The Midnight Cafe

Andy Hertz deals with an eccentric regular at his first job in the city.

She was here again. Naturally. It was rare she didn’t come in. These days, she seemed to be there every night, always in the same booth. Third from the door and by the window so she could stare out at the streets. Andy Hertz had tried and tried to make someone else deal with her for a change, but those who had attempted had ended up much worse off than he did. For some reason, he was the only waiter at the Midnight Café who could put up her. His boss, Wayne, had offered his two cents on the matter, thumping him roughly on the back multiple times as he said, “It’s ‘cause you’re new to the city, Hertz. New to the city and new to the restaurant biz.” and had walked away chuckling at the newbie.

            Andy was not a newbie, thank you very much. In fact, this was at least the tenth restaurant he’d served at and he had a two year degree in business management and hospitality. He was going to be the manager. He was going to be Wayne. Someday, that was.

            “Hertz,” Wayne called just as Andy was about to leave the kitchen, dishrag in hand to mop up a few recently emptied tables. The busboy had left already, always having to remind Wayne that minors could only work so many hours in a week.  Andy pivoted on his heel to look at his boss. “Is your girl still out there?” Wayne asked.

            Andy cringed. Wayne had recently taken to calling her “his girl” and it drove Andy nuts. She was not his. She shouldn’t have had anything to do with him except that she threw a fit when anyone else tried to serve her and walked out. “Yeah, she is.”

            “Well, look. It’s past closing. I hate to kick people out, but�"“

“You need me to kick her out. Right-o, sir.” He saluted his boss, snapping himself across the face with the dishrag, and left hurriedly and embarrassed. Andy didn’t expect anything less from Wayne, who seemed to forget he had waited tables before and treated him like he was new to the business. Andy always did the dirty work. One time, someone had vomited all over the bathroom and Andy had been made to clean it up, even though they hired a separate cleaning staff. He probably wouldn’t have if he didn’t know from past experience that sucking up was his only option in order to snag the managerial position he was eyeing. On the bright side, he’d gotten a raise, leaving him slightly better off in paying the exorbitant rent on his Brooklyn apartment.

He made his way over, swiping a few stray napkins and dishes off empty tables as he passed. Stopping in front of her table, he opened his mouth to speak, but, surprisingly, found her talking instead.

“I’m not a natural blonde,” she said as if he questioned her, as if defending herself.

This was such an odd thing to say that Andy thought he’d heard her incorrectly. It had been a long night and he was hot and tired. Fumbling for a response, he said, “We’re closed,” in a flat tone. She nodded once, picked up her purse and wandered out into the cold.

Andy thought about it all the way home, his mind no less boggled upon reaching his bed than it had been while riding the subway, or tracing the several blocks to his building. It certainly wasn’t his first time serving her, and she’d always been a little odd. He complained about her often to his roommates and the only two other people he knew outside his workplace �" an old couple across the hall from his apartment who had brought over cookies and a buffalo checked oven mitt in a mason jar as a housewarming gift �" but he had to admit to himself that she had grown on him, however annoying, because there was something charming about her oddity.

And she was pretty. Andy didn’t often come into close contact with pretty girls. He had too much acne.

Still puzzling over her strange insight, he thought back to when he first moved here. His very first customer happened to be a celebrity. Ignorant in matters of popular culture, Andy hadn’t realized, and probably for the better, else he might have ogled the whole time and forgotten to ask what drink the man preferred or whether he’d like ketchup on his burger. He’d seen girls come in dressed like Christmas baubles, head to toe in sequins and jewels, and all with stilettos so tall their weight was suspended precariously forward, convincing Andy one slight nudge from behind would send them toppling over head first, a spectacular somersaulting disco ball.

Countless members of the after-theatre crowd shuffled in with sleepy smiles, playbills in hand. Groups of college kids drank coffee in the corner booth, slightly shaded from view by the dim lighting, conversing on profound topics like world peace and the meaning of life. Business men arrived in their suits, ties askew, tired and defeated from working late. 

It’d only been a few months since he moved here, and yet, he felt so much more knowledgeable about the city. He knew the subway system and had chats with his elderly neighbors and sometimes he found himself slipping into a New York accent, which was undeniably exciting, although he’d have to be careful of that when he visited home. How embarrassing if his brother heard… Andy had learned early on that New York required an orientation, and the little neon signed diner on a corner near the theatre district was the perfect place to receive it. Observing and eavesdropping on conversations over burgers and fries, he discovered what he imagined must be every sort of person in the world.

