The Pretty Delicious Cafe

by Danielle Hawkins

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ wailed Anna, arriving at a run.

  ‘It’ll be alright,’ I said, turning the dough over in search of further traces of oil. ‘It just needs to cool down. It’s done it before.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘A few months ago,’ I said.

  ‘Did it not occur to you that maybe we should get it serviced?’

  ‘Anna, I’m not a complete moron! Monty had a look at it. He said it’s just getting old and tired, and to keep it oiled.’

  ‘Since when you’ve oiled it how many times?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘None. I forgot all about it. I’m sorry, I’ll do it now; there’s some oil under the sink.’

  ‘Shit, Lia.’ She looked into the mixer bowl. ‘No wonder it blew up. Is that supposed to be pizza dough?’

  Tight-lipped, I tipped the dough (which was indeed as dry as the Sahara and as stiff as a corpse) out onto the bench top, made a well in the middle and poured in half a cup of water.

  Anna was evidently even crankier than I was, because she added, ‘I don’t know why you seem to feel that actually measuring the ingredients instead of taking a wild guess is an admission of defeat.’

  ‘Look, it doesn’t matter! I’ll fix it!’ Folding the dough around the extra water, I began to knead it with the heels of my hands. The water turned the dough from stiff and dry to stiff and slimy, and the thought that I’d just potentially killed our most useful appliance did nothing to improve my mood.

  ‘If you’d just take that extra three seconds and do things properly in the first place you wouldn’t need to spend all your time fixing them!’

  There is nothing more annoying than having someone take you to task for a character flaw you’re already well aware of. ‘Would you please stop implying that everything I touch turns to shit?’ I snapped. I kneaded too vigorously in my anger, and a jet of water escaped the ball of dough to hit me in the face.

  ‘If the shoe fits . . .’ murmured Anna, turning away.

  At that point I lost my temper entirely. ‘For Christ’s sake, would you just eat something? No wonder you’re such a bitch, living on water crackers and lettuce! I don’t know how Rob puts up with it!’

  Anna’s face went white, and I was filled with a mixture of horror at having Crossed a Line and exhilaration at not, for once, having turned the other cheek to keep the peace.

  ‘Rob and I are none of your business!’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘You keep the hell out of our relationship!’

  ‘I have bent over backwards to keep out of your relationship!’

  She gave an angry, incredulous snort.

  ‘It might come as a shock, Princess, but you’re actually not entitled to all of Rob’s attention all of the time,’ I said savagely.

  ‘You are such a parasite!’ she shouted. ‘You can’t bear the thought of Rob wanting to be with anyone except you! How about you grow up and get your own life rather than trying to ruin mine?’

  I lifted that two-kilogram ball of dense, slimy dough and threw it, overarm, straight at her head. It missed, but only because she ducked. Then I whirled around and ran down the porch steps.

  * * *

  Sore knee or no sore knee, I went up the steep dirt track that led to the beach as if a swarm of killer bees was on my heels. Reaching the top of the hill, I plunged down the bank, ricocheted off the old puriri tree below and came to rest on the side of a sand dune. Then I buried my head in my arms and cried.

  Abandoned weeping isn’t a bad way of putting off the moment when you’re going to have to think about whatever it was that made you cry, but you can’t keep it up indefinitely, and when you stop, your problems are all lined up waiting for you and your eyes feel like they’ve been sandpapered. Sitting up, I sighed, dried my face on the apron I was still wearing and stared miserably out to sea. The sun was behind me now, reflecting off the waves with a glare that hurt my eyes, and although it was nearly six the air had lost none of its heat.

  Parasite my arse, I thought with a little rush of anger. It’s difficult to keep right out of a relationship between your twin and your best friend, but I did my best. I didn’t comment on their relationship and I didn’t drop in to their house uninvited. I never forgot that fiancée outranks sister – although I couldn’t really take credit for that; heaven knew I was reminded often enough. Anna bossed me around, she patronised me, she acted like she was the one who held the place together when I did all the accounts and two-thirds of the cooking, she resented every minute Rob spent with me or his friends, she was high-maintenance and self-obsessed and thought people like Melody the Hosebeast were worth cultivating merely because they wore designer clothes paid for with Daddy’s credit card . . .

