Troy’s Possibilities

by Rodney Strong

  The sun reflected off the screen of my iPad, making it impossible to see, so I stepped into the doorway of a shop. My phone was about 100 metres up the road. I walked slowly, letting the bustle of pedestrians pull me along, trying to seem relaxed and nonchalant while my heart beat faster. I didn’t know what I was going to say to her. Obviously ‘Give back our stuff’ was high on the list, but apart from that I didn’t have a plan.

  Suddenly I realised the blinking light was now behind me. Retracing my steps, I stopped outside a café. Several tables sat on the pavement but she wasn’t at any of them. Tinted windows reflected the street back at me. There was no choice but to go inside.

  It was one of those small, intimate places with minimal space between the wooden tables. Only two were occupied – one with a couple of girls about my own age sipping their drinks and gossiping, the other by an elderly gentleman wearing a suit and tie and reading the morning paper. A blackboard above the cash register set out a standard café menu – pretty much anything, with a side of chips – and I caught the top of a head moving around behind the coffee machine followed by the sharp sound of steam. Jazz music played softly and the pleasant smell of coffee blanketed the room like a thin layer of fog.

  Next to the counter I spotted an arrow pointing to a toilet down a narrow hallway. Maybe my assailant was back there. I picked my way through the tables and headed past the counter.

  ‘Won’t be a second,’ came from behind the espresso machine. The voice, though muffled by the machine, was vaguely familiar. ‘What can I get you?’ she asked, emerging into view.

  We stared at each other for a moment. ‘How about our stuff?’ I asked her.

  She didn’t blink. But then someone who enters your house, assaults you, steals your stuff and then goes back to work has a lot of nerve.

  ‘What took you so long?’ she asked with a cheeky grin.

  ‘It’s hard to mount a pursuit when you can’t see,’ I retorted.

  Now I was paying attention she was prettier than I remembered. A small scar below her left eye, barely visible beneath a thin layer of makeup, only enhanced her appearance. One of her teeth was slightly crooked, somehow making her smile more appealing.

  With an apologetic smile she pulled her handbag out from under the counter. When she put her hand inside I instinctively took a step back. She laughed and had enough decency to look a little ashamed. ‘Relax,’ she said handing over my phone and a small plastic bag filled with Emily’s jewellery.

  ‘Hard to relax when your eyes are on fire.’ I took my sunglasses off and she winced.

  ‘Damn. What’s that like, by the way?’

  ‘Hand it over and I’ll show you.’

  She laughed again and this time I took notice of the way her eyes filled with humour when she smiled. I shook my head at my own stupidity. This woman assaulted me, and here I was thinking she was cute.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s all we agreed on,’ she replied.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You still don’t get it, do you?’

  I opened the camera on my phone and snapped a picture of her to show the police. ‘Get what? Wait, I don’t care. Thanks for the phone,’ I muttered and turned to leave.

  ‘You know, you won me fifty dollars,’ she called out.

  I stopped and turned back. ‘For what,’ I asked instinctively.

  ‘For the bet.’

  I stared blankly at her.

  ‘You think I spend my time stealing people’s stuff?’

  I shook my head. ‘Still don’t care.’

  She laughed. ‘If that were true you wouldn’t have won me fifty bucks.’

  I couldn’t help myself. ‘I don’t get it.’

  She tutted in mock dismay. ‘You’re not the sharpest knife in the block. I bet Emily fifty dollars if I stole something from you, you’d come and get it.’

  I looked at her in shock. ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘It worked.’

  ‘You could have maimed me for life,’ I protested.

  She waved a hand dismissively. ‘Want to help me spend the fifty dollars?’

  For a few seconds I considered it, then I shook my head and it broke the moment. ‘Is that part of the bet? No, I’ve got our stuff. See you never.’ This time I made it to the door before she spoke.

  ‘You know, when you opened the door wearing just the towel I almost forgot the bet and shagged you in the hallway.’