Maybe it was his long-fostered hospitality that had got him so interested in people, or maybe it was just the stupid curiosity that makes people Facebook creep and run background checks on their daughter’s boyfriends, but one thing was certain: Andy couldn’t categorize this girl and it bothered him immensely.

***

            “She’s back,” Andy said as he peered out of the kitchen doors.

            “So get out there and serve her so she won’t stay all night,” Wayne said lazily.

Andy refrained from rolling his eyes with a fair amount of difficulty.  He’d only spoken in exasperation, not to be told what to do. It wasn’t as though he was surprised she was there. But then, Andy had never met a person in the restaurant business as lazy as his Wayne. He probably would have closed twenty three hours out of the day if only the rent in this part of the city weren’t so enormously expensive. It was like him to talk this way.

She was staring out the window when approached her. The foot traffic slowed considerably at this late hour, but the sidewalks never completely emptied. He noticed there were holes in both sleeves of her sweater from sticking her thumbs into the fabric to keep her hands warm and he could see her knuckles peeking out the gap. Andy began to make his usual speech but realized about the time he asked her what she’d like to drink that she hadn’t heard a word he said. She turned sharply from the window and looked directly at him. Her curls bounced around her face for a moment and her eyes narrowed. Andy swallowed. The skin around her mouth and eyes looked slightly pink like she’d just scrubbed off makeup that was particularly difficult to remove.

“I’m not a natural a blonde.” Today her tone seemed simpler, sweeter. Unquestionably darling. He hated how it sounded, all innocent and condescending like Kindergarten teachers who can’t snap out of their talking-to-children voice around adults.

For a split second, he lost control, just long enough to send a signal to his brain to say something he would instantly regret. “Why do you keep telling me that?” Terrible customer service. Wayne would have fired him if he’d overheard, and good thing he hadn’t, because Andy needed this job. He tried to talk himself out of feeling bad by justifying his lapse in good judgment with the fact he hadn’t slept in two nights. It didn’t work.

She blinked. He half expected her to smack him.

“See it’s because I’m an actress.”

Something in his brain clicked. Andy had long ago given up all hope for thinking her merely eccentric. Naturally, she would be an actress. That was one of the first things he’d learned during his time in New York �" theatre people were downright strange. They had a language of their own, and much of their conversation was beyond understanding or was sung.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh. Are you really?”

She nodded. “But I was a singer first. Except I wasn’t good enough. No one thought so. They made me the beat boxer in my a capella group in college. I went to Barnard.”

“What would you like to drink?” He looked at her dully, all the cheer and welcome and ‘We’re glad to have you with us!’ wiped right out of his voice and expression.

She looked at him as if surprised to find him there. “Lemonade please.”

Andy walked back to the kitchen looking frazzled. He hoped the miserable heat and unbearable grease stench would shed some light on the situation; he was undeniably intrigued.

“What the latest, Hertz?” Wayne asked, shuffling around the kitchen.

He asked this every time someone walked in, his personal form of hello. Andy didn’t usually respond except to acknowledge him. “She’s telling me her life story,” he said, half-laughing as he went to fill a red plastic Coca-Cola cup with lemonade.

Wayne laughed uncomfortably loudly and Andy hurried back out to the café before his boss could give him any condescending advice as he was so fond of doing.

He set her drink on the table and began to pull out his pad and pen to take her order, but she didn’t give him the chance.

“Did you go to college?”

“I went to Jackson. Community college.”

“Oh that’s nice.” She smiled whimsically. “My boyfriend went to Columbia. That’s across the street you know. From Barnard. I would walk there to see him and everyone was smoking. Sometimes he smoked too, just not around me, because he knew I didn’t like it much. But I knew he did because I could smell it on his clothes or taste it when he kissed me.”

The pinkness around her eyes was fading and Andy wondered if she’d had a performance that night. He forgot what he was supposed to be saying. She took it as liberty to continue.

