The Right Thing

I couldn’t concentrate at the apartment. I always struggled keeping my thoughts clear and the creativity flowing when it was too quiet. I would try for a while but I always wound up packing up my laptop and heading down the street to the coffee shop where I spent far too much of my time.

It was a Thursday, and I was in the middle of a project that needed to be done by the weekend. To say that I was a little behind would have been a gross understatement. But after hours of fruitless effort in every room in the apartment, including the empty bedroom my best friend had vacated two years earlier, I knew that it was no use.

I packed up and headed down the street.

It was the equivalent of my crying uncle to the Gods controlling the flow of my creativity. Giving up and doing what I knew usually worked.

The place wasn’t a quiet coffeehouse like most people would prefer when trying to accomplish something. There were always enough bodies to keep it mostly full, buzzing with both conversation and caffeine. It was seldom that I would arrive to find fewer than two people ahead of me in line and it wound up being a day just like any other.

I’d tried the whole Starbucks thing, but I just wasn’t a fan of paying more money for less service. I also didn’t feel the need to learn a new language to order a cup of tea upon my arrival. The Daily Grind was just a better place for me. I could place my order, find a corner to call my own, and actually get my work done, comforted by the moments of people’s lives being played out around me.

There was a short line when I arrived. I considered the menu, always curious as to the new additions to the board, but in the 4 years I’d been a customer I’d never once changed my order. I was a creature of habit, comforted and driven by the familiar, hesitant to deviate unless it was absolutely necessary. It was one of the reasons that I couldn’t work at the apartment anymore. It had been okay when Sebastian had been living there with me during our last two years of college, but after he’d left along with his things, it no longer felt like the same place, the familiarity was gone and the coffee shop became my only comfort. It was ever changing, but somehow felt constant.

I heard the bell on the door jingle as I settled into the line behind three others. I didn’t look behind me, I never did. I felt someone take their place after me in line and paid little attention, though I caught a breath of a warm scent that had to be the aroma of a particularly expensive cologne. I assumed that I would turn to find a well-dressed business man who worked in the area. There were plenty to go around. It didn’t warrant a look as I tried to settle my thoughts on the project that I had to finish working on, a logo for a local florist looking for a new esthetic after changing hands from mother to daughter. I had ideas, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of enacting them. I’d only managed pieces of the project as a whole. There were blanks spots in my vision, missing pieces to be filled in like a puzzle.

I hoped a cup of my favorite Earl Grey and the soft music, an old Carly Simon tune at the moment, would change the trajectory of the project.

The line inched forward as the man in front of me shifted his weight from foot to foot. His impatience was nearly enough to draw a sigh from me. I’d never understood why people couldn’t relax for a couple of minutes and let things happen. There always seemed to be a timeline and something more important waiting for them at their next stop.

He seemed like a person incapable of living in the moment.

His turn came soon enough and he rattled off an order much better suited for the chain shop around the corner. In the short exchange with the barista, a girl named Jessica who I happened to know was working her way through graduate school at Boston College, he managed to be rude at least three times. I was happy that her entire future wasn’t going to amount to serving other people coffee and tea, but the guy in front of me didn’t seem to care.

I crossed my arms, feeling defensive as I watched her ward off his complaints, trying to ignore the words he was speaking.

He rushed through the process of paying and stuffed the change back in his wallet without leaving so much as a penny in the tip jar. I watched as a bill fluttered out of his wallet and down to the floor at his feet. I considered my options, certain that I was watching more closely than anyone else in line. He turned towards the door and I ducked down to pick up the bill on the floor, which turned out to be a twenty.

I turned towards him and chose to do what my mother would have said was the right thing to do.

“Sir?” I called questioningly in his direction.

He made his choice to wave me off as he picked up his phone and charged out the door with his science experiment of a coffee order. I shrugged and moved forward, dropping the bill into the tip jar with a smile sent towards the familiar barista.

“Karma.”

She smiled brightly, not looking nearly as haggard now that he’d made his exit. I hoped for her sake that he wasn’t a regular.

“Thank you, Bronwyn.”

“You earned it.”

