Look At The Time

A Short Story

A woman sits alone at her kitchen table, sipping her morning coffee. She stares out the window, looks up at the sky. No clouds. Atypical for San Francisco summer.

She sighs. The chair groans as she rises, and hardwood creeks beneath her feet. She starts to head for the front door, but in an abrupt about-face, plops down on the couch. The cushion sags beneath her weight. A loose spring gives a soft squeak.

She glances at the coffee table, picks up a watch, and examines it: The straps are a tanned leather-like material. The bezel and crown are tinted gold. Or is it copper? Beneath the crystal, the clock is black, with gold lines in place of numbers. It’s the kind of watch that is more used as an accessory than for practical purposes.

She starts to stroke it, gently, with the back of her thumb. She closes her eyes.

Then she clutches the watch tight. Her knuckles go white and pink before she chucks it across the room. The watch skids across the floor and crashes into a wall.

Silence sweeps her home once more. She makes a half-hearted effort to rise, but stops, again. She flops, rolls over, and falls back asleep.

After some time, she wakes up. She begins patting herself down, searching herself. She starts frantically tearing apart the couch. Then she remembers the events that preceded her impromptu mid-morning nap. She scans the floor and lets out a sigh of relief upon recovering the watch.

She examines it, runs her thumb across the glass, searching for damage. There appears to be none. For an instant, there is a shadow of a smile across her face. She places the watch on the coffee table with care, as if it could shatter with the faintest hint of neglect.

There’s a knock.

She furrows her brow, and wonders aloud, “Huh.”

She heads to the door. Opens it.

“Raisa!” she squeaks. Her jaw drops. “What are you doing here?”

“Delilah,” Raisa grinned. “Surprise!” she adds. She fans out her arms as if to show she’s really here.

The two women tackle one another in an attempted bear hug, and somehow end up on the floor, laughing like school girls.

“So typical of us,” Raisa smirks. She gets up, dusts off her jeans, and extends a hand to Delilah, who accepts her help.

“I thought you weren’t visiting until Christmas.”

“I know, I know. I still am. It’s a long story. Well, not really. I just decided I was homesick,” she explains with a shrug.

They fall into another long embrace.

“I missed you, Delilah,” says Raisa.

“I missed you too,” Delilah coos. Raisa’s perfume floods her nose, and her face grows hot.

They pull away from one another.

“How long are you back?”

“Just a couple of weeks.”

Delilah rebuffs with an eyebrow raise, “The last time you told me you were leaving for a few weeks, you left the country, started a new life, and none of us saw you for a year.”

Raisa laughs. With a wave of her hand she explains, “I know, but not this time. Since I’m in grad school now I have to actually plan to go back there. Believe it or not, I booked a return flight for the first time in my life.”

Delilah gasps, feigning a pearl clutch, “Lookatchu. Actually making a commitment. Is this growth?”

Raisa laughs again. “I think it just means I have some direction.”

Delilah chuckles in response. A pause follows.

“Sorry to just drop by like this. I just flew in yesterday, and now my parents are at work. I wanted to call, but I wanted to surprise you more. Is now a good time? We can always catch up later,” she says, craning her neck to get a better view of the apartment.

“No, no, no, now’s a great time,” she says, holding the door open wider. “Make yourself at home. I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

“Actually I drink tea now,” Raisa explains, sitting at the kitchen table.

“Oh really. Why the change?” Delilah asks. She rifles through the cabinets, gathering tea, coffee, honey, and other fixings. “Green tea okay?”

“Mhmm,” Raisa nods. “And Dude, you have no idea how cracked out I was during finals from too much coffee. My heart was racing. I felt like I was on coke.”

“Raisa you’ve never done coke,” Delilah added, shaking her head with an affectionate smirk.

“Uhm yes, I have!” Raisa protests, placing her hands on her hips.

“If you count putting it on your gums,” Delilah whispers beneath her breath.

The pair spend some time going back and forth on “remember whens.” Like that one spring break, they went to Cabo. Delilah insists they were this close to being taken, but Raisa disagrees. Or that even crazier trip in Tel Aviv. The crushes. The sneaking out. Those summers at sleep-away camp. They seem to reminisce on all the general debauchery of their youth. (Incidentally, Raisa uses this time to present evidence that she has in fact done cocaine, twice.) They then play catch up, going back and forth on where they’ve been, what they’ve each been working on, how their respective people are, and so on. Their mugs grow colder and emptier. Eventually, the pair decides to move into the living room.

Raisa sits on the couch first. Delilah follows. At first, she sits near the middle of the couch, close to Raisa, but she adjusts herself, sliding to the other end, as does Raisa. Still, there are only inches between them.

Raisa searches the room and stumbles across the watch on the coffee table.

“Oh my god,” Raisa gasps, picking up the watch, “I can’t believe you still have this.” She gives Delilah a playful shove on the shoulder.

Delilah looks taken aback, but she recovers fast enough. “Oh, you know, I’m terrible with throwing away junk. I was going through some old things this morning and came across it. I can’t believe you remember it.”

“Of course I do! This petty theft solidified our friendship,” she insists.

Perhaps, it was a trick of the light, but Delilah could have sworn the watch sparkled.

“You were going to throw it out?” Raisa frowns, handing the watch to Delilah.