  Slanderous rage is almost as good a delaying tactic as abandoned weeping, but it’s even harder to maintain, and eventually I lapsed into gloom instead. My throat hurt, my knee ached and my sense of perspective had vanished entirely. You can’t work with someone who thinks you’re a life-ruining parasite, and you certainly can’t socialise with them. Pretty Delicious would have to be sold – neither of us could afford to buy the other out – and it would all be horribly awkward for Mum and Rob. Oh, God, I thought, it’ll be like a divorce.

  On this cheerful conclusion I blew my nose on my apron, stuffed it into my shorts pocket and got to my feet. Then I picked my way slowly down the side of the sand dune onto the beach and headed towards Mum’s place.

  It took me half an hour to reach the south end of the beach. The sun was down behind the hills by then, and there weren’t many people around. I passed a trim-looking couple in their fifties going for their evening run, rounded a low sandhill at the mouth of the estuary and saw Jed twenty metres ahead. He was on his hands and knees building a sandcastle, wearing a pair of lime green board shorts and accessorised by a small blond child. They looked absorbed, happy and as wholesome as a Disney movie.

  I, on the other hand, looked like someone who had slept poorly, cooked for ten hours, run up a hill and finished off with a good cry. I stopped walking, wondering with something close to panic if I could slink back around the corner unseen.

  I couldn’t. Jed looked up and saw me, and got to his feet. With the option of escape gone I went forwards to meet him, painfully aware of red eyes and an unsightly apron-sized bulge in my shorts pocket.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hi.’

  He had such a nice body. Muscular but not bulky, the kind you get from real work rather than in a gym. And he’d noticed me looking . . .

  ‘Is this Craig?’ I asked hastily, turning to watch the little boy slap handfuls of wet sand onto a lopsided sandcastle.

  ‘Sure is. Hey, mate, come and say hello to Lia.’

  Craig glanced up, fixed me with a brief grey-eyed stare and went back to his work.

  His father sighed but didn’t insist.

  ‘He’s very like you,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, so people say. How’s your knee?’

  ‘Oh – fine. How’s your hand?’ The bandage I had put on his split knuckle was gone and his two middle fingers were taped together with sticking plaster.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Heard any more from your loser ex-boyfriend?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Have you moved that key, yet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He smiled at me. ‘Good girl.’

  ‘How – how are things in Thames?’ I asked.

  Jed looked at Craig to see if he was listening. He wasn’t; he was busily pushing his sandcastle back into the crater beside it. ‘Reasonably shit,’ he said softly. ‘But the mental health crisis team came and did an assessment on Saturday, and they’ve set up an appointment at Waikato Hospital for the end of the week. With any luck they’ll admit her for a few weeks and try to rejig her medication.’

  ‘That’s good. I thought maybe at this time of year it’d be difficult to get an appointment.’

  ‘No. Full credit to them, they’re taking it pretty seriously.’ He pic
ked at a corner of the tape on his hand. ‘I’m, um, not really flavour of the month, so she’s with her parents until then, and Craig and I are having a few days’ holiday at the beach.’

  ‘You were flavour of the month the other night,’ I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  He looked up, at that. ‘Not for long. I was going to ring, to say thank you for –’

  ‘Dad!’ Craig called. ‘I broked it all down! Build it again!’

  ‘You miserable little hound,’ said Jed, turning to look.

  Craig giggled. ‘Come on, Dad. Build it again!’

  ‘Well, bye,’ I said. There’s only so long you can stand around looking wistful and exchanging stilted small talk before it stops being touching and starts being kind of lame. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Bye,’ he said.