She saw me glance up at the menu board and chuckled to herself.

“Changing it up?”

“Do I ever?”

She laughed. “The usual?”

I nodded, handed her a five, from which she knew well enough to keep the change, and stepped aside. My order needed time to steep before they would send it my way, allowing her to turn her attention to the man who had walked in behind me. He stepped towards the counter, his scent wafting towards me again.

His voice was low as he ordered a simple coffee. No frills, nothing special, and nothing out of the ordinary. He was the kind of person who was likely to thrive in the little shop I was so fond of.

I took the chance to glance to my right only to find him looking my way. He wasn’t what I expected. He stood there in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He wore a cap with a Reebok logo that was tipped down, casting a shadow over his eyes. If he hadn’t been wearing the hat, his eyes may have been lethal in that moment. Things would have been over before they began.

A few brown curls peeked out below the edges of the hat and he sent a soft smile in my direction before I made the effort to drag my eyes away from him and back to the menu board. I tried to interest myself with the number of sugar-free options that were available. I could tell that his eyes were still on me but I resisted the urge to look back towards him.

If he hadn’t been wearing the hat he would have been recognized by someone other than me. I knew his face, most hockey fans did, and Boston was a hockey town without a doubt. It didn’t matter that he didn’t play for the Bruins, his presence would have drawn quite a bit of attention if he made himself known. I couldn’t blame him for wearing the hat.

One of the other employees placed my tea in front of me. I thanked him and hustled off to the table in the corner of the shop where I tended to do my best work under pressure. And the pressure was on.

I settled in quickly, taking a sip of my tea in attempt to clear my head. It was hot enough to singe the tip of my tongue, but I paid little attention as I opened the lid of my laptop and cracked my knuckles. I set in, down into the trenches of layers and swatches. There were so many ideas that had been thrown my way by another creative soul and I had to wade through them to build the perfect piece to represent their brand. It was one of the challenges of what I did, one that I relished in. But I was feeling more than a little frustrated by the project at hand.
If I let myself think about it too much, the pressure would have probably built a wall to separate me from every creative bone in my body.

I didn’t see him slip into the seat across from me and nearly jumped out of my skin when he spoke.

“Why did you do that?”

I lowered the lid of the computer slowly, his face being revealed to me an inch at a time.

“What did I do?”

“First you tried to give the prick his money back and then you tossed it all in the tip jar.”

“What should I have done with it, shoved it in my pocket?”

“It’s what a lot of people would have done.”

“I’m not a lot of people.”

He smiled, his grin lopsided but genuine. “Clearly.”

He didn’t move and neither did I. it was like a stand-off as we considered each other. I tried not to think about the fact that the face of the NHL was sitting across from me staring me down like a specimen in a science lab. I also tried to ignore the fact that a complete stranger, famous or not, had taken up residence at my table without so much as a pleasantry to make the transition smoother.

“Bronwyn, is it?”

I nodded. I’d tried not to notice his presence behind me in line, never concerning myself with the other people in the shop at any given time, but I knew that since he’d picked up my name during a short exchange with Jessica, he’d been paying plenty of attention to me.

“I’m Sidney.”

I considered telling him that I already knew and that if he’d been anyone else I would have already asked him to vacate and allow me to do the work that I’d set out to do. But instead I reached across the table and shook his hand.

“You didn’t answer my first question, Bronwyn.”

“Why did I do it?”

“Yeah.”

“Because it’s what my mother taught me to do, the right thing. I gave him an opportunity which he wasted. It wasn’t my money to keep, but it could certainly be mine to give away. I only had to stand behind him; Jessica had to interact with him. She’d earned it.”

“You know the name of the barista?”

I nodded.

“Did your mother teach you that that was the right thing as well?”

“She did.”

“Your mother sounds like a wise woman.”

I sent him a smile. “She was.”

He didn’t respond, clearly picking up on my use of the past tense. I’d made it awkward, but I never liked fooling myself into thinking that my mother was still around. She was there in a broader sense, with me wherever I went, guiding me when the path got complicated. But she’d been physically gone since I was 16.
She was the reason I’d chosen Boston University over my other choices, it had been where she’d gone. Sebastian believed it was because he’d chosen Harvard and I couldn’t live my life back in Minnesota without him there to keep me company. Truth was, I just couldn’t live my life back in Minnesota.

