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Macchiato Lane
Cat Sparks
I do not understand the fashion for frivolous forms of coffee. I take mine flat
and white with a tab of artificial sweetener. Today's waitresses do not
comprehend the words
flat white
. They bring me lattes or cappuccinos with the froth skimmed off. I have come
to expect this so I no longer bother to complain, but it irks me. Why can't I
have what I really want?
A girl at work came back from the edge of town
one lunchtime all excited about a place she nicknamed
Macchiato Lane
, a slender alley of cobblestones, dark awnings and cool shadows.
It's just like Paris
, she reckoned, jammed from one end to the other with cafés and restaurants,
all of them tiny places with only a few tables each and poky kitchens hidden
from view out back.
I doubted it would be anything like Paris, but I
went to see Macchiato Lane for myself. The café girls all looked the same, thin
waifs in their tight black t-shirts, exposed midriffs with belly button
piercings and tattoos. Exuding a jaded air of boredom. They all know they're
destined for greater things. Behind them, glass cabinets piled high with
delicious treats: foccacia, calzone, marinated eggplant and artichoke hearts. A
snatch of jazz fusion, Sarah MacLachlan, something Cuban hanging in the air.
The restaurants are closed at this time of day, their awnings pulled down close
against the glass. Only the cafés ply their trade in daylight, and there,
wedged between two trendy alcoves, I spied something very different indeed.
The door was painted powder blue, the window a
kind of buttery frosted glass that no one makes any more. This café wasn't
modern retro, it was faded with authentic age. It would have looked old thirty
years ago, or even forty. Americans would have called it a diner. What was a
diner doing on a bourgeois strip like this? I could see movement through the
glass, figures rippling, outlines blurred.
Curious, I pushed the door open. Inside, acres of
speckled Formica. Booths with plenty of arse room. I chose a spot and sat down,
and when I told the waitress I wanted a flat white, I knew instinctively that I
was going to get precisely what I'd asked for. The waitress looked tired. She
had no belly piercings or tattoos on display. She wore a lemon yellow uniform,
faded, just as she was and the rest of the décor along with her.
I've stepped into a postcard, I thought. How
quaint. How bizarre. I hadn't seen wallpaper like it since we bulldozed my
aunt's place to make way for a row of townhouses.
I was still examining the room when a woman sat
down opposite me. My first thoughts were aggressive:
get your own booth, lady, the bloody place is half empty
. But as she settled in her seat and looked at me across the table, I realised
that I
knew
her. I knew
exactly
who she was, even though we'd never previously come face to face. There was
the scar on her neck to prove it. I touched my own neck in a reflex action,
traced the slim pink line where the cyst had been removed fifteen years ago.
But I didn't need the scar to verify authenticity. I could tell from her face,
both its features and the look upon it. The way she stared at me, stared right
inside me like she knew my every thought. She did know my thoughts. She was me
a little further down the track. Me in twenty years time. Me as I would become.
Impossibly, I'd found myself seated across a
stretch of table, looking myself in the eye. The first thing I realised was
that I was pleased with what I saw. She was looking pretty good for fifty. Not
fat - and being overweight is the thing I worry about the most. I have a slow
metabolism. I have to half kill myself with exercise just to stay in the mid
range.
No, she wasn't fat. She was elegant and stylish,
with manicured nails and sculpted brows. She knew that I knew who she was, so
she didn't bother trying to explain. She didn't order coffee, she got straight
to the point, unfastening the clasp of her handbag to bring out a photograph.
Its edges were slightly curled. She'd obviously been carrying it around with
her for some time. She placed it face up on the table top and pushed it towards
me. It was of a man, and his face was vaguely familiar although I didn't know
his name.
"Isaac," she said. "His name is Isaac and you
have six weeks to make him fall in love with you".
Isaac. I realised then that I knew the guy. He
worked in the same Department as me, but on a different floor. I'd seen him in
the lift, and in meetings occasionally. An exuberant man, always talking.
Everybody liked him.
I started to speak, but she cut me off, leaning
forward to grip my wrist with sudden intensity.
"There isn't time to think about this, Jeanne.
I've been desperately in love with this man for all of the twenty years between
you now and me. I've done everything I can to make him love me back. And I
would have succeeded if it wasn't for Julia, his wife. They were together
before I met him. He said he would never leave her and he never has. But there
was a time before that when things weren't so rosy between them. They nearly
separated. If I'd known him then - everything might have been different."
I pulled my arm free of her grasp and edged back
in my seat, but she continued speaking, her eyes on high beam.
"That six week period, for you, is almost here.
