One of the three

by Lucy Morton

  You know what I do not know and you tell me the things I do not tell myself.

  Jaime Sabines

  NOW

  I must look very bad so that April is finally holding my hand when we leave school. She looked at me and, without saying a word, she gave me her hand. I do not know what has changed all of a sudden, but some people told me it might happen.

  “One when you least expect it, she will change her attitude.” She will pull through of this and, at the same time, she will try to make you feel better”, the therapist told me. “She’s a good girl.”

  “She’s a good girl”, that’s what her father always used to say.

  My eyes are red from crying. I really curse the basketball and the fifteen-year-old guy who accidentally threw it at him. I curse that my ex-husband was precisely there at that time and the bad luck he had. I pray to a God in whom I do not believe to get rid this pain of me. A pain that I am sharing with my daughter and that today, the miracle may work, in which I do not believe, either. He did believe in miracles, in the amazing things that might happen to ordinary people. He used to say:

  If you want something so badly, the universe conspires to make it happen.

  I laughed at him and I asked him what kind of webpage he had read it. Then he shrugged, he smiled, and he hugged me. He was always hugging me. I loved his hugs.

  “What’s for lunch today?” April asked me, coming in the house.

  Her question confuses me. I have stopped preparing snacks for two months because she always tells me she is not hungry. I am not preparing dinner any more, she never ends it. I have become a horrible mother who does not seem to care about her daughter’s good diet and then, I say to myself, why not taking her to that place where I was just a little girl who was serving coffees for a snack? Can today be the day? Today is the day! I smile at her, and I point at her to come out to the hall. We are not going to stay at home, not today. Today we are going to eat out in a wonderful place.

  “Where are we going?” She wants to know, a little curious. She is smiling at me. I cannot believe it. This is not happening.

  “If you want something so badly, the universe conspires to make it happen” I am hearing him to say. I have been waiting for this moment since he left. Although I do not think he wanted a teenager throwing a heavy basketball at his head and killing him right away. And that’s what happened. Bad things happen. But good things can also happen.

  “It’s a surprise” I answer, smiling him back and winking at him as he used to do.

  We walked half an hour to the East Village and we stopped in front of one of the coffee shop next to Tompkins Park. That’s where I used to walk with my ex-husband before getting married and having April. Nothing seems to have changed. I feel like I’m twenty-three years old again and on my first day of work again. The first day was a disaster and I was really scared, too. I dropped ten cups of coffee on top of the poor clients and so many on the floor. The boss, who used to call me “the little girl” because he never remembered my name, earns a place in heaven. At the end of the day he told me:

  “We need to talk.”

  I thought he would fire me.

  “You’ve done it really bad, little girl. But we all have to learn. I will keep an eye on you tomorrow. I’ll make you the coffee expert girl.”

  And so it was, only less time than expected. I was working on the coffee shop for a year and a half. I was combining it with all the works of art I was painting at night in the little shack where I was living with Kim near the gardens of Sunnyside. One gallery was interested in. Then it came another and another and another… And the boss was left without his “little girl.” The day I said goodbye he cried. I just pray that the interior has not changed either and for the “boss” to continue on the bar as if he had been expecting me ever since.

  “Shall we?”

  “Yeah, sure”, April answers.

  I am looking around and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the usual “boss” behind the bar making coffee. There are several customers at the tables. New York City paintings from the early 19th century are still hung on the cream colored walls. The old wooden floor is sparkling, which tells me that the boss still has his hobbies. I am approaching to the bar and I wait for him to turn around without allowing a young waitress to take my order, first. When the “boss”, Jerry, of course, turns around, he is looking at me, surprised. He opens his eyes, his mouth, too. He is moving his unmistakable white mustache from one side to the other and he opens his chubby arms.

  “Jean!” He exclaims, leaving me impressed. “The little girl!” That’s better, I think, smiling at him. “Maggie! Prepare one of those chocolate crepes that we have two very special clients today.”

  Customers turn around to look at me. April and I just blush and following Jerry, we settled into one of the round tables in the back. We are surrounded by wooden horses, one of the boss’ passions, who is sitting with us grateful by our presence.

  “It has been fifteen years without seeing you, little girl” he breathes. “What you been doing with yourself? I see you have a beautiful little girl.”

  When I think that April is going to frown and she’s going to say something like, “Not a little girl, sir” she is smiling silently, showing her rat-tooth and she nods.

  “I’m still painting, Jerry.”

  “That’s good, little girl. And what about the exhibitions?”

  “I do not have too much work until spring, but I am okay. Working”, I say but the result was in vain. Jerry is old and I’m surprised he has not retired yet. I know this place is his life and for him, making coffees, is the same as breathing for any human being. Enjoying the people and their work.

  Maggie comes out of the kitchen with a coffee and milk and a cup of hot chocolate for April. Then, she offers us a tray with a pair of chocolate crepes looking really delicious.

  “These are the best in New York” Jerry assures, looking at Maggie.

