Marshmallows for Breakfast

by Dorothy Koomson

  She raised her eyebrows questioningly at me and I picked up the receiver, effectively sealing my fate. Without even telling the woman my name, or finding out what her name was, I'd got myself a job. While I was on the phone I heard the woman tell the others the position had recently been filled—the candidate in question demonstrated an impressive amount of initiative.

  Something better hadn't come along. Not in six and a bit years. Not until I decided I needed to move to Australia.

  Gabrielle was always the first in.

  In all the years I'd worked with her, no matter how hard I tried, nor how early I arrived at the other office we'd worked in, every morning she'd be there, behind her desk, cup of coffee half drunk, croissant crumbs on a grease-soaked paper bag, typing away. I was yet to disprove the theory that she actually slept in the office.

  She'd once told me that she was a compulsive early starter. In the way some people are always late, she couldn't help herself being early. I must have just caught her arriving because she was in the process of uncapping her cup of coffee.

  “Blimey,” she said, her hands paused on the top of the white plastic lid, while her eyes went to the clock on the wall above the candidate waiting area. “Thought it was just me who couldn't stay in bed in the mornings.”

  “I'm trying to catch you out,” I joked. “And I wanted to make up for yesterday.”

  “Emergency all sorted?” she asked as she watched me shed my coat and unwrap my multicolored scarf.

  “As far as it can be,” I said. I didn't want to tell her everything, but I had to talk to someone, had to share my concerns. “My landlord's two kids were worried because they couldn't wake up their dad. And they were so scared that I couldn't leave them on their own. Not even when we knew he was OK.”

  “Where's the mother?”

  “America, apparently. Although she might be back, I don't know. Not at home, basically, which is why the kids came to get me.”

  “Is he hot?”

  “Who?”

  “The flaky father.”

  I shrugged. “I don't know, I guess. Haven't really thought about it. So much has happened since I met him and we aren't exactly on the best of terms. That taints how you see someone.”

  “I'll take that as a yes.”

  “Take it how you want, sweetheart. I'm more worried about his children.”

  “What, he's abusing them?” Gabrielle asked, concerned.

  “No. No.” The two crescent shapes carved out in the bottles of alcohol flashed through my mind. “Nothing like that. He's being, like you said, flaky. They're going through a divorce, he's struggling. I'm just being a bit dramatic. It's fine.”

  The words sounded hollow in my ears. It wasn't fine. It was far from fine. But if I said it enough times, I might just start to believe it.

  Knowing when to leave well enough alone, Gabrielle listened to my too-many reassurances and then smartly changed the subject. “So, how about you get a cuppa and we'll have a catch-up.”

  Throwing myself into work was the way forward. That was the way to temporarily set aside the sallow, hollow faces of Summer and Jaxon that were scored into my mind.

  They were sitting on the lip of my doorstep when I arrived back that evening.

  I'd stayed late at the office to catch up on work, so it was dark and cold by the time I'd wandered down the pathway from the front of the house to my flat. In the pool of orange-yellow light thrown out from their kitchen, they sat. Around their shoulders were tartan blankets, across their laps was a duvet.

  Jeez, you'd think he'd wait a few days to neglect them again, I thought as I approached them.

  Both their faces lit up, although Jaxon quickly hid his delight by looking down. “We've been waiting for you,” Summer said, still grinning. She fizzed when she smiled; her smiles came from the joy deep inside her heart and she had no worries about showing it.

  “I can see that,” I said, crouching down in front of them. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Summer replied. Jaxon shook his head.

  “Oh, right. So you're sat here because … ?”

  “We've been waiting for you,” Summer repeated, as though I was somehow slow.

  I nodded, and rubbed the bridge of my nose. My eyes were burning, my head was throbbing and my neck was a knot of tension from too much time in front of the computer and too little time asleep last night.

  Jaxon nudged Summer as if to remind her why they were there. “Dad said we had to come and say thank you,” she explained.

  “He did, huh?”

