The Season
Brooke used to take her lunches away from the club. I never knew where, until I saw her coming across the street one afternoon with her dishes, heels clicking on the pavement. "Did you eat in the cemetery?" "Uh-huh." I smiled and said it was a good idea. She was the dining room hostess, meaning she had to stand at a lectern most of the day -- taking calls, greeting members, escorting them to their tables, all while conducting herself with a certain sense of decorum and restraint. She was good at it. But here, there was a quiet expression of her unique sense of freedom, a momentary brushing-aside of the club's confinement. A subtle hint of someone else in there. I admired that.
I started doing it, too, every now and then. Abandoning the stuffy upstairs break room and slipping out the back door with my lunch, up the steps between the hedges and the blooming flowers, across the street, up a few more steps and across the upper parking lot, on the other side of which sat a small, modest cemetery, shaded by tall trees and almost completely out of view from the street. It wasn't that I was trying to avoid my coworkers (we were like family that summer), but here in the summer air, among the headstones and the bodies at rest, among the tree trunks, the swaying, shushing branches and the shifting patches of golden light, I could breath differently.
When we started seeing each other, we tried to keep our relationship a secret from the people we worked with, with only moderate success. One of the things that gave us away in the end was that we took our lunches together, leaving for the cemetery or a short drive to a good picnic spot. Sarah Green (not Sarah Mayko), saw us coming back once.
"Do you two eat in the cemetery?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Why? Don't you think it's kind of weird?"
"Why would it be weird?"
"Because? There are dead people?" She lifted an eyebrow.
"So?"
"Why do you eat there?" she asked.
"We like it," I said.
"There are trees," Brooke said.
"And grass," I said.
"Fresh air."
"Yeah, it's really nice out there."
Sarah shook her head. "Weird."
We kept taking our lunches outside, until we managed to really piss off Sarah (who'd recently become the lead server) with an incident involving Play-Doh and some minor insubordination. She gave us away to our bosses, who didn't care that we were together but told us that we had to stop leaving the club for lunch.
We continued to use the cemetery as a meeting place after work. It does seem strange, now that I think about it, that we were so drawn to the place. Anyway, I'd go lay in the grass, and I'd wait for her there.
...
I started doing it, too, every now and then. Abandoning the stuffy upstairs break room and slipping out the back door with my lunch, up the steps between the hedges and the blooming flowers, across the street, up a few more steps and across the upper parking lot, on the other side of which sat a small, modest cemetery, shaded by tall trees and almost completely out of view from the street. It wasn't that I was trying to avoid my coworkers (we were like family that summer), but here in the summer air, among the headstones and the bodies at rest, among the tree trunks, the swaying, shushing branches and the shifting patches of golden light, I could breath differently.
When we started seeing each other, we tried to keep our relationship a secret from the people we worked with, with only moderate success. One of the things that gave us away in the end was that we took our lunches together, leaving for the cemetery or a short drive to a good picnic spot. Sarah Green (not Sarah Mayko), saw us coming back once.
"Do you two eat in the cemetery?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Why? Don't you think it's kind of weird?"
"Why would it be weird?"
"Because? There are dead people?" She lifted an eyebrow.
"So?"
"Why do you eat there?" she asked.
"We like it," I said.
"There are trees," Brooke said.
"And grass," I said.
"Fresh air."
"Yeah, it's really nice out there."
Sarah shook her head. "Weird."
We kept taking our lunches outside, until we managed to really piss off Sarah (who'd recently become the lead server) with an incident involving Play-Doh and some minor insubordination. She gave us away to our bosses, who didn't care that we were together but told us that we had to stop leaving the club for lunch.
We continued to use the cemetery as a meeting place after work. It does seem strange, now that I think about it, that we were so drawn to the place. Anyway, I'd go lay in the grass, and I'd wait for her there.
...