The Pretty Delicious Cafe

by Danielle Hawkins

  I stood biting my lip and looking across the street at the dense oleander hedge that hid Jed’s sleep-out from the road. Supposing I did march across there and knock on the man’s door, what exactly was I going to say? Nothing sprang to mind, but presumably something would come to me, necessity being the mother of invention. (Meticulous planning never has been my strong point.) I took a deep breath and started across the street.

  The sleep-out was separated from the Coles’ house behind by a belt of pittosporums, planted far too close together fifteen years ago and now grown into a towering thicket that, with the help of the oleanders in front, kept the little plywood box in permanent gloom. The lawn at the front was pale and spindly from lack of sun. Jed’s van wasn’t there, but the green station wagon was, and there was a light on inside the sleep-out.

  I went across the thin wet grass and up two steps onto a narrow wooden deck, and tapped softly on the door.

  After ten seconds or so Jed opened it. He was wearing rugby shorts and a grey singlet, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He looked very tired. The light came from a small reading lamp at one end of a battered sofa and there was a Craig-sized lump in the bed on the other side of the room.

  ‘Hi,’ I whispered.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘How’s Tracey?’

  He shifted his shoulders as if they hurt him. ‘Pretty beaten up, but they think she’s going to be okay.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Mm,’ he said, and an uncomfortable silence fell.

  Taking a deep breath, I said hurriedly, ‘That guy, before – when you went past . . . It looked – dodgy – but he’s just a friend. I wasn’t – I mean, I wouldn’t –’

  Jed’s politely bemused expression hadn’t even twitched, and I petered miserably to a standstill. Perhaps I should have put a little more thought into this after all.

  He came outside and closed the door behind him. It was nearly dark now, and I couldn’t see his face very well. ‘Lia,’ he said slowly, and then stopped, which was not encouraging.

  ‘Anyway, I just wanted to tell you . . . Um, right. Goodnight.’ Hot with shame, I turned away.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  I didn’t look around because I wasn’t at all sure I wasn’t going to cry, but I lifted a hand in acknowledgment as I went down the steps.

  ‘Shit. Lia, look, you’re lovely, it’s not –’

  I turned to face him. ‘Please don’t say “it’s not you, it’s me”.’

  ‘Of course it’s me! For Christ’s sake, I’ve got a three-year-old, and a wife in a mental hospital!’ He ran both hands through his hair with a harried-looking gesture that made me feel like a complete worm for coming here and pressuring him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said unhappily. ‘I didn’t mean to hassle you; I just wanted you to know I didn’t move on to the next one as soon as you left town. I – I really like you. And now I’ve made enough of a fool of myself for one night, so I’ll go. See you.’

  Back on the pavement side of the hedge I hesitated, looking across the road at Mum’s lights. I’d far rather walk home than go in there and try to act normal – but home was four kilometres away, and I was wearing jandals, and there are all sorts of reasons why it’s not all that clever to wander along the edge of a road by yourself in the dark. Fuck, I thought, wiping my eyes with my knuckles. Just – fuck.

  There was a rustling noise just behind me, and I turned to see Jed emerge through the gap in the hedge. ‘You know what?’ he said abruptly. ‘You’re pretty much the only good thing that’s happened to me for a really long time. And – and maybe when something good comes along you should enjoy it and be grateful, not worry about whether the timing’s right.’

  I couldn’t speak, but I smiled, and he took my face in his hands and kissed me fiercely.

  Jed was a spectacularly good kisser. He didn’t waste time on fancy tongue-swerving manoeuvres; he just covered my mouth with his and kissed me as if he’d been wanting to for a long time and meant to make a decent job of it. He hadn’t shaved that day and his skin was rough against mine, he tasted of toothpaste and his hands smelt very faintly of motor oil.

  ‘Nice,’ I said shakily, quite a long time later. A lone cricket was chirping somewhere nearby and a burst of muffled laughter came from a house further along the street.

  ‘Nice?’

  The disgust in his voice made everything feel a lot less momentous and a lot more comfortable, and I laughed. ‘What’s wrong with nice? Nice is a good thing.’

