The Lady at the Counter

He had to make another list. The café was playing music that was quite light, but still a nuisance in his head. With his headset now in, he could get out of its stickiness and think about what to put in print. His spiral notebook was open to what he had already completed. It was not enough.

It was a con list. It would have all the things he did not like about living in the city; this meant thinking about the country as a whole (a challenge). In the hard-backed notebook – it was already one of the things he put on the pro-side: fantastic stationery available everywhere – he had filled out two sides back and front with the things that lingered with pleasure in his head. The music now changed to an instrumental circling around clarinets. He turned up the volume on his headset and blinked at the page.

He would not have thought of it if John did not stop him on their break. That was a week ago last Wednesday night. John wanted to hang out at the café on their shared days off and talk. It was during a festival in the park and they had walked away quite slowly from the drinking and dancing.

“That’s the plan.”

“So… And why are you leaving?”

“Time to move.”

“Where?”

“Back home.”

“There. And do what?”

He almost forgot that John was from a small town near his own in their home country. They became friends because of this, although he now wondered if John was the best relationship he could have formed at the office. John had a sort of 1950s rock star hairstyle (duck’s arse he heard it called) and it was thinning in a circle under the grease and grey hair. He often smelled of tobacco after their second shift.

John spoke his mind. He was easy to talk to when there was a problem in the office, and he understood how their managers thought. He never asked for John’s age – better to just guess and keep the answer private – but he wondered about the skull ring, leather bracelets and necklaces he wore under his polyester shirts. He liked the fact that John did not care about the looks from staff or managers when they saw him with a potential client. He was his own man.

There were also women who found him a real prize. He remembered the first time he met John outside of the office. Again, it was the park. On Sundays, vendors and performers took their places on the paved path around the man-made lake, low wooden fencing and benches. A woman in a tight motorcycle jacket had her arms around John from behind and playfully slapped his slight paunch. He forgot her name almost as soon as he was introduced to her. This was fortunate when he met John a few weeks later and he had another girl with the same sort of jacket and playful attitude on his arm.

The other thing that linked them up in his mind was that those women were young. He would range John’s dates between the ages of 20 and 25 (to be kind). It was never any higher. Again, he did not ask for clarification. At the office, he noticed how John lingered over some of his younger female clients long after their interviews were completed. He did not critique him or feel bad for the girls. But he wondered about having John as a companion. There was only one type of world there and it was not his own.

So, not a motive to stay... He had been challenged and now he thought that maybe John had a point. There was a great deal about the city that he loved and would miss: the cafés that stayed open all night; the bars and pubs with endless nights of karaoke and dancing; the women he found easier to talk to here than anywhere else he knew (something about being in the same situation as a foreigner might have made them much more tribal about relationships, however fleeting); the food; the music; the fashion (kids here were sartorially fearless). They would all be missed, as would a familiar face that shared a late night with him.

He never spoke to her, but he knew her. That face and those clothes could not be forgotten by anyone who saw them. The thick makeup made her seem like a kabuki actress, but her manners betrayed her age. John warned him once about not making eye contact when they once found her in there early after a long day at work. He seemed genuinely scared that the woman would try to join them, or even start a simple conversation. There seemed to be no chance of that tonight – she was several tables over on his left, near to the main counter – and he wondered if it was a mistake to keep his headphones on.

So, let’s risk eye contact... He looked over and noted how she sat in front of her usual pot of tea (green or oolong, he thought), and cigarette (they allowed you to smoke everywhere in this country; John would never leave). But there was something else happening here. She was gesturing to the very tired girl behind the counter and waiting for something. And she did something that she had never done before.

She was crying.

There were no sobs (he would not have heard them with the earphone), but as she looked down the counter as the girl brought her order, he saw how the makeup began to streak down her face. There was also something else going on with her hands. The lighter was standing on the counter and she brought out something from her highly detailed purse.

A single, thin candle was now next to her cup.

He wished he had not noticed these things. It was a private moment that he knew he could not ignore. The girl brought back her order and it was a very large piece of dark chocolate cake, layered with frosting and decals (he had seen it at the counter many times but never thought to order it with his tea or other drinks). The girl noted that the old woman now had a candle on the counter, and it was clear that she wanted to say something. But she did not say a thing to the lady. There was even a slight smile on her face as she spoke to her (did he wish her a happy birthday?)

He was assuming it was a birthday she was celebrating. What else could it be? He did not know all of the holidays and festivals celebrated in the country, but he made his own educated guess: she was always alone when he saw her; she was always overdressed with what seemed to be every piece of jewelry she owned; she always appeared here at the same time every day. What else could it really be?

He had almost forgotten his list. He had almost forgotten about John. It would be much easier to make up his mind now. He knew what he had to do.

*

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