“You don’t sound like you’re from Boston.”

“Plenty of Bostonians don’t have accents.”

His smile grew slightly. “But you do have an accent.”

I scowled. “And you don’t, Canada?”

He chuckled. “Three minutes and you’ve already given me a nickname. I’m better at small talk than I thought.”

I tried to hold back the smile that was threatening to break out but I only managed in keeping it from taking over my face completely. I was going to smile whether I liked it or not. I questioned the hold he had over me for a moment, but I couldn’t deny that a part of me was enjoying his barging into my afternoon.

“I’m originally from Minnesota. A little town called Cannon Falls.”

“I lived in Minnesota once.”

I raised an eyebrow. There was something in his tone that told me he was playing at something. It was like he was fishing for information. If I told him I’d known that, he would know that I was aware of his identity. If I didn’t say anything, he would be forced to dig deeper. He wasn’t going to ask me flat out, that was clear.

I decided to nod along. It was non-committal. It could mean that I was aware of his tenure at a school less than an hour away from the town where I’d been brought up, or it could simply indicate that I was interested in the conversation and that he should go on.

“I went to school there for a year. A place called Shattuck-St. Mary’s.”

He mentioned nothing of hockey, which was the truth of the whole thing. He may have attended classes, but he moved to Minnesota to play hockey.

“I’ve heard of it, I have a cousin who went there.”

He’d attended after Sidney’s short career playing Midget Triple-A and he had never so much as touched a puck in his life, but it was related.

“Small world.”

“Isn’t it though?”

He wasn’t going to be direct with me, I’d assumed that from the start, but I decided to present him with a new challenge.

I looked away and raised the lid of my laptop, burying myself back in my work. I caught a glimpse of him as he sat back in his chair, sipping his coffee. He looked like he had nothing better to do than to watch me do my job. He didn’t speak, he just watched. I hadn’t expected to accomplish anything with him staring at me, still a little surprised by the bold nature of his approach, but I was managing to make some headway on the whole project even with his eyes on me.

He seemed nonchalant as he watched me. He leaned to his right and grabbed a magazine off of the table next to us and began to flip through it casually. Every few minutes one of us would glance towards the other. Each time I caught his eye, he was smirking at me.

I added another layer to the logo and realized that it was nearly finished. A few tweaks and it would be ready to present to my client. I was relieved and took a moment to relax back into my chair only to realize that my previous posture had been enough to make my back more than a little sore. I pressed my back against the slats in the chair and gazed at the screen.

Progress was nice.

I noticed that he was looking at me again.

“Is there are reason you’re lingering here?” I asked, keeping my tone playful enough to keep from offending him.

“Just wondering how long you’re up for playing this game.”

“What game would that be?”

“The one where you play coy and pretend that you didn’t do a double take when you saw me at the counter.”

“I’ve always heard that you’re more humble than that.”

His smile turned triumphant. “I knew it,” he said, leaning forward again, lowering his voice. “How long were you going to pretend you didn’t know who I was?”

“As long as it took for you to realize that I’m not impressed and would really like some time alone to get my work done. I’m on a deadline and I don’t like to be late.”

“How about I make you a deal?”

“A deal?”

“A compromise of sorts.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’ll leave you alone and let you get your work done if you come to dinner with me tonight.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Just feels like the right thing to do.”

I didn’t respond.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes.”

He was still smirking. I could tell that he took pride in winning any game he could come up with. I didn’t think that I would want to come up against him in competition if I didn’t have to. But I couldn’t deny that he was pulling me in.

“I’ll meet you on the corner tonight at 7. Don’t be late.”

He stood up and adjusted his hat. He tipped his chin towards me as a form of goodbye.

“On the corner? What kind of girl do you think I am?” I quipped.

“Don’t worry, Bronwyn. I’m only paying for dinner, not services.”

