Beach Reads: Modern Romance

By David Galef  |  Illustrations by Darcy Kelly-Laviolette

On her way to Bar-Rista, Yelped by 62 people as having the most Instagram friendly macchiato in Tampa, Sandra had already lost reception twice because of some weird interference—the Centro Ybor sign? extreme humidity?—that reduced her bars to zero. When a text to Li’l D, her #1 comadre, refused to send, Sandra gave up and dropped the phone into her snatch bag. One more block and she’d arrived: a green storefront identified only by a Mercator projection of a coffee cup as the world. Framed with rubber matting, the door sucked open, sucked closed.

At 2:24, all five tables were occupied. A three-day-scruff espresso drinker typed laconically on his laptop; a woman wearing three shades of black gulped at a cup where only froth was left, thumbing her phone with her other hand; a trans individual sipped at a cappuccino while scowling at something on their iPad. An older woman, at least 30, sat in the far corner of the 10’ x 10’ space, snapping a keyboard onto her tablet, ignoring the madeleine on the saucer in front of her. A couple in identical RAGE T-shirts sat across from each other, texting.

The tables fit only 1.75 people, which seemed unfair. Even the three window-counter semi seats looked occupied. Suddenly the one at the end was open, freed by a patron shoving a day-glo Samsung Galaxy into her back jeans pocket as she got up to leave. Sandra claimed the stool in three quick strides, plopping her bag onto the seat and heading back to the counter to order a soy latte with an extra shot. In afterthought, she added a double-cocoa brownie. She tapped her foot, logged onto Bar-Rista’s signal, and checked her phone while waiting. Never mind L’il D. The battery was down to 17%. Her charger was AWOL, of course. Anyway, five texts all in the last five minutes. Had to be Bvörk, the guy she’d linked up with on Kik last week, claiming he was related to the singer Björk. Fun only the first few days. She scanned the series:

sup baby where r u

miss u

u like otters right?

check out this site otterbody lol

wait otterbodies

She blocked his 941 Sarasota number. But she accessed DiverCity to see whether an abandoned baby otter story had made the cut—Bvörk the dork was right: she dug otters—then saw it’d been upstaged in favor of a ten-year-old boy who’d hacked into Tumblr. 74 upvotes. The featured clips on YouTube she’d already seen mid-morning, including Rockstar Mom. But while she was watching that a second time—those licks!—she checked whether anyone had viewed her cat trick video: pretty awesome for a kitten to crochet, at least that’s what it was supposed to look like, for all her coaching of Mew Mew. Only three new viewers had registered, one of whom had left the message “get a Dog!” Ugh. She’d have to make her friends Alex and Destiny from her local Ning give it another FB plug.

By the time Sandra walked back to her stool with her coffee and brownie, she was over her 941 fling. Whatever. Installed in her window nook, she took a deep sip from her drink, ignoring the brownie for the moment, and went back to her phone. March 27, 14:31—as well as the phase of the moon, from some weather app she’d downloaded and never gotten around to uninstalling.

No one had called—almost no one ever did these days, except her mother—but she made the mistake of checking her Gmail. Two messages from work sat in her inbox like grim sentinels. Sandra had a sort of job at Kress, a vegan catering shop nestled by Riverwalk. Her boss, a waif named Sheila, awarded her seven hours a week, mostly to answer inquiries and place orders. Sheila was old-school but recognized how much the game had changed. “I’ll do the cooking, you do the tech,” she’d told Sandra on more than one occasion. Sandra entered the shop every time feeling as if she’d crossed back into the 20th century. She thumbed off. She’d check email later.

Now she was making up for the lost hour of cutting across and downtown. She accessed her tunes, selected Mardi Mix, and tucked in her buds. She checked into Slalom but received only 1 point since she’d been here before. Try the americano! raved some idiot in the lower right portion of the screen. She took a pull at her latte and found it too hot. Since it was already mid-afternoon, she checked her newsfeed. PETA was again picketing in Key West against python exploitation. Flick. Tom Cruise carried up the Great Wall of China by his bodyguards. Flick. Yoga with Alec Baldwin, wondering out loud about having a sixth kid. Smile wrinkles around his eyes. God, the guy was getting old.

In another tab, she toggled over to Jezebel and was just scanning yet another piece about the death of twerking when a “hey” came from Skype, since she hadn’t bothered to make herself invisible. Alex? Alexis? “Hey hey,” she typed. A lewd custom emoji appeared, and she X’d out the exchange without bothering to find out which contact it was.

Guys.

The steam was still rising from her cup, and Sandra thought the pattern it made in the air was extremely artistic. Like a swan made of smoke, with her as the sculptor. She snapped one, two, three shots of the swirl and was about to post one on Snapchat when she realized it could really use a filter. Onscreen with Sepia, the shots didn’t look nearly as cool, and neither did any other geofilter. She took off the filters and tried again, but by the time she’d framed the mug just right, the steam had gone. She took a long sip, relishing the nutty soy taste that Mike, three boyfriends ago, had taught her to like. Another afternoon, she tweeted in her mind, but at the same coffee shop, drinking the same coffee. Then, because she liked the sound of that, she got on Twitter (@SandraS)—but not before checking out Mike’s latest microblog on FriendFeed—and sent it off into the flow.

