my Man Card if I ordered something like that. Coffee . Black.”
“Well, you don’t have to order it like you’re 007,” I retort, feeling proud of myself for knowing a pop culture reference from his own time. “Tall coffee,” I tell Penny. She smiles at Luke and suddenly I wish I’d done something prettier with my hair, or worn something other than my tie-dye long sleeve t-shirt. Penny is so pretty and so … perky. I should be perky, but frankly the energy it would take to keep up that kind of perkiness would take more than a toffee cream breve.
“Take a break?” Luke asks in a whisper as Penny hands him his coffee. He is whispering to me though and I feel a delicious sense of importance. (Could it even be perkiness?)
I take off my apron and leave it behind the counter as Luke fixes his mug of coffee beside me.
“Umm, pretty sure the macho men you fear so will take just as much offense to you pouring on the white chocolate sprinkles and the twelve packs of raw sugar,” I point out.
“No way. Even 007 drinks his black coffee with white chocolate sprinkles and nutmeg and a little sugar. You’re out of 2% by the way.”
“I wasn’t before you dumped out half your coffee and used it all.”
“I was topping it off,” he feigned hurt. “Your customer service needs work.”
“Fill out a comment card. Now what do you want? Or did you just come in to annoy me?”
“I mostly came in to annoy you. But also I wanted to talk to you.”
“There’s no way on God’s green earth I can get Prue to pose for a picture.”
“Pose?” he looks truly horrified. “I don’t pose. Geez, it’s not like I work for some kiddy photo shop, you know. I’m a professional. Candid shots. Un-posed shots. Those are my specialty. Just like your frou-frou espresso drinks, I have specialties too, only mine cost slightly more. Slightly.” He frowns at his cup.
I remember his hole-in-the-wall studio. ‘Slightly’ was an overstatement. “Alright. Shall we sit?”
He chuckles and it takes me a moment to realize he’s chuckling at me. “Yes, we shall, madam. Did you major in old English or British Literature or just been watching too many Jane Austen movies lately?”
Major? Oh, college. Maybe I am closer to twenty years of age if he places me as a college graduate. I probably shouldn’t tell him the last school I attended was in a Portugal commune, founded by a Baptist missionary. My graduating class was myself, the missionary’s daughter, Molly, and a Portuguese boy named Henrique.
“Umm, too many Austens. You got me. What do you want to talk about?” I purposely steer us away from the leather chair that I had seen my sister sitting in the other night, and instead lead us toward the same table that Luke and I had sat at the last time we spoke here.
Luke settles in his chair – he is too large for these tiny bistro style chairs– and leans his elbows on the table, cupping his face in his big hands. He holds my eyes with his for a moment before he speaks.
“How long have you been here?” It’s the way he says it, not the question that throws me. Instinctively I know what he really means. There is no unspoken law against telling a normal person about living as a Lost, but it’s hardly ever to anyone’s benefit. The odds of anyone believing you are slim to none, and if they did believe it, they are probably some sort of wacky conspiracy theorist - someone who spends their free time spotting aliens and building traps for Bigfoot, or wants help for the time machine he’s building in his mom’s basement. Those types. Luke doesn’t look like one of those types, but isn’t that what everyone says about their serial killer neighbor? He was so quiet, kept to himself mostly…I just can’t believe he builds time machines in his mom’s basement…
“What do you mean?” I ask anyway, treading carefully.
“Here,” he gestures widely. “But mostly, now. Where did you come from?”
I don’t reply. I’ll let him dig himself in a little deeper.
“I know what you are, Sonnet. At least I think I do. It won’t hurt to tell me the truth. I know why your speech is old fashioned and why you try to adopt an American accent and why your family put the fun in dysfunctional. You came here from another era, didn’t you?”