About once every two years, LB and I find ourselves without coffee. This usually resolves quickly with me pointing out to LB that he is The Boy is this relationship and that getting the coffee without the obvious benefit of having had coffee falls to him. This time he turned the tables on me with a preemptive accusation of my never being the one to get the coffee, along with an implication that I may actually be incapable of buying coffee in a decaffeinated state. And like the youngest child that I am, I fell for it.
There was a woman seated on a bench outside Starbucks, and she looked vaguely familiar. Perky, just a touch of make-up, dark curly hair, yoga pants, and a toddler in a jogging stroller. I was wearing my Not Your Daughter's Jeans, a Stanford sweatshirt (purchased by LB in 1988, when he was last at Stanford) worn inside out, and no bra. Being forty-something as opposed to twenty -something and having nursed more children than I actually birthed, this look is not nearly as sexy as it sounds. I thought, Please God, don't let her be someone I know (this Starbucks is actually in the strip mall next to church--prayer felt appropriate).
When I passed her, she said hi and smiled at me in a way that could have meant, "We know each other and you really should stop and chat," or, "We've never met and I'm just a friendly, upbeat kind of gal." I said hi back and kept walking, but more slowly in case she was about to say she's helped out in Olive's Sunday school class, or she's checked my bags at Dominick's, or she works with LB, or she had, in fact, gone to college with me and wasn't it amazing that we should find each other twenty years later, over eight hundred miles away from where we met?
Because I'm one of those people who doesn't recognize people, I'll never know which smile she was giving me. The only thing worse than running into someone you know when you don't look your best is running into someone you don't know if you know. People who know me at all are aware of this failing of mine, and the few times I've run into LB when out and about, he's greeted me the way one might greet a visually impaired person: verbally. Loudly. And if he's too far away for me to hear him, he'll jump up and down and wave his arms.
This is where it becomes truly important what kind of person curly-haired Starbucks lady is. Is she confident, happy in her relationships, and does she consider herself to be generally likable? If so, she'll interpret me not recognizing her as just that--me not recognizing her. Perhaps she'll think I left the house wearing someone else's glasses, or hung over, or she may just think it's because I haven't had my coffee yet. But if she's insecure at all, she could think I'm snubbing her. Exactly three times in my life, I've been aggressively confronted by someone who thought I was ignoring them, and who had been nursing this special brand of pain for maybe three, four instances of my having walked right past them. It's awful, having someone accuse you of hurting their feelings on purpose, and anything you may say in your defense simply reaffirms their secret suspicion that they're not memorable.
On the flip side, I sometimes think I know people I don't. A few weeks ago at church I walked into the sanctuary with LB, Agatha, Dana, Anatole and Daisy, and when LB started heading toward an area where we don't usually sit, I grabbed his elbow and pointed him in the right direction. The lady who passes out programs asked LB how old our children were so she could give them age-appropriate kiddie programs (with coloring pages, etc). LB quoted the wrong ages and I admonished him for not even remembering how old his children were. Finally, LB stopped walking and slowly looked down at me, and it became clear that this tall man in a maroon sweater was very much not LB, and was growing ever-more curious about why this short, bossy woman at his side felt she knew his kids better than he did. The real LB was several feet ahead of me, standing with our aforementioned youngsters, watching in amusement and waiting to see how long it would take me to realize this man wasn't my husband and that those kids at my side weren't my children.
I'm guessing dinnertime. I may not always know my children's faces, but I never forget their food preferences.
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To those participating in the yarn/spinning fiber/chick-flick contest who guessed St. Augustine, Florida: I'm granting you all a free second-guess. My ex husband got Florida in the divorce. There's no official ordinance as of yet mandating that I stay out, but I'd never chance it.