  ‘Cups of tea are nice. And sweet little old ladies.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘I should hope so.’ He bent his head to kiss me again.

  A car roared up the street, doing at least eighty kilometres an hour with the stereo turned up to permanent-hearing-loss volume, and we both jumped backwards. A chinless youth stuck his head out of the back window as it passed us and bellowed, ‘Get a fucking room!’ over the pounding bass. I suppose you just have to expect that sort of thing if you’re going to indulge in public displays of affection.

  Jed merely smiled and pulled me back towards him, but about a second later there was a panic-stricken wail from the sleep-out and he let me go again. ‘Sorry . . .’

  I reached up to kiss his cheek. ‘Go. Goodnight.’

  ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ he said, and he turned and vanished back through the gap in the hedge.

  I stood for a while smiling mistily at nothing in particular, then pulled myself together and went slowly across the street. Light shone through the thin cotton of Mum’s sitting room curtains, and I could hear the murmur of the TV through an open window as I crossed the lawn. I pulled my shirt straight, knocked on the glass sliding door that led into the sitting room and called, ‘Hi, Mum. It’s just me.’

  There was a little pause, and then she answered, ‘Coming!’

  A few moments later she drew back the curtain and unlocked the door.

  Judging from her face, which she was attempting with minimal success to hide beneath a screen of stripy hair, she’d been crying for a good long time. Mum cries often, at Joni Mitchell songs and beautiful sunsets and New Zealand Post ads about people reaching people, but not like that. ‘Mum! What’s wrong?’ I said, putting my arms around her.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing, I’m just being silly – why is it that you never have a hanky when you n-need one . . .’ She twisted away, wiping her eyes with her fingertips.

  I fished in my skirt pocket and found, by some miracle, a clean tissue.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking it and blowing her nose.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what’s up?’

  ‘Nothing’s up.’ She smiled in a somewhat watery fashion. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea.’

  * * *

  ‘Good glazing,’ Anna remarked the next morning, dropping a half-full sack of coffee beans onto the floor beside the kitchen window seat with a thud. ‘Very thorough.’

  I started and laid down my pastry brush. I’d been painting the tops of a sheet of cinnamon buns with lemon juice and icing sugar; a job that usually takes about seven seconds but can be extended indefinitely when fantasising about sexy grey-eyed mechanics. ‘Thanks. It’s important to get these things right.’

  ‘Big night, huh?’

  I slid the buns onto a china cake stand, covered them with a little gauze tent and carried them over to the counter. ‘No, we just had tea with Lily and Adam at the pub.’

  ‘How was the food?’ she asked.

  ‘Average. And quite expensive. They do mean chips, but.’

  ‘I don’t get this “but” thing. But what?’

  ‘Dunno,’ I said, shrugging and beginning to slice a loaf of sourdough bread. ‘It’s just what we say in Northland, bro.’

  She looked at me for a moment, and then grinned. ‘Jed rang, didn’t he?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Did you hook up with Brendon?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes like a master sleuth.

  ‘No!
Anna!’

  She turned to fetch a bowl of shredded chicken from the fridge. ‘Fine. Don’t tell me. See if I care.’

  ‘Jed’s back,’ I said, relenting.

  ‘What, for good?’

  ‘No idea. I doubt it.’

  ‘So . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I guess we’ll see.’

  ‘Careful,’ she said softly.

  I made a face. ‘I know . . . Did your mum call again last night?’

  ‘No,’ she said, sighing. ‘She prefers to wait for the lunch rush.’

  ‘It’ll be worth it. Your wedding, I mean. It’s going to be great.’

  ‘God, I hope so. It all seems to be such an – an epic undertaking. All I wanted was to look beautiful and give everyone a lovely meal and end up married to Rob by the end of it.’

  ‘You will,’ I said firmly. ‘Guaranteed.’ Then, as she raised an eyebrow, ‘I can sense these things, remember?’

