Ruth had seen that look before on men of his age and background. the look of someone who had learned a long time ago that you got through difficult things by focusing on the small immediate pleasure in front of you rather than the larger difficulty surrounding it. In the booth near the back, Newman and Redford were arguing about the film they had just seen.
This was what they did after screenings. They argued not because they disagreed exactly, but because argument was how they thought, how they sharpened what they actually believed about something. Newman thought the third act had collapsed. Redford thought the problem was earlier in the second act, that the third act was simply paying the price for a structural mistake made 40 minutes before.
They had been having this argument in various forms about various films for 6 years. Neither of them ever fully convinced the other. Yet Newman saw the old man first. He stopped mid-sentence. Redford noticed the pause. He looked up from his coffee. He followed Newman’s line of sight to the counter to the man with the pinned sleeve sitting over his soup, which had arrived now, eating slowly, making it last.
Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then the old man finished his soup. He finished his coffee. He turned the mug over to signal he didn’t want to refill, the gesture of a managing his expenses carefully. Ruth brought the check. She watched him reach into his jacket pocket and produce a small change purse, the kind that snapped closed at the top.
He opened it and turned it over. Coins fell onto the counter. He arranged them in small groups. Quarters first, then dimes, then nickels, then pennies. He counted quietly, his lips moving. He recounted that he looked at the total on the check, then at the coins, then at the check again.