Isaac is lonely, restless and bored. He flirts with other women. You are
exactly his type. Go after him, Jeanne. He will want you. All you have to do is
try."
I took a deep breath and considered her words.
"But what about my boyfriend?"
"What indeed?" she replied, and I knew what she
meant. I didn't love Elliott. Not really. We were comfortable together but that
was all. I'd always known I'd leave him if someone better came along.
I was poised to ask another question when I
suddenly realised how ridiculous the whole scenario was. There simply could not
be two of us sitting there face to face. It was physically impossible. She was
an imposter. A scam artist. A fake.
"Look, lady, I don't know-"
Her expression changed, morphing from intensity
to smugness in a second. "Saskia Andersson," she said curtly. "Your best friend
in primary school. You two were inseparable, but deep down you harboured
resentment for her long blond hair and her family's wealth. You even coveted
the freckles on her nose and the slight overbite that made her look cute in an
annoying Disney kind of way."
"Every little girl wants to be blond and cute
when they're ten," I snapped. "All you needed for that diagnosis was a school
photo."
Her smugness intensified. "Maybe. And maybe
there's a photo somewhere which shows that Saskia always wore a silver chain
with a tiny key on it around her neck. The key unlocked her diary, and on more
than one occasion you lifted it from her bedside table and snuck out into the
garden to read it with a torch when you were sleeping over."
My breath lodged in my throat. Nobody on earth
knew about that particular little series of crimes. Nobody. I'd never told a
soul.
"That stupid kid wrote everything down," she
continued. "Every boy she had a crush on, every thing she ever cared about. You
read it all and used it to manipulate her all the rest of the way through
school. Of course, it's hardly surprising that she ended up—"
"OK, that's enough, I believe you," I said. I
didn't want to think about little blond Saskia Andersson any more. Last time
I'd heard from her she was headed for an anorexia clinic. "What is it you
really want from me?"
"Peace of mind," said my other, older self.
"Happiness. A chance at a better life."
"And you reckon Isaac Rhodes can deliver the
goods?"
She nodded. "I've wasted twenty years chasing a
fantasy," she said, preparing to leave the table. "I'm tired, Jeanne. Really
tired. Don't you waste them too."
There were questions I should have asked her, but
all I could think of was
twenty years of sadness. Twenty years of unrequited love. Twenty years of
heartache and anguish.
I felt her adoration of Isaac Rhodes fall across
my skin, warming its surface, permeating my pores. Details of his life budded
into blossoms in my thoughts.
He likes antique motorcycles and the colour green. Seafood and pineapple. The
smell of bourbon turns his stomach.
"Don't be put off by the woman he's flirting with
now," she added. "She's ten years younger than you and very pretty, but it all
comes to nothing. She's no threat."
She got up from the table and left the photo in
my hands. I must have got up too, paid for my coffee and left, although I don't
remember doing so. Next thing I knew I'd left Macchiato Lane far behind and was
wandering back through my end of the city, the photo safely tucked away in my
handbag.
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Isaac Rhodes was not a handsome man, but he had charisma and a certain animal
magnetism. There was a group from level fourteen who went out for drinks every
Friday after work. The Cocktail Club, they called themselves. I knew a couple
of the women on that floor. It wasn't hard to get myself invited.
You have to realise that I hadn't decided
anything at this point. Separated from that older self, the convergence of
emotion had faded. I was curious more than anything. A part of me - the cold,
sceptical, scientific part - refused to believe that I could possibly have
encountered an older version of myself. But the other part of me - the fey
part, the dreamer and romantic - knew the truth. That I had indeed encountered
myself, and it was this part that urged me to do what she wanted. Because who
can you trust if you can't trust yourself? Who indeed, I considered.
Who indeed?
At first I just sank back into the depths of the
bar's red lounge suite and watched Isaac Rhodes at work. No matter where he
was, he was always the locus. The fulcrum point. The eye of the storm. Where he
stood, others gathered. When he moved, they moved too.
The competition wasn't difficult to spot.
Eurasian blonde, very pretty. Normally I would never have dared to go up
against a goddess like that - but I knew something she didn't know. I knew the
future. I knew he wasn't really interested in her. She was just pretty. It
wasn't enough. If I could find the words to put her off, she'd stop trying and
he wouldn't chase her.
My opportunity came when the goddess went to the
bar. I gave up my comfortable spot on the couch and placed myself casually
beside her.
"Good choice," I said, leaning close in a
conspiratorial fashion.
She frowned. "I beg your pardon?"
"Rhodes," I said, gesturing over my shoulder.