  * * *

  The lunch rush went swimmingly that day. Nobody was kept waiting too long, the air was fresh after the rain and a delightful Englishwoman assured us that our strawberry ice-cream cake was the best thing she’d ever tasted. It wasn’t until nearly four that trouble descended in the shape of an expensive-looking woman in her forties, wearing a blue-and-white linen sundress and flawless makeup.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said, giving me a cool half-smile across the counter.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. Normally I say ‘hi’, but hauteur is terribly infectious. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you. Is the position here still available?’

  ‘Yes. It’s just a short-term job, over summer.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. Morgan has been thinking, and she’d like to accept your offer.’

  Morgan, I recalled with dawning horror, was the name of last week’s gormless potential barista. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, um –’

  ‘She can start on Monday,’ said the woman. ‘You’ll provide and wash her uniform, presumably?’

  ‘Actually, we didn’t feel that Morgan was quite the person for the job,’ I said. I’d like to think I didn’t cringe as I spoke, but I can’t guarantee it. She was the sort of woman who gives you the almost irresistible urge to tug your forelock.

  ‘Excuse me?’ she said.

  Anna, coming in from delivering milkshakes to an outside table, heard the tone and hastened back across the dining room.

  ‘This is Morgan’s . . . mother, is it?’ I said. There was no response to the question. ‘Morgan was hoping the job was still available, but . . .’

  ‘No, it’s not, I’m sorry,’ said Anna, smiling with firmness and great charm as she skirted the edge of the counter. Customers were approaching; a middle-aged couple with a small blond child between them.

  ‘And may I ask why not?’

  ‘Morgan’s not quite the person we’re looking for.’

  ‘Yes, you’ve both said that, but I’ve yet to hear a reason.’

  I opened my mouth, shut it again and looked at Anna, who is much better than me at mixing truth and diplomacy. I tend to try too hard not to hurt people’s feelings, and then, having lulled them into thinking I’m a doormat, get pissed off when they treat me like one and default to stark home truths.

  ‘We’re looking for someone with a bit more enthusiasm and initiative,’ Anna said, her smile unwavering.

  ‘Morgan has plenty of both. She’s a very bright young woman,’ the woman said. ‘But I see I’m wasting my time here.’ And turning on her heel she stalked from the premises.

  Anna and I sagged a little, post-conflict, and the man who’d come in behind her remarked, ‘Happy-looking customer.’

  ‘Wasn’t she just?’ I said, realising as I looked properly that the small blond child was Craig. With, presumably, his grandparents. Jed’s parents, or Tracey’s? I felt a moment’s panic before deciding I was paranoid. Of course they weren’t here to inspect me. Jed, from what I knew of him, would sooner dress in a tutu and do the Dance of the Little Swans than discuss his love-life with his relations. They were taking their grandson out to a café; that was all.

  ‘What can we get you?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Oh, two coffees, please,’ said the woman. She was small and plump, with short fair hair going silver at her temples and bright, interested eyes like a sparrow. ‘Flat whites. Craig, would you like a cold drink?’

  ‘Pizza with cheese on,’ Craig whispered, looking up at me with those clear dark-fringed grey eyes that were so like his father’s. I smiled at him.

  ‘What was that? You need to speak up, sweetie,’ the woman said.

  ‘Pizza.’

  ‘Pizza? No, love, it’s not teatime yet. And they don’t have pizza here, anyway.’

  Craig said nothing, but two great tears slid down his cheeks.

  It wasn’t up to me, but he was so small, and the tears were so big, and his mother was in hospital with severe head wounds . . . ‘How about one to take home for dinner?’ I offered.

  Craig detached his hand from the woman’s, trotted around the edge of the counter and across the kitchen to the chest freezer in the corner. He pushed up the lid, but he wasn’t tall enough to lift it far and it fell back. I was there by the time he heaved it up again and, catching it, I opened it wide and lifted him up to select the pizza base of his choice.

  ‘Craig, come out of the kitchen, the ladies are trying to work!’

  ‘He’s fine, honestly,’ I said, letting him slide to his feet and closing the freezer. ‘Can I cook it for him now, while you have your coffee, and he can take it home in a box?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ the woman said. ‘My goodness, Craig, aren’t you a lucky boy?’

