A Love Story

A cough behind her alerted her to her surroundings at the cafe and the book she was reading ceased to be so engrossing.
She turned around to see a man, a slight man staring at her from the table next to hers. She smiled and turned back to her book but the coughing started up again and she indignantly turned around again. She raised her eyebrow in question and he smiled back at her, an awkward pause ensued and she was about to turn back again when he opened his mouth and said, “perhaps I could sit with you?”
Perhaps he could but it wasn’t often that she got attention from the opposite sex and she opened her mouth in shock and said nothing. Taking her silence for acquiescence he picked up his back pack and came to sit opposite her at her table. He smiled awkwardly and placed his cup and saucer nervously on the table.
Now that he had finally sat himself in front of her, she didn’t know what was to happen.
“What are you reading?” he said as a way to start some dialogue.
As reply she placed the book in front of him and expected him to comment on the book but he said nothing. Maybe it wasn’t his type of book.
She pulled the book back in front of her and placed her hands over it. He coughed nervously again like before and cast a furtive look out at the street and the occupants of that space. Finally she felt the embarrassment of little to no talk to hard to bear that she said
“Do you come here often?”
“ah, she speaks” he laughed feebly at his own attempt at joviality and seeing no signal from her of humour he straightened his face and said “no not often. I’ve been visiting the cafes in each area and trying to decide who really does have the best coffee. I don’t really like coffee, it leaves a funny taste in my mouth but it seems to be quite popular with people and I thought if I tried coffee from different places I might be able to understand the enjoyment people have with it…” he petered out, like somebody who thinks that they’re the only one whose interested in the subject. He lifted his hand to his mouth and coughed again. It wasn’t really a cough; it was more of a throat clearing, with a wet sound of mucous at the back of the mouth.
Silence. A car drives past and they both look up to watch it go by.
“I like tea.” She said.
He nodded and said “Tea is by far the superior drink.”
This last comment seemed to make the most impact of all because she smiled and looked at him appreciatively. This also spurred the conversation further onto who they each thought drank tea or coffee in the café, the street and finally moved onto political leaders. They both agreed that most of the world’s tyrants were coffee drinkers, but disagreed on Hitler’s drink of choice. She seemed to think that he was a tea drinker because he was a tee-totaller and coffee would probably be included in the list of contraband for a tee-totaller. He said that Hitler did drink coffee because he needed the energy to be so ruthless. After much discussion, some of it quite heated and drew attention from people around them (considering that the name Hitler was thrown about quite loudly), they finally agreed that maybe he was a sometimes coffee drinker, but neither seemed happy with this conclusion.
By whatever means they managed to arrange to meet again at the same place the next day and parted ways by nervously shaking hands. She noticed that’s his hands were cold and clammy, she thought this was something to note as it might say something about his character. She didn’t know what though, except that maybe he needed to wash his hands and heat them in front of the fire.