“Should we take a seat?” Mark asked, snapping Lane out of her thoughts.
"Yea, of course,” Lane said, taking a seat once more on that cold metal chair.
Mark sat on the edge of the chair and kept his shoes far from the indistinguishable stains and spills on the concrete floor.
“What a quaint little cafe you found here,” he said, calling the waitress over to their table.
“I thought you were coming in on the train today, so this was just the easiest place to meet,” Lane said, taking a sip of her coffee; it was cold.
“Yes, I’m greatly sorry about that, I had some business to attend to in the City this weekend, so I flew in early.”
“What sort of-” Lane started, but the waitress had arrived. The young girl picked a pen out of her hair and clicked the top.
“What’ll it be today, sir?” she asked, her Brooklyn accent greatly accentuating the beginning of the question.
“Just a chamomile tea would be fine,” Mark said.
Lane let out the first part of a laugh and waited for Mark to wink and say he was just kidding.
But he didn’t.
He just gave her a strange look and thanked the waitress.
“Since when do you drink chamomile tea?” Lane asked jokingly. “I remember you couldn’t go one day without a cup of strong coffee.”
Mark smiled, “Ah, well, turns out it’s not so good for you, and since those late school nights are behind me, there’s no need for it.”
Lane nodded and took another sip of her icy drink.
“So, what business did you have to attend to? What’ve you been up to all these years? Tell me everything,” Lane said, the awkwardness between them was annoying her. This was Mark, even if it didn’t seem like it.
And so he told her everything. How he had finally decided to major in business at that state university and began working at a company that was big enough to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. How he lived in Chicago, not far from where they both grew up, and spent Tuesdays and Thursdays working on the 26th floor of the Sears Tower.