  Craig said nothing, but turned to hand me his pizza base.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, putting it down on the butcher’s block and turning the oven back on. ‘I’ll just get you a tray to put it on, and then we’ll cover it with cheese and cook it.’

  ‘Doesn’t that sound good?’ the woman said, following Craig into the kitchen as the man wandered across the dining room to look at the nearest bookcase. ‘I’m Michelle Dixon.’

  Jed’s mother, then. Or possibly an aunt.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I said. ‘I’m Lia, and this is Anna.’

  ‘Craig knows his way around, I see,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Just where the pizza bases live.’ I fetched him an oven tray and tipped a little heap of grated mozzarella onto the butcher’s block. ‘Do you want to climb up on the stool, Craig, so you can reach better? You need to spread the cheese out evenly on top.’

  Craig nodded solemnly and clambered up to kneel on the stool. Anna brought his grandmother – or great-aunt – a cup of coffee, putting it down on the nearest bench top.

  ‘Oh, thank you!’ she said. ‘What a lovely place you have here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘Would you like something to go with your coffee?’

  ‘No thanks, dear, I’d better restrain myself, after Christmas.’ She looked hard at Anna’s engagement ring, and then turned back to me. ‘Have you lived here long – Leah, wasn’t it?’

  Oh, good God, it was an inspection. Anna withdrew, sniggering, towards the coffee machine. ‘That’s right,’ I said, watching Craig transfer cheese to his pizza base. ‘Here, two years. Since we opened the café. But I’m from Ratai; my mum lives across the street from Jed.’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘Hers is the yellow house with the big garden.’

  ‘I’ll look out for it. That place where Jed’s living . . .’ She closed her eyes and shuddered.

  ‘Well, it’s a step up from the back of his van,’ I said.

  ‘Back of his . . . ?’ she repeated.

  ‘He slept in the van for the first couple of months after he got here.’

  ‘Did he, now?’ she said grimly.

  Bugger. And it had seemed such a harmless remark.

  ‘That looks good – let’s put it in the oven
,’ I said to Craig, picking up the oven tray. He followed me across the kitchen, watching anxiously as I opened the oven door and slid his precious pizza inside. ‘I’ll set the timer for ten minutes, and when it beeps your pizza will be ready.’

  He nodded and stationed himself squarely in front of the oven, hands on hips. Had that pizza attempted to escape, it wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  On the grounds that it’s easier to look relaxed and carefree under interrogation with your hands occupied – and besides, tomorrow’s food wasn’t going to cook itself – I took the bowl off the food processor, set it on the electronic scales and opened the deep drawer that held the flour. ‘Pastry,’ I explained over my shoulder. ‘For tomorrow’s bacon and egg pies.’

  ‘You make your own?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, measuring flour into the bowl. Seven hundred and eighty-seven grams . . . eight hundred and twelve. Near enough. I fetched a block of butter from the fridge. ‘Are you up here for long?’

  ‘Just two nights. We arrived this morning. We don’t often get the chance to see our grandson, these days.’

  ‘Mm,’ I said.

  ‘Well,’ she said, sighing, ‘all you can do is love your children and try to support their decisions.’

  ‘That sounds like a pretty good way to approach it,’ I agreed, cutting the butter into cubes and tipping them into the bowl.

  ‘It’s not easy, sometimes.’

  My shoulders tightened. Not easy to watch your son leave his wife and take up with someone else? How about considering, for just a second, how hard the whole lousy situation might have been for him? I fitted the food processor bowl onto the base, threw in a teaspoonful of salt and put the lid on. ‘Sorry, it makes a bit of a noise.’

  After a small hiatus while I processed flour and butter to a breadcrumb-like consistency, she said, ‘Anyway, it’s wonderful to see Jed finally moving on with his life.’

  That threw me, and I turned to look at her, frowning in confusion.

  ‘Look, have I got the wrong end of the stick? I thought you and Jed were . . .’

  ‘Do you approve?’ I said blankly.

  She smiled. ‘Shouldn’t I?’