"Hung like a donkey. Got a lot of staying power." I ordered a G&T, giving her
time to let my words sink in.
"Um... we're not..."
"Pity." I said as my drink arrived. "I'd shag him
again any day. But he's the type who never calls. Know what I mean?"
She didn't believe me, I could tell, but I wasn't
worried. Whoever said knowledge is power was right.
"He's married," she said. "I don't believe—"
"Wife's got cancer," I said, gripping the straw
between my lips. "They haven't had sex in years".
Someone had taken my spot on the couch but it
didn't matter. I found an uncomfortable bar stool to perch on and spent some
time watching the goddess re-evaluate the fabulous Isaac Rhodes at the edges of
my peripheral vision. In the space of an hour he degenerated from fascinating
individual to sleazy root rat right before her eyes. I'd sown the seeds. She
saw what she expected to see and left the bar without even finishing her drink.
My future self had been right. Isaac Rhodes was
definitely looking for something. Love, consolation, a shoulder to cry on, a
friend. Perhaps he wasn't sure what he wanted, only that he was in need at this
point in his life. I would do everything I could to make him sure that what he
really needed was me.
Somehow, my future self had let me in on all his
secrets. I fed them back to him slowly, whispering a few at a time, starting
this night, continuing over the many other nights that were to follow.
"It's like you're psychic," he whispered back,
amazed as I unpeeled yet another layer of his troubled skin. "It's like you can
see right into my soul."
We were so hot for each other. My future self had
known what she was missing. The connection running through us was primeval and
electric. Other women sensed it and kept away. We soon ditched the Cocktail
Club and found new playgrounds of our own. I kept him out as much as possible,
always dressed to kill, wrapped up in a fantasy world of parties, clubs and
bars. Always moving, never slowing down to think about the future. From Isaac I
learned that I was everything Julia was not. Julia with her lank brown hair,
her comfortable jeans, her sunny smile. Julia who was always there for him.
Safe, familiar Julia, his earth, his hearth and home.
And then there was me - empress of the darkness.
Mistress of a thousand fantasies. Isaac believed he was making a brave new
choice. Fantasy made flesh, he thought.
I've finally learnt how to fly.
And it was great for six months. We screwed like
rabbits and I barely gave any thought at all to the life I'd left behind.
But then the little things start to eat away at
the edges. Parties, clubs and bars are for the flirting folk. Once our union
was cemented, Isaac and I no longer belonged in that world.
Little things
started to get under my skin. I despised the attention he paid to strangers.
Someone he'd never meet again, but there he was, giving the conversation his
all, putting his heart into it. I wanted all of his heart, and there he was,
handing it around, giving it away for free. I could handle sharing him with his
friends, but with every bus driver, every waitress, every greengrocer?
"What are you talking to them for? How come
buying a bag of oranges takes you half an hour every time?"
Isaac shrugged. "I like to talk," he said.
Sometimes I wondered if I'd invented that
blue-doored café down Macchiato Lane. Perhaps I'd imagined it. But it was still
there every time I went back to check. That same frosted glass, with the
familiar smudged blur of people moving behind it. The café was real, and she
had been real too. I can't explain it better than that. I touched the door
handle but never went back inside on those subsequent visits. I walked on by
and bought my coffee somewhere else, even though it meant enduring another one
of those lousy cappuccinos with the froth scraped off. No, you don't ever want
to go back to the place where you met yourself. You just don't want to go
there. Trust me.
A year into our relationship, I began to suspect
that Isaac was pining for Julia. Were they emailing each other? Were they
phoning on the sly? I increased my visits to the gym. Putting on weight at this
point would have been fatal. Elliott had never even noticed a few extra kilos
on or off. Isaac would notice. He had an eye for detail. I had to keep abreast
of the competition, knowing that it could come from anywhere at any time. I had
to be on my guard.
Finally the Friday nights after work started up
again, as I'd always known they would. He'd changed jobs since we first met.
One of his friends - and who was there that wasn't a friend of Isaac's? --
invited him out for drinks.
"Come with us," he suggested. I stormed off
angrily. The last thing I wanted to do with my evening was sit in a noisy bar
bored to death watching Mr Wonderful talk about pointless rubbish with
strangers. It wasn't that he flirted with other women exactly. No, it wasn't
flirting at all. He was so charming and interesting that women couldn't help
themselves. Men too. Everybody loved talking to Isaac.
I started spending my Friday nights at the gym. I
was the fittest and strongest that I'd ever been. I looked amazing. At least
ten years younger than my actual age. Other men hit on me all the time. Younger
men. Better looking men than Isaac Rhodes, but they were all the same. All buff
and boring.
