His hazel eyes followed the sparrow’s dive off the gutter and then backup onto the gold arch of the “Enter Here” sign for McDonald’s.

“Alfred.” His attention snapped back to Natalie reddening face.

“Did you hear me?” Her eyes, sharp needles, poked at him.

“No, I’m sorry.”

“You’re always sorry.”

“I know,” he said in an almost whisper, as he slowly let his breath out. She pushed her ringlets away from her face and into the sunlight. He studied how the strands glowed.

“Please listen,” she said patiently. “Six months” and shook her head; he tried to ignore the rattling glow.

“Six months is a long time and...hey, common’ focus for just a second,” she said as she put a hand to his stubbled cheek. He shifted in the stiff, wood-slat bench and leaned forward onto his elbows, eyebrows furled. She put both her hands around his clasped hands, as if in prayer.

“Please.”

“I know. I’m trying.”

“See that’s the problem, you’ve been trying for six months...so have I, I guess but I just can’t continue to try...I need someone who will do because all I ever do is try...and if you’re trying...” She slipped out of focus as he noticed several kids playing at the feet of the Ronald McDonald statue and he felt suddenly sad and he saw the sparrow do its little hop-flight onto the hard, red hair of the smiling clown.

“Alfy!”

“Yes?”

She let an irritated sigh drift out between her lips and ran her hot-red nailed hand under eyes.

“Be back in a second.”

She flip-flopped towards the bathroom, her paint-stained jeans jostling in between the steps. He sipped his coffee and noticed the cashier staring at him, who promptly turned away — her red hair flashing behind. He noticed that her gold name-tag accurately said “Lynn.” He remembered a Lynn. Lynn was the name of the third girl who had ever kissed him in the coatrack, when he decided that he had “out-grown” third grade. He heard the “flip-flop” coming near the table.

“She’s cute.”

“Hmmm?”

“The girl. She’s cute.”

“Probably not even out of high school.”

“You should tell Sparky, uncle Harry’ nephew.”

“About?”

Natalie’s eyes dashed toward’s Lynn’s direction.

“A number three and a number four,” Lynn shouted from the sticky counter.

Alfred took the tray and sat it down between Natalie and himself. They ate silently, their small chewing noises dotting the early lunch crowd’s chatter. He continued to blankly stare out the window; she studied each bite of chicken-sandwich and every fry that she at only half of. When they’d finished, he ordered her a cup of coffee, while she went to the restroom with a “flip-flop-flip-flop” trailing behind her. As he turned back towards the table the new play-set caught his attention. He sat down, but kept his eyes focused on the Lucky Charms colored play-ground, the middle of which had a large dome with long, plastic spider-legs. “Flip-flop.” “Flip-flop.” “Flip-flop.”

“A flying-saucer just landed,” he said, as if announcing the score of a baseball game.

“Sorry, I missed it.”

“That’s ok. It’ll be here for a couple more years.”

They sipped, slowly and silently, seeming to listen to the screaming and laughing kid voices.

“I’m going to go” Natalie said, as she finished her coffee. Alfred tilted his cup on its side, using the paper cup to cradle the large remaining drop, carefully swaying it back and forth.

“Alfy” she said quietly, softly.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” He got up and let a whoosh of coffee tainted air push through his nose, the bitter taste still circling his teeth. He began to dump the tray, but stopped. Alfonso took one of the half-eaten french-fries, then dumped the trash, and walked towards the play ground, the fry pinched between his fingers.

“Alfy, what are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. He opened the door gauged the distance to Ronald’s upturned palm and then the distance to the sparrow and softly chucked the half-bitten fry upwards. It missed and fell to the newly padded ground. The sparrow flustered its wings. Alfonso bit his bottom lip, “Sorry, Francis,” he said and waved. He turned back towards the exit, towards the place where Natalie had stood. He saw her, briefly, through the glass of the handicap door, standing at the crosswalk and then watched the lights turn red and her silently walk away.

.....

Natalie cracked the metal seal on the Spaghetti-O’s can. She twisted the can around the opener’s blade, slicing the metal so that it seemed to gasp. A slow dance number by Sinatra seeped out of a child’s turntable she had bought while thrifting. The bleached glow of her fluorescent above-the-sink light somehow didn’t interfere with the emergency candles she had placed about the kitchen and metal dining table.

