The Wake

I could not have possibly known how intensely introverted I am without going to Coffman Memorial Union at lunchtime. I used to know just how much of a self-conscious ball of anxiety I was, but I thought I had changed since the fourth grade.

I had some time between classes the other day so I decided to go chow on my old favorite: Einstein Bros. puff of delight called the chocolate chip muffin. Last semester I devoured the chocolaty mess—eventually transporting the entire napkin dispenser to my table—twice a week between classes.

“What can I get you?” the employee asked.

“Banana chocolate—oooh!” I said, veiling my eyes with my hands, screaming at myself on the inside for ordering something other than the chocolate chip muffin of the Gods.

Slowly, I began again, enunciating each syllable because I had to get it right. “I would like a chocolate chip muffin.”

“We don’t have those. Darlene, don’t we not have ‘em?” he asked an older woman sweeping around his feet.

“No. Just blueberry,” she said, half-looking at me, her face shooting rays of disdain at me as if she had told me the same thing every day for years.

“No chocolate chip?” I had to ask again.

“We got banana nut,” like he was making up for it.

I glanced back at the long line forming and felt the tears caused by my snail pace coming at T minus two seconds. I saw the cashier on the other side of me. She seemed to have been waiting for me for her whole life.

“OK, OK, I’ll have a banana nut,” wishing there was one word that would convey the meaning of the sentence.

Out of the twenty or so banana nut muffins in the display case, this nut handed me the most misshapen, dry-looking muffin I’d ever seen. Overflowing with disappointment, I walked with my blob toward the cafeteria. Upon entering, I clutched the piece of crap to my belly, feeling so alone.

I walked along the wall, not daring to pass the five or six lunch meetings of executives going on around laptop presentations. How could anyone have a meeting in this atmosphere? I couldn’t even feel my own existence.

As soon as I located an empty table, I heard a 20-something boy behind me trying to sound impressive about his plans for law school—quickly ditching the effort and diving into an explanation of his successful lawyer mom’s career. I often choose to talk about my mom’s pluck as one of the few female trial lawyers of her time in order to avoid admitting I possess a bare-naked resume.

“I hear ya,” I told my muffin to tell him.

The girl across from him said, “So, like, does she deal with like money stuff?”

I imagined him flexing his chest. “Well, yeah!”

“I have class in like 10 minutes,” poor sucker said, pausing so she (and I) would wonder why he was still lazing in Coffman.

“It’s like in the mall area!” He burst out laughing. He laughed enough for the three of us.

I glanced down at my lonely muffin. Gargantuan nuts of unknown variety were sticking out at me like angry goiters. I was fairly sure it would be my last meal ever. I slid one finger down into banana nut’s heart, testing for dehydration. I found the desert right there in Coffman.

“Oh my God!” the lawyer’s son interrupted my disgusted trance. “My class is at 2:30. I thought it was at 1:30. I’m not lyin’!” he said. The muffin must be to blame for the next event. Son stretched himself so far back that he cupped my entire head in his hands and caressed my head for at least two seconds.

The girl burst out laughing as he yelled, “I am so sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I said, staring at the muffin, trying to sound appreciative, forgiving and like I wanted to be his best friend and lover at the same time.

I carried my open backpack, armload of belongings that I had scattered across the table and my sick treat across the room. Lawyer’s son and I had crossed a boundary. It would never be the same.

Everywhere I walked, people gave me threatening looks that screamed,

“Do not sit at a table adjacent to me.”

“But where can I sit?” my face pleaded in return, my legs transforming into stretched out slinkies.

I awkwardly clutched my belongings to “Colorado State” imprinted on my sweatshirt and dragged my bag across the floor. Coffman workers on a break, men in important suits saturating their legal pads with scribble, office women discussing the mood of the country in hushed, sophisticated tones. They all took time out from eating, jotting and discussing to glance at me.

“I won’t bother you!” I wanted to drop my stuff and scream. “I just have to sit before I die!”

“Can I sit with you?” I said, each word hurled like five rocks. Well, pebbles more like.

“Yes, of course.” Finally I had found a decent person in this mass of hate.

The man across the table and very close to me pored over his giant taco salad, probably devising a method of attack. No book, no laptop, no

Minnesota Daily. I felt oddly at ease by him, even though I was being paid half of his wealth of attention.

As the nut goiters hit the inside of my cheeks and at least a thousand crumbs skated down my chin, I heard a female voice so loud I thought she was under the table. But she was sitting to my left. “That girl looks like she tucked in her sweatshirt. Or maybe it’s just her big fat belly!”

“Sick! Sick! Gross!” her male friend said.

I swiped my whole arm across my chin and mouth, sweeping muffin particles onto the floor. I looked at my sweatshirt. Nope, not tucked in.

Saved!

I smoothed Colorado State against my stomach, pretty sure I’d never wear it again.

They laughed until they got bored and felt the urge to tease again.

“We should go back through the line. I bet she says again, ‘One dolla five cents.’”

So they were making fun of the middle-Eastern cashier. I stole a look at the oblivious woman under a veil who was smiling with satisfaction at a job well done.

“When I go through her line, I can’t stop laughing,” he said.

I stuffed my headphones into my ears and blasted Dusty Springfield, trying to cleanse my mind from the muddy feeling that can only be felt from hearing hate speech.

Male’s cell phone rang and he leaned back, probably trying to massage the nearest scalp.

“Wanna get banged up? I’ll get banged up with ya! Where do ya wanna go?

Sally’s? Shots?”

He kicked off his loafers and stretched again, puffing his chest out with pride.

I finally felt like I was in college. So maybe I had to shed tears over muffins, lose my composure over feeling unwanted and then have my day made by an accidental pat on the head and an insane amount of taco filling.

“Let’s get coffee. Then we can smoke,” unpleasant girl said.

I gave them a smile of thanks. “Thanks for giving me all I need of ‘college’ ever.” They looked back, confused. I knew they meant,

“You’re welcome.”

I stood up, stretched, and threw three-fourths of the banana nut into the trash. Looking taco salad square into the eye, I said, “Thank you very very much.”

He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to.

Maya Berezovsky is a university student studying in Australia. She welcomes comments at .