Leaving the Comfort Cafe (12 page)

“And?” she asked.

I’m afraid we can’t allow customers to check out items for other customers. You know, just leaves the door open for all kinds of problems.”

“Well, I don’t think you should have only seven checkout lines open when the storm of the century is beating on your door.”

Storm of the century? Are we even talking about the same thing?

“Well, anyway,” the manager continued, “I did notice one thing: you seem to have a natural knack for customer service. Our customers were frustrated, and you put smiles on their faces. Smiles mean repeat customers.”

“That’s what they say.”

“While it was very impressive—we just can’t allow our customers to do that,” the manager said.

“You want to arrest me?”

“No, I want to hire you.”

“Seriously?” she asked.

“You’ve got talent. I’d like to make you a part of our team. We have excellent benefits, dental, health and even a scholarship continuing education thing. I’d really like it if you came aboard.”

“Well, I’d really like it if you opened more checkout lanes.”

“We even have a scholarship program if you’d like to consider going back to school. Maybe get a degree in marketing or public relations?”

When he said “scholarship,” the lines composing the expression on Blythe’s face slowly migrated to another position. They were numb, as if they weren’t sure what expression to display to the world, and in an act of desperation, started trying out all the expressions at the same time. Her mouth twitched, then smiled, then frowned, then just leveled out blankly. Her left eye blinked several times in a row, just like she was about to sneeze. She wrinkled her nose as if trying to push an imaginary pair of glasses up her nose. “I got a job. Thanks.”

Blythe marched through the magnetic shoplifting detectors located just beside the automatic doors. It was as if she dared them to go off.

Austin took his new silk underwear and followed her.

****

When they returned to Town Hall, the rain had started to drizzle through the graying sky, creating an odd percussion score as they knocked lightly against Austin’s office window. Barely had they entered when Blythe spread her discount mart bounty across the coffee table in the lobby. She sat cross-legged on the floor, ripped through the toys’ packaging like a child, and freed the action figures from their plastic coffins. She used the cardboard and plastic packaging to create a foreign landscape on the coffee table, one that could lend itself to any destination imagined: the moon, the jungle, the desert, the lost city of Atlantis.

“You know what the trouble with this town is?” she asked. “Everyone’s forgotten how to play. Everyone takes everything so seriously, like Conyers is the center of the universe or something.”

“Well, the Virgin does make appearances here.”

“Hm.”

“I’ve got to check the fax machine,” Austin said as he observed every motion she made, afraid that what he initially thought was childlike enthusiasm was really the precursor to a nervous breakdown. Blythe was so captivated by her menagerie, Austin believed it really wasn’t necessary for him to be there at all. He thought she could continue like this for years, rewriting the script of whatever tragic life she had led for the last several years hiding in the honey coves of a small, Southern town.

“Blythe, I’m not sure this is a good idea. What if the mayor comes by?”

“Well, then we’ll ask him to join us.”

“I’m sure he’d love that.” Austin sat on the couch, looking down at her new kingdom.

“So what are you drawing now?”

“I just sketch ideas. You know, for stress relief.”

“You should do a portrait of the mayor.”

“What?”

“If you want him to like you. Maybe make a portrait of him to hang in the town hall. Or better yet, maybe you could make him into a super villain of some kind. You know, like a maniacal cross between Colonel Sanders and the Terminator.”

“Or maybe I could hang a portrait of him as a villain. I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”

“Here—draw this scene I’ve put together on the table. I’ll be your muse.”

Blythe swayed her hands in motion to some inaudible melody, as if by waving her arms she could breathe life into the action figures and get them to do her bidding.

Then her cell phone rang.

She seemed almost embarrassed as she fumbled through her coat to answer it. The voice on the other end was so loudly annoyed that Austin heard snippets of the conversation from where he was sitting.

“Okay. Okay. I’m coming!” Blythe flipped her phone off. “Sorry. That was Grandma at the Comfort Café. She needs her car back. She expected me back an hour ago.”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you after the storm.”

