Eclipsed Hearts

Chapter 7: Last coffee before everything changes

The café was the kind of place they had been coming to since college.

Nothing fancy, a narrow spot wedged between a dry cleaner and a phone repair shop three blocks from their apartment, with mismatched chairs and a chalkboard menu and a waiter named Otto who had never once written either of their names correctly on a cup but always remembered their orders without being asked. It smelled of dark roast and warm pastry and the particular comfort of a place that had witnessed enough of your life to feel like a witness.

Elena pushed the door open and the little bell above it rang the same way it always had.

They took their usual table by the window, the small round one with the wobbly leg that they had learned to compensate for by stacking a folded napkin under the left side and Otto brought their drinks over without them ordering. Oat latte for Elena, vanilla cappuccino with an extra shot for Jade. He set them down, looked between the two of them with the mild curiosity of a man who had seen many things from behind a coffee counter, and retreated without comment.

Jade wrapped both hands around her cup.

So, she said.

So what? Elena said.

Outside the window the city moved past in its usual unhurried rush people with bags, people on phones, a woman pushing a stroller with the focused determination of someone navigating a military operation.

Talk to me, Elena said, say what you're actually thinking.

Jade looked at her cup for a moment then she looked up.

I think something is off, she said, about the test results. My test results specifically, she said it plainly, without drama, the way Jade said everything that mattered. Elena I run a general check up at the clinic every six months, every six months for the last three years, my iron has always been fine, my hormone levels have always been fine.

I have never once been told that anything was abnormal, she shook her head slightly and then I walk into that place and suddenly I'm not eligible.

Elena said nothing, she let Jade say it.

I'm not saying I know for certain, I'm not saying I can prove anything, Jade turned her cup slowly between her palms but I think and you can tell me I'm being paranoid. I think they didn't want two of us, two friends going in together, I think they wanted you and they found a reason to keep me out.

The table was quiet for a moment.

That's a significant thing to believe about a registered medical clinic, Elena said carefully.

I know, El. Jade held up a hand, I know how it sounds and I know I have no proof but I also know you've already made up your mind and I'm not trying to talk you out of it, she exhaled slowly. I just needed to say it out loud to someone, to you, because if I don't say it now I'm going to be sitting here alone after you leave turning it over and over in my head with nobody to say it to.

Elena looked at her best friend across the wobbly table in the café that had seen them through four years of adulthood through breakups and job losses and the particular misery of the years when everything is supposed to be coming together and nothing quite is and felt a complicated tenderness that she didn't have a clean word for.

I hear you, Elena said, I do and I'm not dismissing it.

But you're still going, Jade cuts in

But I'm still going! She replied

Jade nodded once, picked up her cappuccino, took a long sip and set it back down.

Okay, she said and then, quieter, Okay.

The decision, once accepted, seemed to release something between them, the tension of the unsaid thing dissolving now that it had been said, leaving behind a softer, more familiar register. They settled into their cups and let the café work its usual magic, the warmth and the noise and the smell of it doing what it had always done.

I'm going to miss you showing up at my door with terrible ideas, Elena said.

Jade laughed, a real one, not performed. My ideas are excellent and you know it.

The time you convinced me to sign up for that pottery class.

That was a great class.

Elena smiled in spite of everything.

Because my ideas are excellent, Jade leaned back in her chair, cradling her cup. I'm going to miss you doing that thing where you reorganize the kitchen cabinets when you're stressed and then deny that you did it.

I have never once denied it.

You absolutely deny it every time.

I simply point out that the mugs were in an illogical position.

There it is, Jade pointed again, grinning, that is the denial face. I know that face.

Elena laughed and it surprised her, the cleanness of it, the way it arrived without guilt, the way her body remembered how to do it even now, even in the middle of all of this. She sat with the laughter for a moment and let it be what it was.

Then Jade's smile softened at the edges.

Promise me something, she said.

Depends what it is.

Promise me you'll pay attention, Jade's voice was light but her eyes were serious. Inside that place. Just keep your eyes open, notice things and if something feels wrong trust that feeling. Don't stay because the compensation is huge.

Elena held her gaze, I promise.

Jade nodded and seemed to accept that.

They sat for a while longer, finishing their drinks, letting the afternoon ease around them. Otto came to collect their empty cups and asked if they wanted anything else and they both said no and he nodded and moved on. The chalkboard above the counter had a new special some kind of spiced winter latte with a name Elena couldn't fully read from the table. The wobbly leg wobbled, the bell above the door rang as people came and went.

It was Jade who broke the quiet, eventually.

Not with the words Elena expected, not more worries about the clinic or more gentle arguments against going. Something else crossed Jade's face, a different kind of calculation. She set her empty cup down and looked at the table and Elena watched the shift happen in real time, the way a person's expression changes when a thought that has been sitting in the background steps forward and announces itself.

El, Jade said slowly, when you go, she stopped, looking bothered

Yes? Elena cuts in

Jade looked up, I can't pay the rent on my own.

The sentence landed on the table between them like a stone.

Elena stared at her.

Jade! She finally tried to speak

No, it's... I'm not saying it to make you feel guilty, Jade shook her head quickly. I mean I am a little bit, but that's not the main point, she almost smiled, the main point is that I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do.

They looked at each other across the table.

Two women at the edge of two different cliffs, looking down at two different drops, each one trying to figure out how to land without breaking.

We'll figure it out, Elena said, she said it the way she always said things she wasn't entirely sure of with enough conviction to make it feel like fact. Before I leave we'll figure something out.

Jade nodded but the worry stayed in her eyes, quiet and persistent, like a pilot light that wouldn't go out.

Outside the window the afternoon had deepened, the light going the particular amber of a New York November late afternoon, golden and running out fast. They would need to leave soon, there was packing to do, decisions to finalize, a suitcase to fill with enough of Elena's life to last nine months.

She hadn't let herself think about it in those terms until just now.

Nine months away from this café, from Otto getting her name wrong on the cup and Jade's terrible-excellent ideas, the wobbly table leg and everything small and familiar.

She picked up her coat from the back of the chair and put it on.

Come on, she said softly, let's go figure it out.