Waltz Time — Entry 11 - The Diner on 73rd
Waltz Time — Entry 11 - The Diner on 73rd
“We are never late when we arrive at the moment meant for us.”
But there you were, waiting patiently.
The diner was crowded in that Saturday-afternoon way, students with open textbooks and bottomless cups of coffee, families with strollers wedged against vinyl booths, the air thick with the smell of frying onions and burnt toast. The clatter of plates and the hiss of the griddle filled the space like background percussion.
And there you sat, alone at a booth near the window, the steam from your tea curling upward. You weren’t fidgeting, or checking your watch, or shifting in your seat. You were simply there, steady, as though you had all the time in the world.
When you saw me, you smiled, not impatient, not even relieved, just warm, as if I had arrived precisely when I was supposed to. That smile was an anchor, and for a moment, the noise of the diner fell away.
I slid into the seat across from you, breath still a little uneven from rushing, my bag pressed against my side. You leaned forward slightly, your eyes alive with something I couldn’t yet name.
“I’m glad you came,” you said.
I nodded, the words caught somewhere between my chest and my throat. “Of course.”
You wrapped your hands around the mug, pausing just long enough to let the silence settle into something comfortable. Then you said it:
“The tour got cancelled.”
For a moment, I just stared at you. All those weeks of auditioning, the nerves, the hope, the kiss that still lingered in my memory, and now this? “Oh… I’m so sorry,” I said quickly, leaning in, my chest tightening on your behalf. I expected disappointment, maybe frustration, even bitterness.
But you weren’t upset. Not even slightly.
You shrugged, a small, steady lift of the shoulders, and that easy half-smile curved across your face. “It’s alright. Honestly… I think it’s better this way.”
“Better?” I asked, searching your expression.
“Yeah.” You tapped the mug lightly, thoughtful but unshaken. “It means I get to stay here. In the city. Keep working, keep growing… and,” your eyes caught mine, steady now, “maybe it means I get to see where this—” you gestured lightly between us “—is going.”
The words sank into me slowly, like warmth seeping through cold skin.
“I can’t question these things,” you added after a pause, your voice calm, certain. “Everything happens for a reason.”
I tilted my head, studying you. “But how do you know that?”
You leaned back, almost amused, not defensive. “Why not choose that the outcome is supposed to happen,” you said, “rather than get all down and upset about it?”
I sat back, quiet, letting your words settle. It was such a simple philosophy, but it carried a weight that disarmed me. I had spent so much of my life bracing for disappointment, tightening myself against it. And here you were, opening your palms to it, letting it land without breaking you.
That was the first moment I understood: you didn’t just live in the world differently — you believed in it differently. And maybe, if I stayed close enough, some of that faith might become my own.
The conversation didn’t end there. It stretched on, winding its way through the clatter of dishes and the steady hum of the diner. We talked for another hour at least — about music and dance, about where we’d come from and where we thought we were going, about nothing at all and everything at once.
The tea went cold, the plates around us cleared, but neither of us seemed to notice. For that hour, time bent itself around us, holding us steady in the corner of 73rd and Amsterdam, as if the city itself wanted to give us room.
And somewhere in the quiet between your stories and mine, you began to open the door to a past I hadn’t yet seen ... a past that would shape everything that came after.
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