03-Nov-2004
Title: Baltimore
Author: Sol 1056
Rated: G
Warning: damn near almost a songfic. Scary me.
Note: This is a side-fic to Nothing Like the Sun, though I suppose you don't need to have read that to understand this one. There's not a great deal to understand, actually. The song used was actually the original inspiration for NltS, although the story evolved between conception and writing, and the song then became inspiration for a side-fic I'd planned to write but never got around to it. Then, talking to Kagi today, she mentioned she wished she could see more OC-POV stories in the fandom - and between that and my own very gray, miserable mood right now, it just seemed like the right time to finally tear this out and post.
Connie was filling up saltshakers when the young man stepped into the small diner, out of the rain. It was a gray afternoon, dreary, the kind of late autumn day when the spindly bare branches of the city's trees were little protection from the incessant drizzle. He shook himself off, an absent gesture, and paused before coming to sit at the counter.
"You wanna menu?" Connie tapped one long badly manicured finger on the stack of menus, propped up between the sugar and the fake creamer.
"Just coffee," he said. "Black."
"Ah." She turned, pouring a cup, and slid it across the counter. "Three-fifty."
He nodded, digging in his back pocket. She caught a quick look at a faded patch on the shoulder of his jacket, before he slid the jacket off his shoulders. He laid it across the empty stool next to him.
"You a pilot?" Connie asked.
The lunch rush had been brutal, but the place had emptied soon enough, leaving her with silverware to put away and sugar bowls to refill and one bored cook in the back, doing prep. The formica countertop was stained, but she wiped it down anyway, keeping an eye on her single customer.
"Not anymore," he replied, neutral. He didn't seem offended, just disinterested. But at the same time, he had that look of someone waiting for the right moment.
Connie knew that look well enough; she'd been a waitress for thirty years. And when the one waiting was a handsome young man with clear green eyes, the waiting could only be for one thing.
The credits clattered across the table, and the man deftly caught one of the chips before it ran too far. There was a flash as he put his wallet away, and she put on her little smile, the kind that implies she's in on the joke.
"Former pilot, now with the circus." Connie chuckled at the surprised flash across his face, before it smoothed into something sharp that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. "Saw the badge," she added, trying to keep her voice casual.
"Yeah. Acrobat." He sipped at his coffee, and seemed to forget she was standing there.
She shrugged, turning back to her usual post-rush tasks. The silence in the diner was oppressive, broken only by the clink of coffee cup on countertop and the light patter of rain on the broad windows. The jukebox sat in the corner looking defeated, and Connie wished for a radio. Outside the city was gray, brown, shades of dirt and age in the early darkness of approaching winter.
"The circus is falling, down on its knees," she hummed, under her breath, in time with the motions of the rag across the tables. Connie bumped a chair with her hip, pushing it under the two-top, and moved to the booths. "The big top is crumbling down... it's raining, in Baltimore, fifteen miles east... " She hummed the rest of the line, the lines escaping her.
At the counter, the man's cup was empty. She held up the pot, and he nodded, pushing the cup towards her. Connie refilled it, and set it back on the warmer.
"No charge for refills," she told him.
"Unusual," he observed.
"Maybe." Connie shrugged, and dropped the rag into the wash bucket before rinsing her hands in the sink. Bob had brought out the clean glasses, and she began putting them away on the shelves. "So. You look awful young. Run away to join the circus?"
"Perhaps." His shoulders were broad, but that was a slim body under the plain green shirt, although his forearms were muscular. His fingers were slender and long. His hair was beginning to dry, auburn strands falling into his face and obscuring one eye. "Five years now," he said, and gave her a tiny smile, just a slight curve to one end of his mouth. "What were you singing?"
"Old lullaby," Connie said. "My voice isn't what it used to be, but my grandkids like the song."
"Didn't sound like a lullaby." Those green eyes studied her intently, over the rim of the coffee cup, before the cup was lowered to reveal another quick smile. "Is there more to the song?"
Connie stifled the urge to bat her lashes at the young man. She sternly reminded herself that her kids had probably been older than him, the year he was born.
"My grandkids are a bit young to understand the words, but... " She shrugged, and after a minute of humming, picked up the thread of the next verse. "These train conversations are passing me by, and I don't have nothing to say... " Connie set the next three glasses on the shelf. "You get what you pay for... but I just had no intention of living this way... " She laughed, a bit self-consciously, breaking off the tune. "It's one of them traditional melodies, y'know? I've heard like six different versions of the words."
"Why do you like that version over the others?"
"Dunno." Connie paused, and pursed her lips, feeling the last of the lipstick smooth across the chapped skin. "Guess it's something about the feel, y'know. Being in one place, waiting, and not sure how you got there or how to get back."
He nodded, and she realized his cup was empty again. She glanced at it, and he leaned back, letting her refill it one more time.
"Took my grandkids to the circus, two nights ago now, I guess it was," she said, conversationally. He didn't look like he was going anywhere, and she was still curious what had the young man waiting. "You were one of them clowns?"
"High-wire," he said. "I'm in the knife-act, too."
Connie squinted at him. "Not the cute girl, so you must be... "
"The victim." His voice was a low tenor, dropping into a baritone, honey-rich and gentle. He chuckled, but softly, as though he were used to keeping silent.
"My Danny was terrified," Connie told him, and laughed, leaning against the shelves while she watched the young man sip his coffee. "He's three. He thought you were going to get stabbed."
The man chuckled again, and shrugged. "If you do it right, it's supposed to look dangerous." He glanced up at her, through his lashes.
Very dangerous, she thought, and shivered, but only showed him a smile. She'd been waiting tables long enough to have a few smiles of her own. Connie gathered up the salt and pepper shakers and came around the counter, replacing them on the tables. That song was still in her head. Since the young man hadn't seemed to mind her cracked voice, she allowed herself to keep humming quietly.
"There's things I remember, and things I forget; I miss you... I guess that I should... " Connie straightened for a moment, pausing by the booths to watch passerby rush from cabs, through the rain, into nearby shops and apartment doorways. "Three thousand, five hundred miles away... but what would you change, if you could?"
She sighed, and straightened up the fake pansy in the plastic bottle, then moved to the next booth. The tune played itself out, the bridge between chorus and verse. She hummed, open-mouthed, wincing when she hit a flat note. The sweet melody, almost melancholy, fit the mood of the day. Connie resisted the urge to turn up the diner's lights to an evening brightness.
"Is that it?" The young man was still there, but digging in his pocket as though looking for something. "In case I ever have grandchildren of my own, to sing to," he added, and tossed his hair out of his face long enough to reveal two lonely green eyes.
"There's more... " Connie hummed until she found her place, falling back into the lines. "I need a phone call... I need a plane ride... I need a sunburn... I need a raincoat... " She thought of stopping, but the young man was staring down at a cell phone in his hand, holding it loosely. There was such sadness on his face, completely naked and longing.
So that's what he's waiting for, Connie thought. She turned to pick up the stack of napkins and the paper rings, setting them on the counter by the plastic jugs of clean silverware.
"And I get no answers, and I don't get no change... " The rain beat down on the windows, distant, and gray. "It's raining in Baltimore, baby... but everything else is the same... "
When she turned around, the young man was gone. The door was swinging shut, so gently the bell didn't chime. Connie sighed, and stared down at the cell phone, sitting on the counter.
The End
(:./sol/nothinga)
