Riddles in the Diner

The papaya sat uneaten on the plate, its flesh the color of something forgotten—of bruises and sunsets and the way his back looked walking away three years ago.

You're wearing the hat, Elena said.

Old habits, Marcus said, finger against the brim of the Dodgers cap. They'd met here, this diner with fluorescent lights that hummed like trapped insects, after the baseball game that changed everything. Their sophomore year. She'd been drinking something pink and sweet. He'd had spinach stuck in his teeth. She hadn't told him until the third date.

She'd wanted to be an archaeologist then. Excavating truths. Instead she sold insurance and excavated nothing.

You're like the sphinx, she said now. Riddles and silence and that look.

What look?

Like you know something I don't.

His wedding band caught the light when he reached for his coffee. Silver, not gold. She'd picked it out, once, in a store they never entered.

The papaya's getting warm, he said.

I'm not hungry.

They sat in the absence between them. A woman at the counter laughed. The cook slammed something metal. Somewhere outside, a car horn.

She thought about telling him she'd bought tickets to Egypt last spring. How she'd stood before the actual sphinx, sand in her shoes, heart hammering against ribs like a trapped bird, waiting for something to reveal itself. For clarity. For the stone lips to part and speak the one sentence that would untangle the years.

The sphinx had said nothing.

Neither would she.

You should go, she said.

He nodded. Left money on the table. The hat dipped when he stood.

The papaya sat there, sweet and strange and patient, as the bell above the door chimed once and then silence rushed back in to fill the space where someone had been.