  “He said we had to say thank you for you looking after us on Saturday and yesterday. He said we had to draw you a picture.” From the space between them under the duvet Jaxon pulled out a slightly rumpled sheet of A4 paper. It was stiff from where the paint he'd used had dried. He'd painted me a steam engine. A lime-green body and funnel with navy-blue swirls for wheels. In the corner he'd written “Ken.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled in surprise as I took it.

  “And this is my picture.” Summer brandished her picture, again taken from under the duvet. She'd drawn a picture of a lady in a purple skirt and orange top. The woman had a blond ponytail and big brown eyes with long black lashes, red lips, dainty nose. She carried a pink handbag on her arm. Summer had used pencils to color it in and had pressed hard so each color lay thick and shiny on the surface of the paper. “Thank you” she'd printed in her uneven handwriting across the top of the page.

  “Thank you to you as well.”

  “Do you like them?” Summer asked.

  “I love them,” I admitted. I loved them particularly because it meant Kyle had spent time with his children doing this. He'd gotten himself together and had put them before himself. That made these pictures all the more beautiful. “I'll put them on my fridge so I can see them every day. Is that OK?”

  They both nodded.

  “Dad said we had to buy you a present as well,” Summer said. Jaxon pulled out a bag of marshmallows.

  “Jaxon told Dad we have to get you marshmallows because you eat them for your breakfast,” Summer explained.

  “You don't like chocolate,” Jaxon mumbled into his chest.

  I did, actually. But clearly my talk of marshmallows had negated all other sweet things in his mind.

  “Dad said every woman in the whole country kingdom universe likes chocolate, but he still bought it. Do you like it?”

  Taking them from Jaxon, I held them in my hands. The pack had been warmed by its time beside their bodies under the duvet. Its cellophane packaging crackled in my hands, the pink and white cylinders of sugar giving easily under my fingers.

  “I like them very much. I love them, in fact. Thank you for being so thoughtful.”

  “It's OK. You're our friend,” Summer replied.

  Jaxon nodded in agreement. I'd made great leaps with him without even trying. I wasn't simply someone whose hand he wanted to hold in the street, I was his friend. He liked me, even though he tried to hide it.

  “Right, so you're off to bed now, aren't you?” I said, standing up to the tune of cracking knee joints.

  Jaxon's shoulders fell; Summer rolled her eyes. “Can't we watch television in your house?” she asked. “Only for a little bit.”

  “Five minutes,” Jaxon echoed.

  I knew when I was being hustled. Their dad had probably told them they could stay up until they said thank you. Now they were trying to outstay their bedtime. “Much as I'd love to, I have to say no. You've got school tomorrow.”

  “Five minutes,” Summer begged.

  “Why don't you ask your dad if you can watch television for five minutes in your house?” I said. “Come on.” I picked up their duvet, folded it over in my arms.

  Reluctantly, they got up, clinging onto the blankets around their shoulders. As I turned I saw their dad standing in front of the window. He'd clearly been keeping an eye on them all the time they were outside. Well good. He was capable of behaving responsibly. The weekend
was probably just a hitch. Of course it was. They didn't look abused. He was just struggling.

  He moved to the door, opened it fully, ready to receive his children back.

  “She loved it, Dad,” Summer said, stepping around him into the house. “Kendie said we can watch television for five minutes.” She led the way across the kitchen with Jaxon following.

  “I never said that exactly,” I said to Kyle. Didn't want him to think I was trying to be a parent to his children, was disrespecting his role.

  “I didn't think you had,” he said.

  “I said they could ask you if they could watch TV for five minutes,” I added. In the background the sound of the television went up a few notches.

  “I know you did.”

  “Oh, here,” I said, handing over the duvet.

  He took it and folded it over in his arms, using it as a shield almost.

  We stood in silence for a few moments. So much had happened between us in these past four days and both of us wanted to say something to acknowledge it and then lay it to rest. He was going to do better next time, I was sure of it.

