Lambda Literary is proud to partner with NEHS to honor the best creative writing by NEHS student members representing or celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community. The Lambda Ampersand Award for LGBTQIA+ Writing acknowledges the many years LGBTQIA+ voices have been overlooked or silenced, especially in school settings. NEHS proudly champions and showcases the incredible talents and stories of LGBTQIA+ NEHS student members and allies. This award is a celebration of the diverse LGBTQIA+ voices that have too often been ignored or unheard, and brings their stories to the forefront.
The Saint Clarice Café is a deserted café, hidden from the main road; only someone who has been here before would know how to find it.
Every day was the same routine. I clocked in, cleaned the kitchen, dealt with an unfortunate number of hungry people who couldn’t be bothered to say “please” and “thank you,” and then I went home. Every day was the same day.
That was until she arrived. The woman with the red coat.
She came in everyday at the same time. She sat down in the same booth, at the far corner, the one hidden in the shadows and away from the tall glass windows.
She ordered black coffee with a pinch of sugar. Every single time I asked her, “Do you want something else with your coffee?” and every time she gave the same answer: “No, thank you, I just ate.”
She never spoke, never smiled; she just sat and stared at the empty chair in front of her.
An hour—that’s how long she stayed. This morning is no different.
At a quarter past eight, the door at the Saint Clarice Café gave a gentle chime. A woman in a ruby coat stepped inside. She neither smiled nor waved as she passed several tables, making her way to the same booth…the one from the day before and the one before that.
I approached her while smiling, but she would only stare blankly at me.
“What can I get you?”
“A black coffee with a pinch of sugar, please.”
Later, as I arrived with her coffee, I noticed a picture on the table of a woman with blonde hair and hazel eyes smiling at the camera; she looked to be in her early twenties. The woman in the red coat didn’t notice me. I took note of her eyes; they looked distant, as if trapped in another lifetime. She is also young, maybe in her early to mid-twenties.
I placed the coffee in front of her, but she ignored me. It was as if staring off into the distance was her curse. She couldn’t keep her eyes away from the chair, not even when a man stumbled and dropped his coffee. Not when an older woman laughed at her husband’s antics, and not when three teenagers entered the café loudly discussing their coffee orders.
She just stares and stares.
My coworkers can’t understand my fascination with this woman; they think she is just a lady with issues, but she seems like so much more. I often find myself thinking of who she could be or who she once was. A woman with passion and love for art, who lost everything after her studio burned? A singer who lost her voice, or a writer whose manuscript was stolen by a prominent thief? She could be everyone and no one.
She is the red woman and yet she resembles a blank piece of paper. Or at least I remember she used to. One morning she appeared at a quarter past eight wearing nothing but a blue sweater and a plaid skirt; no coat this time. I brought her coffee, like every morning, but this time it was not the red woman that greeted me. I stared and stared and, for the first time since I met her, she addressed me, not as her server, but as a human, a companion in life. She smiled and said, “What is love but a life worth living?”
I was so shocked that I couldn’t say anything back. I simply stared and, to my surprise, for the first time in months she smiled, but for some reason I knew she wasn’t smiling at me.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asked me.
“No… no, I have not.”
She let out a quiet breath and turned back towards the chair in front of her. “How tragic. For a life without love is simply existing.” I stared at her, amazed by her, by the contrast in her eyes and her words.
“Is existing not good enough?”
Her eyes shone with pity, as if what I had just said was the stupidest thing she had ever heard.
“Existing is peaceful…living is everything but.” She pulled her wallet out. “And yet it’s the only thing that ever feels real.”
She stood up.
“Thank you for the coffee.”
Before I could say anything more, she walked towards the door and the soft chime followed her out.
For the next couple of weeks I waited for her to come in, but she never did.
On Tuesday, August 18, 1981, the familiar chime was heard again, but this time it wasn’t the red woman but a woman with golden hair and piercing eyes. She was wearing a navy-blue coat and was carrying a bouquet of flowers. I watched her walk to the back of the café, to the booth farthest away from the windows and sit in the chair opposite where the red woman used to sit.
“What can I get you?” I asked, smiling at the woman.
She smiled back and, without missing a beat, she said, “A black coffee with a pinch of sugar, please.”
I nodded and turned to get her coffee, my hand unsteady for a reason I couldn’t explain. When I returned, she hadn’t touched anything at the table. Not the menu. Not the sugar.
“She used to sit here, didn’t she?” she asked softly.
I froze. I knew who she was talking about.
“…Yes.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“She was always early,” she said. “I was always late.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
She brought the coffee to her lips and almost as if she was whispering to herself, she said, “I hope she stopped waiting.”
I turned around and walked back to the counter. The blonde woman stared and stared at the empty space in front of her. And I stared at her.
Once her cup was empty, she stood up, dropped the flowers on the table, and left without looking back.
I didn’t move the flowers. I couldn’t, not when I knew that someday the red woman would be back.
And for once, she wouldn’t be the one waiting.
