by Austin, Lucy
‘Yeah, you definitely don’t need a food menu, you can just point to your t-shirt,’ comes the reply.
Anna was right when she said I would get to spend more time with my friend. In fact, since ‘the break up’ Stan’s been down to see me a lot. And as much as it’s always on the tip of my tongue to talk about that night at Hipsters, I’m sure as hell not going to risk an old friendship to question something that was probably in my imagination. I’ve had no signs since – at least I don’t think I have. My radar for detecting this sort of thing has always been a little off. Look at Joe! I just wish there was an alternative universe where there was no such thing as reading into something too much and that whatever you imagined was happening, actually was.
Carefully taking the slippery steps down to the promenade, we’re immediately hit by the unpleasant stench of rotting seaweed all piled up on the beach below, like a smelly trampoline. For some reason, this always gives me the urge to throw myself off the promenade onto it.
‘Do you remember doing this when we were younger?’ I shout, bouncing up and down as he watches me with a curious expression on his face from up above. ‘You know, at summer camp, I used to pretend it was a trampoline.’ My phone then vibrates with a text from Claire saying not to hurry back as she and Wayne are having a massage evening. A massage evening?
As Stan reluctantly joins me on the seaweed, I’m wondering why neither of us have brought up the subject of Anna and what actually went down. I’m okay with a little mystery though, because ever since I started full time at the Globe, my need for intense talk in my private life has dwindled right down – hell, I’ve become the queen of the trivial conversation. This is partly inspired by my mentor at work, Hilarious Sam, who keeps it a fever pitch of frothiness much of the time, only to blurt out something wise just as I’m thinking she’s the girl who’ll always write hearts where dots should be.
Take for instance the other day when I came into the kitchen, annoyed after someone shouted at me for forgetting to stamp his coffee card.
Sam just shrugged at me. ‘You make it personal the whole time. At the end of the day, just see them as a customer and not as a friend and you’ll enjoy it more.’ I ought to list all these pearls of wisdom on the lounge chalkboard, as they’re fast becoming daily mantras that I whisper to myself in the bathroom. I’m turning into Claire.
As we bounce across the seaweed on the beach, finding safe subjects is pretty exhausting, knowing there is a big old pink elephant in the room – it’s the equivalent of trying to look busy to avoid being sacked.
‘You’ll be pleased to hear that Linda has turned into Bridezilla,’ I say brightly. ‘It’s only been six weeks, but already she’s raised it up a notch.’
Earlier today, Linda marched into the café and stood at the counter for the best part of our rush hour, going on about everything to do with the wedding. Not even PJ coming up to her with his sticky hands on her silk dress deviated her from today’s mission, which was to change the surprise birthday party she’d planned for Dave at the Globe to an engagement one.
‘It’ll be easy enough to do,’ said Sam, handing me over a load of grilled sandwiches for an order. ‘We’ll just swap the birthday balloons for ones with hearts on them,’ she says, pleased with her idea.
Linda gave her a fixed smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes and waits for her to walk off before letting rip.
‘Heart balloons? HEART BALLOONS? What a terrible idea! I want pure class. I don’t want heart balloons!’
Like Claire, in a relatively short space of time, Linda and I have gone from old acquaintances that tolerate each other to proper friends. However, while I’ve been spared from being made a bridesmaid (she’s up to ten already), unfortunately I have been tasked with the lowest of the low – being in charge of the guest book at the wedding, a role that is apparently considered pivotal to preserving memories of their special day. Okay-dokey.
‘It’s the world’s longest engagement,’ I groan, throwing a stick to see if one of the dogs on the beach will venture out on the bouncy seaweed.
Stan smiles at me nonchalantly and shrugs. ‘Well, as long as they get there in the end that’s all that matters hey?’
Since I’ve been working fulltime at the café, Liv’s not been around so much. Presumably, it’s because she’s either swamped by the demands of motherhood or that she no longer feels obliged to humour Paolo. Whatever the reason, I’m missing her and only got to tell her about Anna breaking up with Stan because I purposely went over to her flat and filled her in while she bathed Rory.
