Waiter

The waiter balanced the plates and the whole restaurant watched. Lucy thought him so handsome, she didn’t even have the energy available to nudge her friend – so struck by his dark eyes and hair and, above all, the completeness of his focus on the plates. The dining room held its breath, head after head had looked up from meals and conversation and finally the waiter yelled, “I’ve got it!” at a time when it seemed furthest from the truth. Someone dropped a fork and the clatter caused a collected gasp and shiver from the room. The handsome waiter sweat visibly. The plates wobbled faintly and reset themselves. The waiter yelled again, “I’ve got it!” and Lucy couldn’t help herself… a giggle bubbled out. There was a quiet shift in the waiter, “Oh no,” he said on a light exhale and everyone stared as he started to laugh. A big, jolly, belly laugh that shook the plates. And there, in a moment of suspension and tension and miracles, he and Lucy laughed and laughed amongst a sea of open mouths and frozen stances.

Joe

Joe crumpled his last pack of smokes. It had been a long time since he smoked so much that it caused a pinch in his throat. He leaned into it- like someone who loves the moment before they start to cry. The cement steps out of the bar were overwhelming and he fell back against the wall. The bartender stared, paused in the middle of drying a shot glass. Joe made his way up and after the third stair, he sunk to his hands and knees. One sticky stair at a time he climbed, remembering the times his quiet brother would follow him  everywhere – up and down stairs, around corners, lying upside down for whole afternoons, saying nothing and knowing a comfort that existed nowhere else for them except in that suspended place between their reaching fingertips.