The Cafe

Birks Bob took the coveted table for two with easy access to an outlet a little after seven this Thursday. It was odd and it was a sign that the day was going to be one I regretted getting of bed for. It wasn’t the table she picked, it was the time. Birks Bob, so named for her affinity for Birkenstocks and her style of haircut, was very punctual about arriving at seven thirty on Thursdays. The time difference was go to throw off the entire day of regulars who wanted their usual spot. The spot.

Millennial Bob ordered a bagel and butter, no cream cheese, and a coffee. She opened up her laptop, plugged it in, and only took her eyes off the screen long enough to take a quick bite or sip. She never wrote anything in her notebook, but it was always open and at least two drips of coffee landed on it every visit.

But Birks Bob left every Thursday promptly at nine. That’s when Buzz Cut Vest would get his breakfast burrito and a coffee and snag the table in order to plug in his phone. Buzz Cut Vest left after twenty minutes and Senior Red Lips and her friend Senior Blond Wig came ten minutes after, ordered a tea and coffee respectively, snagged the spot and never once used the outlet. It was also a window seat and they combined their gossip of friends and family with that of strangers walking by.

It went on like this until closing at three. If one person was off, then some lucky bastard would snag the table and the outlet and it was anyone’s guess if the non-regular would stay for ten minutes only throwing off one regular or hours and throw off the entire day.

Then there was Gerald. My husband on this fateful day, but not for long. He never came into our café on Thursdays. It was his “recovery day”. I never did figure out what exactly he was supposed to be recovering from. We got the bank loan for the restaurant based on my business plan. I knew exactly what I wanted. A fifties style diner, opened breakfast through dinner, with a menu of great American classics. We got the loan and he promptly changed it to a French style café serving breakfast and lunch only with a menu he got off the internet. Still, it was ours and I loved it. Turned out, he loved money. And his college sweetheart. Who had lots of money. Of course I found out on a Thursday.

“What?”

“The thing is Lucy, I used to love this place. An you, but, well, it’s like the old saying, the heart wants what the heart wants.” 

In retrospect, what happened next was more his fault than mine. He’s the one who picked the moment I was removing a toasted bagel to tell me he wanted a divorce. I had no idea the tongs with give the half bagel so much momentum as it hit him square in the face. 

“Ow. What the hell?"

“Janelle? You’re leaving me for a woman who does YouTube videos of bad wigs?”

“She’s a fashion influencer. She has half a million subscribers.”

Once again, it was his fault not to realize there was another half. “Ow! Stop throwing food at me.”

“We’re in my kitchen. You’re lucky it was a bagel.”

As our polite discussion continued Burks Bob left early as I suspected and a Long Haired Teen swooped in to the coveted table and promptly plugged in his phone and began taking a video. He couldn’t believe his luck as he was going live for his fourteen followers. He was reporting on the best smoothies he could skateboard to without needing to take the bus home and he wanted to be able to plug in if he went long. Of course, neither Gerald or I knew this unfortunate fact.

Gerald had backed up a few feet once after getting hit with the cream cheese container. Again, poor decision making skills on his part to continue with bad news.

“I heard they were risk-free investments. There no way I could lose.”

“But you did lose, didn’t you? How much?” My voice was eerily low and calm.

Gerald lost a few shades of color in his cheeks, took a deep breath, and kept on releasing

bad news. “A few hundred…thousand.”

“We don’t have that kind of money. Unless…” It was probably at this point that I grabbed the knife and Gerald back up to the door leaving the kitchen. I don’t exactly remember the order of events at his point. “You lost the restaurant didn’t you?”

He nodded. His back now against the door leaving the kitchen. “And the house.”

What neither one of realized was that in my anger I absentmindedly started the toaster again. Under normal circumstances, not a big deal to toast nothing. Except the napkin I was supposed to put on the plate with the tossed bagel was under the butter knife I grabbed. It caught in the toaster and was currently catching fire as I backed Gerald out of the kitchen.

“Our house! Are you insane?”

This caught the customers attention as Gerald had backed out of the kitchen and I was close behind. Lorraine, who ran the register, gave a slight yelp at the sight of me and my weapon. This caught the attention of the kid with his phone, but not Buzz Cut Vest who had walked up to him to request his regular table.

We were both fully planted in the dining room with everyone except Buzz Cut Vest watching the show. Gerald and I had been married for six years and I knew every guilty look he had.

“There’s more?”

He nodded while looking everywhere except my eyes.

“Seriously, this is my regular spot.” Buzz Cut Vest was as intuitive as Gerald. I wouldn’t have known this except that it was all caught on Long Hair Teen’s viral video.

“Dude, get out of shot,” the kid pleaded.

I was completely unaware of customers. “What?”

“Remember how your parents co-signed?”

My eyes bugged out at the realization of exactly how much Gerald had lost at the same time Buzz Cut Vest turned and realized there was smoke coming from the kitchen.

“Fire!”                 

“Asshole!”

These two primal yells were released at the exact same time causing the knife the miss its target when I released it. Normally, a butter knife is limited to the amount of damage it can cause, but somehow the force of which I chucked it hitting the exact corner of the window caused it to shatter. Between the broken glass and the smoke most everyone made a run for it. Only Gerald, Long Haired Teen, and I remained. Sprinklers went off. The smoke dissipated. And the last shot of video was my hand connecting with Gerald’s guilty face.

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