‘Thank God for that. You got him back,’ she said and I nodded, inwardly questioning the turn of phrase when he was never mine to begin with. ‘Tell you what, it is such a rarity to have the friendship you guys have,’ she added, sprinkling the talcum powder liberally over us all. ‘Don’t give up on it.’
Having made our descent from the seaweed to the sand, I continue walking alongside Stan, deliberating what to do. I then decide that there’s never going to be the right time so I might as well say it now. ‘You know, we’ve not really talked about you and Anna,’ I falter, feeling suddenly unsure of how this is going to be received.
Stan squeezes my hand for the briefest second and then removes it to scratch his nose. ‘It just wasn’t working out Kate. Never mind, break ups happen.’ He then stares out into the dusk as a dog walker suddenly looms up with a plastic bag.
As we pass the little marina and the boats bobbing on the water, we now feel the full force of the wind against us as we turn the corner from Viking Bay, effectively making all conversation pointless, as it requires repeating oneself several times over. Just as I’m cursing living by the sea, as it’s unseasonably cool for this time of year, Stan puts his arm around me as he always does when my teeth are chattering. It feels normal. It feels nice. Then his arm stays there. Oh here we go again, Kate get a grip! With the sun going down, we are now the only people foolhardy enough to be out for a walk.
‘What’s happening with Wayne and Claire?’ Stan asks. ‘They seem very cosy.’
‘What’s not happening with them,’ I say, telling him about the sleep deprivation that has been brought on by Claire and Wayne having the type of sex that you don’t believe that people really do. Worse still, as fond as I am of Wayne, seeing him first thing in the morning is not pretty. He sports un-squeezed spots, seriously bad breath and a stalwart ‘morning glory’ that stays up for the duration of my two Weetabix. After he leaves for work, Claire then follows me around the flat reading out loud every text coming through from him as he walks to the travel agency. After the fifth text of more than 300 characters, I pipe up as I’m slowly being sent round the bend. ‘Really, there’s no need. Your business!’ But no, Claire insists on sharing every real-time minute of her courtship, and those walls of mine become ever more paper-thin. I have now rung in changes of my own though, as small as they are. He’s not hogging the couch, oh no! The rule is that if there are three of us in the flat, he has to sit on that uncomfortable dining room chair, the one that I’ve been sitting on for far too long.
Things had also come to a head regarding the bills. I knew the way his mind was thinking, along the lines of, ‘why get my own place when I get to live at Claire’s for free?’ I had been there before with Sienna and the freeloading Pete and I wasn’t going to do it again.
Having memorised a speech, I sat between the two of them on the sofa and looking straight ahead at the enormous telly said what had been on my mind. ‘Wayne, if you carry on unofficially living here, we are going to be splitting the bills three ways, you do realise that?’ I stole a quick glance at Claire who looked surprised and then at Wayne who was looking at Claire to gauge her reaction. Up to that point, they were clearly oblivious in their little lust bubble as to what it was like for me having to share with them.
‘Well in theory I’m sharing Claire’s bed so I’m not taking up extra space.’ Wayne said defensively, sounding like a student fighting over milk. �
�I also don’t shower much.’ I know.
Having had just about enough of this I stood up and towered over them both, bellowing in my Tarzan voice.
‘Wayne, firstly, you are a boy and generally more of a slob to live with, and secondly, you and Claire also need to compensate for hogging the sofa and for public displays of affection.’ Appearing dumbstruck at my spurt of assertiveness, they just looked up at me saying nothing. I like to think they were in awe, but I suspect they were just letting me vent so they could resume their usual behaviour as soon as my back was turned.
Practically speaking though, there are perks to Wayne and Claire dating. Take gadgets and gizmos for instance. Along with wireless speakers in the bathroom, Wayne has rigged up a huge plasma screen the size of our wall in the front room. It shows pixels so crystal clear I can see open pores on the actors’ faces.
According to Claire, all this technology bodes well for their relationship. ‘It’s a sign that he’s not running for the hills,’ she said confidently. Yes, even Claire has managed to work out that Wayne is hardly going to be doing a runner in the dead of night with only his pants on – not with all this expensive gadgetry around.
