Steve Denyes: Music

Is it the Coffee?

(Steve Denyes)

(excerpt from "Waiting on Arleen" monologue)

Arleen and I had it all figured out by the time she left for college. The deal was that I was going to live stay at home and work hard, and live cheap while she went off to San Diego State. She was going to get her business degree. Then, when she graduated we were going to get married and start a business of our own. We’d use the money that I’d saved and what she’d learned at school. It didn’t matter what kind of business it as long as we could spend our days together and live that fairy tale life.

Our plan worked pretty well for the first semester. I went out there just about every other weekend and she came home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and things were going pretty good. By the second semester the distance started to get to us. It just about killed me when she called me from her dorm room and told me that she was going to Cabo San Lucas for spring break with some of her new friends instead of coming home to see me.

From that point forward it was a bit of a roller coaster ride. We went through every possible stage of breaking up over the next two and a half years. We decided that we should give each other a little space. And then, for the good of the relationship we should see other people. Then, that would make somebody made and we’d decide it was definitely “over.” A few weeks of being apart, we’d be miserable without each other and get back together and start the whole process all over again.

A couple of years down the line, in the midst of one of our seeing other people phases Arleen called me from school. She said she had met someone. She said she was moving on. . .for good this time.

I was devastated. But at least then, the message was clear. Arleen’s recent visits to the Bean Counter had muddied the water a bit. Arleen came in for coffee just like she had promised. But then she came in the next day, and the next day and for a period of two and a half weeks, Arleen came in for coffee every single day.

At first she came in in the morning when things were busy and got her coffee to go. But as time went on, she started coming in later and later and staying longer and longer.

In the afternoons, when things were slow, I’d sit down with her and we’d laugh and talk and flirt with each other. I swear it was just like old times. We were getting back on track. My head was spinning with the whole thing. I’d try to tell myself that she was just coming in for the coffee but then it occurred to me. . . Arleen was drinking decaf. . . and the meant something else all together.