Clingstone
The apron strings wrap around with an inch less extra. Jesse didn’t sleep at home last night. Again. How many weeks does that make? His pillow still smells of the laundry, smooth, crisp and shocking against the threadbare sheets. When he sold his bicycle, he brought home new pillowcases instead of the groceries he promised.
“Colette! You have a table waiting. Chip-chop, hurry up.”
Giuseppe owns the cafe. He’s not a bad sort, but he runs a business, not a charity and has no time for stories. He rules the kitchen. His wife Ariane sets the tables with bright tablecloths and flowers. Today is sticks covered in tiny pink flowers. She also picked out the flatware, a vague sort of industrial Wedgewood, blue over white. Ariane works the counter, filling coffe cups, smiling, gossiping. Her eyes follow me to my first table.
“My name is Colette, what can I get you for breakfast?”
The girl is me, wearing new clothes, new shoes, but five years younger. The hair is longer, the makeup sparse. But we are one. Our eyes are shining. Our lips are smiling. Our hand is heavy with a slender band of gold. The boy orders.
“Coffee, two cups. And a croissant.”
“I don’t think I could eat a thing. I’m too excited.”
“Coming right up.”
The boy’s hands move in the air between them, confident, aggressive, folding the world to fit their dreams, folding the girl to fit his hunger.
“Coffee, two. Croissant,” I call at the pass-through window. He is going to steal her into a cheap apartment and build walls layered with shame and love and guilt and blood so she can never leave. He can though. He can leave a garish pillow virginal on their mattress. He can leave the stone of the fruit.
“Take care of it,” he said. I refused. He walked out.
“Colette. Coffee.”
I take the empty cups and saucers and spoons to the table where heads are bowed, barely touching, whispering, lying.
“Coffee.”
I set the cups down hard, shaking water from the bowl of flowering branches. The boy and girl startle. Ariane stares. I pour the coffee, smiling. The croissant is on the counter, fresh, steaming. I walk back to it.
Ariane rests her hand on my arm as I reach for the plate.
“He is not Jesse. Let them be happy.”
Hot tears hit my eyes and everything softens and melds like a Cezanne. The little blossoms run together and dance upward along the branches, miniature bushes ablaze with pale fire. He is not Jesse.
I turn to wipe my eyes. Giuseppe is at the window, watching. Ariane is at my side. When I turn back, the table is empty, the coffee untouched, spoons crossed. Under the boy’s cup, a tip large enough for a week’s groceries.