BURGERSCOOT

The old man visited the coffee shop every day he practiced yoga in the morning, three to four times a week. The shop was only a block away from the studio, and the old man liked to treat himself after an hour of downward dogs, lunges, and various warrior postures. The old man also liked chatting with the youthful beauties on the other side of the long counter. As far as he thought, he wasn’t ogling; he was happily married, and these baristas were most likely too young for even his youngest son to date.

One barista named Emily liked the old man’s message T-shirts and, for once, knew that the image on one of them was not just any old guitar but Woody Guthrie’s famous “This machine kills fascists” guitar. Emily noticed the yoga mat slung over the old man’s shoulder and asked if he liked vinyasa. The old man chuckled and said he loved the idea of vinyasa, but after trying it a few times, he found it too challenging. He wanted to continue the conversation, but saw the line behind him and cut the chatter short.

Every time the old man walked into the joint, at least one of the baristas would greet him (and everybody else). The old man would at first smile and wave back on his way to the station, where he would place his order. But lately, he would scan the long counter to see if Emily was working that day. He always felt a tinge of disappointment when she wasn’t there and what could only be described as mild excitement, if those words belong together.

One morning, when it looked like Emily was not working, the old man walked up to an unattended register only to see Emily walking quickly from the back to greet him. After a greeting where the old man might have leaned into Emily’s name, he pulled back, knowing there was no one behind him and fewer customers than usual at the tables, and asked Emily where she practiced vinyasa. Emily enthusiastically told the old man where she practiced, and he remembered that it used to be a Bikram Yoga studio. Emily said, “It still is, it is now called ‘26&2.’”

“’26 & 2,’ what’s that, the old man asked, assuming the 26 was for a specific number of postures in a practice, but the real reason for the query was to keep Emily speaking with him. Emily demoed the opening sequence for the old man. (Yeah, it was that slow in the coffee shop.) The old man couldn’t remember the first posture, but he’ll never forget the second one: Crescent Moon. Standing straight up, Emily shot both her arms over her head, her hands meeting in a prayer pose, then she bent sideways one way, then the other, like a waxing crescent and a waning crescent moon. The old man saw nothing but underarm hair, and he loved it! Emily wasn’t trying to be provocative or sexy with the oldster. He hadn’t had an erotic thought go through his head in years, but suddenly, there was one more reason to visit this coffee shop.

Emily did this in total innocence because she obviously loved to talk yoga with people. Emily said something about what the 2 meant in 26&2. There were two breathing exercises, but the old man almost laughed out loud at the thought of him asking her, “Was one of them panting like a dog?” The old man felt instantly guilty when Emily said in closing, just before looking past the old man at new customers, that she was glad the old man was practicing yoga.

For weeks, the old man would visit the cafe multiple times a week, and whenever Emily was working at the long counter making pour-over coffee drinks, he made it a point to walk over to her and say hello and ask how she was doing. It always brightened his day to see Emily, and sometimes it seemed she was happy to see the old man. Other times, he could tell she was very busy, so he just said a brief hi or kept quiet, made eye contact, and waved. Sometimes she told him she was working on his drink so he would linger to see if she had a moment to chat, but he always left it up to her to initiate the chat. He didn’t want to come off as some old fart in need of attention.

One day, when the old man asked how Emily was, she truthfully said: “Okay, but I’m not looking forward to talking to my roommate about how messy she is in our shared spaces.” Maybe the old man was foolish, but he felt special that she shared this information with him. He wanted to share his own experience with a messy roommate. He even loaded up one of the Mike Penneno stories, the stinking fish remains in the electric fryer, but the old man knew Emily had other orders to work on, so he kept it brief, but he wished he could speak with her longer.

The old man didn’t see Emily the next couple of times he came in, and he missed her. All the women and a couple of guys who worked there were very pleasant, but none of them was Emily. He missed her. She was not as beautiful as the manager or Homa, the Persian/American woman, who should get a raise every time someone made fun of her beautiful name or cracked some Iranian joke, but Emily reminded the old man of what was in his rearview mirror: youth, possibilities, a lust for life, and an inner light that made the old man wonder what was worse seeing her and missing his youth or not seeing Emily at all.

Three weeks later, the old man was near the door where the challenging landfill/compost/recycle bins are. The old man probably took too long to peruse the signs showing what trash goes where when Emily walked through the front door, head down, her handbag over her shoulder. The old man warmly greeted Emily with a hello and said he missed her. The “miss you” part was said in a quasi-ironic tone, so he didn’t sound creepy, even though he did, indeed, miss her.

Emily quickly stepped into his space and hugged him. The old man felt a jolt of warmth and Emily’s wonderful scent. The old man also knew how awkward it would be for Emily in about two seconds. Emily backed up abruptly, her head down. Before she could apologize or run to the back of the counter, the old man asked if she had worked things out with her roommate. She replied, clearly upset. “She left. God damn it, I liked her even if she was a slob, now I have to get someone else. The old man, being the schmuck that he is, wanted to come back with a few hundred dollars to cover half the rent for a month, but thought better of it.

Instead, he nodded, as if this were the sort of thing one could nod at usefully. Emily disappeared to the back room, and the old man stepped outside with his yoga mat under his arm. For a moment, he stood on the sidewalk, looking back through the window at the long counter and the bright young people moving behind it. Then he turned toward home, trying not to mistake being seen for being needed.