“You have to be careful what you say in here,” Charlie whispered, lips hidden behind his coffee mug. His eyes were ringed by dark, tired skin. He took a swig, placed the mug at the edge of the table—far away from the open notebook in front of him—then leaned in. His friend Jordan leaned in too, until the tips of their noses almost touched.

“This is a writer’s café,” Charlie breathed under his cupped hand, the smell of bitter coffee emerging from his mouth like a mushroom cloud.

     “What’s a writer’s café?” Jordan asked.

     A sudden hiss erupted from the espresso machine. Immediately, a scruffy old man sitting at a small table in the corner scribbled something down on a piece of paper. Charlie eyed the man with suspicion then leaned back in his chair. Jordan leaned back too.

     The café was filled with the delicate sounds of spoons clinking against cups, but something was off. It took Jordan a minute to realize what it was—nobody was talking. Pairs sat across each other quietly. Most sat by themselves, heads down. Faint music drifted overhead. The air tingled. It seemed like everyone was waiting for something. Listening…

     “This is where writers come to write,” Charlie said in a low voice. Jordan glanced down at the blank page on the table between them. Jordan was not a writer. He didn’t like reading much either.

     “You see that man over there?” Charlie flicked his head in the direction of the old man, who was now muttering to himself.

     “Yeah?”

     “I see him every time I come in here. Same table, too. Goes by the pen name, ‘J. T. Shrapmann.’” Charlie leaned in again and whispered, “I heard he almost made it BIG.”

     “How big?”

     “KING big,” Charlie said with a maniacal grin, which made Jordan feel uneasy. Jordan didn’t know many authors, but he did watch movies. The clown in the sewer haunted his childhood nightmares.

     The man in the corner scratched something out on his paper, then started thumping his head with his fist.

     “What happened to him?”

     Charlie shrugged his shoulders then downed his coffee. “Fell through, I guess. Chances like that come once in a lifetime. Imagine blowing your one shot…”

     A mousy woman at the table beside them—whom Jordan had suspected of eavesdropping—began typing on her laptop—soft at first, then faster, until her fingers were flying over the keys. Charlie ran two pinched fingers across his mouth and tipped his chair backwards, trying to sneak a look. She paused. Jordan stiffened—rarely did he feel so uncomfortable. Within seconds, the woman slammed her screen shut, stood up, and moved to a different table. Charlie blew a raspberry at her back. This caught the attention of a couple dressed in black sitting with their backs against the wall. They glared at Jordan over the rims of their heavy glasses, then exchanged whispered words. Jordan had the unnerving feeling that, if he let them, the bigger one would hold him down while the other sniffed his mug, looked down his shirt, opened his mouth—“Say ahh”—peered into his very soul for a story. Writers are a little crazy, he thought.

     “Anyway man,” Charlie said, tapping his pen on the blank page. “What’s new with you?”

     Jordan ran his fingers over the bare skin where his wedding ring used to be. He was still getting used to not wearing it. “Danielle asked for a divorce.”

     Charlie sat up straighter. “What happened, man? You two seemed solid.”

     Jordan sighed and ringed a napkin under the table. “I don’t know how to say this but”—Charlie’s stare was intense, unwavering—“remember Adam Sabinka from high school?”

     “The dweeb who dreamed of being a professional clown?”

     “Circus performer,” Jordan said sadly.

     “Whatever. Circus performer.”

     “She ran away with him.”

     Charlie banged both hands on the table, making his spoon rattle, and drawing the attention of everyone in the café.

     “Are you fucking kidding me, dude?”

     The room grew quiet. Even the radio music stopped playing. Jordan put a fist in his mouth and bit down hard. It felt like everyone was pressing in, like he was a specimen suspended in a jar of formalin, waiting to be taken out and prodded. For a moment, he thought he might even cry. Charlie waved his middle finger in the air until everyone turned back around.

     “Okay, okay. What exactly do you mean when you say, ‘she ran away’?”

     “I mean,” Jordan repeated, finger-stabbing the table on every syllable, “She. Ran. Away.”

     “Okay, calm down.” Charlie held both hands in the surrender. “Details.”

     Jordan continued reluctantly. “Sabinka’s Traveling Circus? The ad on the billboards? Ring a bell?”

     “Oh my god, dude,” Charlie said with a crass laugh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

     “You know the last thing Danielle told me before she walked out? She said she had always wanted to be an acrobat and that Adam was going to make her a star.”

     “Man, that is the craziest fucking story I have heard in a long time...”

     “Glad I could entertain you,” Jordan muttered.

     Charlie—who was trembling from all the caffeine—started scrawling on his notepad, but Jordan was half-paying attention. A pretty girl, who had sat down at the table next to them, was giving him a coy smile over her book.

     “Anyway,” Jordan said. “Thanks for inviting me here. We never hang out any more.”

     “What? Oh yeah, man. Of course.” Then, Charlie stabbed the page with his pen, shot up, said, “I’ve got to take a leak,” and left.

     Jordan sat at the table in silence. He was wrestling with whether or not he should talk to the girl—what he would even say—when a sentence in Charlie’s notebook struck him. It was upside down, but if he tilted his head he could just make it out—‘Wife dumps loser husband and runs off with professional clown lover to join his traveling circus.”