Jessica Flying, Dating

One of the gifts Jessica gave herself was a first-class seat.  She could afford it, and the economy seats were painful for her sluggishly circulated lankiness.  The man in the next seat kept glancing over, ostensibly looking out the window farthest from him.  He asked a lot of questions he wasn’t interested in the answers to.  Nonetheless she was returning home, a place she loved and didn’t grow up in, from her wonderful sister’s wedding, and he always liked the city that was her home and sometimes stopped there on his commute.  They frequented the same bakery but never at the same time.  She liked it there.  He, unfortunately, believed her.  Or maybe not; maybe that he also liked it there meant...

It was a great bakery--the smell, the fresh pastries, the coffee that one drank.  She couldn’t talk about her commute, the traffic, the rain, the red brake lights, her agitation.  Or at least not for long.  His commute, on the other hand, being relatively free of apparent stigma, was the subject of much interest.  He seemed to enjoy his life: this was both worrisome and cause for optimism.  Optimism for what?  She didn’t want anything from him, unless he didn’t want anything from her, in which case an unacknowledged mutual recognition would be sufficient.  It would be more than sufficient, it would be everything.

They talked about music, shows, their living arrangements, their families, their habits: a fog of attachments filled the sunny table between them and they glimpsed dark, indeterminate shapes drifting in and out.