“Yeah,” she said, slowly putting on her coat as if Grandma’s marching orders had drained her enthusiasm. “After the storm. It’s always after the storm.”

When Blythe left, Austin’s fingers ached for his sketchpad, as if he had to suck the creative condensation out of the air before the magic left completely with his redheaded muse.

And there, in the floor of the town hall, surrounded by an awkward assorted army of action figures cheering him on, his pencil boldly outlined delicate curves, and fire-engine hair. He carefully contemplated every last outline of her body. He placed a coffeepot in her hand—orange handle for decaf, of course. He erased the coffeepot and redrew it in the palm of her hand, as if, like a phoenix, she drew strength from the heat and could shatter the pot just by staring at it long enough with her cool, overworked, kitchen glare.

Outside, the rain pounded and wind howled. And the storm that was the outskirts of Hurricane Amy punctuated a rhythm to his imagination.

Hurricane Amy didn’t slam full force into the coast as was feared. Instead, it brushed up against the Outer Banks and another weather front shifted it back to the Atlantic. Conyers got nothing more than a good soaking, and small town life had adjusted to what it had come to know as normal.

Austin was convinced that, while necessity may not always be the mother of invention, it was the final push that always thawed his cold feet to ask a woman out.

Much as he loved his alma mater, he just couldn’t picture himself returning for an alumni homecoming gala—sure, there would be good music and an open bar, and undoubtedly a dog and pony show about why the alumni association should be annual contributors—meeting old friends at old hangouts sounded stale and moldy.

“You’ve got to come, Austin,” Luke, his former roommate, bemoaned long-distance from Atlanta. “I mean, it won’t be the same without you.”

You mean it won’t be the same without a babysitter, Austin thought—and nearly said. A babysitter to be the designated driver, a babysitter to hold a wet washcloth to your head when you throw up and a babysitter to apologize to your date for any incoherences you made while insisting that “this doesn’t happen often.”

Luke was blond, bold, built and unlike Austin, there probably actually was a statue of Luke created in fine marble somewhere. Luke was one of those specimens who would be the first recruited if they ever decided to clone humans. Luke liked to fancy himself as enlightened;
he was one of the few students in Austin’s graduate accounting class who was older than twenty-seven. He always made comments about being “older and more experienced” in the class—especially in front of the ladies—and liked to look at Austin and grin as he said it, as if sharing an inside joke with him that they did not have.

“But it would be great. Unless you’re still too hung up on Kerry,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Move on, man. She has.”

“She what?”

“You didn’t read the latest alum mag?”

Austin never read the alumni magazine. He had no desire to read about the stellar accomplishments of his former classmates. He didn’t care who had won the Pulitzer Prize or who had passed the bar exam or who was named CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The world was spinning just fine without him, and he didn’t need smiling faces and neatly packaged feature articles to remind him.

“Luke, you know I never read that crap.”

“Had a picture of Kerry at her first gallery showing. Her and the owner of the gallery. They looked pretty chummy.”

I don’t have time for this.
“We just weathered a hurricane here. I’ve got a lot on my plate.”

“Hurricane? You’re not talking about Amy are you? That was nothing. You should be thankful you weren’t in charge over there when Floyd hit. You’re the town manager. Delegate!”

“I don’t think so. Maybe next time.”

“That’s a shame. My cousin was looking forward to meeting you.”

“Your cousin?”

“I was thinking of bringing her up for a football game. You know, show her the old hangouts. Introduce you two. Then when you come to Atlanta to visit her, we could all head out to the lake house or take a long weekend in Savannah.”

“You’re trying to set me up?”

“She’s always dated these guys who really don’t appreciate her. She needs to meet a decent man, and all my friends down here in Atlanta are just—just—”

“Too much like you?”

“My point exactly. No one else is good enough for her. I just don’t want to see her make some of the same mistakes I made. You know. She needs a nice guy like you.”

