Just a little time

by Paula Sophia
Special Issues Columnist

Folks in The Gayly region love to visit, and it’s considered rude to break away too soon. Lunch meetings stretch into the afternoon, dinners into the evening. We like each other, like hanging out together, fortifying our relationships and building new ones.

So, imagine the culture shock I experienced in Washington D.C., where everything is meticulously scheduled, even social meetings, which are really only casually dressed business meetings.

Upon meeting a new acquaintance for a coffee one evening, she glanced at her watch and announced, “We have forty-five minutes. Hi, how are you?”

What I thought was going to be a leisurely discussion, a chance to get to know someone better, took on an air of purpose, like a job interview or an audition. I felt a little pressure to say thoughtful things, to be funny on cue, to be brilliant. It was a fast forty-five minutes. We talked about career goals and ambitions, where we’re going to be in five years. Yeah, that.

When she announced it was time to leave, she gathered her things, paid her check, and walked away, obviously in a hurry for her next scheduled social event. I still hadn’t finished my drink, a frozen mocha shake, so I leaned back, watching the hustle and bustle of Washington D.C.’s sidewalk café culture, everyone so intent, so focused and purposeful.

I imagined a young couple on a date: one of them a newly hired congressional staffer, the other a statistician for one of Washington’s many think tanks. They greet each other, sit down, and order drinks. They’re both hungry, but they only order an appetizer to share. After gulping their martinis and eating their hummus and pita bread, they glance at their watches and smile.

One of them says, “If we’re going to have sex, we have forty-five minutes.”
They get up, pay their checks, and walk out of the restaurant still hungry, still wanting another drink but happy they hadn’t over indulged. One of them lives down the street in a fabulous looking apartment building, fashioned like a series of row houses.

The apartment itself is a tiny living area furnished with a love seat, a petite table and a big screen TV, all of it squeezed against a kitchenette comprised of a small refrigerator, a narrow stove, and a microwave. The bathroom is a closet. The bedroom is barely big enough to accommodate a queen-sized bed, and there are no decorations, no frivolous expressions of personality, just an austere little place for sleeping and sex.

A couple sitting at a table across from me smiled at me. The gentleman, an older man with grey hair and kind eyes asked, “Did you say you were from Oklahoma?”

I nodded. “Yes, Oklahoma City.”

He told me they had lived in Oklahoma City for twenty years, that they missed all the friendly people. His wife used to teach school while he practiced medicine. They asked me about the new developments in Bricktown, about our wonky politics and about the welfare of a friend of mine, a music teacher who taught their children when they were young. We talked about tornados, tall wheat and sunsets.

We talked for hours as the busy city buzzed on by, and suddenly, I felt more at home.

Copyright The Gayly – September 16, 2016 @ 1:10 p.m.