Return to the Little Coffee Shop of Kabul (7 page)

“Fuck me,” Sunny said out loud as the man in the neon vest leveled his flattened palm in front of the hood of her Toyota. They'd waited forty minutes in line already, just to miss the ferry by one stinking car? She turned off the engine with a sigh, and helped herself to a handful of chips from the half-empty bag beside her.

“
Col tempo la foglia di gelso diventa seta
. It is time and patience that changes the mulberry leaf to silk.”

“I don't understand how you can stand it here, Joe. I mean, really? One whole day just to get to a dentist appointment?”

“It is one whole day that I get to spend with a beautiful woman,” he answered with the same charming smile he had used to sweet-talk her into driving him off the island and into Seattle.
I have an appointment overtown, off the rock
, he had said. The rock. Perfect. The same thing they call Alcatraz, she'd thought at the time, right before Joe gave her hand a
little squeeze and said, “I would be honored if you'd accompany me.”

Sunny could read between the lines. She figured that, at his age, Joe didn't drive, or preferred not to. She could certainly take a few hours to help the old man out, though she didn't really feel she had any choice in the matter. He was not an easy person to say no to. But no matter what, it would probably do her good to get off the island, to give herself a chance to clear her mind.

The two weeks she'd ended up spending on Twimbly so far had been a true test of her nature. On one hand, there was something forbidding about the place. Streets with names like Forsaken Lane, Phantom Court, and Rocky Road, all of them leading down to Worthless Bay. Then there was the sign for fresh eggs that she passed all the time, that had another sign right under it that read “Out of Eggs”, no matter what time of day it was. And the dark restaurant with the signboard whose thick plastic letters announced “Chef Hurt. No Meals.” She shuddered to imagine that kitchen mishap. And on Saturday, those women shrouded in black like a coven of witches, or widows in mourning, lining both sides of the road over in the town of Chittleham. It wasn't until she'd almost passed them by that she noticed the anti-war signs in their arms. But when she'd rolled down the window to offer a cheery thumbs-up, she became freaked by the stern, frozen expressions that made the women look more like zombies than peace activists.

On the other hand, there were also those people who were a little
too
friendly for her taste. Did she really need to swap her life story with the gas station attendant before she'd even had her first sip of coffee? Or hear every little detail about last night's choir performance at the community center while her bags were being held hostage by the checkout girl at the Red Apple?

The worst was that woman in Meyersville. Sunny had decided to cheer herself up a little with a new top, or maybe even a jacket. Every shop window seemed to be filled with the same things—big, flowy dresses, layers of vests and scarves, chunky loose-knit sweaters—not exactly her go-to style, but maybe if she looked she'd find something more along the lines of her jeans and T-shirts.

She picked a store at random and reluctantly opened the wooden door. A little bell rang, and a stringy woman with a long, loose grey ponytail greeted Sunny from behind the counter. “Hi,” she chirped. “I'm Raven. What can I help you with today?”

“Just browsing.” Sunny smiled and turned to the racks lining the small shop's walls.

“We have some beautiful new shrugs from Peru that I can show you, if you're interested.”

“No thanks. I'm good.” She had to admit, though, that some of these clothes were actually okay, when you got up close. Sunny tossed a few items over her arm.

“Let me take those for you.” Sunny jumped, startled by Raven's voice just inches from her ear. “And I'll bring in a few others I think you might like.”

Sunny emerged from the little curtained cubicle wearing the first top. As she smoothed the pleats over her hips, she could see Raven in the mirror behind her, wrinkling her nose.

“Um, no. Not for you.”

Personally, Sunny had thought she looked pretty good. Okay, maybe the shirt was pulling a little at the seams, but still. She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes at the mirror.

“Sorry, I just tell it like it is. I see it as a service to my customers. After all, if they can't trust me …”

The next outfit didn't get a much better reception. “No, no stripes. Here, just try some of the things I brought in,” Raven said, reaching for a green linen tent dress hanging from a hook. Sunny knew she'd look like a Christmas tree in that thing, but nevertheless did what the woman told her.

