Perfect Imperfections (15 page)

Kim huffed and sat to finish her meal.

Once they had finished clearing the kitchen and before calling it a night, Judith sat in her room reading when Kim walked in. She came in and sat down on the floor by the bed placing her head in Judith’s lap, “I miss him too you know.”

She paused and looked up at Judith. “I wish he was here with us today and every day.” Judith couldn’t control her tears now and they flowed down her face as if the floodgates had been opened. Kim sat on the bed holding Judith as her crying slowly turned into sobs. Kim didn’t want to stop her mother. It was needed that Judith let it all go. She didn’t have to be so strong all the time.

Hearing the muffled noises, Sam too came in to check on her mother. Kim, placing her finger on her lips, gestured to Sam not to say anything and let their mom be. It was late but the three of them sat there in silence. They feel asleep together. Judith missed Richard but here were his very reflections with her, a part of him in both his girls will always remain with her, no matter what and that was soothing enough a thought to let Judith fall asleep.

A couple of days later, Kim finally signed the lease papers and made her initial payment. The place was hers to begin the interior work with. It had been easy to get the loan with a little help from Judith and Jake. The interior people had given the place a look, and Kim had finalized the details with them. The place would take about twenty days to be ready, which gave Kim twenty days to work out rest of the details for the kitchen, her vendors, the marketing, and the inauguration. And suddenly, twenty days didn’t look a lot.

CHAPTER 26

In the third month of her book café, Kim had planned a small book reading event by a local author of a promising detective book. This was a first-of-its-kind in the area and the response was staggering. Kim was so overwhelmed with the number of people wanting to attend that she had no place to accommodate them all. She had a hard time turning people down. The event went on quite successfully, and the people were more than appreciative of the new things that were happening close to their place, and they were asking for more. The response she received was not something that she had anticipated this early on. She was making profits sooner than she had expected. Her idea and the food were enough to pull people to her café.

Within a year, she was booked for various events on the small and big scale. She couldn’t believe when she had to start turning down people. The work was getting so much that she needed to hire two more people in addition to the two she had initially hired.

On one such night as she was wrapping up the place, Jake came in which he often did. “So are you open?” he asked casually like always. It was redundant question because he knew he Kim would be wrapping up her day. He usually showed up at this time and helped her close for the day. Sometimes, they would even land up sitting there for over an hour talking, sharing about each other’s days.

Kim was now used to having Jake come help her balance her accounts’ book for the day and close up the place. They would go to their respective homes from there, but the day was never complete until they heard from each other. They had not realized when they had grown so accustomed to each other in the simplest of ways. It was a relationship that had grown every day, and Kim and Jake were not even aware of it.

On the one year anniversary, Kim faced an unexpected problem with the book release event that was planned at her café. This was a big event and the advances were big. The preparations that were made were at a greater stake than the others she had done so far. Before she had taken on the job, she had been very skeptical about the magnitude of the event, but with a little push from Judith and a lot of insistence from Jake she had accepted the order.

“This will give you the money, the cushion that you have been talking about every night for the past so many months, Kim,” Jake told her over one of the late-night catching-up sessions while Kim was closing up the place. “What is it that you are unsure about?”

“I don’t know, Jake,” Kim began. She was standing behind the counter while Jake was sitting on it. “The money will definitely be useful.”

“
Useful
useful?” Jake smirked.

“Yes, it will be 
useful
,
 
but there is a lot that will have to be done and I have never done something this big.”

“So do you always want to it to stay a small place, is that it? You don’t want it to grow? If you don’t do this, how else will you test your capabilities, the market, the opportunities?”

Jake jumped down the counter and walked around the counter to Kim. Holding her by the shoulders, he gave her a soft jolt. “You are good. Don’t let self-doubt get in the way.”

He stared straight into her eyes. They held each other’s gaze for a long time. There was more to their friendship and they both felt it. Right then, they knew it. This was not just a simple friendship or a platonic relationship; this was more and it was in that moment that they realized it.

Perhaps not for the first time, maybe they had not allowed themselves to feel this way. They had always obstructed their feelings with a lot of ‘rational’ explanations. But this moment had broken it all. It stripped away their excuses and they were forced to see what everyone around them were seeing.

But the moment was interrupted with Kim’s cell phone rang — the annoying ring that she had assigned so that she could distinctly hear it ring no matter how noisy her café got. Kim fumbled to get to her phone; it was Judith on the other end, her voice was urgent and a little panicky.

“Where are you? It’s almost two and you are not home. I couldn’t get through to Jake either. You had got me so worried? Where are you and why are you not home yet?” Judith bombarded Kim with questions.

“Maa, I am with Jake and we were going over a few details for a large order. I lost track of time. I’ll be home in half hour.” Kim disconnected the call. “Well, we completely lost track of time.”

She avoided Jake’s eyes as she began locking up the place. He didn’t say a word either and waited for her to be done. “I’ll follow your car till you get home.” He held the door open for Kim as she walked out and locked it behind them.

That night, the drive home was a long one. Somehow the silence between them was too loud for either of them to concentrate on anything. Kim kept looking at Jake’s car in the rear view mirror.
Jake is just a friend
, she told herself but why did it sound like a lie?