Delilah takes the watch, fidgets with it, and responds, “Yeah, I mean, I dunno. But if it means that much to you, you can have it.” She places the watch in Raisa’s palm.

I forgot how soft her hands are, she thinks, contemplating holding it, giving it a quick squeeze. Instead begins fidgeting with her hands in her lap.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. I gave it to you,” she explains, placing the watch down on the couch next to her. Raisa turns towards Delilah, her back now facing the watch. “Besides, I don’t want this,” she says, shaking her head. “Too incriminating. Santa Norma PD is probably still searching for the two foxy teenage watch bandits.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Delilah scoffs, “I bet the $18 watch that’s been missing a decade ago keeps the force up at night.”

Raisa cackles, and makes a weird voice, like a cartoon character or an alien or something, “Of course it has! That and the fact the watch bandits have been at large for all these years.”

Delilah can’t help but crack up.

“God, it’s been 10 years?” Raisa wonders, her eyes widening. “We are getting old dude.”

“Mhm, tell me about it,” Delilah pauses, but with evident excitement adds, “Actually, I found a gray the other day.”

“No way!” Raisa laughs, practically jumping up.

Delilah shows her the tiniest of baby hairs, more white than gray. Raisa has to practically press her nose up against it, but sure enough there it is white as snow.

“Congratulations, you’re practically a silver fox. How does it feel?” Raisa quips, with a semi-bow.

“Hard to explain to someone so full of youth, you’ll understand one day,” Delilah replies, matching her level of sarcasm.

They have another fit of hysterical laughter followed by another pause. Delilah looks like she’s about to say something else.

“What?” Raisa asks.

Delilah takes a second to answer, tapping her fingers together before doing so, “I actually think we might have stolen this watch ten years ago today.”

“What? No way. How would you know that?” Raisa asks, tilting her head ever so slightly to the side. Delilah’s stomach drops a bit, at this adorable idiosyncrasy she had almost forgotten.

“Because it’s Coachella weekend 1, and we took the watch —

Raisa gasps and interrupts, clutching Delilah’s knee. “In case we split up, we could make plans to meet up at a given time and place.”

“An important lesson learned from Dave’s nightmare of a trip during the last festival,” Delilah adds.

Raisa shakes her head with a chuckle, “Yeah man, festival responsibly.” Then she groans, “Ugh I wish we were going to Coachella this weekend.”

“Me too!” Delilah agrees. After a brief pause, she adds, “You know, if you had told me you were coming back we could’ve gone. Just saying.”

“Hey, that’s not fair! You know I didn’t even know I was coming back until the very last minute because of who I am as a person,” Raisa adds, laughing at herself.

“Still Coachella, crazy time,” Delilah adds, gazing at Raisa as if searching for something.

“Mhm,” Raisa mumbles. She starts looking around the room, fidgeting.

She never could sit still for long.

“Why didn’t you and everyone go this year if you wanted to so badly?”

“Eh, we talked about it a little. Everyone’s all over the place now. Busy with work and stuff. Besides, there’s always next year.”

“True,” Raisa nods.

“When are you coming back?” Delilah asks. Her foot begins shaking.

“Christmas.”

“No, when are you coming back home for good? Maybe we could plan for next year,” Delilah blurts out in a single breath.

“Hmm,” Raisa responds with a slight frown. “I’m not sure I am. I have a life there now. It’s home. You know this.”

“I know, but I don’t like it. I miss you,” Delilah explains. There’s a frog in her throat.

“I miss you too. You have no idea,” Raisa whispers.

Delilah says nothing. Raisa puts her arms around her, and Delilah leans into her. They stay like that for a moment.

Delilah can’t help herself. She kisses Raisa’s shoulder, making her way up her neck. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Stop.” Raisa says, placing her hand on Delilah’s lap for an instance.

Delilah slides further down the couch away from her.

“Sorry,” Delilah says, not looking at Raisa.

“It’s okay,” Raisa says. Her face is expressionless. There’s another pause. “Can I tell you something?”

“What?” Delilah wonders, her gaze fixates on the ground.

Raisa strains to make eye contact, to get on Delilah’s level. She sighs and explains, “You’re my best friend, and I love you. You know that, right? I don’t know what I would do without our friendship. Even with the distance.”

Delilah nods along as if she is bumping her head to a song she had overplayed one too many times. “Yeah totally. Love and need you too.

Neither says something for what feels like an eternity to Delilah. She finally caves.“Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Raisa answers. Her tone suggests she means it.

Raisa hugs Delilah. Delilah hugs her back, tight.

Shortly after Raisa gets up to go. Her hand lands on the watch as she does. She gives it one last smile and hands it to Delilah. Delilah follows her to the door.

“I’ll see you before I fly back,” she offers with a final hug.

“Yeah, definitely,” Delilah agrees. “Let me know what your plans are.”

They finish the hug, and then Raisa is gone once more.

Delilah goes back to the kitchen. She looks out the window to find the sun setting. She can tell its sunset, even with Karl the fog covering her view.

She opens the window, wanting to do what she should have done a long time ago. Instead, she looks at the watch and puts it on. An unexpected ray of sun breaks through the evening fog, something on the watch catches the light, twinkling. There’s a crack that she must have missed earlier.

Tears begin to stream down the sides of her cheeks. She closes the window and goes back to the couch.