  “OK, I'll see you,” I said when it became clear neither of us could find the right words.

  He nodded.

  I turned to leave. As I was walking across the grass I could feel his eyes on me. It felt as though he was watching over me; just like he'd been making sure the children were safe while they were sitting on my doorstep, he was ensuring I made it the short distance into my flat. He actually cared.

  As I opened the door, he called my name. I turned back to him.

  He tipped his chin up in a nod. Clean slate?he was asking.

  I nodded back. Clean slate.

  PANCAKES & BACON

  SMOTHERED IN MAPLE SYRUP

  CHAPTER 8

  Ohhh, look, Kendra, a letter from Australia,” Janene called across the office while waving a white rectangular envelope in the air as though trying to flag down a car with a handkerchief.

  Everyone in the office—even the two young potential temps who'd walked in without an appointment and were filling out forms and waiting to be interviewed—stopped and stared.

  Four of us worked in Office Wonders Lite: Gabrielle, me, Teri, who was a forty-year-old mother of four who worked two and a half days a week as a senior recruitment consultant, and Janene, our office assistant.

  Janene was a twenty-four-year-old mean girl. And she made no secret of the fact that she didn't like me. Not me per se, so much as Kendra Tamale, head of temp recruitment. She thought that should have been her position, even though she'd only worked with Gabrielle for three months and hadn't had any training in recruitment. It galled her that someone else had been practically airlifted in to do the job and she'd told Gabrielle that she was disappointed in her for not at least giving her an interview. As a result, in the three weeks I'd been here, she obsessively concentrated on the minutiae of her job to derive some kind of satisfaction from gaining the upper hand on me.

  It was something I'd experienced the world over: someone who had no power in their lives—be it at work or at home—took control over the tiniest things and became obsessed with carrying them out to the letter. For Janene it was ruling with a rod of iron her admin duties. Including—actually, especially—handing out the mail.

  She would go through the post and open anything that she thought was interesting or juicy or would help her know what was going on in the business, then claim she thought they were invoices that needed reconciling. It was pathetic that she got such pleasure from opening other people's mail, but I still wasn't going to put up with it. I'd reminded her it was illegal to open anyone else's post without their express permission and asked her not to open any more of mine, no matter what she thought it was. In response, she did this, called out where the post came from. If it had a return address, she would call that out, too.

  “Forwarded from your old office, over there, I think,” she continued, examining the letter as though trying to read what was inside. Had she been alone in the office she would no doubt be in the kitchen, hunched over the kettle, trying to steam it open.

  “Thanks, Janene,” I said mildly as my heart began jittering in panic—there was only one person who would take the time to write me a letter and ask my former employers to forward it.

  Clearly this was not the response Janene wanted. She came across the office from her desk, pointedly placed it on my desk between my phone and my keyboard and stood, arms folded, in front of me waiting for me to open it.

  I didn't even acknowledge it. Instead, I glanced up at the two temps who'd gone back to writing on their pads. The white girl with her hair severely pulled back in a bun still had her head down, poring over her clipboard. The other girl, who had flawless mahogany skin, huge chocolate-brown eyes and shoulder-length, straightened black hair was looking up, smiling. She'd obviously finished the spelling test.

  Pretending I wasn't desperate to see if I was right about the letter, and at the same time terrified to see if I was right about the letter, I got up. “Are you done?” I asked the temp. She nodded.

  Brushing past Janene, whose frustration at me not playing along pulsed outwards from her, I went towards the candidate. As I took the clipboard I knew my hands were shaking. It's from him, I know it is. Scanning the clipboard, I smiled. “Wow, Kathleen, you've got 100 percent on the spelling test. I think that's a first. If you follow me, I'll set you a computer test. It's not difficult; we just need to get an idea of what programs you're familiar with.” I led her through the archway down the corridor into the computer room, chatting all the way.

  I busied myself with the two candidates for the next hour and a half. Talking to them, testing them, interviewing them and then seeing if I had anything suitable for them. All the while, I was actively ignoring the letter that was burning a hole beside my phone on my desk.

