Leon and Sunita rolled out of bed and crammed themselves into the car. They got the coffee and tacos they always got and took off on a little adventure. Leon had spotted a table on Craigslist and decided that it would make their apartment a home. They had both recently reached the ends of their shaky savings and found themselves wanting to look forward to something. At first, it felt like chasing free furniture was something they’d left behind after getting their undergraduate degrees. The more they thought about it, though, having someone else provide something stable for them was a tremendous relief.
Leon wanted to work on his art and maybe write. Sunita wanted to start her jewelry business and needed a surface on which to put things down. Logistically, the table could not accommodate these two intended purposes. Sunita’s setup would require a fully functional workshop. Leon’s art would maybe come more easily if he could overcome his current bout of depression. When he quit his insurance job to find himself as an artist, he hadn’t considered what it took for people like him and Sunita to keep their inspiration alive. That’s where the table came in. It would fix everything.
The table was yellow. It was also an antique. It was the kind of thing Sunita liked to sketch after watching a documentary about a famous artist in New York. They both wanted to be elderly artists in New York that everyone already loved. This was part of the problem. On Craigslist, the poster included their address—it was the kind of house Leon and Sunita could only hold in their periphery for moments while driving past it. This is precisely what they would do today. They would drive past, acquire the perfect yellow table, and come back to a place that felt more like a sustainable home.
They always ate in front of the television. Sometimes the television was a laptop. Either way, they always needed to be in the middle of a season of something to feel like they could function. Even a season finale that would conclude an uneven narrative was something they could get excited about. Sunita worked at a bookstore and wondered if it would withstand the dwindling sales figures her manager kept going over during meetings. If she could get back to working with her hands and creating the jewelry concepts she’d been sketching, something would click.
The thing Leon and Sunita had was each other. There was no effort or explanation required. The ease between them made the ride into the rich neighborhood immediately warm and memorable. They played the songs they liked and commented on the parts of town they needed to visit more. The streets got wider and the houses got larger as they got closer to their destination. There were certain kinds of things they wanted to entertain the idea of wanting, and this neighborhood had all of those things.
When they pulled up to the house, they parked at the end of a long driveway and debated about who should go in.
“You sent the email, right? I think it should be you.” Sunita nudged Leon.
“Oh, I guess I…I assumed you would go in. You know you’re better at these things?”
“What do you mean? There’s no negotiation here. It’s, like, a free thing.”
“Yeah, but I still feel like I’ll mess it up somehow.”
Sunits sighed and opened her car door. “Let’s go in there together,” she said.” Don’t you want to see where this table lives so we can give it a similar home?”
Leon got out of the car. “That table is about to downsize. I wonder if it knows it’s settling.”
“This person probably has dozens of things just like that table laying around. Look at the size of this place. It has two dining areas, at least.”
“Imagine the placemats if you’re hosting more than 5-7 people!”
They rang the doorbell and heard someone walking toward the door.
“Hey, are you here for that table?”
“Yes, was there some additional interest in it?”
“Well, um…It was kind of a first come, first serve deal. Someone already came by and took it. Sorry.”
Leon looked devastated. “Are you sure? Was it the yellow one with the tall legs?”
“Yeah, hard to mistake it for another table. Our mom used to call it the giraffe. It doesn’t really match anything and we wanted to get rid of it anyway since it was her writing desk before she passed away. I really didn’t mean to lead you on.”
“No, it’s fine. It was free so it made sense that the first person here got it. Thanks, anyway.”
When the thing they were looking forward to didn’t pan out, Leon and Sunita felt suddenly stranded in a place they couldn’t make their own. They decided to go to the diner they always ended up going to so they could feel some semblance of control over the day. Why had the table meant so much? Who had it now? What dreams was it fulfilling?
The truth was that the table itself was never going to be what they wanted or needed it to be. It was an object that would simply sit with the other objects living in their tiny apartment. They found one of the shows they had been streaming and played it while both playing on their phones. The comfort of it was overwhelming, and for a second they both decided to stop trying to figure out what was next.
Leon grabbed his sketchbook and so did Sunita. They turned the TV off after a few hours and drew in silence. They drew each other’s faces, their happy places, and things they remember liking as kids. They were surprised to discover how much they could still learn from each other. This made the apartment feel rekindled with hope. Table or no table, they probably had everything they needed to be alright.