Adam Hutchinson's Blog, page 4

Cold Tea

The tea was already turning cold when Jackson entered his apartment, dropping his messenger bag on the floor where it could slump against the wall. On the front of the bag was a bumper sticker promoting a pro-life activist group. Next to it was one for marriage equality, right under a sticker for the National Rifle Association. Past the entryway and through the living room, Jackson’s girlfriend sat at the kitchen table. Linda caressed the string of an Earl Grey teabag that sat, sopping wet, at the bottom of an empty, square mug. Waiting patiently at the seat across from her, an identical mug was still full of over-steeped tea.

If he had known she was coming over today, he would have rushed back sooner. Then again, today was an important day at work, and there was a reason he was home later than usual. He had some exciting news to tell her.

“We didn’t see each other all weekend,” she said as he bounced to the kitchen. “I thought I would stop by.”

Jackson removed the teabag and tossed it in the trash can next to the counter a few feet away. He took a sip, and pursed his lips. The lukewarm tea was bitter and left his mouth feeling chapped after he swallowed. The flavor was different too, but he couldn’t quite tell what was off.

“This isn’t our usual Earl Grey,” he said. “Is this from that one place with the—?”

“The Renaissance paintings on the walls.”

“That was expensive tea.”

She glanced at her watch, and Jackson took another sip, forcing himself not to purse his lips this time. He knew how far away that tea shop was, the one they had visited last month, and he remembered the price of the Earl Grey the both fell in love with. Linda was staring at her empty mug, head tilted to the right. He knew she only avoided eye contact when something was bothering her, but maybe his exciting news would cheer her up.

“You remember that job I was telling you about?” he began, leaning his elbows against the table. “I got it. My boss put me on the special project team. I mean, it’ll be a lot more stress, but there’s a bonus that comes with it and it’s a really great opportunity, a good way to stand out for advancement in the company.”

“I thought you didn’t want—”

“I’m just saying it’s a good opportunity.”

Linda drummed her fingers on the handle of her mug and swallowed before asking, “You’re still coming to dinner this Friday, right?”

“Oh.”

Jackson glanced at the blue post-it note on the refrigerator: Friday at Café Bonhomie, 7:30. He took another sip of the tea and wondered if he should microwave it, but that would draw attention to the fact that he was late and wasted a perfectly good serving of expensive tea.

“I can’t believe you went back and bought some,” he said. His voice was airy, and he caught himself staring at his own mug, avoiding eye contact.

“We both enjoyed it. I wanted to surprise you.”

Jackson never used to drink tea before he met Linda, but when he saw how passionate she could be about something as simple as hot, infused water, he converted. She took him to all of her favorite tea shops and recommended all of her favorite flavors; she was especially fond of bergamot. He had similar tastes. When their relationship strengthened, they tried new tea shops together, sometimes driving several towns away, but during the week, they drank tea at each other’s apartments, more often at his than hers.  

“Are you cancelling dinner again?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to meet your parents. Of course I do. Well it’s just, with this new job, I might have to work late on Fridays.”

“We can reschedule.”

Jackson traced his finger counterclockwise around the rim of his mug. Linda rose from the table and gave him an awkward hug around the shoulders from behind the chair before moving on to the kitchen where she threw the teabag away, washed out the mug, and placed it in the dishwasher.

“I thought you were going to ask your boss to switch divisions,” she said. “Wasn’t there an opening in marketing?”

He hesitated. “There still is.”

“Well?”

“This new opportunity came up. It’s a good step forward. Maybe this is what I should be doing in the company.”

“You always said you wanted to do marketing.”

“I mean, I don’t really know what I want. Maybe I was just interested in marketing because I liked the idea of it, and maybe sales is really where I should be. Or maybe you’re right.” Jackson gripped his mug with both hands and bounced his leg up and down under the table nervously. “Maybe this is just the easy path. But how will I know unless I try? The opportunity is already here. But … it’s just… .”

With a heavy sigh, Jackson brought the mug down too forcefully on the table and at the wrong angle, so it went sliding off the edge. The mug shattered; tea spilled everywhere, forming into a dark pool on the wooden floor. He knelt down with a fistful of napkins that did nothing more than float on top of the puddle as he picked up the pieces of the mug, but Linda quickly brought over a roll of paper towels, tearing off a long sheet to begin wiping.

He kept apologizing over and over, but she didn’t understand. She apologized too.

“You can make your own life decisions.”

“This tea was too expensive. You shouldn’t have bought it.”

She thought they could just go back to the tea shop and buy more. The soaking paper towels clumped into a mound, and she tore off more sheets. It didn’t matter if the tea was expensive; they could afford more if they knew they were going to enjoy it together. The mound of used paper towels was leaving a dark stain on the floor, so Jackson grabbed a trash bag. The tea shop was a stretch of a drive, but there would be plenty of time in a few weeks, once his new work project settled down a bit. Jackson slammed his hand on the ground and took a deep breath.

“I don’t like tea.”

Linda stopped cleaning the mess. They looked at each other, and Jackson tried as delicately yet firmly as possible to communicate with his eyes that there was more than tea that he didn’t like. She sunk to the ground.

“Coffee?” she asked weakly.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I like, but I don’t think it’s tea. I’m sorry, but I can’t go back to that tea shop with you. And I’m sorry I’ve wasted all this tea. I did enjoy it while I had it, I promise.”

“I don’t think I understand. You told me you loved tea.”

“I guess I was just pretending to know what I want, just to have something to want.”

Her eyebrows scrunched together. “But if you don’t know what you want—”

“I’m trying to take every opportunity,” he said. “I’ll figure out what I don’t want, and eventually I’ll find what I want.”

They stared at each other for several minutes, sitting in the cold pool of tea. Finally, Linda picked herself up from the floor, took the blue post-it note from the fridge, and crumpled it into a ball. She placed her hand on Jackson’s shoulder and said softly, “Lunch tomorrow. Let’s get to know each other.”

He nodded, and she left the apartment without turning around like usual to wave goodbye or performing her routine “I miss you already” joke. She closed the door gently behind her. Jackson sauntered to the entryway and tore the bumper stickers off his messenger bag, one by one. The discolored patches left behind on the fabric didn’t bother him, however, for he knew that, before long, other stickers would take their places. Then, ripping off another long sheet of paper towels, Jackson knelt down in the pool of tea and continued to soak up the cold mess.

"Hard decisions are hard to decide, but they make you feel better after … kind of."

“Hard decisions are hard to decide, but they make you feel better after … kind of.”

The wedding scene from The Fall (aka one of my new favorite...

The wedding scene from The Fall (aka one of my new favorite movies).

"May the Fourth be with you."-James Madison

"May the Fourth be with you."

-James Madison

“May the Fourth be with you.”-James Madison

“May the Fourth be with you.”

-James Madison

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“Mr. Verloc, getting off the sofa with ponderous reluctance, opened the door leading into the...

“Mr. Verloc, getting off the sofa with ponderous reluctance, opened the door leading into the kitchen to get more air, and thus disclosed the innocent Stevie, seated very good and quiet at a deal table, drawing circles, circles, circles; innumerable circles, concentric, eccentric; a coruscating whirl of circles that by their tangled multitude of repeated curves, uniformity of form, and confusion of intersecting lines suggested a rendering of cosmic chaos, the symbolism of a mad art attempting the inconceivable.”

-Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent

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