Autumn in Kensington

Easy on a Saturday

Chrissie sat there across from Brian. They had been at one of Brian’s favorite brunch sports for about twenty minutes. Much to her delight, they were seated in the back corner away from the hustle of restaurant traffic. It was quite busy for a Saturday brunch. The waitress working in their section appeared to be slammed with tables.

  "I don't think I've ever been here before. Do you come here often?" Chrissie asked Brian.

 "I used to moreso than recently. The menu has changed, which is kind of disappointing. But, they still have the best corn chowder I've had." Brian shared with her. You would have thought Chrissie's face fell off at the moment.

 "You...you like corn chowder? That's...that's one of my favorite things! I make it a lot! In fact...I could..." Chrissie stopped her sentence. She didn’t want to overstep her boundaries.

 "You could what?" Brian asked, tilting his head a little, realizing Chrissie had stopped mid-sentence.

 "I was gonna' say...I could make some for you sometime. It's my grandmum's recipe. I mean…that is…you know…if you wanted.” Chrissie blushed and looked down at the table, feeling like this was the stupidest and most presumptuous thing she had said.

 “Really? I bet I’d like yours better.” Brian answered her. “I just have a feelin’.” Brian smiled. Chrissie laughed.

 “Well, I’m not sure about that but…I’m goin’ to the farmer’s market in town tomorrow to get some things so…I could pick up some corn…maybe some tomatoes.” And just then…Chrissie got an idea…it was as if about three percent of Lydia invaded her body. “Hey…you wanna’ come with me?” They hadn’t been at their brunch spot for an hour and Chrissie had just boldly invited Brian on another date…well, if you could call it that. She started turning red again. She couldn’t believe she had actually asked. Lydia would be so proud of her.

 “I’ll go with ya’. Tell ya’ what. I won’t order any chowder today. I’ll have yours tomorrow.” Brian told her.

 “Oh...oh my…alright. We’ll do that.” Chrissie answered. She was about to explode on the inside. They were interrupted by their waitress.

 “Terribly sorry to keep you waiting, folks.” She was a bit disheveled.

 “Oh, that’s quite alright. Please don’t worry about us. We are in absolutely no rush.” Chrissie absolutely swooned at the kindness in Brian’s voice as he assured their waitress not to hurry.  She turned their glasses over and filled them with ice water. I shook my head yes and smiled at our waitress.

 “Why, that’s nice of you. Can I get either of you somethin’ else to drink besides water?” she asked.

 “You want a pot of tea?” Brian asked me. I had already a lot of tea early on; but it wouldn’t be brunch without a pot.

 “Yeah, that’s fine with me.” She said. Neither Chrissie or Brian had even opened their menus yet.

 “Can I interest either of you in an appetizer?” she asked.

 “No, thank you. Honestly, we haven’t looked at the menu yet. We’ll take some time if you don’t mind.” Brian told her. Chrissie was once again entranced in his gentle voice.

 It was 1:13 in the afternoon. Roger and I had been lazing around my flat all day. We had watched everything on the telly it seemed and had burned through a few cigarettes. Then he would make fun of something on the telly and get me laughing. I had spent most of the morning laid across his lap or vice versa. I had made some phone calls and arranged for Roger, John, Freddie and Brian to meet me after my 6:30 class on the 4th floor of the fine arts building on campus. I knew Roger would relay in the event I didn’t talk to Brian or Freddie. I had already spoken with Veronica. Roger knew how to get to the fourth floor. He had met me there several times before. I had arranged for someone I knew to print a hundred flyers during the week and the photograph would be taken and developed that evenin’ so we could consider which one to print.