  I’m not so vain to think I’m the most attractive man in the world, especially when naked; there’s something generally unattractive about naked men – lots of dangling bits. However when a cute girl says something like this to you, you stop and listen. Turning back, I realised the two girls at the table were staring at me – and it wasn’t my face they were looking at. I shifted uncomfortably, inching behind a chair.

  ‘Just a coffee,’ my thief said.

  I stared at her for a while longer before reluctantly taking a step back into the shop.

  ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘The coffee’s terrible.’ She yelled something through the door to the kitchen, grabbed her bag and came to meet me, pausing at the girls’ table. She leaned in and winked at them. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, think bigger.’ Then she took me by the arm and guided us out onto the street.

  ‘You still haven’t told me your name,’ I pointed out.

  ‘It can be whatever you want it to be,’ she smiled.

  ‘Christ, I’m not being charged by the hour, am I?’

  She wasn’t offended. ‘No, although I did consider it once. I’m an actress – can’t you tell?’

  ‘Don’t actresses have names?’

  ‘Oh, yes, but it keeps changing with the parts. It can be difficult keeping track – get it?’

  ‘I’ve got a headache.’

  ‘That’s probably the after effects of the pepper spray. Let’s get some caffeine into you.’

  She linked her arm in mine and in a slight daze I left it there. From the outside we could have simply been another couple strolling down the street. We didn’t talk again until she led me down a short alleyway and into a small, dark coffee shop. I hadn’t even known it existed until we walked through the door, and given the lack of customers neither did anyone else.

  Music played softly through hidden speakers and the walls were covered in an eclectic collection of art that to an art critic would no doubt have represented some sort of retro, post-modern statement on society, but to me looked like someone gave a fifteen-year-old some cash and said decorate the walls. There were five small tables, each with two chairs, none of which matched. For a moment I couldn’t figure out what was missing, and then it struck me. There was no counter, no coffee machine, no food cabinet. I thought we might have accidentally walked into someone’s house. Then my companion/attacker sat down at one of the tables.

  As I slid into the chair opposite, a woman appeared from a discreetly placed door in the back wall. She stood silently next to the table.

  ‘Trim mochaccino with whipped cream and a cinnamon twist,’ the blonde said.

  The woman turned her gaze onto me.

  ‘Coffee.’

  She remained still.

  ‘Please,’ I added.

  She didn’t move.

  I glanced over at the blonde who regarded me with amusement. ‘What am I missing?’

  She grinned. ‘If you want coffee you go to Starbucks. What you get here are creations. Try again.’

  I sighed, just wanting coffee. ‘Okay, I’ll have what she’s having.’

  The woman seemed less than satisfied at my lack of creativity, but she disappeared into the back without a sound.

  ‘Okay, seriously, what is your name?’

  ‘I told you, whatever you want it to be.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll call you Psycho.’

  She laughed softly. ‘And you wouldn’t be the first.’

  ‘How do you know Emily?’

  ‘Oh, we volunteer together at the SPCA.’

  E
mily goes there every Saturday morning. For a sensitive soul like her it’s probably the worst possible thing to do. Every Saturday afternoon she comes home with grand plans to adopt homeless animals. If I didn’t constantly put my foot down we would have enough cats, dogs, chickens, guinea pigs and rabbits to repopulate the earth. Kitten season was particularly hard on her. Every weekend brought fresh tears at the prospective fate of cats that couldn’t be rehomed. Something told me the woman sitting opposite me didn’t have the same problem.

  ‘Okay I’ll call you Cat.’

  She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Cat. Cool, I like it.’

  ‘So what, you and Emily got talking and she asked you to assault me?’

  ‘Not quite. She told me about her efforts to get you interested in something, anything, and we came up with the plan to rob you. To see if that would be enough to get you out of this rut you’re in. I thought it was important to raise the stakes, so I took her stuff too. The pepper spray was my idea.’

  ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘Little bit,’ she agreed. ‘You know, Emily cares about you a great deal.’

  ‘I care about her too. She’s my best friend.’

