Alex snapped her phone shut, growling. She had been trying to get a hold of the same guy for three hours, and each time she had called—at thirty minute intervals, no less—she had been sent straight to voicemail. “Come on, John,” she grumbled, talking to her phone. “Come on. I’ve been calling you all day.”

Still grumbling, Alex shoved her phone into her pocket and returned her eyes to the sidewalk in front of her. She walked quickly, not really caring that the people around her nearly had to jump out of her way to avoid getting run over and aerated by her heels.

She wasn’t so angry that John wasn’t answering the phone; he was busy, she understood, and she was used to it. What she really hated was calling so many times. One thing Alex had always prided herself on in relationships was her ability to keep an appropriate distance from her boyfriends. She didn’t want to be the clingy girlfriend that calls over and over again if she didn’t get an immediate answer from the poor er she was dating.

Alex had called five times; once every thirty minutes, and she still hadn’t gotten an answer.

Sighing, she decided that she would wait another thirty minutes, call again, then, if she didn’t get an answer, she would wait for him to call. Whether she would answer when he called would be a different story entirely, though. She kind of wanted him to feel the way she had been feeling for almost three hours, but she also wasn’t one to be rude, even if the silent treatment was deserved.

“What if I was dying, huh?” Alex mumbled to herself as she walked. “What if I was in the hospital? What if I was trying to get a hold of you to tell you that your dad’s cancer had come back, huh? I bet you’d feel horrible for not answering your phone then.”

Alex was talking nonsense, and she knew it, but she was annoyed and, admittedly, a little hurt. She knew that John understood what the interview had meant for her, as she hadn’t exactly shut up about it since it had been scheduled, and she really wanted and needed to talk to him right now.

She continued to walk, deciding to not head straight home.

Instead, she ended up at a café she had loved since high school. Even though she was now a recent college graduate, she continued to come to the small, hole-in-the-wall eatery. Here, she could relax, have a sandwich and a frozen mocha, get some work done, or even just people watch for as long as she wanted without having to worry about being interrupted.

She had never shown John this place, and very few friends had had the privilege of seeing her hideout. In fact, the only person who used to regularly come here with her was an old school friend, who she had lost contact with when he had moved very suddenly the summer before their freshman year.

“Ah, Miss Henley!” the older man behind the store counter, who was also the store owner, called as the front door closed behind Alex. She waved in greeting and began walking towards the counter, a smile unconsciously spreading over her face. Half of the store’s atmosphere was created by its owner, Mr. Green. He knew all the regulars, and, when a new visitor came in, he would make them feel at home. He had even helped Alex with some of her homework when she had been in school.

“The usual?” Mr. Green asked her as she hopped onto a bar stool in front of the counter.

“As if you need to ask,” Alex chuckled, happy to see Mr. Green smile at her response.

He shuffled off to prepare Alex’s ham and swiss sandwich, knowing what bread she wanted, what condiments and toppings she wanted on it, and what drink she wanted to come with it.

As she waited, she reached for the paper menu in front of her and looked over it, seeing if Mr. Green had added anything new. Sometimes Mr. Green would have her taste test his new stuff before he officially released it. She was a pretty picky eater, but because her mother was a professional chef, she had a good sense of what went well with what, regardless of her personal taste.

She didn’t see anything, and was about to put the menu back when the person sitting on the stool next to her asked for it.

She handed the menu over to the man as she watched Mr. Green bring her food. She always felt like she should have taken a part time job here, to help Mr. Green, as he was a small, skinny man, and he always made sure that his customers left full, so the plates and trays he would carry sometimes looked too large for him. But somehow, Alex had never seen him drop even as much as a spoon.

“So,” Mr. Green grunted as he put the tray down in front of Alex. “What are we working on today?”

“Nothing, actually,” Alex answered with a sigh and a smile. “I had a job interview today.”

“Oh, really?” Mr. Green asked excitedly, his smile growing. “How’d it go?”

