The Last Time We Met

2

My head nodded without my permission. It seemed like a reasonable request. I had found someone with a similar birthmark, and now we were going on a date. A date? It wasn't a date. Cedric was just a random person I had met at an antiques store. A handsome person. I had never come out as anything, but neither I had affirmed that I was straight. I had never dated. I had considered that I might be asexual.

"Cool," Cedric said, and pulled me toward the door, in a way that was definitely not straight. I trailed along behind him. His hand was warm and sure, and when we lost contact in pushing our way out into the late September heat, I missed it.

Inside my chest my heart felt too big, slamming up against my ribcage. I puzzled over this foreign feeling. I had never felt this way about anyone, not even the girls I pretended to have crushes on at school so Eli didn't think I was a total weirdo.

Before I could think too much on it, Cedric veered into a dingy-looking corner restaurant with a worn HELP WANTED sign in the window. This was so unlike the hipster-type café I was expecting that he had to stop and hold the door for me while I tripped over my astonishment.

"I didn't even know this was here," I said by way of apology. I'd been going to the co-op at least twice a month for the past year, and Nancy's Diner hadn't registered on my radar, not one time.

"Hidden gem," Cedric said. He walked to a booth and slid into one of the vinyl seats. I took the one across from him. "Order one cup of coffee, and they'll give you free refills."

"Sounds like you've spent a lot of time here," I ventured.

A server came over wearing jeans and a plain white t-shirt, her dark hair tossed up in a messy bun. "You again," she said to Cedric.

He shrugged. "Your charming demeanor keeps me coming back for more."

"Coffee?" She didn't even smile.

"Two coffees," Cedric corrected, grinning at me. "And some of that sweet cherry pie."

The server gave him a long steady look. She left without saying anything further.

"I guess you're a regular," was all I could think of to say.

"It's convenient, and they leave me alone. I like to buy cassettes and sit here and listen to them while I write. You can't do that at Starbucks. Their ambient music is fucking awful."

I shifted in my seat. "I haven't spent that much time at Starbucks."

"What kind of music are you into?" Cedric asked. He unclicked a cassette Walkman from his belt and set it on the table. I hadn't even noticed it under his bright yellow shirt.

"Um, I don't know." Eli had always made fun of my music, my records.

"Come on. Everyone likes music. What's your type?"

Those steel-gray eyes bored into me. I was afraid to look at them, to feel my stomach dropping out like it had back at the co-op. "Um, I have a lot of records..."

"Well, that narrows it down to anything before the nineties."

I cleared my throat and sat back a little, looking down at my outfit. I looked boring, with my jeans and my tucked-in white t-shirt and my suspenders. "I like, um, rag-time bands, and classical, I guess. And jazz."

"Jazz... like Thelonius Monk?" Cedric was squinting at me.

"That's a little after my time," I said without thinking. "More like Al Jolson? And Marion Harris. Louis Armstrong. Stuff like that."

"After your time."

I winced at my words repeated back, and hazarded a glance up at him. While his mouth held more of a smirk, his eyes crinkled. Like I amused him, in a good way. I tried to smile back at him.

The server came back with two mugs and a pot of coffee. She poured it without a word and reached into her apron for a fistful of creamers, which she dropped on the table before leaving.

I waited to see what Cedric would do. His appearance had said to me hipster, while this diner told me his enjoyment of cassette tapes wasn't an affectation. Would he take his coffee black, or would he use the creamers? I assumed the server knew him well enough that he did often use creamer, but would he prefer the plain creamer or the flavored?

He surprised me by going for the glass container of sugar and upending it into his mug. He stirred, then pawed through the creamers for a single French vanilla. "She must like you," he commented. "She never leaves this many for me. Like she thinks if I don't have any creamer I'll leave instead of asking for more."

"Maybe she's just being nice." I hunted through and found three plain creamers, which I lined up in front of my mug before methodically peeling off the tops and adding them to my coffee.

"Ally is never being nice," Cedric laughed. He stirred his coffee, watching me measure out a spoonful of sugar. "You're real particular."

I set my spoon on my napkin, but didn't lift my mug right away. My hands were trembling a bit and I clenched them in my lap. I had never gone on a date. I didn't know what to do. This wasn't really a date, though. I tried to calm myself down.

"I just like things a certain way," I said, when the silence told me he was waiting for a response.

"This is awkward, isn't it? I made things awkward." Cedric slumped back and sipped his coffee. "I just... Okay, let's talk about why I dragged you here. Your birthmark."

Reflexively my hand reached up to cover what was exposed beneath the sleeve of my t-shirt.

"I know, right? People always make a comment. I actually thought about having a tattoo to cover mine up." Cedric pulled his sleeve up to fully reveal his. "I thought, like, a star. It looks kinda like a star, right?"

"I used to call mine a tattoo," I whispered.

Slowly, Cedric lifted his gaze to meet mine. Eye contact had never been something I was good at. I tended to avoid it, even with people I knew well. Cedric's eyes were an unflinching bluish gray. The color was so unusual. With his purple hair, they didn't call attention to themselves. Yet I couldn't look away.

"I feel like I know you from somewhere," Cedric mused. "I saw you doing whatever you were doing and—what was it you were doing? Touching things with your eyes closed. Why were you doing that?"

I felt the same way as Cedric, that I knew him from somewhere. And everything in my gut was telling me that I knew him in a past life. I wished I could remember more than owning a dog named Jocky or having a tattoo. I wished my mom was the kind of person I could ask about stuff I might have said as a little kid.

Eli liked to joke how getting me to talk about anything was like having to dig through concrete. Telling Eli about the past lives thing hadn't been easy. What would a perfect stranger think of it?

If Cedric was connected to a past life, though, maybe telling him would be a good thing.

"I got this old photograph from that store a few weeks ago. I guess... I was trying to find something else that might be connected to it." My throat felt tight from not saying the thing I wanted to say. "Something else that makes me feel the same way as the photograph does."

Cedric's expression didn't change, but he nodded slowly. "You don't seem like the kind of person who goes in for auras and all that psychic shit."

"I don't, really." I offered up a half-smile. Like, silly me. A swig of coffee did not help wash out the taste of my disappointment in myself.

With a thoughtful breath, Cedric leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "I think I'd like to see this photograph."

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Where's your favorite place to grab a coffee (or your drink of choice)?