host.”

She flags down Tom and asks him to refill our coffee mugs.

“You will come back, won’t you?” Her eyes go wide and watery.

There’s a vulnerability to her. I recognize it clearly because it’s so familiar to me. It’s like we’re wearing the same perfume. It triggers such a profound empathy I want to leap across the table and hug her.

“Of course,” I say. “Of course I will.”

“Do you like to swim? I can clear out the pool. I don’t use it. I don’t like water, but if you do, I can clean and fill it. It’s indoors, so you can use it in the winter.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised you have an indoor pool,” I say. The tension drains from my body, tension I didn’t even realize I was holding. My spine unkinks; my shoulders descend. I’m sitting here eating ridiculously delicious pancakes with my charming new friend, who owns a house with an indoor swimming pool. For all the wallowing I’ve done in the past few months, leading a one-woman self-pity parade, in this moment I feel nothing but lucky. “I love to swim.”

“I’ll get on it, then,” she says. “If I eat any more, I’ll feel sick. I know this and yet . . .”

She takes another bite.

We clean our plates.

“I’m going to be useless the rest of the day,” she says, standing.

We haven’t received a check, but at this point, I’d be surprised if Tom dared to approach with one. He seems terrified of Sophie. I guess some men from his generation would take issue with having to answer to a woman. With paying rent to a woman.

“When will I see you again, pet?”

“Whenever,” I say.

“Maybe Friday? I could come by with dinner?” she asks, holding the door open for me.

“Sure! Do you want my number?”

“Oh, I don’t have a mobile. Well, I have one, but I never use it. I think they’re dreadful. People walking around hunched over. I’d rather go back to the days of sending ravens. Surprisingly reliable.”

She’s an unconventional person, so I don’t find this particularly shocking. I have a hard time picturing her using an iPhone. Still, I’m not sure how she functions without one.

“Friday. Say six o’clock?”

“Sounds good.”

“Darling,” she says, giving me a hug, “thank you for a lovely weekend. I’ll see you soon.”

We walk off in opposite directions, and I make it a few steps before I’m lonely again. Nearly instant separation anxiety.

When I get home to my apartment, it’s smaller than I remember. Emptier. I take a shower, do laundry, water my already wilting plant, then prep lessons while eating stale tortilla chips and toast with the free sample of raspberry jam. By the time the sun sets, my loneliness scores against me like rough wool. I want to crawl out of my skin.

I call him.

I want to tell him about Sophie, about her enormous house with a library and ballroom and theater and swimming pool. About how I stayed there last night and in a tired wine fog convinced myself for a minute that it was haunted. I want to tell him about the pancakes, reminisce about the time we got stoned and went to the IHOP in Union Square. We experimented with all of the syrups. Blueberry, strawberry, regular, maple pecan. We tried different flavor combinations, recording our findings on the back of a napkin with a rogue crayon we picked up off of the floor. I want to ask him if he remembers. If he still thinks about it whenever he sees syrup, the way I do.

But he doesn’t answer.