Alex tried—and failed—to conceal a smile. “I got the job.”

“Congratulations!” Mr. Green cried, making a few other patrons, the newer ones, look over. The regulars continued on with their business, having long since adapted to their restaurant’s frequent loud outbursts as he spoke with someone. “This calls for a celebration!” he cried.

“No, really—” Alex started to say, trying to stop him from making a big deal out of her news. She had never been one for the spotlight, but no matter how many times she had told him that, whenever she had big news, Mr. Green had to celebrate.

“Nonsense!” Mr. Green cried. “I insist you have a chocolate muffin, your favorite, on the house!”

Before Alex could try to resist again, Mr. Green was gone, looking for the perfect chocolate muffin to give to Alex. Alex watched him go, chuckling quietly. Sometimes she wished her own father was more like Mr. Green, excited about every accomplishment of hers, but then there were also times that she was glad her father didn’t like bringing attention to his daughter.

“Congratulations,” the man next to her said suddenly, making her look over at him. He was still looking over the menu Alex had handed him earlier, but it was the first time Alex had actually looked at him. He must have been her age, or at least around it. He was Asian, and had very fine features. Alex couldn’t help but stare briefly, wondering how he dealt with acne and if he could recommend a dermatologist to her.

“Thank you,” she said quickly once she had recovered, trying to make up for the time she had spent looking at him in awe. She didn’t think he had noticed, as he had just continued to look over the menu.

“What will you be doing?” he asked.

Alex looked at her hands. “Um…I’m a handwriting analyst,” Alex answered quietly. When people had asked what she wanted to in high school, there were two responses to her answer. People either thought her dream to become a handwriting analyst was cool….or they thought it was crazy. The moments between her answer and their response always killed Alex.

“I guess that makes sense,” the guy answered, not sounding either excited or freaked out.

Alex openly stared at him again, this time for a much longer period of time, and not for his looks. That was the first time someone hadn’t had one of the two reactions Alex had prepared for, so she had been caught completely off guard. And besides that, Alex was trying to figure out what exactly “made sense” about her career choice to a man that she had just met.

“Here you are…” Mr. Green said, placing a plate with a large chocolate muffin on it in front of Alex, forcing her to look away from the man sitting next to her.

“Thank you,” she told Mr. Green.

“Now, remember to eat your meal first, and then your desert,” Mr. Green told her with a light wink. Over the years, Mr. Green had always made sure Alex ate the meals she ordered from him before she ate anything that resembled a desert.

Alex shook her head at Mr. Green as he turned to the customer next to her. “Have you decided what you wanted?” he asked.

“Yeah,” the pretty man answered. “I’ll have the roast beef sandwich, with lettuce and tomato, and Brie cheese. And a frozen mocha, please.”

Mr. Green nodded and walked off to prepare the man’s food.

Alex looked at the man again out of the corner of her eye. He must be a regular to know about the Brie. The regulars all knew that Mr. Green had ingredients that he didn’t list on the menu; things like specific cheeses, mustards or vegetables. Brie was one of the cheeses that you only knew about it if you knew about it.

But Alex couldn’t think of another time she had seen the man here, so she went back to her own sandwich. She picked up one half of her sandwich and was just about to bite into it when the man next to her asked, “What made you want to go into handwriting analysis?”

Alex pulled the sandwich away from and answered, “Well, when I was younger, a friend of mine and I would spend our free time writing notes in different styles to different people, and I realized that no matter how we wrote, there were always markers in our handwriting that I could recognize. And I started learning about different handwriting styles and markers, and now…I do that for a living. And we actually used to do that here.”

The man nodded. “Cool. Doing what you love is always good. But…why are you celebrating alone? Shouldn’t you be with your family or something?”

Alex sighed, reminded of the world outside the café. “My parents moved out of the LA area after I started college, and my fiancé isn’t answering his phone.”