He turned away and was out the door before I could formulate words in response. I looked back to the screen of my computer and knew that work was bust for the rest of the day. It would have to wait until my thoughts had cleared.

I slid the computer back in my bag, tossed the strap over my shoulder, and took the long way home. It was a circuitous route that took me behind my building and around the block, giving me enough time to let the summer air clear my head.

I was going on a date with Sidney Crosby and it was almost as if I hadn’t been given a choice. If I’d refused instead of sitting there dumbfounded as I had, he would have stayed at the table with me likely until I’d gotten up to leave. No matter what, I would have been spending a large chunk of my day or evening with him.

I had to admit that I was curious about his presence in Boston. He was in the midst of his summer vacation, a longer one than I was sure he and his teammates preferred, probably training harder than ever to be back at the top of his game. You would have had to have been living under a very large rock not to have heard about the concussion that had kept one of the greatest hockey players out of the game for so long. He would have to battle back in a way he’d never had to before, even if he had been around at the tail end of the season.

I sighed as I rounded the front of my building. Maybe my curiosity could be solved without my having to reveal my loyalty to the team he played for. He didn’t have to know that I was even a fan of hockey, just that I was in possession of a television and had the ability to read.

For the time being though, my focus shifted.

What the hell was I going to wear?

I rushed through the apartment. I had a few hours to prepare, but I hadn’t been on a date in so long I could barely remember the last time I’d questioned the nature of my wardrobe. I dug through my closet, tossing pieces aside for one reason or another until the closet was nearly empty. There was a pile of clothing on my bed and a few hangers fell to the floor with a clatter. I decided I would deal with the mess I’d made after I’d chosen a suitable outfit for the even.

Then my eyes fell on a dress I hadn’t worn since college. The plum frock was bound to still fit and it wasn’t anything too showy. Just an a-line dress with a scoop neck and back, the straps were wide and the skirt wasn’t so short that I would feel the need to adjust it whenever I moved. It would have to work as I glanced past it realizing that the only things behind it were the black dress I’d worn to my mother’s funeral, a bridesmaid’s dress that hadn’t been worn because the wedding had been called off a week beforehand, and a red parka.

The purple dress would have to do.

I took my time in the shower and primping in preparation for the evening. I didn’t want to go overboard with any of my choices, though I went a little flashy with the heels, a pair of silver pumps that I’d fallen in love with and purchased with my first paycheck from a job that didn’t require my waiting tables or checking prices in aisle five.

They’d cost so much that I felt guilty when I didn’t wear them, like they were sitting in the corner judging me for the frivolity of the purchase that I didn’t even take enough time to enjoy. I’d been known to wear them around the house to help ease the guilt of the purchase.

It was a quarter to seven when I stepped out the front door of the building. It was still light, the sun in July taking it’s time in slipping below the horizon. There was a slight breeze, enough so that I’d grabbed a cardigan on the way out the door and slipped it on as I walked down the street.

I was surprised when he turned the corner, arriving at our meeting place just a few seconds before me. He smiled as I walked towards him. I felt self-conscious under his gaze as I approached, hoping that I wouldn’t topple over or trip like I was sometimes known to do. He still wore the same jeans he’d been wearing earlier, but his shirt had been traded for a button-down that I noticed hugged his frame well. It was clear he’d put some muscle on his frame that hadn’t been there earlier in his career. I tried like hell not to let my eyes linger.

My eyes caught his and I nearly stumbled. Without the brim of his hat to block them from making direct contact with mine, his gaze was almost too much to handle.

“You showed up,” he said as I approached.

“I rarely turn down a free meal.”

“What would make you turn it down?”

“Sushi or karaoke.”

“There go my plans for the evening.”

He extended his arm to me. I wasn’t much for physical contact with people I knew and loved, let alone strangers, but my perch on my heels was precarious and I had no idea how far we were walking. I could use the ballast of his frame there to stabilize me.

“So, what are the plans for the evening?”

He glanced down at me as he led me down the street. “Italian place a couple of blocks away.”

“May I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

I pursed my lips. We’d only just met and already he was hitting me
with sarcasm. I shook my head and he chuckled.

“Ask away.”