  “I think so, boss”, I laugh, having a bite and tasting the chocolate in my mouth at the same time I nod and confirm that they are, indeed, the richest chocolate I have ever tried in the city.

  April listens to how awful her mother was as a waitress and how much she improved in the year and a half she worked there.

  “She shared a lovely love story in this place… Do you remember, little girl?”

  “With Dad?” April asks.

  I shrug. It would not be fun if I begin telling her my story at this time, along with old Jerry and the place where my whole life began, if you will.

  “What was about…?” Jerry does not remember his name.

  “His name was Matt” I say very seriously. “We broke up, Jerry. But we had this beautiful girl.”

  “Oh dear, couples of these days… Ay Ay Ay, what a pity, little girl.”

  “Well, Matt died three months ago” I say, before he says something hurtful.

  “Shut up, Jean!” I’m so sorry!” He exclaims, looking at April.

  “He was the best father in the world” the little girl exclaims.

  “I believe you, little girl. I believe you.”

  CHAPTER 11

  —

  And once again she was feeling lonely before the presence of her eternal antagonist: life.

  Virginia Woolf

  NOW

  April has not stopped talking about Jerry, about the coffee shop and about she really liked the man. I tell her he was the best boss I ever had and I’m glad he’s still there working really hard.

  We ate pizza. It finally seems April got her appetite back. I tell her to go to bed and to wait for me, that I want to propose her something. Before that, I call Kim and I apologize for what happened today.

  “That’s understandable, Jean”, she says quietly. “If I were you I would have pissed myself off.”

  “It’s not your fault. I think if I were you I would have done the same thing.”

  “I love you, Jean.”

  “I love you, Kim.”
<
br />   Good friends get angry and they forgive each other. Good friends understand each other and they put themselves in other’s people shoes. They empathize. They feel safe when they are together and they are nothing if they get upset over nothing.

  I am washing the two dinner dishes in about two minutes and I am heading to April’s bedroom. She was waiting for me lying on her bed with a teddy bear that her father gave her years ago and she had not picked up since his death.

  “Before you say anything, mom” she begins to say, by being really mature and I was really surprised, indeed, “I want to apologize for being mean to you.”

  “What was all about, sweetheart?”

  “Today, I saw you have been suffering, mom. A lot. And I do not want to see you like that.”

  “I do not want to see you like that either, April. You know you’re the most important person I have, right?” She nods and she takes my hand. I am touching her little fingers, still small, still childish and I smile trying to hide the tears because I know it must be a beautiful and happy moment. “I’ve wanted to do something for a long time. Let’s play something, if you will. I would like to title it: A memory and it is the story of Jean, a young woman in her early twenties who, before knowing that her daughter’s father was the perfect man, she had two other opportunities that she let her away.”

  “Umm… Are you going to tell me your love affairs, mom?” April laughs.

  “Well, if you want to call it that… I’m going to come up with the names and at the end; you must guess who Daddy was. What do you think? Do you like the game?”

  I hope so. Come on, universe. I’m hoping she likes it, so just conspire and make it happen.

  “I really like it” she says, pressing the bear to her chest. “Shall we start now?”

  “Or we can do it tomorrow, if you want.” I begin to hesitate. I, like every human being, have flaws and it’s something I still do not want to show my daughter.

  “No, let’s do it today. Tomorrow you never know, mom.”

  “All right… Once upon a time…”

  “Mom!” she interrupts me. “I’m not three years old anymore. Please, do me a favor and tell me the story properly. Like if you were talking to an adult.”

  “But you’re not an adult”, I said uneasily.

  “Like if I was a pre-teen, okay? Nothing “once upon a time” or children’s stories. I want to know how you met dad. I want to know what I should guess and that you really made the right choice.”

  “…and that you really made the right choice”, she said.

  “Yes, I really made the right choice, indeed”, I think.

  CHAPTER 12

  —

  The world needs more people who really feel the things they say.

  BEFORE

  After my summer vacation with a bittersweet end in a small Irish town, going back to reality was imminent, so like any young girl with few professional expectations in “her thing”, I started looking for a job like crazy so I can afford my own things and, above all, the rent of the apartment that I was sharing with Kim. For anything in the world we would have wanted to go back to mom and dad’s house. We wanted to be independent, to have our own space and start living our own life.

  I wanted to be a painter and Kim wanted to be a writer, two artistic professions and many aspirants, so the chances of earning a living by doing that were practically impossible at this point. Even so, we did not fall into despair and when we saw that we were very overwhelmed or one of the two was about to “fall” the other forced her to lie on the secondhand couch we had. She went to the supermarket to buy the biggest bucket of ice cream there. She prepared popcorn and she rented a VHS film to watch some romantic comedy. No dramas, no fear, no intrigue, no action. Simple and funny comedies and if they had love affairs in the central plot, it was just great. They encouraged us more. They made us dream.

