Perusing the room, suddenly Connor was frozen. His lips parted slightly in wonder as he watched Maruko walk into the café. Like a buck captivated by the shiny barrel which would bring him death, he stared, fixated by her air. She shone like a sacristy. Beyond her silken shroud were wonders of old, waiting to be discovered anew. He longed to know if he would see any shininess in her as beauty or merely as a glass covering. Would scratches in her history appear to him as blemish or as character? Furthermore, he couldn't help but wonder whether if he gained her trust and learned her secrets, he would prove wise cleric or fool? Would he, given an eternity, even comprehend some of what he could learn from this girl across the room? Connor took a deep breath and drew strength in knowing that there was only one way to find these answers and rose to meet her at the counter. Any burden that had not been absolved merely by her arrival was immediately put to rest when her face lit up as she saw him coming towards her.
Maruko was relieved, she truly did come here almost every night anyways, but this was the first time she had come with such anticipation. She'd met guys here before and had been confronted by many more waiting, uninvited, for her to return and reconvene the previous night's small talk. Still, this was her place and for that reason she had cursed herself for allowing Connor to inhabit her every thought the night before and this entire day. Were he to stand her up, it would have made a permanent mark of something that never truly was on this place where she really loved to come. For this reason, she hadn't told a soul that night at her ballet studio about this rendezvous. Likewise, she hoped that no one would recognize her here tonight, she just didn't know how to play this or how any number of different faces might affect the impression from last night that she was hoping to either confirm or release. Her face was burning and she was sure she looked like an idiot, but still she couldn't lower her gaze. It felt nice to look up at him. She was thrilled that he'd come.
"I really did try to learn hello in Japanese for you, I thought you would appreciate the effort." Connor smirked as he delivered a line he honestly hadn't really practiced, not that much at least.
"Konichiwa. Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" Maruko fought to keep her eyes feigning inquisitiveness, though she knew, and Connor suspected, that the way she was biting down on her bottom lip fully gave her away.
"Hi." Connor allowed himself to stop and enjoy her smile before adding, "I wondered that same thing myself. What can I get you? Coffee, Latte..."
"Wow, I see you have done this before." Maruko replied.
"Honestly no, I'm not all that... outgoing. I don't just meet women while away…"
"Whoa, I meant coffee shops, but go on?" She giggled and hit his elbow with hers. They both continued to keep their hands in their pockets; figuring that it looked more mysterious, in a classical way. "I'll actually take an orange juice," she finally answered. "I really shouldn't always try to destroy my hard work within moments of finishing at the studio."
"Juice it is, I'm getting a latte, just have to." Connor leaned in to order, but the timid cashier clearly preferred Maruko. As she moved between the counter and him to place their order, he noticed both how tiny she was and also how smoothly she moved.
They returned to Connor's table and both sat down. Connor reached and handed her the orange juice. The bottle slipped from her hand and hit the table, resting for a moment before pulsating onto the surface in front of her, glug, glug, glug.
"Oh! Oh! Five gallops, five gallops!" Maruko fumbled to stand the bottle back up and then scrambled for napkins. "Five gallops, five gallops," she repeated again. "OK, wow, sorry there, phew." She looked back into Connor's eyes and visibly regathered herself.
As if he'd looked into a before-and-after picture with the spill in between, Maruko had, in a flash, returned to her composed self.
"So wait," he started, "five gallops: what was that?"
Maruko looked down and bit into her lip. Her teeth were white and straight, but Connor hated them right now as they covered her plump bottom lip. Like an obese man in a tank top, her lip exploded out from under her bite's restraint.
"Five gallops," she began, "My favorite book when I was a little girl was called, 'One Ballerina, Two.' It's similar, I guess, to any other counting book, though this one is for ballerinas. It starts, 'Two ballerinas, together,' and then counts down from ten of this step to nine of those..."
She didn't regurgitate every position or step and, in fact, Connor quite got the point, but Maruko's eyes did a dance of their own as she retold the story to the point where he wished that she would tell it all. Plus, of equal importance, with each word, her lip was temporarily released from its prison. Go on, go on forever, was all he found himself thinking.