  We looked at one another for a moment, and then he turned back to Craig and his sandcastle and I continued up the beach. Good on us, I thought drearily. No dragging it out; say goodbye and walk away. Stiff upper lip and all that. Jolly good show.

  ‘Hey, Lia,’ he called.

  I looked back, spirits soaring. Excellent. Stiff upper lips were for losers.

  ‘Do you need your car tomorrow?’

  Oh. ‘Um, no,’ I said. ‘Do you want to borrow it?’

  ‘No, I thought maybe I could have a look at that fanbelt.’

  ‘You’re on holiday!’

  ‘That’s alright. It’s a quick job. And I’ve got a good helper.’

  ‘I’m a good helper,’ Craig said, getting to his feet.

  ‘I know. I meant you,’ said Jed.

  ‘We’ll fix your car,’ Craig told me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But –’

  ‘My dad’s really good at fixing things. I am, too. I’ve got a big hammer.’

  I smiled. ‘It sounds like you fix things the way I do.’

  ‘We’ll come and pick the car up tomorrow, then,’ Jed said.

  ‘I – look, only if you don’t get busy doing something else.’

  ‘Okay. Night, Lia.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  * * *

  Mum wasn’t home, and for once in her life she’d locked every door and window before she left. I did a full circuit of the house, kicked a terracotta trough full of succulents that had done nothing to deserve it and sat down to sulk on the back step. Looking for a nice loving shoulder to cry on? I’m terribly sorry, madam, we’re all out. But can I interest you in a four-kilometre uphill walk on a sore knee? With, if you’re really lucky, a hostile ex-friend and business partner at the other end of it? Yippee. I got up again and limped morosely across the lawn.

  I was just turning out of Green Street when Jed turned in off the esplanade in his disreputable white van. He pulled up beside me and said through the open window, ‘Want a lift home?’ Craig was buckled into a booster seat beside him, leaning sleepily against its padded side with his thumb in his mouth.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to crouch in the back.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said, wrestling with the handle of the sliding door on the side of the van. I found a space between a Spiderman scooter and a large toolbox, and we drove up the hill. Anna’s car was gone when we reached the café, for which I offered up a little prayer of thanksgiving.

  ‘The door handle’s broken,’ said Jed as I tried and failed to disembark. ‘Hang on.’

  Leaving the engine running, he came around the front of the van to let me out. ‘Why don’t I take your car now, since I’m here?’

  ‘You could always fix that door handle, if you’re looking for something to do,’ I suggested.

  ‘The part’s on back order, thank you very much.’

  ‘No need to get snippy,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Is the van alright here, or do you want it over by the garage?’

  ‘Jed, it’s really kind of you, but I’d rather you didn’t spend your holiday fixing my car.’

  He looked pained. ‘Haven’t we already had this conversation?’

  ‘It wasn’t a conversation; it was you bludgeoning me into submission.’

  ‘Rubbish. Now shut up and get me the car keys.’

  I went up the steps laughing, which was unexpected, considering earlier events, and retrieved the spare key from its new home on top of the doorframe. The state of the kitchen, though, was no laughing matter. The ball of dough lay on the floor beside the butcher’s block and there was a head-high white smear on the cupboard door Anna had been standing in front of when I threw it. There were quite a few smears, in fact, crossing and recrossing the floor like giant snail trails. She must have kicked the dough across the kitchen a few times to relieve her feelings. The vacuum cleaner sat in the middle of the dining room, the tables were unwiped and the sink was full of dishes.

  I fished my car keys out of a drawer and turned to see Jed in the doorway, silently surveying the mess. ‘It hasn’t been a good day,’ I said. ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Where’s . . . Anna, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know. At home, probably.’

  ‘And you get to clean this up by yourself?’

  ‘Well, I did throw a lump of dough at her head and run away.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yep.’

  He looked at the ball of dough on the floor and grinned. ‘She must’ve really pissed you off.’

  ‘It’s not funny!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘She probably won’t turn up in the morning. I don’t know whether to hope she does or hope she doesn’t. And Rob’ll be furious with me, and there’s about another three hours of food prep to do tonight, and I’ve broken the mixer.’