Again, a no. “A girl like you needs sleeves.”

Sunny could feel the color rising in her cheeks. She was so tempted to tell Raven where she'd like to shove those sleeves. It almost made her miss shopping in Kabul, where she'd try to disguise her foreign status (and the resulting price gouging that would come because of it) by covering herself with a burqa. Of course, neither the shops nor the market over there had even the tiniest space for a girl to try something on, so she'd had to measure herself shoulder to shoulder with a string, which she carried with her everywhere to ensure, if not a proper, at least an approximate, fit.

It had been a long two weeks. Even the stunning view of Puget Sound that had captured her heart so suddenly that first day had failed to reappear, leaving in its stead a dreary outlook of grey, so evenly dull that you couldn't tell where the sea met the sky. But she did have to admit one thing. The evenings were becoming something that she actually found herself looking forward to. The old house had somehow become a kind of gathering place. Joe would “just happen to be wandering by” right before the sun went down, and Sky would stop in after work to “check on the vines”, which, to her, seemed to be doing just fine on their own, thank you very much, waking slowly from their long winter nap with little fuzzy buds swelling from their branches. Together she and Sky would drag in a few logs from the pile on the porch to build a fire, and the kitchen would soon fill with the warm, cozy smell of burning wood. Sky would bring wine from one
of the vintners on the island, which the three of them would rate on a scale of one to ten. Joe would proudly present them with whatever masterpiece he'd spent that day concocting in his kitchen next door: pasta fazul, spaghetti bolognese, chicken cacciatore, each dish a delight for the senses. And Sunny would bring it all home with her world-famous cookies.

And they'd talk. And talk. Actually, mostly Joe would talk, but sometimes one of the others would manage to get a word in edgewise. Sky told them he'd started to fill out his applications for the winemaking program at the community college in Yakima. Sunny shared some of the funnier stories about her time in Kabul, like the one about her crazy friend Candace appearing at Yazmina and Ahmet's wedding with a live sheep in the back of her SUV. The perfect gift for a bride and groom, she had been told. And the time when the coffeehouse was about to be raided for alcohol, and Bashir Hadi had the brilliant idea to hide everything in Poppy's doghouse, knowing how that would be the one and only place a swaggering Afghan officer would be too scared to look.

She turned to look at the man in the passenger seat next to her. She had to admit she'd never come across anybody quite like him before, and she'd come across her fair share of characters in her travels. The new men in her life, she thought with a laugh. An old Japanese American Italian, who had to be at least twice her age, and a metal-studded island boy young enough to be her son, a thought that suddenly made her shudder. Ah, and let's not forget Rick. Now there was one man who was truly pursuing her, like a fox after a rabbit. Since their meeting he'd managed to reach her once by phone, and had left several messages, which would pop up like crazy whenever she'd find herself within range of a cell signal. She didn't feel too compelled to answer,
as neither of them was budging on their position. But he was the one putting on the pressure, and she was sick of him trying to lay a guilt trip on her. Because, truth be told, sometimes she'd lay awake at night feeling a little bit like a traitor for abandoning Jack's dream. Especially those nights when she missed him so badly she could swear her heart actually physically hurt. Those were the nights she'd grab her phone from the nightstand and punch up the last communication they had with each other, the one she'd read over and over so many times she knew it by heart.

Hey you
, he had typed from the ski cabin in Whistler.

Hey you yourself.

What r u doing?

What, r u ten?

LOL.

Stop
, she had begged him.
I miss your face.

Soon, baby. I miss your ass.

Stop calling me baby!

K.

K?

That means okay. Don't you know anything?

I know plenty, mister.

How's Santa Fe?

Lonely. Can't wait to see you.

Two days. Twimbly.

Yep.

You'll love it as much as I do. Promise.

If you say so.

I say so. Be there.

With bells on
, she had replied.
And not a stitch more.