  A couple of hours later I was alone in the office. The other three had gone out to lunch and I was covering the phones. I finally picked up the letter. Stared at it. The original address had been pasted over with a white sticker, but “Kendra Tamale” was in the original handwriting. It was his handwriting. Thin but full lettering. Breathe, I told myself. Inhale, exhale. Breathe.

  The door rattled as it was opened inwards and my heart leapt to my throat. Gabrielle came almost bounding in. I snatched the letter out of sight, under the desk, into the darkness where it belonged.

  “There's a guilty look if I ever saw one,” Gabrielle said, shedding her green coat and sitting down behind her desk.

  “You're probably right,” I replied. “I was brought up Catholic so guilt is embroidered into the very fabric of my soul.” I ducked under the desk, pressed the letter into the pages of my diary, gently shut it.

  “Who was your letter from?” Gabrielle asked, uncapping the plastic top of her soup. It was a vivid red; the pungent aroma of tomatoes and onions filled the office.

  “I haven't opened it so I can't rightly tell you,” I replied.

  She swirled her spoon in her soup, stirring up the smells.

  “Why did you leave Australia?” Gabrielle asked.

  I glanced out of the window behind her head, stared at the sky. It was beautiful out. Beautiful and blue, stroked gently with white clouds. When I was a little girl, I used to want to live in the clouds. I wanted to skip from cloud to cloud, to feel myself sinking into the softness, feel its soothing embrace. I was such a daydreamer. “Why do you ask?” I replied.

  “When I e-mailed you and asked if you'd come back, I thought you'd tell me to get lost. Five weeks later, you're back. I'm glad to have you, don't get me wrong, but you know, why did you come back from Australia?”

  A current of tension ran up my neck, settled at the base of my skull, pummelled at the soft, tender space to the left. It shot forwards, pooled thickly behind my right eye.

  I moved my head to the left, to the right, trying to stretch out the tendons. Trying to pull myself together. “To be honest, Gabrielle, I don't want
to talk about it,” I said. “It's enough that I'm back, isn't it?”

  She scooped soup into her mouth with the deep plastic spoon, swallowed. “What's his name?” she asked.

  I pressed the palm of my hand onto my eye, trying to push back the pounding in my head. I pulled my head from side to side. I wanted relief. I needed relief from this agony.

  “What part of ‘I don't want to talk about it’ don't you understand?” I said quietly at Gabrielle.

  “Pretty much all of it, I guess,” Gabrielle said, then lowered her head and concentrated on her soup.

  To Gabrielle, I was being obstructive. Reticent. For no good reason. We were friends, right? Had known each other ten years. Why wouldn't I tell her my secrets? Share the truths about my departure from antipodean shores. She didn't realize that I couldn't tell her because it'd make her hate me. She'd think so much less of me and I didn't need that in a person I saw every day.

  I didn't need to see the look of disgust, nor to hear the lecture on how stupid I'd been. I knew it, I knew it all. But feelings aren't like thoughts, they can't be changed at will. I'd tried. I'd tried so hard, so many times. And it still happened. I still felt it. In the deepest part of my heart, in my soul, when I woke up in the mornings, when I went to sleep at night I was still doing it. I was still in love with a married man.

  “Here, take this,” Gabrielle said, scrawling on a yellow stickie. She held it out over her desk and I got up, went over to collect it, then perched myself on the edge of her desk while I read it. “Mick Stein,” his number and his address, which was in Rochester on the other side of Kent, were scrawled on the small yellow square.

  “Who is Mick Stein and why are you giving me his number?”

  She pointed at my head. “The way you've been rolling your shoulders, moving your head, blinking lots, I'm guessing you've got a pain in your neck.” She let a beat pass and both of us avoided looking at Janene's desk. “He's a chiropractor. He'll be able to knock your neck back into the right position. And believe me, you'll feel a whole lot better after seeing him. He'll cure whatever ails you.”