We are invisible observers at a comfortable local restaurant. Two couples occupy tables at opposite ends of the room. They can see but they cannot hear each other.
Both are dawdling over coffee and dessert. The pair at the front of the restaurant is young. The boy nineteen. The girl a smidge younger. His name is Jason. Hers is Aileen. They are attractive kids. He is long and lanky with the look of a varsity basketball player. She is petite and elfin with a smattering of freckles. They are gazing into each other’s eyes over the debris of crockery and utensils.
And that is how we temporarily leave them: Aileen unconsciously stirring the already well-stirred coffee in her mug. Jason nervously cracking his knuckles between his knees.
At a table near the kitchen sit Larry and Julia.
Larry is sixty-three years old. He has a nice head of silver gray hair, a ruddy face, and intelligent eyes. His chair is tilted back casually against the wall. Julia, opposite, has a pretty face surrounded by curly brown hair. She is fifty-six years old, slim, and does not try to hide the laugh lines at the edges of her mouth, which is mobile and expressive. When she talks, her eyes keep returning to Larry’s, as though her thoughts were birds and his face a familiar and friendly place to roost.
“It’s a different career entirely,” she says. Then she shakes her head. “But not really. The discipline is the same. It’s just that now I’ll be teaching instead of practicing. What do you think?”
Larry drops his chair to the floor. The legs land with a loud thump. He grins. “I think it’s great. I think you’re great. And I think it’s about time that you married me.”
Julia flutters her eyelashes and, mimicking the ingénue in a British drawing room comedy, simpers, “Oh, Reginald. This is so sudden.”
Larry laughs. They have been married for thirty years. He adds. “Nothing to be nervous about. Change is good. And it will be fun to work together in the same college. If I don’t crash and burn as department head.”
She pats his hand. “You’ll do fine.” Then realizing that her coffee cup is empty, she signals to the waitress. As she waits for her refill, Julia glances around the restaurant. She notices the young couple sitting at the table near the window. She taps her husband’s hand again and motions him to look.
The teenagers, of course, are unaware of anyone except themselves.
Jason has stopped cracking his knuckles. ”Aileen,” he whispers huskily. “This is the best day of my life. I should be scared to death, but I’m not. All I can think is that the world is out there waiting for me, and there’s nothing I can’t do.”
Aileen grimaces. “That’s a double negative. Good thing Mrs. Rude isn’t listening, or she’d revoke your scholarship.”