“Sometimes I would hold my breath when I walked past them. Once I even took a cigarette out of a guy’s hand and threw it in the trash.” She smiled as she recalled this, but it faded quickly. “Eventually I just stopped going. He didn’t like that… particularly.” She paused, pursing her lips like she wanted to add something difficult to disclose but decided against it.

Andy didn’t like that additional ‘particularly.’ It sounded dangerous. Like she wasn’t telling how he’d really felt. Like the truth was much worse. “You should’ve left him then,” he said. Lately, he’d felt defensive of her a lot. Despite the fact that she tipped poorly and ate up a lot of his time that could be spent on better customers, he didn’t like to hear others complain about her. He could complain about her because he knew her, but no one else put up with her in the first place so who were they to judge?

This slip surprised him. He didn’t know her. He didn’t even know her name. She was just a customer. That sometimes drove him crazy. And that he sometimes cared about more than others.

She laughed. “Yeah, I should have. Now I’m stuck with him.”

Andy felt horrible. He’d just insulted her boyfriend, or possibly fiancée or husband. He needed to get back on track quickly. “Are you ready to order?” he asked abruptly.

 She held up her hand and picked up her bag, a little white leather one with brown straps. It reminded Andy of a horse saddle that might match some fancy English riding boots. She put a few dollars on the table and left.

***

            Christmas Eve had sneaked up on him. Had the café not been so unusually empty, he might have forgotten. The girl was there again, for the third night in a row, but with no one else there that slow winter night, he couldn’t be too annoyed. He brought her lemonade and she picked up her story where she had left off.

            “You know what he said to me?” she asked.

            Andy shook his head, trying to recall exactly what she’d been talking about. He noticed something new in her voice. The night before, she had spoken in even, measured tones, usually emotionless. Now she seemed to be losing that practiced control. The links holding her together were bending, breaking, fraying until only the thinnest splinters held her together.

“See, I was real worried about how I still hadn’t gotten to sing at all,” she was saying. “Just beat boxing. And he said I better stop worrying about it real quick or he’d get bored of me. He didn’t like hearing about it. And then he said I didn’t have any talent anyway so what was there to hope for? I didn’t stop worrying about it though, and I guess he didn’t get too bored because we live together.”

Andy heard church bells ringing on a nearby street. He glanced at the clock. One in the morning. It’d been Christmas for an hour and he hadn’t even realized. “Ah,” he said, not sure how to react. He’d tried real responses yesterday and had only managed to step on toes and poke at sensitive subjects. It seemed safer just to listen and nod.

The door chimed and Andy turned to see a nicely dressed couple holding hands at the doorway. He assumed they were coming from the Midnight Mass he’d just heard being let out with the bells. They were probably newlyweds too, all excited for their Christmas together. He was having his first Christmas with someone too. This bad tipping, story-telling blonde in the third booth from the door who he wanted to dislike but couldn’t because she was pretty and depressingly innocent. He hesitated for a moment, but left her to go seat the new couple, who were more likely to order, eat, tip, and leave than she was. They didn’t seem to realize the patrons usually sat themselves, so he took liberty in choosing them a table as far from the girl as possible, so that they wouldn’t wonder at his relationship to her. He needn’t have worried �" they were obviously wrapped up in each other.

When he returned, she sat back, resigned, sipping lemonade as if watching the waves break against a sandy shore on a hot summer day. He tried asking for her order. “I hate that I love him,” she admitted instead. “It’s been three years since I graduated and I still I don’t know how to get rid of him. And I’d like some chicken fingers.”

Not sure what to make of this initial confession, Andy left for the kitchen. When he returned, she had gone, leaving a twenty dollar bill on the table and beneath that, a playbill, opened to the cast list. He found her picture on it �" a sultry, black and white headshot. It said her name was Megan Coberly. She played a supporting character in some revival show he’d never heard of.

Andy looked up from the playbill and saw she hadn’t gone at all, but stood just outside under the awning. It sagged from the weight of the snow. Unrealistically, he worried it would break right over her.

She looked very sad out there, looking in at the booth she usually looked out from. Spurred by a sudden feeling of goodwill and holiday spirit, and against his more businesslike inclinations, he stepped outside, hugging himself against the bitter wind, and said, “Come inside, it’s warm.”

            She lifted her gaze to him. Andy reached for her hand, and led her back inside. He shuffled awkwardly by her table for a moment, not sure how to continue his impromptu charity work.