  After my disaster with Tom, the English guy I met in London and who knocked me out the last day we met; I was not really interest in talking about “guys”. Neither Kim’s, as usual, nor Barbara’s… Well, Barbara is another world. As soon as she arrived in New York, she forgot about the tattooed guy in Ireland and she started going out even more at night, meeting countless guys to whom she seemed they were the most perfect ones. She ended up with the best for her. The one who could give her the life she had wanted forever without needing to work really hard.

  And I, the poor of me, spent a weekend happily screaming that I had gotten a job at the East Village coffee shop. It was my first real job. I did not count on the lifeguard three summers ago in a mini swimming pool of a camping in the outskirts of the city and I did not count a pair of telephone campaigns in which they hired me to work two hours to the day like telemarketing phone operator to go calling to the houses and ask them if they were satisfied with the shampoos and conditioners they bought. When I thought that the phone was picked up by some bald man and he was really offensive, another was more like:

  “I’m bald, I do not use that.”

  I had to stop laugh out loud and that caused me constant attacks of coughing, so I finally lost my voice and I realized that I, as a telemarketing phone operator, I could never earn a living.

  I started working on coffee shop on a Monday. It was a horrible Monday that several customers were suffering with me when seeing their shirts, dresses or jackets stained of coffee. Some people were just laughing and others did not. But there was one, the last person I stained that day, who took my arm and he forced me to look at him.

  “Hey”, he told me, trying to get my attention. I was about to cry. I thought that day Jerry would fire me, that I was good for nothing and that I would be out of work and I should go back to my parents’ house because I could not pay the rent of the apartment or a miserable chocolate and vanilla ice cream on those nights that Kim and I have been suffering about the future matter, dreams, happy endings, doubt… I saw my life passing in front of my eyes drastically. Just like of my early twenties, when any nonsense seems a huge problem for me. Nothing happens. No one’s dead, it’s just a coffee.

  He was about my age. At least that’s what I thought back then. I apologized a hundred times and the guy, very kind, helped me picking up while he was still looking at me. I did not notice his eyes’ colors. I had promised myself not falling in love again, not even with the most beautiful eyes in the world. I have already had experienced like that and I suffered with English guy. I did not want to go through the same thing, at least not immediately.

  “Thank you. That was very kind of you.”

  I felt a lump in my throat, of those that warn you of upcoming tears, and I went to the bar to prepare a couple of coffees to two customers who had been waiting for more than twenty minutes and they were starting to complain. I saw out of the corner of my eye how the friendly customer was speaking to the boss and I always believed that he did not fire me because of him that day. To the guy with the smile. To the guy that one afternoon after another, I was serving him coffee and each time with a better pulse. However, he was always stepping aside.

  “Just in case.” he laughed.

  I had noticed that the guy, let’s call him Bob, never shaved and if he did, he always left a bit of a beard. It usually happens that the hair of the face of these guys just took more time to grow. Whether they shave, there was no hair to shave and they looked younger than the day they were born. Giving him a complex and desiring Bob’s beard, he did not want to waste it. He was dark. He could brag to have a thick, strong hair. Finally, after serving him coffee for a few days, I realized that his eyes were brown, similar to the drink I used to serve him every day with a smile. Weeks later, when the coffee shop was full of people on a Monday morning, Bob left without saying goodbye. When I went to collect the coffee from the table, I realized that he had not finished it and that there was a little note attached to the plate which read:

  “I’ve never liked coffee,

  But I come every day to see you.”

  Jerr
y was laughing behind the bar. He surely had seen the note before me. He nodded and he kept working, while I was wondering, how I supposed to look at Bob the next day.

  “What a shame!” I told Kim that night.

  “But do you like him? Is he handsome?”

  “Yes, he is handsome. But I do not know him.”

  “You did not know Tom, either. And look how the romance ended…” he murmured.

  “Tom’s different. We were in Ireland, far from home… You know what they say, do not you?”

  “What do they say?”

  “What happens in Ireland, stays in Ireland.”

  “That’s what they say about Las Vegas, you idiot.”

  “I mean, what happens to you in any other country, it does not count. It is an adventure, a challenge, a memory… I do not know, call it whatever you want. It’s not real. Summer loves are not real.”

  “I know where you’re going with this. Pretty much. As if Tom had just been an illusion of a place you think you are not going to come back to, and that’s why it seems less real. Right?”

  “I can tell that you got the stuff to be a writer, Kim. What are you writing now?”

  “It’s about the romance of a stupid girl with a client of the bar where she is working.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “You do not believe it? Do you want to read it? Do you want to know how it ends?” I laughed.

  “I prefer not to know.”

  “We could go someone tell us the fortune” she suggested me, laughing out loud.

  “As if we have a lot of money” I complained, biting to an almond chocolate bar.

  “To know about the future and all that stuff. Will Jean Parker be a famous painter? Will Kim Lois be the revelation writer in 2050?”

  “2050? Why are you going so far for?”

  “Because I do not think I ever post anything. In my life. I have received again a rejection letter from a publishing today.”

  “Bah, Kim. They are idiots. Some day they will trust in that novel and the publishing that rejected you, they will bump their heads against the wall” I encouraged her.