It had taken months to arrange. In May they started talking. We should have lunch, they said. But time after time, their schedules didn’t mesh. So May gave way to June. And June gave way to summer. And then summer ended and fall arrived and still they had not had lunch.
How about breakfast, one of them suggested. And like that, they found a day. Amazing how empty calendars are at 7:00 in the morning.
When I drove up, Gregg was standing inside the restaurant studying the menu beside a case of pastries, their presence seemingly having no effect on him. Steve was waiting outside on the patio in the early morning darkness and held out a hand as I walked up from the parking lot.
We took trays and gazed at quiches and gallettes. Gregg ordered an omelette. I ordered a standard egg and bacon breakfast. Steve got a quiche. And we found a table in the middle of the place.
As we sat there, the sun rose. Golden light slanted in thru the eastern windows and lit our faces. A shadow of Steve’s head nodded on the far wall platonically echoing every word he said. We talked about work. We talked about not work. Steve and I held giant cups of coffee in our hands.
And when our time was up, when it was time for us to go to work, we said to each other, We need to do this again. And we committed to not taking so long to make it happen.