“What are you doing in Boston?”

“I have a few friends here. Came into town for a visit before I head out to do some training and decided to stick around for a few days. I’m glad I did.”

I smiled in spite of myself.

“What about you, Minnesota? Why Boston?”

It was a loaded question, one that I’d avoided answering on more than one occasion. I was actually an expert at evading the subject, dodging and diving away from it until another subject had been breached, saving me the pain of talking about the things that made me unhappy. But my arm looped securely through his and the hues of glowing pastels that filled the sky made me want to answer him. It made me want to be honest and play along.

I’d asked the first question, it was only fair that I offer some answers in return for my own curiosities.

“My mom.”

There was that sore nerve. If he knew it bothered me, he didn’t let on.

“She grew up here and went to Boston University. It felt like the right thing, to follow her footsteps. It helped that my friend Sebastian decided on Harvard and was coming here as well. He left after college, got a structural engineering job for some big architecture firm. I just stuck around.”

“Loved it so much you just didn’t want to leave?”

“Didn’t know where else to go and didn’t want to go back.”
It could have gotten awkward, my confession of being a grown up lost girl, unsure of where she belonged and what she wanted out of life, but as we veered into the warm glow of the Italian restaurant he simply guided the conversation elsewhere.

“So, what kind of job lets you do your work in a busy coffee shop in the middle of a Thursday afternoon?”

“Graphic design,” I replied as we waited for the hostess to notice our presence. “I do mostly logo work for local businesses and online. I do some web design on the side.”

“Self-employed?”

I nodded.

“I always wondered what it would be like to not answer to anyone,” he said wistfully.

“I answer to plenty of people. My clients, my father, student loan companies, my landlord, the IRS…”

He chuckled. His laugh brought the hostess in our direction. He disregarded her wide-eyed stare, apparently used to the way people looked at him when they recognized him.

“Reservations for two under Patrick.”
She glanced at her books and led us to a booth in the back of the restaurant. It was out of the view of the door and the majority of the dining area. There were no windows and the light was dim. Privacy as I’d expected him to prefer.

“Patrick?” I asked.

“Incognito. My middle name offers the convenience of sounding like both a first and last name. It doesn’t turn heads. Helps me keep secrets.”

“Is this a secret?”

He sent me a lopsided grin as the waitress arrived to take our drink order. Sidney was already perusing the wine list when she appeared next to the table.

“Red or white?” he asked.

“You choose. Wine selection isn’t my forte.”

“Pinot Noir and bring the bottle.”

She nodded and made her exit as I looked over the meal options. I’d never been in the particular restaurant he’d chosen. I tended to avoid places that didn’t put prices on the menus.

“So, secret or no secret?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You obviously like your privacy.”

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t have to guard mine from the adoring public.”

“Sometimes secrets are fun. But feel free to tell your friends about the unbelievable guy you met over a cup of tea this afternoon.”

“Patrick?”

He nodded, a soft grin playing at his lips.

“Patrick is awfully full of himself.”

“Trust me. Patrick will prove himself to you by the end of the night.”

Patrick lived up to his promise. In fact, I was convinced of his worth before we both turned down dessert in exchange for another bottle of wine and some privacy.

Sidney was something special. He got me to tell him things I never spoke about. He asked me about my mother, careful not to tread on any of the raw nerves that surrounded the topic. He let me tell him about the woman who’d met my father, a cardiologist, at a medical conference in Chicago and moved to Minnesota six months later to restart her nursing career and her life just to be with him.
We talked about our childhoods, his spent excelling at sports and mine spent tucked away in an art classroom being one with the paints and oil pastels and avoiding most forms of human interaction.

We talked about a concert we’d both attended in St. Paul in 2003.
He talked about his time away from hockey, clearly a tough subject for him. But he’d asked me to open up and seemed more than willing to reciprocate. He breached the subject of his concussion and subsequent problems without batting an eye, his candor was appreciated.

After the second bottle was half-gone, he even got me to reveal that I was, in fact, a Penguins fan.

“Minnesota has a team,” he argued. “And you’ve got the Bruins
here.”