“You have a fiancé?” the man asked. He sounded genuinely shocked, which Alex wasn’t sure she appreciated. It sounded like he couldn’t believe that she, of all people, would manage to get a fiancé. She saw his glance at her left hand, and at the ring sitting nicely on the ring finger. “You’re so young, though,” the man qualified, making Alex feel a little better about his comment. “How long were you guys dating?”

“Um…almost six years,” Alex answered. “We started dating in our senior year of high school.”

“Really?” the man asked, sounding the most shocked yet. “What’s his name?”

Alex was really confused, but she still answered, “John Bateman,” curious as to why the man would ask.

The man looked utterly floored. “Him?” he cried. “You are his fiancée?”

“Do you know him?” Alex asked automatically, prickling at the stranger’s reaction. He didn’t seem too pleased that she and John were together, and frankly, she wasn’t sure why he even cared, or if he even knew John.

The man turned back to the counter and away from Alex. “I know him a little. We knew each other a while ago.”

“Okay…” Alex said, picking up her sandwich again.

“But why isn’t he here?” the man continued to pester her. For a moment, Alex contemplated not even answering him. But again, it wasn’t her thing to be rude. So she put her still uneaten sandwich down and answered, “He’s working. He graduated college a semester earlier than I did, so he already got a job and has been working. Plus, I wouldn’t bring him here.”

Alex moved to quickly start eating, but the man was quicker.

“Why?” he asked. “You like it here, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Then why not bring John here?”

Alex sighed. “I don’t bring anyone here. It’s sort of my…escape. I don’t even bring my closest friends here, because this is the last place I have to myself to just…relax. I had a friend…a long time ago…that would bring me here. I feel like if I were to bring others here, it would become less special.”

“Is this friend coming, then?” the man asked. Alex was beginning to feel a little weird about this situation. On the one hand, this stranger was asking a lot of questions, but at the same time, there was a familiar way about him that Alex felt comfortable with.

“No,” Alex answered. “He moved a long time ago. I think he moved to South Korea, but I can’t remember.”

“And he’s…the only person you would bring here?”

Alex nodded. “This place was where we hung out all the time. It’s kind of nice to have one place that holds the memories of just one of my relationships.”

“Ah!” the man said suddenly, pointing at Alex. “You liked him, didn’t you?”

Alex blushed. This guy was the first person to guess that she had had a crush on her old friend. “I did. I liked him a lot. But he moved so suddenly, I didn’t have a chance to say anything.”

The man smiled and nodded understandingly. He mumbled something, but Alex couldn’t hear what he had said, because Mr. Green had returned, carrying the man’s food.

“Thanks, Mr. Green,” the man said, immediately digging into his sandwich.

Finally, Alex thought as she turned to her own sandwich and began eating.

As she ate, she kept looking over at the man next to her. As more and more time passed, the more this situation felt vaguely familiar. It was almost like déjà vu, but Alex knew it wasn’t. Still, something bothered her about the situation.

The man didn’t talk to her again, though halfway through her sandwich, Alex found herself hoping that he would ask another question. But instead, once he was done, Mr. Green brought him the receipt, which he quickly signed.

“See you later, Alex,” the man said, to which Alex, full of chocolate muffin, waved back.

She heard the door of the café open and close, signaling the man’s exit. Alex, naturally curious, looked over at the receipt the man had signed after paying.

And she almost choked on her sandwich.

She would recognize that signature anywhere.

It was the signature that started everything. The signature of the only person Alex would ever bring to this café. The signature of the only person she’d ever fully trusted. The signature of the person she had hoped would return for almost seven years.

She grabbed the receipt and flipped it over, to find a note on the back, again, in that familiar, cramped handwriting.

“It was good seeing you again, Alex. You’re still just as clueless. I always liked you. Though, I guess I was sort of dumb for not finding you on one of my other trips back here. I hope John is a better person now than he was in middle school. Good luck with your new job, and remember to keep Mr. Green company. –Daniel Chae”

 

Alex put the receipt back on the counter and stared at the door, completely speechless.