  ‘Do you love her?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Are you in love with her?’

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I’m not.’

  Before she could reply the woman appeared at our table and set our drinks down. I blinked a couple of times. To say they were cups would have been generous. They were ceramic and at least cup like in shape, but looked like someone had given a lump of clay to the fifteen-year old’s much younger sibling and left them to it. There wasn’t a straight line to be seen and my handle could fit my entire fist through it, while Cat’s could barely fit her little finger.

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘The best-kept secret in Wellington,’ she replied.

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  She laughed. ‘I know,’ she mocked.

  I reluctantly tasted the coffee, but it was surprisingly good.

  Cat gave a satisfied nod when she saw the look on my face, like she’d made it herself. ‘So what’s your deal?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re what? Twenty-four? Twenty-five? I’ve met some pretty apathetic guys, but from what Emily has told me you don’t seem to care about anything.’

  ‘Not entirely true. I care about getting pepper sprayed,’ I quipped.

  ‘Okay, I think we need to move past that.’

  ‘It only happened a couple of hours ago.’

  She waved her hand, dismissing my statement as irrelevant.

  ‘Where do you even get one of those?’ I asked.

  ‘Us single girls can never be too careful. The world is full of perverts.’

  I didn’t know what to say, so we sat in silence for a while, sipping our drinks and listening to the music.

  She broke the silence. ‘You didn’t answer my question. How’d you get this way?

  I stared into my half empty cup, searching in the swirls for the right words. Not the truth, of course, but something to say. Finally I looked at her. ‘It is what it is.’

  She waited for more and eventually realised it wasn’t coming. ‘It is what it is,’ she repeated. ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’

  I shrugged, ‘Well, that’s what it is.’

  ‘But it doesn’t even mean anything.’

  ‘That’s why I thought it would appeal to you. You haven’t said anything that means anything since I met you.’

  Cat laughed. ‘Touché, but something must have happened to make you like this.’

  ‘Maybe there is no why – it’s who I am. Maybe it’s genetic.’

  ‘It’s genetic that you have no motivation to do…anything?’

  ‘Look, the thing is, we’ve just met and this isn’t a movie. There’s no immediate connection here where I sense you’re my soul mate and spill my guts to you about everything that’s wrong in my life.’

  ‘Wow, how’s that nerve?’

  ‘This was a mistake.’ I made to stand up.

  ‘There’s a difference between being a drifter and being a dick. You leave before we’ve finished our drinks, it makes you the latter.’

  I sat back down and silence fell, but it was the comfortable sort of silence from sitting with an old friend, not the awkward silence of a first date.

  Suddenly she leaned forward. ‘So what’s your walk-away song?’

  I looked at her blankly.

  ‘You know, the end of the movie where the hero has won the day and puts on his sunglasses and walks off into the sunset. They play a song as he leaves. What’s yours?’

  ‘I can safely say I’ve never thought about it.’

  She looked disappointed.

  ‘Okay, so what’s yours?’

  She grinned. ‘”Don’t wait another day” by Greg Johnson.’

  ‘I haven’t heard it.’

  ‘Then there’s no future for us, Troy,’ she said seriously before giving me a sly grin. ‘You need to figure out your walk-away song.’

  ‘So you’re an actress? What have you been in?’ I asked to change the subject.

  ‘Mostly extra work on commercials and TV. Some plays. Nothing big yet.’

  ‘Are you any good?’

  For once she didn’t have a quick answer and I sensed it was a touchy subject.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked instead. ‘Was it your life ambition to work at a bank?’

  ‘It pays the bills. Better than acting, anyway.’

  She ignored my gibe. ‘Does it make you happy?’

  ‘Paying the bills makes me happy,’ I replied.

  She rolled her eyes in disgust.

  The truth is I did have other ambitions when I was a teenager. The evidence of that sat in the corner of my bedroom. But Possibilities got in the way.

  ‘Tell me a story,’ she demanded.

  ‘What sort of story?’