I'm not doing this for you
, I'd scowl at them in my mind.
I'm doing this for Isaac.
When I finished at the gym I'd go home and I'd
wait. Friday nights he'd come through the door at 2 am, stinking of booze and
cigarettes.
"Who was there tonight?" I'd ask him. "Who was
there?"
He got sick of shrugging and telling me that he
couldn't remember everyone's names. One time I asked if he'd been seeing Julia.
He glared at me as if I'd slapped him. I never asked about her again. I think
he would have left me if I had.
I knew I had to change my tactics. That something
was wrong, and Isaac Rhodes was slipping through my fingers right before my
eyes. Was it another woman? Was it several, or was it just me who was driving
us apart. And then I found the letter in his jacket packet. It was crumpled,
obviously folded and refolded many times. It had been mailed to his office
address, postmarked the month before. The letter was from Julia.
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Macchiato Lane. The blue door. I threw my weight against it and shoved hard,
hearing the subtle squeal of the hinge as I stepped inside.
The interior was exactly as I remembered it,
despite the passage of a couple of years. The same tired-looking waitress
behind the counter, or another that might have been her twin.
I chose a different booth to the one I'd sat in
that first time. I needed space to think. I broke the stillness of my flat
white's surface with a tab of artificial sweetener, stirring absently as I
stared into the depths of the speckled Formica table top. The yellow flecks
were like a star field, points of light embedded in cool blue.
Six weeks, my future self had told me.
A six week window of opportunity in which to steal his heart.
But I had done exactly that: stolen a heart that was never meant for me.
Julia's letter had said it all:
I let you go because I love you. I'll always love you even though you chose
another in my place.
Only Isaac had never made that choice. I had made it for him. I had stolen
Julia's man and it was all as wrong as Hell.
A smudge of yellow moved across my peripheral
vision. The waitress, her motion slowed as if glimpsed through water. She
carried a tray to a fat woman in another booth. Milkshake and cake. The fat
woman lifted her spoon as the cake was placed before her. Disgusting, I
thought. How could anyone let themselves get like that?
The fat woman shovelled a spoon laden with sponge
into her mouth. Mock cream slid across her lip, leaving a moustache. She wiped
it off with the back of her fist as she chewed. A ruddy paw reached for the
shake, pulling it closer to her floral print bulk.
I sipped my coffee, turning my attention to the
next booth along. Two little girls in matching pinafore frocks sat opposite
their mother, a haggard-looking woman with shopping bags pooled around her feet.
Another woman paced the stretch of floor between
the counter and the frosted glass, checking her watch over and over. Her
silhouette blurred as she moved, hip bones in sharp relief against luminescent
blue when she stood still. Creases worn into her linen suit. Obviously waiting
for someone. She looked as if she had been waiting forever.
There was something very wrong about this place.
Too many blues: baby blue, eggshell blue, the blue of a thousand far horizons.
Not the hopeful blue of summer skies, the deep calm of the ocean. This blue was
the tint of faded glory, the hue of opportunities lost, of past mistakes. Here,
all other colours faded to insignificance. It was a waiting room, a holding
pattern, a terminal, a trap. A haven for broken hearts, misery and despair.
There were no men here. Only women, all those who
waited behind their flat white coffees. Men existed outside in the other world
on the far side of the frosted glass.
And then, as the pacing woman in crushed linen
turned her head, a stray smudge of florescent light illuminated the side of her
face. I saw the pink trace of her scar, and the truth hit me suddenly, the
final blow, as stinging as a slap across the face. Not only were they all
women, they were all the
same one
. Different versions of me from other places and other days.
My breath lodged in my throat. Every single one
was me. Me as I once was. Me as I might have been. Me as I could never imagine
myself, me as I might become, yet somehow all of them inevitably me, here and
now, converging in this miserable place.
And it was then that I knew for certain that I
had come here to wait for you. That you were my future. My only possible means
of escape. You would walk through that door one day, just as surely as I had
done.
The blue door no longer opens from the inside
out, and so I will fight for your attention when you come. I will knock these
other pathetic bitches to the ground in order to get to you first.
You will walk through that door and I will
scream at you to
run!
Run far away from this god forsaken place. Away from Isaac and away from me.
To another country and another life where none of this despair is real.
The smell of burnt coffee taints the air as the
blue door begins to creak open. Time slurs, each second dragging like an oar
through deep water. All of us look up together as you step across the
threshold, and we are hopeful for the instant that it takes us to be certain
that you do indeed share our face.
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