Reaching the end of Stone Bay, we do an automatic about-turn so that the wind will be once more behind us, sweeping us along in the dusk. Tonight, the thought of going back to the flat where Wayne will be ensconced on the sofa having a ‘back massage’ by Claire is not particularly appealing; certainly, it’s making me furiously wrack my brain for an alternative plan.
I then have a brain wave. ‘Listen, when does your last train to Canterbury go?’ I look at my watch. ‘You got time to have a coffee at the Globe? I can’t go back to the flat for fear of stumbling upon a petting zoo. I now have keys.’ I dangle them excitedly.
‘Let’s do it,’ grins Stan and grabs my cheek. ‘Little Katey Waitey is all excited with her big idea!’ I whack him hard on the arm.
The Globe is so freezing that I’m not sure how long we’re going to last without doing a jog on the spot, so I get busy with heating up the coffee machine. As we wait for it to be ready, we revert back to our twelve-year old selves and pretend to smoke imaginary cigarettes in the cold air.
‘What’s your poison?’ I say. ‘Coffee or green tea?’
Stan picks up a magazine and looks at it, before arching an eyebrow. ‘Err, what do you reckon?’ he says. There is a long pause as he carries on reading the magazine. ‘So, I’m now single,’ he says, looking up.
More silence follows and all I can think of, is to repeat what he’s just said. ‘Indeed, you are single.’ Looking at the machine, I then decide that perhaps it needs a good polish. ‘You’re not single very often,’ I add.
‘Ahem,’ he clears his throat, which makes me look up from what I’m doing. ‘What are you on about?’ he asks, looking a bit indignant. ‘I’ve had two serious girlfriends!’ I think of the other girls that he’s been with over the years that thought he was wonderful and latched onto him at every opportunity. Clearly, he didn’t feel the same. What I now know now in hindsight is that we see what we want to see don’t we, never mind if that person is clearly trying to tell us something.
‘You seem pretty okay if you don’t mind me saying, you know, for someone who’s just split up with his long-term girlfriend,’ I say, grinding up the coffee.
As he waits for the noise to be over, he looks at me with a bemused expression. ‘Well, if what you mean is that I’m not like you were when you got back from Australia, you’re right. I’m totally fine.’ He then pauses. ‘I’m more sorry it took me a whole year to find out about Anna.’ This is coming from a man who once described her as amazing.
‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, not wanting to go there but feeling nosey all the same.
‘You know, finding out stuff that if you’d known before, you wouldn’t have gone there in the first place,’ says Stan cryptically, refusing to be drawn in on the subject any further.
When I last spoke to Anna, she was still smarting at me for having cut her off the other day, while I was still annoyed at her attitude and loathed to let it go completely. However, in preference to tackling whatever was going on with us head-on, I decided to talk about her favourite subject in the whole world – herself.
‘The TV auditions went really well darling,’ she said, sounding her usual self once more. ‘They said that it might not be immediately, but they plan to create the right part for me.’ For a brief second, I actually wondered if they were not just trying to let her down gently as that doesn’t half sound like the perfect non-committal answer but even if that was the case, Anna had enough bravado to put a positive spin on it. She then asked me whether I had seen Stan, as apparently she was still upset about ending it with him, for fear he would be truly heartbroken. I wasn’t entirely sure as to what Anna’s motivation for asking after him was. Perhaps it was a hangover from her days as a possessive girlfriend who used binoculars on a regular basis but I wasn’t going to indulge her.
‘He seems okay actually,’ I said cheerfully as it was the truth. From my perspective, my friend was behaving like he hadn’t got a care in the world – he certainly wasn’t reaching for Michael Bublé.
‘Oh,’ she said, barely able to disguise her surprise. ‘Well, keep a close eye on him. It could be delayed grief.’
It took every ounce of civility not to say something rude in response but I behaved impeccably. Liv would have been devastated.
Back to the present, Stan and I are now sat with coffee in hand, while he tells me he’s thinking of throwing in the towel at his job and taking some time off. He is? Why did I not know?
