The Cafe
The table is tight. Computer, coffee cup, quiche, phone, all within one and a half square foot. This is a chic café but my table is stumbling and have to hold my coffee to keep it from spilling. One more hour until my doctor’s appointment. I’m taking the time and also a spot away from the strong-blowing air conditioning across this narrowed room. I hear the woman at the register laughing loudly and telling a story to her co-worker. She started her morning early. Two other women have ran into each other by the coffee bar and talk about their relatives. They don’t give each other a break, they just keep on talking. I don’t know which one is louder. This is a small café. There is a third woman seating across and she’s talking to a young man who really wants to listen. He’s interviewing her and taking notes on a Moleskine. His body language shows keen interest and attention. Men in this room are quiet. The one in front of me speaks quietly while the one next to me is alone reading, taking notes, stirring his coffee, and picking on his pastry. He also moved away from the strong-blowing air conditioning. He is a retired man and is taking a class on some kind of ancient history. Suddenly, I hear the pastry box that someone is folding, an empty cup being placed on a tray, and the clinging noise of a fork sliding off the dispenser. Time to start my day.
Time to go
He walks into the living room. She is sitting on the couch. The same one she has been sleeping on for months. He looks taller and bigger than ever. So much that she has to look up. “I have guests coming…”, he says. No need to finish the sentence. She gets it. She is being kicked out. They have been friends, good friends. They were friends. She is packing up while looking at her wallet and the cash she has left. Her pride is bigger than the amount of money worth of a night at a cheap hotel. She will go. It till be dark and the road will be hot and dump from last night’s thunderstorm, like the give and take. Like the pay-for-your-right-to-be-here, and there.
The Gift Shop
I remember the smell of the gift shop. My mother’s gift shop. Our gift shop. Yes, ours, because the three women in my house, including me, had to work in it. It was a convolution of smells, the smell of paper, the smell of dust, the smell of office supplies, pens and pencils, erasers and staplers. The combination of dusty toys and gifts for men and women. The dust would come in from the dusty store front. Even though there was a grey concrete sidewalk in between, there was dust everywhere. So much that that we would water the dust, like plants or flowers that have seen better days, just to keep it settled. The water would create a stream that would flow down the street and run down infinitely, all the way to Avenida Principal. The smell inside the shop would get stronger as you would go further into the back until you got to the bathroom. The smell there was really deep. It felt dusty, it felt dirty, it was grey, it was the storage area for the gift shop. The piles of bond and newsprint paper would reach my height and extend into the shower, which was no longer a shower, but storage. I could barely wash my hands because boxes packed with books and products were almost blocking the sink. The smell was raw and dry, like an old factory. It was not a smell that would make me happy. It was a smell that made me not want to be there. It was the smell of something I had to live with. I never thought of complaining about it. I would just take it in.
Straight
I woke up at 6 A.M. at the beach. My family was ready to go since last night. We had laid everything out neatly for a smooth early departure the night before. 6 A.M. and I could barely get up. I put on the two pieces of clothes that I had folded on my night stand for easy reach. I banged my phone and shut down the annoying noise.
Victorian
The time was now. The alarm went off in the dark room covered with beach color blinds. My attitude was not of a woman who would want to start an early departure to town. I had just enjoyed a wonderful week end at the beach with my husband, child, and long-time friends. Is it six in the morning? I pondered without yet reacting to this uncomfortable morning situation. The sound of the alarm was neither inviting not expected. My mind was far in the meadows of the Eastern Shore dreaming of the sea and the herons.
Innocent child
I hate this alarm. Why I cannot have one more day at the beach? This is not fair. If it’s not my mother, it is this awful sound that wakes me up right after the best weekend at the beach. But it’s time to go back home. I hate Mondays.
Street, seen-it all
This happens all the time, to my family, I mean. We can’t get organized to have one more day at the beach. Whatever, I have to get up. I bang the darn alarm clock to shut it up and move on. It’s always the same story. Weekends don’t get better around here.
Departures
1 story in 4 different styles
I’m seeing an electric blue Toyota Prius. It has a few scratches on the bumper and it is not as clean as it should be after this morning hard rain. My guess is this is a 2012 make. For curiosity I open the back door and find folders in multiple colors piled up. They are about to fall on the floor and are packed with colorful sticky notes and dividers. Someone has a lot of work to do. The car smells like an old sandwich that someone forgot to eat. Maybe left in that plastic bag that’s trapped in between the front seat. I can smell the cheese and the wheat flour. That bottle of water hasn’t been open but it’s all crashed and the water in it doesn’t look fresh anymore. It is 92 degrees outside so how many times has that plastic compressed and expanded since it was abandoned along with those file folders? Oh, I see those shoes, the heels seem to belong to another time’s shoes. And the tie, are those flying pigs in the pattern? The blazer with patches on the elbows can’t stand the poor handling anymore, that half-way-off piece of leather is not a sign of someone who cares. But there he is. The oldest man in the world. Grey hair mixed with yellow tints in it. A beard that has’nt been shaved in days and teeth that I would prefer not to see smiling at me.