            “I’ll be right back,” he said, going to check on the couple he’d been neglecting. They only wanted dessert so he hurried to get them some, making sidelong glances at Megan to be sure she didn’t leave again before he got back.

            He grabbed the chicken fingers, fresh out of the oven and took them to her table. On yet another whim, Andy pulled out a chair at a nearby table and sat facing her. The couple across the way was feeding each other bits of cake from their own forks. “Have some,” she offered, pushing the chicken toward him.

            “Vegetarian,” he said, excusing himself.

            “Oh. Me too.”

            “Then why’d you…?”

            She shrugged. Andy, overwhelmed by the urge to help despite not knowing whether she needed it, decided to take a different approach. “So your name’s Megan.”

            She nodded. “Your name’s Andy.”

            “How’d you know?”

            “Nametag,” she explained.

            He smirked. “Oh. Right.”

She sighed, giving him a quizzical look. Her mouth twitched a few times.

            “He was wrong, you know,” Megan told him. “I’m on Broadway. You don’t get on Broadway without talent.” Somehow, her words managed to sound humble. She took a bite of her chicken. “I lied. I’m not a vegetarian.”

            “Neither am I. Just not supposed to eat the customer’s food.”

            Megan ignored this. “But it’s not all sparkles and fairy dust, being up there. All it’s done is wreck everything I knew about myself. It’s wrecked every relationship I ever had, and it’s wrecked everything I ever worked for, and I don’t even know who I am anymore. I feel like I’m just�"like I’m just floating in space and no one even knows that I’m still here. I feel like I’m just lost and lonely and stuck and I have no one to�"to tell anything to. Except you, Andy. I don’t even know you.”

            She paused, maybe expecting him to chime in and contradict this, but he didn’t. She was right. She didn’t know him. Not at all. He realized their relationship was entirely one-sided. Not once in the months of her coming in had he told her anything about himself. Not even his name. She’d found that out from the badge on his uniform.

            “But you’re the only one who listens. You’re the only one that ever asked me to come inside cause it’s cold out or who asked me what drink I wanted and if I’d like any food to go with it.”

            “That’s my�"“

            “I know that’s your job. I know it. But it still means something.” Her hands, which had been spread wide and pressed into her knees, slackened, and the passionate light went out of her eyes. “And it’s real nice,” she said softly. “It’s real nice, what you do.”

            Andy took in a breath and blew it out slowly. He’d just become overwhelmed with the feeling of melancholy success, like perhaps this had ended his New York orientation. This girl had reached out and handed him the diploma. Congratulations. You did it. But he didn’t feel happy.

Success didn’t always equal satisfaction. Andy had thought it did. He felt more unsatisfied than ever. He felt empty and hollow and confused. For all she had told him, he still had no idea what had happened to her and why she’d become what she’d become. He didn’t disbelieve her. But he didn’t understand either, and for some reason, he wanted to. Maybe it was something cheesy, like to better understand himself, or maybe it was because he couldn’t deny that, had he seen her on the street, and not over and over again at work, eating up more of his time than the food she ordered, he wouldn’t have questioned that burning attraction.

“You know someone told me once that everyone in this city needs a therapist.” She grimaced. He laughed a little, not sure if he should. “I didn’t believe it for a long time. I get it now though.”

She started smiling and it wasn’t a nice smile. Her mouth twisted and contorted, suiting her face oddly so that she looked almost malicious. “I’m so sick of smiling and prancing around on the stage every night,” Megan whispered. “So tired of being fake.” She laughed, the off-smile stretching back across her cheeks. “Like this stupid fake hair.”

She grew distant again, looking towards the window. Andy stood up tentatively and when she didn’t turn back to him, went to the table of the couple to give them their bill and clear their plates. The café closed in twenty minutes and Andy hoped, it officially being Christmas, to leave on time just this once. He wiped down the tables and pushed in chairs. Megan never looked away from the window.

When his shift was finished and everything cleaned he went back to her. “Let me walk you home.”

She smiled but shook her head. “I’m okay.” She stood up and started towards the door.

“Are you though?”

She stopped mid step, stood totally still. The whole room was silent except the humming of the fluorescent lights. She barely shook her head, so small a motion he could hardly register it except that her curls stirred around her face a little.

