Cappuccino, Two Sugars

The cursor blinks at me like a silent alarm. It mocks me. Are you going to write something? I squint at it, hoping it will write a completed chapter- edited and all. It doesn’t. Instead the screen of my old laptop fades to black due to inactivity. I curtly tap the touchpad. The expectant blinker continues its judgement.

“Working on something new?” Jade interrupts, resting my coffee and cheesecake on the booth table.

“No, the same old stuff,” I replied, slumping against the vinyl.

“Still going on that?” She asked innocently, resting her hands on her slender, apron-covered hips.

I shrink a little. Jade may as well have been my high school English teacher. Maybe that’s why I came to Donny’s every two days: for the motivational kick in the ass.

“Yeah,” I said sheepishly, taking a sip of the caffeinated milk. “It’s the never-ending story of my life.”

As well as slush piles and dead-end jobs, too.

“Well, I can’t wait to read it when it’s done!”

“You’ll be the first, Jade.”

I’d been promising her that for the better part of a year. 

As she walked back behind the counter, I stabbed my fork into the pure white cheesecake. It tasted like the enthusiasm of fresh ideas. It gave me a short-lived zing of inspiration, which transformed into a mathematical sum. This was my second cheesecake this week, and sadly, no amount of exercise eliminated the vanilla-flavoured decadence from my hips. I can usually tell if I’ve overindulged because it’s a little harder to slide into the booth. I checked over my boobs to measure the gap. 

Nope. Still in the safe zone. I took a second, guiltless bite.

I typed two sentences between consecutive bites and slurps before my mind wandered.

Donny’s was usually quiet around this time, meaning my corner booth was always free. On good days, I could arrive ‪at 2pm‬ and have a chapter and a half written by ‪3.15pm‬ with no one except Jade to disturb me.

It was the only 24-hour place in this one-horse town. Everything died ‪at 7pm‬, except Donny’s. Sometimes I’d come here on nights I wasn’t working, but the obnoxiously loud hoards of teenagers would impede any creativity I had. It was selfish of me to want the whole place to myself, but I couldn’t help it. I loved living vicariously through the people that walked in. They inspired me in their quiet movements and the way their voices carried. They were my muses.

And, it’s nice to imagine I’m someone else for a while; to pretend pieces of hope and excitement can still exist in my life, but the burdens they carry are payment for my new identity.

Once there was this man a table over, dressed in an expensive-looking black suit, with the matching, shiny technology at the helm. 

I had to wipe the drool from my chin as he sat down in slow motion. He could have carved stone with that jaw. It was like the masculine hero of a steamy romance novel had manifested before my eyes. 

I imagined what it would be like sitting across from him, breathing in that bronze cologne and all-over lickable deliciousness. He’d tell me of his global travels, and arouse me with that husky voice, glancing at the buttons on my top with a thick eyebrow arched. Our relationship would be purely passionate- the kind where I run my fingers seductively down a shower screen at all hours of the morning, and wear lacy lingerie under respectable outfits at expensive restaurants, anticipating dessert.

As I imagined the noises I would emit, the phone on the edge of his table lit with an incoming call. I strained my eyes to see, but there was a photo of him, an unidentified brunette, and a toddler who had his eyes. Mr Delectable watched the call go to voicemail. 

Fifteen minutes after that, there was another incoming call from a red-headed bombshell. He answered it at lightning speed. His voice when he spoke to her could have melted butter, but it turned the milk in my coffee sour.

Although the out-of-towners I saw were sparse, there was an older gentleman I saw in Donny’s every Wednesday. Jade would help him through the door with his walking stick and he’d tip his hat to her.

“Good afternoon, Max. How are you?” Jade would ask.

He’d answer with an equal level of enthusiasm. “I’m doin’ good, Miss Jade.”

“Is your brother coming today?”

“He called me last night and said he would, so I’ll get two cups.”

“Comin' right up.”

A grey but lively Max would walk to the booth closest to the main counter and slump into the bench seat, making it whoosh.

Like clockwork, an equally grey man would open the jingling diner door moments later. Their reunion was met with smiles and heavy pats on the back. Jade would then bring their tea on a carry tray to share.

No matter the octave they spoke at, Max and his sibling would always have to lean over the table to ask the other to repeat themselves. Somehow, their wrinkled faces became youthful when they laughed. The eyes never changed, even if the skin around them had sagged over the decades.

After a few more shared stories, they'd pay and tip Jade, and go on their merry way.

"They've come every week for as long as I've been here, and even longer before that," Jade had told me when I'd asked. "They only have each other now." 

Come to think of it, I hadn't seen his brother in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, Max wasn't alone. I'd ask Jade on the way out.

I tapped my laptop back to life, typing - 'make Clarence an only child???????????'

Sometimes I read the sporadic comments on my Word document and asked myself, “How does that even make sense, moron?" Other times, the comments were a stroke of genius that made this writing journey less strenuous. Clarence, my story's anti-hero, was a complicated soul. I dappled with making him in his mid-twenties, but there is a certain romanticised element in creating him as a teenager. There's still time for mistakes in life when you're learning. That sort of stops when you have to get a real job and pay your own rent.

Much like the lovebirds I see here at the diner. I've seen them all: young, old, interracial, gay, in-love, some not so much. They're all different, but you can see the various levels of oxytocin in their eyes. There's one couple in particular that frequents the booth a few rows ahead of me. He parks his car right out front. It probably took him months to save up for it. They hold hands as they walk in with their schoolbooks. If I listen hard, and if Jade isn't using the milkshake mixer, I can overhear them talking sweet nothings to each other a full volume.

"We're still applying for the same college, right?" she always asks.

"Of course, babe. You know I want to be with you."

"I love you so much. I want to be with you forever."

This is the part where I throw up in my mouth a little.

They're silent for a while as they scribble in their notepads and share their cheese fries. She'll suddenly blurt, "What are you looking at?"

"You," he answers in a voice that's barely broken. "You're so beautiful."

I eyeroll into next century. You barely even know who you are at that age. I've had about five personality changes since my first boyfriend.

Young lovers live in a protected, perfect bubble of hormones and their parents' wages. They fantasise about running away and starting over on their own. They think they could survive.

Tough titties - they couldn't. But they'd never listen to the word of a bitter cynic like me.  

I wouldn't have either at that age. I'd just laugh and continue staring into the eyes of the boy who always walked me to my English class as if no one else in the world existed.

They never stay at Donny's for longer than an hour. Life's hard when you have a curfew.

"I'm paying," he insists as they walk to Jade behind the counter. They giggle and playfight over the $20 bill.

"You're amazing," she would croon at him.

"Anything for you," he'd reply, leaning down to kiss her. The black hair sitting so perfectly on his head flopped down with the movement.

You could snapshot their moment and you'd find it in every teenager's room, plastered under the word #lifegoals.

My ass was sticking to the vinyl. I moved side to side to dislodge it.

C'mon, just a couple of hundred words and then I can leave.

My mind is complete nonsense now as I create alternative plots for Clarence.

He has a rich uncle who has a kid and a mistress?

He has a grandfather with only one living relative?

He's desperately in love with this girl but knows it could never work because he wants to move cross-country to follow his college dream?

My coffee has gone cold. My laptop has, too.

Poor Jade will have to tolerate my goblin-like presence in the corner booth every two days for the foreseeable future.