Coffee Break
By Amico M. Buttaci

He was no java junkie but already he had downed four cups of straight black, all the while keeping his eyes riveted on the hospital cafe's storefront window. A man seated at his left droned on nonstop about his father dying of pancreatic cancer. The woman across from the man patted his hand. Another visitor shook her head. "Don't make me go back up there," she said to the man standing impatiently beside her.

Darren wished Franco would finally pass by on his way to the hospital parking lot. What was taking him so long! Come on, Franco. Pass the hell by; I need to talk to her. Room 4322. Maternity. No way could he go for another coffee so he nursed this cool last one the way he seemed to be nursing everything lately: biding time, filling in the meanwhiles without any guarantee of a payoff. Julie wouldn't budge.

He kept his chin down against his chest. In front of him was The Record whose news he pretended to be reading because no way did he want Franco out there to suddenly take a gander through the café window. See his manager sitting there looking like somebody on the run. And if he walked into the café, pulled up the empty chair beside Darren, what the hell then? What a freaking coincidence! You got somebody here you're visiting too? Or would the up-till-now unsuspecting Franco, his boss Franco with that green aura of jealousy sizzling an outline around his 6' 5" frame, finally put his good head to use outside the context of the company and figure out the dirty truth about Darren and Julie.

That would be the end of him! End of both of them! No, all three--four of them now with the birth of Julie's baby. He had to find a solution. But Julie wouldn't decide. She could talk the mean talk about living without love but the walk--that was something else. "What could you give me?" she asked him, days before her ride to Hackensack University Medical Center. "Can I live with you in the manner to which I've been accustomed? What will we do in rainy Seattle?" They laughed at that but was it really funny? He wanted to take her and the baby away with him to Seattle. It was time to take a stand. He had to get up there and talk. Make her understand.

Darren pressed the circumference of the coffee cup against his mouth, and against the bridge of his nose. She needs me. But that inner voice of his lacked real conviction. What did Julie need? She had a husband richer than Darren could ever hope to be if he lived fifty lifetimes and saved every dime. Franco was Mr. Lucky who could do no wrong. By the time he was thirty, the clever entrepreneur had amassed millions. Whatever Franco wanted, Franco bought. And then finally he met the most attractive woman anywhere and he bought her too.

"Maybe at first I loved him," she confided the day the two of them crossed the line. In the Horizon Motel bed, naked Julie told naked Darren, "I felt I was lucky to have him. What woman would've turned him down! But then he changed. And it didn't take him long."

Darren listened, half distracted by the glistening of perspiration coating her beautiful body. "Changed how?"

"Different things. Too busy. A new deal someplace out of town. Out of the country. Out of his mind buying out this one and that one. What about me? What the hell was there for me?"

Darren half expected her to cry; instead, she ran a warm hand down the hardness of his chest. She smiled. "But I have you now," she said. "How about making me forget my troubles one more time?"

It took the sudden appearance of Franco walking on the sidewalk now to empty his head of Julie. Darren turned his head towards the counter. "Another one?" asked the man at the register. Then, without waiting for Darren to reply, pushed a cup forward, turned on the coffee spigot, then moved his head to the side as the hot steam rose. "Coming right up," he said. "Nothing in it, right?" Darren nodded and kept his eyes on the man behind the counter, afraid to turn around too soon. When he finally did, he glanced up at the window to find it empty of Franco. He was gone. Soon he'd be driving his new Seville down the dark streets of Hackensack, New Jersey.

"Darren, I'm gonna make you the highest paid marketing man in Franco Foods. I like you. You're not afraid to take risks." Then Franco put his arm around Darren's shoulder the way Darren's father used to do when he felt proud of his son. Fresh out of Rutgers University, Darren was making more than folks ten, twenty years ahead of his game. He delighted in his good fortune. Like his boss, the president of Franco Foods, Darren had the world in the palm of his hand. The sky was the limit. No telling where he could fly from here. Until Franco's Christmas party a year and a half ago. Was it that long? Until he locked eyes with the beauty at the punch bowl. A beauty in her sexy gold lame dress that reached down and grazed the tops of her gold high-heeled stilettos. Almost simultaneously they smiled at each other. As Mr. Gian Paul Franco's favorite protégé, Darren found it easy to head towards the dark-haired woman. He would now need that same high confidence to walk away.

Darren paid the check and walked out of the Hackensack Hospital Café. When he reached the open lobby elevator, he decided against stepping inside. What's the use of telling her goodbye? he decided. When he passed through the hospital exit doors, he knew somehow he'd make it. Darren walked confidently into his future.