Within 30 seconds, @devon.man wrote back: u left out what kinda coffee

Sandra wasn’t sure, so she walked over to the counter, where today’s brew was chalked up in block letters. Harrar ethiopian, she tweeted back, whatever that is

what would u say, devon-something-or-other replied, if i told u that im part ethiopian—with a crooked-smile emoji. For the first time, Sandra thought that the yellow face looked cute.

At this point they switched to Hangouts, though Sandra was already checking him out on FB. Devon turned out to be a good-looking guy in his twenties, maybe, relationship status available, with a lot of curly brown hair and no man bun, thank God, one of the reasons she’d broken up with Dennis last week. But you never knew how accurate the images were. Sandra’s main pic was current, within the last three years, but her friend, Tom the computer geek, had Photoshopped the hell out of it, as a favor for a favor that both had put behind them.

She’d been blonde, briefly pink, for the last five years. She was still petite but had been told by several people that she made up for it by being way assertive. No way to show that on FB, except for her typed-out list of likes and dislikes, the dislikes outnumbering the likes 5 to 1. Sense of humor, too: she claimed to dislike people who made lists of likes and dislikes. Beyond the photos, including one of her with whatsisname at that piñata party, her stats were fairly basic: timeline, which fixed her at 25, having graduated from USF three year ago. Marital status single, of course. Unsure what to list for activities, she’d put down hiking, figuring that sounded green.

Was Devon checking her out? Unclear. He asked if she knew the band Hot Coffee, and she googled it right away. love that song outta my way, she thumbed. She sometimes found time in between messages to access her PinIt bookmarks, but not now. She reached over to her latte, which was now barely breathing, but she didn’t mind. Much.

purple rinse and repeat  ?

That group she did happen to know and also happened to like. stairway to nowhere!

for sure     drummers awesome

Devon was so right. What could she do but agree? She did.

was glued to the holly would concert last nite on nubandz

OMG yes Holly Would really was a new fave of hers, especially after that video featuring Holly in half-body spandex, singing on top of her lead guitar player.

not as hot as the video tho holly playing him like an instrument

Bingo—Devon’s description dead-on, her thoughts exactly. For a second, she wondered whether Devon was using some new mind-reading app. No, this was just a sympatico vibe. But nice.

u write well

He sent her a blushing smiley face, along with an aww

She had to ask, probably should’ve five messages ago:

r u in a band   ?

um yeah

name pls

lemon drop

link pls

He sent her one to a song called “Through All of You.” It had a catchy rhythm, and what she could understand of the lyrics sounded clever, including a rhyme that linked “had more than a few” with “up my paddle without a canoe.” When he asked her what she did, she only half-lied and told him she was in the catering business.

any desserts blondies   ?

Gluten free blondies with a killer brown sugar kick were a specialty of Sheila’s. This was so right. yes & red velvet cupcakes too

A lip-licking smiley face.

She matched it with the one where the second yellow square hugs and kisses the first.

A pause. Then came a link to a hologram rose.

She posted it to FB and, after some deliberation, sent him a photo of her in her tightest jeans.

not for posting but to enjoy in private

wow ur so hot

u dont mean that

do

Another pause. Then Devon started talking cyber hangouts. Kennedy Country Club, Prana Pool. The last place she’d visited, Pianos, the session had lasted till two a.m., she got sick from the Ranch Doritos she’d finished a bag of, and left the screen with an odd ringing in her ears. So when Devon asked whether she’d like to visit Bembe this evening, she typed maybe and left it at that.

After ten more minutes of exchanges, she found herself falling for him. He was quick on the draw (essential), good looks (ditto), and seemed to be into the same things she was into (perfect). Good sense of humor. The one about the ass-backwards iPhone was on today’s JokeDaily, but so what? This, as she’d once heard on some oldie video, could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. The Mardi Mix was now on Dreamland’s “I Think I’m Falling in Love”: karmic.

She typed that she would visit Bembe with him, and what about virtual tapas at Arepa? They set it for 8:00.

face time? she typed, and he invited her. His icon was a tiny Viking. When the video connection opened, she saw that he was even hotter than in his FB photo, his shaggy brown hair hanging over a pair of blue eyes that drew in all the pixels in the area. He was framed against what looked like—a coffee bar.

She barely trusted her voice. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Caffeine.” He smiled, curving white teeth like the gateway to some inviting cave.

“The place with the pinball machine? God, that’s where I almost went this afternoon!” She reached over her head to pull back her hair.

“No Harrar Ethiopian here. No you, either.” He leaned in, looking both humorous and sad. His voice, even through her buds, was a rich tenor that made her vibrate.

“That could change. Whatcha doin’ now?” She opened her mouth as if she were going to eat him, glad she’d put on a scoop-neck this morning.

His eyes widened. His vintage T with the orange Würzburg logo made him look like a very young Sting. They back-and-forthed for a while longer, Sandra sinking deeper and deeper into the screen. When he said something about double-chocolate brownies, she laughed. “Oh, my God, I love you. You are so me.”