‘I trust you’re not going to bugger off travelling and become the old bloke that no-one wants to sit next to on the bus,’ I grin, inwardly panicking that he might leave these shores and do just that. He pulls a face.
‘As if! No plans to start staying in smelly hostels I assure you. Got too many Hilton Hotel points to use up,’ he smiles, before looking serious again. ‘No, I just meant doing something new.’
Listening to him of all people question it all, gets me thinking that perhaps every person at any stage can have a ‘Is this it?’ moment, but maybe what it should be – a moment. Unfortunately, in my case, my ‘Is this it?’ moment became a way of life.
‘So what’s happening with you?’ Stan asks, so I tell him about being offered full-time work at the Globe.
‘No surprise there,’ he says. ‘This is so you Kate. Not sure how you got into secretarial anyhow, you are a born saleswoman. No offence, but I was never able to picture you doing mail merges. Attention to detail has never been your strongest point.’
I could tell him that I now realise that much of my time in the administration wilderness was to do with dealing with the emotional fall out after Joe, but to be honest, the last thing I want to do is bring the conversation round to him with Stan of all people. Ugh. In a short space of time, whatever we had has gone from being poignant to seemingly inconsequential. It now feels so foreign to me that I chose to undermine my own life plan for a man – and one with a ponytail at that.
‘I know working in a café doesn’t come under the category of ‘high flying’ ’, I say, doing finger quotations. ‘It’s certainly not what I thought I would end up doing, but I tell you what? It feels right to be working here.’
It’s true, the time I’ve spent in here, the hours, the graft, the banter with the staff, even the clearing up – I’ve loved it. I even tell Stan that at Paolo’s request, I washed three years’ worth of urine off the walls with sugar soap to paint the toilet a shade of lime green.
‘Perhaps Paolo was testing you with painting the toilets, like that scene in Karate Kid when Mr Miyagi gets Daniel to wax polish his car,’ Stan offers by way of an explanation and I giggle. ‘Wax on, wax off.’
‘What I like about this kind of work is that you sort of know where you’re at all the time,’ I continue, pausing as I try to articulate exactly what I mean. ‘People tell you if t
hey’re not happy or they thank you if they are. It’s very instant. It’s very honest. It’s impossible to over-read into things like I did in all those work places, you know, having to manage politics on a daily basis. Here, there’s no time to do any of that overanalysing before the next customer comes in.’ I say, not really meaning the last bit as I think I’ll spend the rest of my days reading into everything. Just look at Stan and I.
‘Well, it sounds like it’s a no brainer,’ says Stan, reaching over the counter and holding my hand. ‘It’s been ages since I’ve seen you happy like this.’ He’s right. The last two years I have been scared about just accepting who I was and what made me content. I now realise that not making any changes is simply copping out on having to do any decision-making.
‘I think I was under the impression that as I went to university, I was supposed to do something that had a fancy job title.’ I say. ‘ “I work in a café” just doesn’t have the same ring to it does it?’
Stan then interrupts. ‘Well, I remember in California…’ Do not mention California, I inwardly plead. ‘You said you just wanted to work for a small independent business. Who cares what constitutes sexy?’ he says and then smiles.
I look at him, wondering how come it took me so long to get this complete clarity when friends like him have had it all along.
‘I think I thought I liked cafés as I like to sit on my arse without having to fully participate in life. But good news! It turns out I love cafés as I like working in them,’ I say grinning, giving him a thumbs up. ‘Anyhow, I feel like I’m talking shop a bit too much, pardon the pun.’ I say as we drain our coffees and get ready to go.
‘So…are you going to get back out there on the dating front?’ I ask, trying to sound chipper but for the first time thinking that perhaps I’m bored of having this conversation with Stan. It’s always the same, him having a love life and me watching from the sidelines. I’m tired of it.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he shakes his head in that non-committal way of his. ‘I think I’ll have some time on my own. But yes, at some point probably.’ He then puts the cups in the dishwasher and winks at me. ‘You know me, nothing I like better than being in back-to-back relationships.’
