Three-Martini Lunch Read Free Page A

difference because he was so reserved and only hung around our group in a peripheral way.
    But Miles
was
there one afternoon when I went to a café to write. I had decided my crummy studio apartment was partly to blame for my writer’s block and that I ought to try writing in a café. After all, Hemingway had written in cafés when he was just starting out in Paris and if that method had worked for Hemingway then I supposed it was good enough for me. The café I happened to choose was very crowded that day and the tables were all taken when I got there but I spied Miles at a cozy little table in the far corner of the room and just as I spotted him he looked up and saw me, too.
    â€œMiserable day outside,” I said, referring to the rain.
    â€œYes.”
    Miles and I had never spent time together on our own and naturally now that we were alone there was an awkwardness between us and it dawned on both of us how little we truly knew each other. I squinted at the items on the table in an attempt to surmise what he had been up to before I had come in.
    â€œAre you writing something, too?” I asked, seeing the notebook and the telltale ink stain on his thumb and forefinger.
    â€œI’m only fooling around,” Miles answered, but I could tell this was a lie because peeking out of his notebook were a few typewritten pages, which meant whatever Miles was working on he cared about enough to take the trouble to type it up.
    â€œI see you own a typewriter,” I said, pointing to the pages.
    â€œThe library does,” he said, looking embarrassed. I couldn’t tell whether the embarrassment was due to the fact that he was too poor to own atypewriter or because it was obvious he took his writing more seriously than he’d wanted to let on.
    â€œThey charge you for that?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
    He nodded. “Ten cents a half hour. It’s not too bad. I’ve taught myself to type at a fairly good speed now.”
    â€œThat’s swell,” I said. “Say, do you mind if I settle in here and do a little scribbling of my own?” I asked, finally getting to my point.
    â€œOf course not,” Miles said, pushing a coffee mug and some papers out of the way on the table. He had a very polite, formal way about him and it was difficult to tell whether he truly minded. But whether he minded or not didn’t matter because after all he’d said yes and I needed to write and there really weren’t any other tables and I wasn’t going to go look for another café because by then it was really coming down cats and dogs outside. I pulled out my composition book and fountain pen and set to work staring at the thin blue lines that ran across the white paper. About ten or so minutes passed and I had made a very good study of the blank page. Then my nose started to itch and my knee began to bounce under the table. I looked up at Miles and watched him scrawling frantically in his notebook. I was curious what it was that had gotten him worked up in a torrent like that. He was so absorbed in his writing he didn’t notice me staring at him. Finally, I asked him what he was working on. The first time I asked he did not hear me so I cleared my throat and asked again, more loudly. He jumped as if I’d woken him out of a trance and blinked at me.
    â€œIt’s a short story, I suppose . . .” he said. This was news to me because, like I said, nobody had bothered to tell me Miles wrote anything at all, let alone fiction. Between his attending Columbia and writing, I was beginning to feel a little unsettled by all the things we had in common. Something about Miles was making me itchy around the collar.
    â€œI don’t know if it’s any good,” he said.
    â€œSay, why don’t you let me have a look at it?” I replied, catching him offguard and reaching for the notebook before he could put up a fight. “I know good