Devon bit his lip adorably. Finally he murmured, “Back atcha.”

They beamed at their screens.

Five seconds, ten.

It might’ve been eternity.

Finally Devon sighed, gestured upward. “Um, listen. I’m going to have to stop soon. Got a million texts to put out. Trying to get some action on a video the band’s releasing.” He made a what-I-have-to-put-up-with face. “But I’ll text you, promise. Twenty-thirty minutes, okay?”

Sandra blew him a kiss with a little tongue.

What to do now? More of the latte, which by now had cooled almost to room temperature. In fact, she’d brought a project, a flash fiction she’d been working on since yesterday, about a virtual city park where everyone plays with everyone else, from kids to adults, but that was as far as she’d gotten. For inspiration, she opened a new window and googled images of playgrounds, but they all looked disturbingly real, whereas hers was more . . . conceptual. After staring at the screen for a minute, she realized that was as far as she was going to get today. She kept visualizing Devon’s wide smile, Devon’s texts. Just thinking about contact with him made her hot. On came Voodoo zydeco, “Somethin’ Change Your Days.” She loved when her music lined up with her life. The thought of Devon emerged again: clicking on a 3D dish of patatas bravas with him at Arepa. Without thinking, she ate the entire brownie on the plate. Then she got onto YouTube, didn’t check the cat trick video, exited, and replayed “Through All of You.” She couldn’t help noticing this time that some of the lyrics applied to her, especially the line “Won’t leave you stranded in a small-town café . . . .”

Funny how being in love could mentally rearrange all your apps. One part of human nature they hadn’t been able to computerize.

To distract herself from her distraction, she checked BuzzFeed: U.S. government in shutdown mode, celebs behaving badly on planes. She IM’d Erin, her #2 comadre, and was slightly hurt when no immediate reply came. She always answered Erin right away. Finally, she went back to Hangouts to reread some of Devon’s replies.

She scrolled happily. Good opening line, cute follow-through, neat stuff about bands, bars, and one of those smiley faces, the reaction to spicy food, was lmfao. Devon was clever and probably had clever friends, too. More lines, leading to the date at Arepa this evening—

But resting at the bottom were three extra lines addressed to someone named Kyra, whom he called “sexy girl” and confirming a “steamy rendezvous @ the Loco Cyber Lounge.” Huh? He’d clearly typed into the wrong box without realizing. The display blurred surrealistically into her last year’s laptop blue screen of death before coming back into hard focus.

Dido rejected by Aeneas, from that mini-classics course she’d taken her junior year. Which she’d gotten a C in, but some things you don’t forget. She’d bookmarked a Wiki page about it. Like that scene in Game of Thrones. She blinked back a few tears, felt herself on the pyre, began to grow dizzy. Fading.

Sandra put out a hand to steady herself, but she got no support from her phone. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them onto the same screen, which she minimized. What else could she do but open another window? She couldn’t stand this. She’d have to. Her entire future had skidded offline—maybe. She still wasn’t 100% sure, and she’d be damned if she’d reach out first. An old Angry Birds app her only company, she waited for Devon to text her. When he did, a full forty minutes after she’d last spoken to him, with a sorry babes, she asked him about Kyra.

A pause that lasted longer than a 25MB download. Then came: u know kyra?

no but u do rt?

Another long hesitation. Too long.

just someone

…

girl i used to date

Sandra’s turn to pause. She felt something shift within her, like a screen turned sideways. Sadness, then anger. She saw all the minutes she’d wasted, spilling downward in the hourglass app she’d downloaded but never used. Was that it? Was that all there ever was? Was this the pattern of all history, of the whole internet? She flexed her fingers.

sooo?

wait pls

wait for what

Devon typed nothing.

Sandra signed off. Which was like falling upon Aeneas’s sword, but she did it.

For a while, she sat with her hands in her lap. It had been so promising. Hadn’t it? Hadn’t it? Brendan Maclean’s “Stupid” was channeling through. She felt like crying, shook her head, and removed her buds. When she looked into the depths of her drink, she was surprised to find it all gone.

Espresso man was still typing into his laptop, and the woman in blacks was now smiling at her phone, but half the other patrons had left, leaving an empty rectangle around her. Another latte? No. She sat there another minute in silence, but finally found it unbearable. She couldn’t remove the image from her mental screen: Devon laughing, talking to her and her alone. The future they might’ve had in cyberworld.

She was close to dead. Her phone was now down to 2%. She found breathing difficult, as if she’d used up the air surrounding her. Time to face reality. Packing up to leave, she felt as if escaping from a hole, but when she exited by the tinted glass door, she felt sharp regret. Compared to the washed-out gray of the sidewalk, her love had seemed so much more solid than what was outside.

About the Author

David Galef has published over a dozen books, including the novels Flesh and How to Cope with Suburban Stress (one of Kirkus’s Best 30 Books of the Year) and the short-story collections Laugh Track and My Date with Neanderthal Woman (Dzanc Books’ Short Story Collection Award). His work has been translated into Russian, Spanish, and Japanese. His latest volume is Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook. See more at davidgalef.com