The Cafe
“Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“For?”
“Uhh…now that you ask…”
“Yeah. I thought as much.”
“Yeah…”
“I do have a minute though, but I need to know why you need it.”
“Nothing special. Just wanted to talk…”
“About?”
He chuckled nervously. “You’re going to make this difficult.”
“Make what difficult? It shouldn’t be too hard for you to state why you want the things you want. Should it?”
He smiled slowly. “Yeah. I guess.”
“If you don’t mind…” I said while raising my hardcover. Thankfully, he got the hint.
“Yeah, of course. You need to get back to your reading. I’m really sorry for the interruption.”
I offered him a courteous tight-lipped smile that creamed ‘leave me alone, strange man!’ in seven hundred languages. At least, he understood one of those languages and decided to move to another corner of the cafe.
The next time my friends ask me how come I refuse to be in a relationship, I hope I do not forget to tell them that 21st-century men lack any conversational skills whatsoever. Who sees a person reading and comes to ask for a minute? That should be a crime punishable by death…or maybe, a stink eye at the very least.
For what it’s worth, he did look delectable. But I guess he didn’t expect me to see through his bullshit that fast. Don’t mind me. I’m just a judgmental 5 feet ball of trouble. I don’t look it though.
I’ve tried to make myself look as fierce and bold as I really am (at least, in my head) but despite the bold makeup, combat boots, or colored hair, total strangers still feel the need to hold the door open for me and comment on how ‘cute’ my afro is.
“That was rude.”
I raised my head slowly to deliver a retort worth seven punches and I met the most perfect face I’ve ever seen in my twenty-four years on earth. It made the retort come ten seconds later than it should but it did come, carrying like just three punches.
“And who the hell are you?” Fine boy or not, this young man had just crossed a line.
“Nobody special. Just an eavesdropper. As I was saying, that was very rude. You should apologize.” The buster went further to make himself comfortable. He pulled one of the chairs in front of me out and sat down, resting his elbows on the table and smiling stupidly.
Who is this mad man?
“I’m sorry but what makes you think you have any right to tell me how to act?”
“I am a man. A patriarchal bastard, to be precise. I believe all women must be subject to the scrutiny of men and I am here on behalf of my brothers today.”
This must be a joke. For the first time in forever, I was so speechless. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or if he just wanted to draw a response out of me. But whatever his plan was, he was apparently succeeding because he couldn’t seem to wipe off the stupid smirk from his stupid clean-shaven face. Stupid.
“Can you just leave my table? I am not even in the mood for this level of madness this beautiful morning.” I said, resignedly.
He didn’t move. “What are you reading?”
“Okay, that’s it,” I said as I picked up my book, shoved it in my tote bag, and stood up to leave.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It was just a joke.”
“Which one?”
“All of it.”
“Well, newsflash. You’re not a good comedian. Plus, I don’t appreciate strange men coming up to me with crass jokes early in the morning. If you haven’t noticed, I came here for the peace and tranquility this cafe offers but for some reason, you patriarchal bastards think it’s alright to ruin my morning before I’ve even had coffee. The audacity!”
The last part of the outburst was let out in a scream and I got embarrassed when every single person turned their heads to look at me, including the guy I had just blown off (plus the new girl he was already talking to. She looked enamored and I had to fight the urge to go drag her from the snare of the creeping fowler).
Mr. Stupid didn’t look fazed by the outburst one bit and it was good too. I didn’t want to apologize.
“I really apologize. I came at you the wrong way and I really thought you would be able to take a joke. I was insensitive and my actions were totally unnecessary. I sincerely apologize for wasting so much of your time.” After saying this, he pulled back his chair and stood up, all in his 6 feet-and-probably-1-million-inches glory. Woah.
He walked away to another corner of the cafe, right behind me, and joined a small party of friends. I counted a total of three girls and one other guy. They caught me looking and simultaneously turned away like my gaze was irritating their annoyingly glowing melanin glory.
I tried to continue reading but the words just became a blurry mess. How did I ruin such a perfect morning with my own God-forsaken temper?
***
Saturdays are my free days. While I dedicate my weekdays to work and school, my weekends (except Friday) are left for me to do whatever I please. And like the loner and socially bankrupt midget that I am, I somehow always return back to work during the weekends.
While I go to church on Sunday mainly because I have nowhere else to go on Sunday mornings, the rest of the day is dedicated to me attending to old documents and reorganizing my shelf for the umpteenth time. Some Sundays, I raid my closet, turn it over, and start arranging it all over again. Since I started living alone, I realized that arranging my tiny one-room apartment has become more than just a hobby.
It has become a downright obsession and it was the reason why I hated to have my friends over. They always left something where it was not supposed to be, ignoring all my house rules, and damning all the consequences. I’d rather die a lonely woman with fifty cats at her beck and call, than constantly clean after two fully grown female adults.
On Saturdays, I spend my mornings in an overpriced cafe on the rich side of town. That is what I call ‘spoiling myself.’ Although I am a full-blooded Nigerian through and through, I find myself picking up habits that are…un-Nigerian. While strangers claim I am just a typical case of a Nigerian girl ‘forming’ to be what she is not, I say it is because I literally fed on western books while growing up.
Although I hate the taste of coffee in real time, I came to love it through books. I tasted it in the pages of romance novels where I read about coffee-drinking heroines taking the substance like it was oxygen. I read about characters reading books in cafes and bonding with their soulmates over a cup of cappuccino (a drink they both realized were their favorites).
Because it was described in such a dreamy manner, I resolved to visit the cafe every Saturday even though a cup of (that bitter) coffee costs the same as my week’s worth of provisions. Plus, the itty bitty scones they sold at the ‘cafe’ tasted more like they were made of concrete than actual flour. If for anything, the only reason why I pay that outrageous amount for a paltry breakfast (and still go home to make milky custard and fresh Akara fried in palm oil) is because of the scenery.
The quaint wooden building had a homeliness to it. Plus, it was always quiet with soft blues playing in the background. The cafe had a wealthy clientele and mornings always ushered them in their droves, moving quietly and maintaining a select dignity that could only be empowered by a fat account balance. Plus, they always left you alone. If I had not been so averse to social gatherings and networking, I might have made some pretty rich friends.
I was back at the cafe one beautiful Saturday morning, weeks after creating the scene triggered by the two well-dressed monsters I met that day and all I could think about was how small they made the cups be. The cups were not just small, they were tiny.
In a bid to carry out an experiment, I tried to fold my fingers into the empty cup and I discovered that just two of my TINY fingers could fit into the cup comfortably. Why exactly am I paying all that money only to receive bitter water that wouldn’t satisfy a one-year-old child and concrete cake? It was simply outrageous and unnecessary. I looked around and found the others sipping their ‘cups of tea’ quietly and pretentiously reading a magazine or the daily papers. It looked like something that would feature nicely in a sponsored Instagram post, but then, it didn’t seem real to me.
“Ma’am, do I bring some cake to go with that?”
“Cake? Cake? Do you call that cake? No, thank you. I’d rather grind my dirty shoes and eat whatever it becomes.”
I might be the queen of outbursts that are totally unnecessary and uncalled for, but that was one outburst I had been keeping in for way too long and it felt so good to let it out. It felt so good!
All pictures are from Pexels and no attribution is required
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