Then she turned around and kissed him full on the mouth.

She stepped back from him, this sort of sad frown on her face. “You know, that’s the first real thing I’ve done in I don’t know how long.” He gaped at her, unsure what had just happened. It seemed contradictory she would say this and yet the word “real” was so prevalent in her vocabulary, like an obsession with deciphering the actual from the pretend. It was an odd thing for someone whose profession was acting. He had a stupid urge to grin and pump his fist in the air. He’d just been kissed by a pretty girl, after all.

“You know, if you don’t want to be with him you could just tell him so,” he suggested, unwarrantedly hoping to be the replacement. She was odd, but he could get over that. Or at least he thought so in the afterglow of an unexpected kiss.

She smiled. “It’s not that easy.”

He couldn’t stop staring at her lips so he shut off the lights, leaving them both in the dark. He could see her shadow illuminated by the neon signs outside. Stepping around her carefully, he opened the door and propped it with his foot grabbing the key to lock up from his back pocket. Even the cooks had left by now, the kitchen having closed an hour ago. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

This time she nodded, just as imperceptibly, and stepped out in front of him. Andy locked the door, jiggled the doorknob to double check, and turned back to find her walking out to the middle of the street. He panicked for a split second before realizing no one was coming, and then walked out after her. Just as she reached the middle, however, the stoplights turned on both sides and the cars started accelerating towards them, early morning work traffic having already begun, even on Christmas Eve. She showed no sign of moving out of the way. Andy’s heart rate sped up but he didn’t move either. He stood next to her until the headlights illuminated them like spotlights and horns honked loudly. He thought she must feel right at home, bathed in light, the action emphasized by an orchestra of car horns. It was just like the theatre.

The traffic reached them and still they stood, the cold wind chilling Andy as cars missed them by inches, whizzing past on both sides. It was oddly intimate, once he got past the initial danger, to stand there between lanes of traffic. Surrounded and yet utterly alone except each other. A gap in the flow allowed him to grab her hand and pull her to the side of the road.

Standing in between two parallel parked cars, she leaned into his chest and laughed and laughed. “Your face.” She grinned, stumbling up the curb and towards the street corner. “I just wanted the rush.” It could have been the lateness �" or in actuality, the earliness �" of the hour, but Andy was really struggling to wrap his head around her motives. “You don’t have to walk me home.” She shrugged, still smiling, and tipped her head to one side. He wondered how she managed not to shiver.

“No. I will. I mean... it’s late. I want to make sure you get back alright.”

She just looked at him for a second and started walking. Rejection, he thought and decided it best not to follow. After a few feet, she turned over her shoulder. “Well aren’t you coming?” His heart lifted stupidly.

“Oh. Oh yeah. I am.”

***

            That spring, Andy sacrificed his toilet paper and grocery budget for the week on a nosebleed seat to her show. The funny thing was, he could hardly tell which one was her, and it had nothing to do with the distance. It was just that her persona was so changed on stage, her vivacity so much more apparent here than it had ever been in the café. After the show, she and some other minor characters and chorus members came out with collection buckets for the annual Broadway charity collection. He went out of his way to exit through the door she stood by, mechanically thanking those who gave donations or complimented her performance.

            “Megan,” he said, reaching her. “You’re really talented.”

            She made eye contact with him, and although her thank you was the same one she gave to everyone else, he saw this light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Sacrificing his metro card refill too, he dropped a few dollars into her bucket on his way out.

***

            He took her advice in getting a therapist. Walking home the night of her show, he had been overwhelmed by the sense of dread. Dread of falling into a place where he would hate his job, hate his choices. Dread of going through the motions and never recognizing himself within them.

“I just wish I knew what her natural hair color was,” he told the therapist. He laughed, but Andy hadn’t meant it as a joke. That’s when he understood her. Understood the way she’d talked and the way she’d acted. Things mattered in New York. Little things mattered. And they seemed trivial outside the mess inside your head, but you felt them weighing you down and so they mattered. Heads are heavy enough without all the weight we put in them, Andy thought. Heads are heavy enough.

 

Author's Note

This is something I wrote for class so it's gone through about thirty drafts and been turned in, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm 100% happy with. I'm never 100% happy. So there's always room for more critique.