You Were a Child
In Jack’s the other day I was reading at the only free table, which happened to be next to two girls and their nanny.
The girls were around nine years old, I think, but they could have been older. I’m not around kids enough to know. And they were loud. I’d try to read a sentence and hear, “This is THE best. Chocolate chip cookie. I’ve ever had. In my life.” I’d try to read the sentence again and hear, “Can you make yourself burp?” Followed by a loud burp. I’d try to read the sentence again and hear, “That happened to my cous-in? They were on a field trip? In a ma-all? And when it was time to meet up, there were only six of them!”
Photo by Shanna Ravindra for New York Magazine
When they finally finally gathered their stuff to leave, after a second chocolate chip cookie, most of which was on the side of the one girl’s mouth and then probably on the sweatshirt she pulled over her head, I had the thought that I always have in these situations: I don’t know how I will ever have the patience for children. It is exhausting just to be near them.
It was so nice to sit there in the quiet coffee shop after the door had closed. It was like sleeping in when my college boyfriend used to get up to row crew. I reread the sentence I had tried to read maybe 50 times since I had gotten there and actually understood it. I sipped my tea without worrying that someone might crash into the table.
But then this really weird and horrible thing happened. A few minutes after they left, the coffee shop felt too quiet. Something in the air was off. And, difficult as it was to admit, I found myself missing them.