The next morning, Kim went about preparing for the event. She was not going to let self- doubt get to her. The preparations were made, extra help was hired. The event coordinators were sent the day before to set up the place for the event. The morning of the event was exceptionally busy; there was no time for anything extra, the regular guests were to be managed along with the huge inflow that was expected due to the book launch event.

At the last minute, of the extra help that Kim had hired, two dropped out due to some personal emergency. The panic bits that were floating around Kim since the day prior, kicked in now, and she was beginning to close down. The kitchen went into total shutdown mode just two hours before the event was to start and Kim refused to come out and meet even the event organizers.

Her permanent help called up Judith and Jake and informed that Kim was just not talking or doing anything, and things were falling apart, they needed to come in as soon as they could. Judith was there first, but Kim just refused to talk to her. So after a few minutes and several tries with Kim, Judith turned her attention to the guests and took charge of the kitchen to make sure the orders were taken care of. Kim’s permanent help had stepped up and was managing the counter and taking in the orders but since the temp was not well-versed with the kitchen, the orders took an abnormal amount of time to get to the table.

Though the guests who had been visiting since long didn’t mind the extra time, the bigger problem would begin two hours hence when the event would start. The number of orders were going to drastically increase, things would have to be out and about in under a minute to keep up the pace. The number of hours Kim had spent preparing would all go waste if she did not pull herself together and soon. Just then Jake walked in.

He had to wrap up his studio, and that took him a little while, but the minute he walked into the kitchen and Kim saw him, she broke down.

“Judith, I am not sure what has gotten into her,” Jake told her mother, “but she is just frozen. This is the first emotion she has shown.” Judith nodded and continued taking in the orders from the new customers.

Jake walked up to her and pulled her out from the back door of the café.

“Kim?” he looked at her tear-stained face and hugged her. She was still not completely composed and soon began to cry and to pull herself away from Jake, but he didn’t let her go. It took Kim about ten minutes to calm down, and Jake hugged her again, stroking the small of her back. Once her crying reduced to sobs, and the sobs quieted down too, she lifted her face to look at Jake.

She thought she would see disappointment in his eyes but no! He was calm and he looked at her with excitement as if he had not seen her break down.

“Are we ready?” he asked her.

Kim nodded her head and looked down as if she was expecting him to say something that she was not ready to hear. He kissed her forehead and, putting his palm in hers, started walking back to the café. Kim was a little surprised and a little confused. Jake opened the door for Kim to let her walk in first. As she passed in front of him, he whispered, “You are good to go. Now do what you have been hired to do — the thing you are good at doing.”

He had the broadest smile on his face. Kim felt a little relieved that he was not seeing her as a failure or a disappointment. He wasn’t shunning her or stepping in to do it for her.

All he did was to help her cope, without making her feel less about herself. Kim got back inside and headed to meet the event coordinator and started putting things back in motion. They were half an hour away from starting the event and Kim had caught up with everything. The place was back in order as if things had never derailed.

The event was a big success. A reading by various local authors of their books, local media covering it all, and all of this over some fresh coffee and snacks and the brilliant setting of Kim’s café. This was the beginning of many more. A local news channel was present to cover the event. They wanted to interview Kim. She kept looking at Jake, who was behind the camera, as she was questioned about her place.

She saw him beaming with pride. He was hugging Judith with one hand, and Sam stood next to him with Rob on the other side.
This is the man I want to be with for the rest of my life,
she thought. In that moment it was all clear to Kim.

CHAPTER 27

“Kim, is everything all right?” Cheryl nudged her and gave her a quizzical look.

“Yeah!” Kim’s hand touched the stray tear that had escaped her eyes. “Yeah, it couldn’t have been better.”

“So, why the waterworks?”

“I just can’t believe how things have turned out after all these years? Nothing close to what I could have ever imagined.”

“Life is like that. There would be no fun if we knew what was to happen.”

“You have become wise beyond your years,” Kim teased.

“And here is the final plate of your Afghan kebabs,” Jake entered the room, sliding the door closed. “Did I miss something?” he gestured towards a water-eyed Kim.

“Not really, I think it’s just about to start.”

“Nothing like that.” She took the platter from Jake’s hands and placed it on the table and picked two pints of Corona, handing one to Jake. “Just a little grateful to have all my friends and my family here.”

Jake wrapped her in a side hug and kissed her forehead. He looked at Kim, her eyes searching for that security that she often looked for and always found in Jake. “What’s behind is behind. See how far you have come and how far you want to go, love.” Jake hugged her tighter.

“Yes,” she breathed in and let the worry out. Only Jake saw that. He saw through her even when she had walls all around her. “For some of us it takes a little longer to accept ourselves with all our imperfections.”

END

Acknowledgement

Thank you everyone for the encouragement, motivation and advice (even though you had no clue what I was doing).

Special thanks to my Papa for reminding me that I could write and Mummy for keeping me at it, Nishit, my beloved husband who never let me give up.

My little brother Tushar without whom I am tech-impaired and none of this would have been possible.