  ‘That one?’ He started across the kitchen, and a howl of protest came from the van, still idling on the gravel outside. ‘Coming!’ he called, turning and waving to Craig through the window. He unplugged the mixer and picked it up. ‘I’d better go, Craig’s shattered. I’ll have a look at this tonight and bring it back first thing in the morning.’

  ‘No! Put that down!’

  He didn’t. ‘Look, Craig will be in bed asleep in half an hour. It’s no trouble to pull the head off the thing and have a look; it’ll give me something to do. Car keys?’

  I looked at him and sighed. ‘Fine. Knock yourself out,’ I said, lobbing them across the room.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, turning to go.

  ‘There’s a leaky tap in the laundry,’ I called after him. ‘And the lawn needs mowing.’

  ‘Don’t push it,’ he called back.

  ‘Have you guys had tea?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  I ran across the kitchen and rummaged in the big chest freezer. Carrying a plastic zip-lock bag in one hand and the last frozen pizza base in the other, I went outside to find Jed threading a seatbelt through the frame of the booster seat in the back of my car with a small drooping child clinging to his leg.

  ‘Tomato spaghetti,’ I said, holding up the bag. ‘There aren’t too many bits in it, so hopefully Craig’ll like it. It just needs reheating, and if you put grated cheese on the pizza base and grill it for ten minutes you’ll have cheesy pizza to go with it.’

  Jed lifted Craig into his seat and buckled him in. ‘Sounds great,’ he said. ‘Hang in there, sausage, we’re going now.’ He straightened up again and closed the car door. ‘Thank you.’

  Handing him the food, I reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Goodnight.’

  * * *

  I cleaned the kitchen more cheerfully than would have seemed possible an hour ago. Still, by the time the last dish was washed and the last surface smear-free it was half past eight and I was very, very tired. I measured warm water, sugar and yeast into a bowl – pizza dough, mark two – and opened the fridge to find something to eat while I waited for it to froth up. I was considering a slice of yesterday’s pumpkin and feta quiche when the phone rang.

  Rob. I shut the fridge door and crossed the kitchen to pick up the phone. ‘Hi. I’m r
eally sorry.’ Not sorry for shouting at Anna – or not sorry enough to admit it just yet – but for putting him in such a lousy position.

  ‘What did you say to her?’ asked Rob, sounding tired rather than angry.

  I frowned, trying to recall the details. ‘That, um, she’d be a lot nicer to be around if she ate something, and that she wasn’t entitled to all of your attention all the time.’

  ‘Shit.’

  I sighed. ‘I’ll apologise. We were both exhausted and horrible.’

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said.

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Her parents’ place, probably.’

  ‘But – why? What happened?’

  ‘She came home and slammed around the place for a while without saying anything, and eventually I told her to stop being such a pain in the arse and eat something. And she said she couldn’t live like this any more, packed a bag and left. No discussion, no explanation, nothing.’

  ‘Are you going to go after her?’ I asked, frightened by the bleak, un-Rob-like note in his voice.

  ‘Is there any point?’

  ‘She didn’t mean she couldn’t live with you! She meant having me around all the time. Especially if she thinks you’re talking to me about her eating habits behind her back.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Rob. ‘I don’t understand this thing she’s got about you.’

  Thing? She had a thing? ‘What thing? Does she honestly believe that crap about me wanting to be the only woman in your life?’

  ‘Oh, settle down. She’s too tired and wound up to be reasonable, you know that.’

  ‘So am I,’ I muttered.

  He didn’t bother to answer that.

  ‘You’d better go and find her,’ I said. ‘And talk to her about eating something.’

  ‘I was hoping that would sort itself out once we got past this bloody wedding.’

  ‘The wedding’s still two months away.’

  ‘Assuming it’s still on.’

  ‘Rob, don’t be an idiot. She loves you to bits. Now get off the phone and go sweep her off her feet.’