A nice guy like you. The compliment had a hollow ring.
A nice guy like you. A nice, boring, uneventful, bland, passionless, Sunday school, Mr. Rodgers, Mom and apple-pie guy like you.

“Luke, thanks. I’m just not—I’m just not interested in a relationship right now.”

“Okay, I hate to play Dr. Phil here, but you know Kerry never asked you to go with her. I saw her drifting away from you.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Dude, your head was all in those comic books you draw. If you couldn’t see it for yourself, you wouldn’t listen to me. Hey, whatever happened to that comic book you sent to the publishers? Ever hear from them?”

“Um…no.” Austin’s eyes wandered to the rejection letter that was still on his coffee table. “Nothing yet.”

“You’ve got to move on. Come on down so you can meet Cindy and get a job down in Atlanta. Don’t waste away in that Podunk town. Move on. It’s time.”

Not this. Not now. Not a blind date. This is too much.

“Austin? You still there?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well, anyway, I’ll tell my cousin to meet us there.”

“Don’t set me up, Luke.”

“Why? You dating someone?”

“Yeah.”

The words demanded their own life even before his brain could process them.

“Well, you dog. Tell me about her.”

“Well, sh-she’s different.”

“Different? What does that mean? She hasn’t got two heads, has she?”

“Nothing like that, she’s just—”

“What?”

“Artsy. She’s just very artsy.”

“You always were attracted to those artsy types. Is she hot?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well, we’ll catch you at the old hangout before the game. What’s her name?”

“Who?”

“Your girlfriend.”

“Blythe. Her name is Blythe.”

“Blythe, huh?” Austin wasn’t sure if Luke believed him or not. “Sounds like a real powder keg.”

“You have no idea.”

“Looking forward to meeting her,” Luke said.

Now, all Austin had to do was ask her out.

Conyers had another claim to fame other than being the mistaken home base of the miraculous Virgin Mary appearances; it was the home of the earliest Christmas celebrations in North Carolina.

No one was quite sure how it began, but Queen said it was because the mayor had an extreme distaste for Halloween—he said it was for religious reasons, but Queen suspected it was because his house was always seemed to be a target for random tricks: eggings, a few stray graffiti marks, flaming bags of poo, and the placing of his garden gnome in a very compromising position with the fairy statuette that graced the gardenias. Therefore, barely had the Halloween candy been inspected and cleared for consumption by over-cautious parents than the mayor started the campaign for Christmas. And it was always Christmas. Never Seasons Greetings. The mayor said if anyone had any problems with it, there was plenty of room for season’s greetings in Russia—as if he never realized the Cold War was over.

Perhaps the mayor thought that by overshadowing Halloween with Christmas, he could lessen the corruption of the pagan tricksters with something more wholesome. Or, at least, reduce the amount of time he spent cleaning up his house on November first.

One of the few honors that came with the mantle of town leadership was lighting the town Christmas tree each year, just barely after the more diligent citizens had taken down their Halloween decorations. The privilege went to Austin and the mayor. It was made into a cooperative event between Mayor and Town Manager ever since the year the mayor lit the tree by himself—with plenty of pomp and circumstance—only to flip the wrong switch and have half the lights in town short out. It was a topic that actually came up at the next mayoral election, and since then, the mayor took no chances. He would not risk his re-election campaign on the grounds of misguided Christmas illuminations. Austin would be there to carry the blame should something go wrong.

The gathering was always held in the town square, with spectators from all Christian denominations in attendance, though the Baptists and Methodists easily outnumbered the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. A community choir comprised of members from all of the local churches sang carols, which would gradually build to the grand finale of “Joy to the World” and the lighting of the tree.

It was also tradition for the mayor to give a brief holiday oration. In his speech, the mayor always said something about Hanukkah, though there were no Jews in town. On some occasions, he even mentioned all the Jewish High Holy Days, spouting them out by rote, like a list, and for some reason he always started with Yom Kippur. No one was quite sure when or why he started mentioning God’s chosen people at the Christmas event, but Austin believed it started when Schindler’s List came out on video.