“Now, but when I was growing up, that wasn’t the case. The North Stars had just become the Stars and the Wild didn’t exist yet. Minnesota was in a hockey purgatory.”

“But why the Penguins? Why not something closer to home, the Blackhawks or the Red Wings?”

I blushed.

“Out with it, Wyn.”

I liked the shortening of my name as it rolled off of his full lips as the wine began to make me feel warm. It felt familiar to me, though he was still little more than a stranger; a persistent stranger who was competitive in every aspect of his existence. It seemed so odd to hear him call me something other than my given name since we’d only just met, but it was only fair if he was going to be Patrick.

“I was a little girl and I thought that penguins as a species were consistently fancy, like they are a bowtie and some wingtips away from a shindig.”

He laughed. It was a bright sound that was more of a giggle than anything else. If any other 200-pound man made that noise I would have been confused if not a little put off by it. But coming from him as his eyes sparkled, it was endearing.

By the time the second bottle of wine was drained, I was more than a little tipsy. We play-fought over the bill for a moment, but he won the battle before leaving a sizable tip and helping me to my feet. He led the way, guiding me back out into the dark.
We’d been laughing and drinking for hours and I enjoyed the feeling of his arm entwined with mine. Even with him there for support, the heels I’d worn had become too much.

I didn’t warn him as I stopped walking and held tightly to his arm for support. He jolted to a stop next to me. I kicked off my shoes and leaned down to pick them up, aware that his eyes were on me the whole time. I relished in the feeling of my bare feet on the sidewalk before attempting to right myself. I bobbled slightly, the blood rushing to my head, but felt his hand move quickly to my waist. The warmth of his touch was overwhelming, more intense than the heat of the wine running through me.

It was fiery and electric. Scorching.

“You okay?”

I looked up and his eyes caught me off-guard. They were so warm and inviting, drawing me in.

“Mmhmm,” I managed to mumble in response.

“I’m walking you home.”

“Mmhmm.”

He chuckled again. “You’re going to have to help me navigate.”
I felt my cheeks flush and tore my eyes away from him. I could find my way home; certainly I was sober enough to pull off that feat.

He kept his hand on my side, pulling me close. It struck me that I didn’t need my cardigan; he gave off more than enough heat to keep me warm. He was like a mobile furnace.

Or perhaps it was the wine after all.

I stopped outside my building and glanced up the brick façade.

“This is it, eh?”

“It is.”

He turned to face me.

“Did Patrick prove himself?” He asked with a smirk.

“I don’t know about Patrick, but Sidney gets a gold star.”

“Best award I’ve gotten in a while.”

“Would you like to thank the academy?”

“I’d rather thank you.”

“I’ll allow it.”

I felt the space between us slipping away as we both leaned forward to close the gap. His hand was on my back, pulling me closer. Then his lips were on mine. There was nothing forceful or searching about it, just the pressure of his pillowy lips against my own, moving against each other carefully. It was gentle and slow and I didn’t want it to end.

I craned my neck and let my hand travel up to the curls that brushed his neck, running my fingers through the locks.
I felt him drawing us apart, but I wanted to hold his lips to mine.
He broke away and smiled softly.

“I’m leaving tomorrow, but I hope you’ll be willing to do this again sometime.”

I nodded. We’d exchanged numbers earlier in the evening but I doubted that would matter in the long run. Sidney Crosby, fascinating man or not, wasn’t going to call me for a second date. I would go on with my existence in Boston and he would go on being who he was. I gave no credibility to the vague offer of another date.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” His tone was low, almost grave, like there was nothing in the world that could have been more truthful.

“Why would you do something like that?”

He pulled away from me and shrugged. “Feels like the right thing.”

The smirk he gave me made me want to kiss him again. Instead I settled for his lips pressed to my forehead as he attempted to shove his hands into pockets that seemed far too small.

“Goodnight, Bronwyn Doyle.”

“Goodnight.” I paused as I took in the sight of him. “Patrick.”

I turned towards the building and slipped inside. As the heavy door closed behind me, I could hear the tinkling sound of his laughter. I could learn to love that sound. I truly could.