But even after those tough nights and all the uncertainty they churned up, by the damp, cold light of day she still couldn't
imagine herself surviving on this island. And though she wasn't quite sure where she wanted to go, or what she wanted to do, she did know that wherever and whatever it was, she was going to need some money to go there and do it. In the meantime, at least she wasn't paying for a hotel room. And when she thought about how much karmic debt she was avoiding by not relying on the kindness of friends with couches, a little while longer on the island didn't seem like such a bad idea. Except, she thought as she heard the car engines around her
finally
come to life, at times like now.

 

Two hours later, from the comfort of a thinly padded vinyl chair bathed in flickering fluorescent light, Sunny gave up on the thought of finding that clear head a visit to the mainland had promised. She checked her watch for the tenth time in twelve minutes. What was he doing in there, getting a full set of veneers or something? She stood and stretched her arms above her head and released an enormous yawn that echoed across the still room.

From behind her desk, the receptionist paused from stamping envelopes to shoot Sunny a look. She'd noticed the girl earlier, when she and Joe first came in. How could you not, with that hair that looked like an upside-down skunk, one half a dazzling white, the other as black as night. Now the girl swiveled slightly in her chair, away from Sunny, and went back to her work. Sunny pulled her phone from her leather knapsack and snapped a close-up from behind.

Found the perfect new do for you!
she texted to Candace, thrilled for once to have an actual cell connection, which she then took advantage of to read, listen to, and delete even more messages
from Rick. A quick look at the news sites was enough to tell her she hadn't missed a thing—the world was still pretty much a mess. She checked her watch again. “What the hell is going on in there?” she asked herself, but apparently said out loud.

The girl shrugged her shoulders without turning around. “Dr J. likes to take time with his patients. He thinks it shows that he cares.”

“Yeah, and if I know my friend Joe, he hasn't stopped flapping his jaws long enough for the doc to get even the tiniest peek inside his mouth.”

The girl continued with her envelopes. Sunny yawned again. “I'm gonna go get a Coke. Want one?” She headed toward the office door.

Now the girl swiveled sideways in her chair and placed her right hand on her heart in a gesture Sunny recognized as definitely not American. “Thank you, but I'm not thirsty right now.”

Sunny stopped in front of the desk. “Where are you from?” she couldn't help but ask. She was curious. She'd seen that same type of body language all over the world, just not here.

The girl raised her eyebrows and sighed, obviously annoyed by the question. Sunny decided not to push it. “So what's it like working here, um, I'm sorry, what was your name?” she asked instead, in a lame attempt to engage the girl in a little conversation.

“What's it like?” the girl responded incredulously. “And my name is Kat.”

“You know, like do you get any interesting cases?”

“In a dental office?” The girl once again turned back to her work.

“Or does anybody famous ever come in?”

“
Deawaana
,” she muttered under her breath.

“Excuse me? Did you just call me crazy?” The word
deawaana
was one of the first Sunny had learned in Kabul.

“No, I—” the girl fumbled.

“Wait, how do you know how to speak Dari? Why, you're Afghan, aren't you?”

“I'm an American,” the girl answered abruptly.

“Okay. But you, or your parents, or you and your parents, were born in Afghanistan, am I right, Kat?”

“So?”

“Well, I'm from there too!”

The girl looked confused.

“I mean, I lived there for six years. Right in Kabul.”

“Why? Did the military make you go? Or were you CIA?”

“Me? Oh no, I had a coffeehouse. An amazing little place.”

Sunny dragged a chair over to the counter and, forgetting all about her Coke and her boredom and Joe and his teeth, began to pour out her story—how she had escaped small-town Arkansas for the adventure that was Kabul, how her then-boyfriend's money allowed her to start up the café, how proud she was of its success, and how very much she missed the place and all of its craziness. It felt good to share her memories with this girl, and even though the poor thing hadn't asked and had no choice but to listen, Sunny couldn't help but believe that behind that mask of boredom there was a tiny spark of yearning to hear what she had to say.