  She waved a hand. ‘Anything. Entertain me.’

  I sighed. ‘When I was twelve –.’

  She stopped me. ‘Not a real story. We’re not bonding over childhood experiences here.’

  ‘What are we doing here?’ I shot back.

  ‘Drinking coffee and talking.’

  ‘That sounds like a date. I don’t date people who physically assault me.’

  She gave me a wicked look. ‘As you shouldn’t. It’s a terrible way to start a relationship. But this isn’t a date.’

  ‘Then what is it?’ I insisted.

  ‘Let’s call it a pre-date. To see whether a date will work.’

  I stared at her in disbelief. ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘So we’ve established. Now tell me a story. Make one up.’

  ‘I don’t know any made up stories,’ I sulked.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, of course you do.

  I figured it wouldn’t matter, so I told her the story about the moon and the sun. ‘Thousands of years ago there were no beaches. Just mirrors where the sand is – strips of perfect glass between the water and the earth. In the daytime the sun would shine down on the mirrors and her light would be reflected back at her magnified a hundred times. And the sun was happy because she knew she was the most beautiful thing in existence. But at night the moon would look at himself in the glass and be incredibly sad. All he saw were his imperfections, the darkness and cracks on his face. Sometimes he would only peek at the earth and his sadness was diminished. But once a month he would gaze fully upon the mirrors and his ugliness would return in its full glory. One night he couldn’t take it any more. He reached out and pulled at the water in the oceans and seas, sending it crashing onto the mirrors again and again. At first nothing happened. Then a single crack appeared. He intensified his efforts. Wave after wave hit the mirror until more cracks appeared, and suddenly the glass shattered into millions of pieces. Even then he wasn’t satisfied, constantly pushing the water onto the beaches until t
he glass was nothing more than sand. Still he was afraid that if he stopped the water the glass would reform and he’d have to look at himself once more, so the tides continue, constantly moving, all so the moon doesn’t have to see himself.’

  ‘Wow, that’s an interesting story. So which am I? The sun or the moon?’

  It took a moment to realise she was asking me if I thought she was pretty. ‘It’s a bit early in our relationship for me to be assigning you astral bodies.’

  ‘So we’re in a relationship?’

  ‘You blinded me. I feel like there’s a connection between us.’

  Cat laughed. ‘Have dinner with me.’

  I glanced at my watch. ‘It’s only 11.30am.’

  She stood up and stretched out her hand. ‘I know, so let’s go kill eight hours.’

  I should have hesitated; said no, thanked her for the coffee and walked out. But it seemed like too much effort, so instead I stood up, took her hand, and said, ‘What’d you have in mind?’

  She laughed again and gave my hand a squeeze. ‘Settle tiger. Despite what I said earlier, I’m not easy.’

  My face flushed. ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘Just kidding. Come on, we’ll figure something out.’

  We spend the rest of the day figuring it out. First rollerblading along the waterfront, followed by lunch at a pub. Afterwards we went to the movies and saw possibly the worst film ever made, an experience made better by the fact we were the only ones in the theatre and spent the entire time yelling at the screen. About halfway through the film she leaned her head on my shoulder and it felt great, and I knew this wasn’t real.

  After that we went and played pool. I’m a pretty good player but she smoked me in ten consecutive games. It was then she told me she helped pay the rent by hustling pool. I doubt it was real but it sounded awesome.

  Somewhere during the day Emily rang – first my cell, which I ignored, and then Cat’s. Cat answered and proceeded to tell Emily in graphic detail that she couldn’t talk because she was giving me a blowjob. I felt sorry for the two old ladies walking behind us.

  Around 7.30 we decided it was time for dinner. At precisely the same time the sky decided to open and it began to pour with rain. As commuters rushed past, kicking up sprays of water with their expensive work shoes, we huddled in the doorway of a closed shop. There we kissed for the first time. One second we were talking and the next her tongue was in my mouth – or mine in hers, it was a bit foggy. But it was great. Eventually I broke away and stared into her eyes.