"So, anyways," she continued, "When the little ballerina gets to 'five: five gallops,' she stumbles and says 'oops.' So, from as far back as I can remember, I fall down, I spill something," here she grabbed wildly at the air with terror in her eyes, "I just say, 'five gallops.' Stupid, I know."
"No, not stupid at all," Connor offered in consolation. "It does, however, sound really vivid. When was the last time you read the story?"
"Umm," she chuckled and twisted her puckered lips as if trying to whisper the answer into her own ear, "Wednesday?"
Connor laughed, "Wednesday as in six days ago, Wednesday?"
"Yeah," Maruko giggled, "It's an oldie, but a goodie, like you I guess."
"Ouch," Connor's mouth exploded into a grin as his eyes darted down at the table. After all, he was older than her; it was by how much that he still didn't know. "OK, so let's have it," he began. "I mean I am not old, but yeah, we should at least get it over with."
"Oh, I don't think it is all that bad. I've finished college, I'm twenty-three." She looked up at him, was he really that much older? She hadn't wanted to know. She figured that this wasn't going to go anywhere, but she quite liked the fantasy.
"Wow, see? I didn't know. You seem older and you certainly have a way of carrying yourself, but then again," he paused before repeating, "I just didn't know. I'm only a few years older than you then, OK, five, but still." Connor looked back at her, awaiting the 'Oh my God' reaction which this confession would surely bring, but it never came. He may have been older, but this girl, her soul was so nicely aged, like a bottle of fine champagne. This analogy fit, he thought, because she was intoxicating. She was, he repeated to himself, slower this time, intoxicating.
"It's funny actually," Maruko continued from where she had left off a moment before, "that book represents such a part of my opinion on books in general. I love old, used books. I guess I always have, but never more than in middle school. My teacher started assigning us these horrible books. No one could get into them, these Classics. I tried, I swear I really did try, but it," she paused after each of these last three words to attain the proper dramatic impact, "just... wasn't… happening.
"I went home that night," she continued, "And cried to my mother. 'Oka-san,' I cried, 'no one can read these books! Look at them, brand new and crisp! I bet no one can read them. We're probably some kind of guinea pigs for these teachers and book publishers!' She replied that she was quite sure that they were not only readable, but that they had been read before. I dared her to prove it to me and figured that was that."
Connor giggled, Maruko was on a stage at this point, lights in her face, looking each patron in the eye as she spun her tale further.
"Well the next day," she became hushed and looked up; her eyes glowing out from a face partially hidden because her chin was tucked into her chest. She looked just like a child on Christmas morning. As Maruko visibly fought to hold the excitement in as long as she could, Conner looked directly at her, begging her to continue.
"The next day, my mother came into my room with an old, beat-to-hell copy of that same darn book from school. 'This one looked read' she said." Maruko raised her eyebrows as her mother must've done.
"I thumbed through it and there were underlines and notes scrawled into the margins. The pages were dog-eared, suggesting perhaps even more than one reading, or a reader with massive A.D.D.," Maruko giggled and Connor had to laugh as well. "The book," again she paused, "it even smelled old. I took out the crisp copy from school. Its shine repelled me once again and, after some fast checking, saw that this worn-down and bleeding copy was the same.
"'You said,' my mother continued, 'that there was no proof that anyone had read this book. Well baby, this one looks well read.'
"I read that torn and battered book and trusted that if someone before me had found it OK, then it must be, I don't know, survivable, and I ended up using it in my class even. Since then, whenever possible, I choose used books. It's like someone else checked to make sure it was OK."
Maruko, her mouth understandably dry from this complex tale, reached for her orange juice, forgetting for a moment the spill that had started this all.
"We can get you another," Connor chuckled.
"No, I only wanted one."
"But that one didn't really do its job."
Maruko arched her eye brows and twisted her puckered lips once more, "Didn't it, though?"