“Romantic...” she said aloud and in a way that made her want to say something else, but the words seemed ahead of her, just out of reach, like the metal spoon hid in one of the swaying shadow on the table. Come on Alfy — that was what she wanted to say.

From where she stood against the fake-marble counter, she could see in the small cupboard that acted as her pantry. So many cans. She wouldn’t need to shop for awhile. The water bill would probably go down also. Sinatra seemed to be trying to sneak out the window and to the ally below.

Onto her padded folding chair, at one end of the table, she let herself fall. The table seemed off-balanced. She moved the candles into different formations, but the light still bothered her. On the floor next to her chair, she noticed the morning’s newspaper. She picked it up and placed the stale body across the table from her. Ignoring his coffee mug stains on the front page, she opened the paper and began to examine the pictures, since the words were too muddled in candle light.

The Sinatra click-off. Too soon, she thought. Her eyes felt like they had been reading for hours. The candles had burnt down to their bases and the fluorescent light, for once, seemed bright. Her bowl of Spaghetti-O’s was on the counter and cold.

.....

Alfred kept the stucco ceiling fitted to his eyes. Stretched-out on the recliner covered in a pea-soup colored towel, Alfred stared upwards. An half-eaten bag of burnt popcorn sat on the floor beside him like a small sleeping dog. An unopened beer bottle stood next to the popcorn, its perspiration already dried. The only light in the room came from the bars across the street. Their weak blinks would warm the room briefly before changing a different color. The ceiling reflected the colors the best. Something with resemblance to his phone’s ring called from across the room.

He struggled to bring his eyes down from the ceiling and his feet up from the recliner.

“Hello, Alfy? It’s me.”

“Hey.”

“Hey, I was just wondering what you’re up to. I think it’s pretty late. Not sure, though.”

“I was...I don’t know...just sitting around.”

“Thinking?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.”

A kind of silence melted into place between them. A feeling of water washing quietly between their phones held their voices back, but made a closeness appear like the neon lights on the ceiling—intimate and yet distant.

Natalie sighed, “Alfy.”

“Yes?”

“Sorry, I don’t know. Wasn’t really a question, I guess.”

“That’s ok.”

“No, no it’s not.

Their silence returned. It didn’t feel distant this time, only intimate. Neither breathed heavily enough to hear the other. Neither had music or a tv in the background of their phones. Their silence was perfect.

“Tomorrow? Lunch?” Alfred asked.

“Mmmyyyeahh. Yeah, I think that would be good.”

“Alright. Tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow.”

.....

Even the early lunch crowd was late to the McDonald’s. The children and their leftovers had yet to arrive, and so the sparrows were few. Alfred was finishing his first cup of coffee for the afternoon, when Natalie arrived. She looked professional today. Black skirt, slightly above the knee, and a black jacket he had never seen before. She went to the cashier and only ordered coffee.

“How was your morning?” Natalie asked.

“I woke up late,” Alfred said, without malice or concern; he had already begun to bend his empty cup.

“Miss work?”

“I think so.”

“Think so,” Natalie stated, rather flatly and without judgement.

The cars on the street began to multiply. The brakes and horns could not penetrate the glass next to Alfred and Natalie, even the music and light chatter of the restaurant seemed to hover outside of them.

“Should we order?” Alfred asked Natalie.

“You can. Sorry, I was running late and have an interview in a little while. So just coffee will have to do.”

Alfred puckered his lips slightly and quickly nodded in understanding.

“How soon is the interview?”

“Soon. I’ll have to leave in a few.”

They both saw the light cloud of sparrows land on the smiling Ronald McDonald statue. They both studied the small flicking movements of feathers being preened by beaks and the not so random rearranging of sparrows’ seats upon the statue’s shoulders and head. They didn’t look too cold, even though the temperature was lower than the day before and there was a fine mist coming down.

Natalie finished her coffee. Alfred took her cup and placed it inside his. Natalie started to stand and then leave.

“You know...you know i’ve...wanted to...” Alfred stuttered.

“I know,” Natalie replied.

Alfred bit his bottom lip and nodded his head. He looked out the window to the sparrows, past their reflections.

“I know,” Natalie repeated very softly.

He watched her reflection reach a hand out and touch his shoulder, the thin image then leaned to his ear, as if to say something. Her lips opened, but nothing came out. They closed. The hand disappeared into the foggy blur of the window and the hard clicks of heels cracked away from the glass. The sparrows flustered off away from the smiling clown.