Chapter Twenty-Six
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When Joan informed Leonard she was halting work on Falling House and wished to redirect his efforts to a small commercial project, the designer didn’t believe her.
Even when she told him she had signed papers, that she was in possession of a real address, he treated it as a whim.
When she asked him to meet her at the location, he arrived ten minutes late (he was usually extremely punctual) and informed her she was having a midlife crisis.
“All kinds of people like you have them,” he said.
“Ladies who want a shop that gives them purpose in the morning. Some cute little boutique with a name like Afternoon Treats or Peaches and Cream.”
“I’m past midlife,” Joan informed him. “And I don’t want a boutique, I want a café. A special one.”
Leonard sighed. He stared at her imperiously, and when that didn’t work, he sighed again and produced a notebook from his leather satchel. “Tell me exactly what sort of special this café is.”
So Joan told him. She wanted the café to be a place one visited for conversation.
Not conversation with just anyone, but rather a trained host, with the specific personality needed at that moment.
One of those pleasant, easy presences others gravitate to at parties.
Or a calm, quieter sort to whom those under stress tell secrets.
A beautiful woman or one of those men who is not necessarily handsome but somehow—by toeing the line between humor and thoughtfulness and confidence—exudes a powerful charisma.
Someone snooty for those who strove to impress. An older woman for motherly approval.
“Or customers could not talk,” Joan added. “Sometimes it’s nice to be quiet but have someone near. Like when I was home and knew my husband was somewhere inside too.” Oh, how she still missed Bill!
“It sounds,” Leonard said, “a little seedy.”
“Well, it can’t be that way. That’s what I need you for. I want lots of natural light. And enough space to fit—oh, say, thirty customers. Forty, maybe.”
“You do know you need tables for that. And chairs.”
“You said there were liquidation sales.” Leonard had informed Joan in passing of such events, where treasures could be found at below wholesale. The idea had captivated her ever since.
Leonard touched the tips of his fingers to his temples. “Why here?” he asked, closing his eyes as if he couldn’t bear the sight of the space any longer.
“I just like it.”
“No special reason?”
“No.” Though even with his eyes shut, Joan was certain Leonard could sense she was lying. For there was a special reason for the location: it was the very spot the Chinese video store had stood so many years earlier.
Now, Joan hadn’t meant to have the café here.
Really—she hadn’t been thinking of it at all!
The idea for a café had first arrived as a hazy thing; she had her childhood daydreams but little else.
To find the location, Joan had first enlisted a high school friend of Jamie’s, a young man who Joan gathered was attempting to recover from a failure-to-launch situation by obtaining his real estate license.
She hadn’t liked any of the sites the agent showed her, however; it was always either a problem with the location (size, parking, neighbors) or a disinterested emptiness she felt when she looked upon the space.
Desperate for an alternative, she had thought of the video store.
The agent had looked it up and brought her there in his mother’s Lexus the next weekend.
“You know,” he’d said, his voice slightly hysterical at the thought of a potential windfall, “it’s not only available for rent, the entire site is for sale . ”
Gazing at the space now beside Leonard, Joan was reminded of its flaws. The site appeared to have been transformed at least once more before being abandoned yet again—there was a small kitchen where the storeroom had been, and the interiors were painted a burnt orange.
“We’ll need to do something about the walls,” Joan said. “The color.”
Leonard opened his eyes. “Uh-huh.”
“And the kitchen, you’ll have to change the equipment and layout. The floors too, and—well, we’ll have to change a lot.”
“Are you even allowed to make these renovations? Landlords have strong opinions about such things.”
“Oh, they’re very understanding,” Joan said quickly. “A—ah, a very nice man. Extremely flexible.”
“I don’t know how, given these parameters, you expect to make any money.”
“I don’t expect to make money.”
Leonard looked skyward in a manner Joan knew indicated he was exercising extreme patience. “I wish we could go back to selecting marble for Falling House.”
“I’m not doing that now.”
“When?”
“Maybe never,” Joan said quietly.
There passed a stretch of silence. “Didn’t you already pay a deposit on the build?”
“Yes.” Joan was touched by the worry in Leonard’s voice (and he didn’t even know she’d bought this place yet!).
There was a time when the sunk money would have kept her up at night—sometimes it still did (Joan hated to waste money).
She had calculated with Nelson that after the lost deposit, the remaining insurance funds from Falling House would be just enough to purchase the lot, start the café, and finance it for a few years.
Joan knew many might consider this reckless.
She knew the practical, expected thing would be to continue with Falling House—to smash the idea of the café and let it wither, as she had other dreams over the years.
She did not doubt her decision.
Leonard was inching closer to the shop and reaching into his bag. He removed a tape measure. “That wall will have to come down. To expand the kitchen.”
“Fine, fine.” Joan tried to keep the hope from her voice.
“And there still might be some use for the marble. Or perhaps some terrazzo?” He directed at her a crafty look. “We’d have to rip up that awful carpet, anyway. You say this so-called landlord of yours is flexible?”
Joan looked off, deliberately not answering (she didn’t know what terrazzo was, and the marble really was expensive).
Her gaze landed on the carpet, which was rough-looking and stained.
Whichever business had come after the video store hadn’t bothered to replace it, and Joan suspected it contained unspeakable germs. And yet she had the urge to run in with Leonard’s utility knife and cut a piece to take home—to store in a box someplace, and to preserve for eternity.
Ah, once the video store, and then something else, and then maybe something else again.
And now the building would become a café.
Time was truly unstoppable. Joan recalled an old dress of Lee’s that she had ripped up for its fabric and sewn into a quilt.
Lee hadn’t been using the dress—it had long been outgrown, in storage for years—and yet when Joan presented Lee with the pretty new blanket, Lee had cried.
You’ve ruined my dress, she said. I’ll never have it again.
In another dimension, perhaps the video store remained open.
Or maybe there was an alternate world in which Joan was still married to Milton.
And perhaps in a faraway galaxy not only was the video store open but the Satisfaction Café as well, and she and Bill were together.
Bill still sprightly, still alive. Joan knew none of it was possible, at least not in this life; she understood a person couldn’t have everything they wanted without trade-offs.
But wasn’t it nice to think it was possible, at least once in a while?
On a Friday afternoon in April, eighteen months after Joan and Leonard first met at the site, the Satisfaction Café opened for business.
It was what is referred to as a “soft opening.” Joan was renting the furniture (light gray tables and chairs, inoffensive, popular for weddings), as she and Leonard had yet to agree on the final pieces; the exterior had just been painted days before.
The interiors were a warm blush, a shade Leonard swore was flattering to all skin tones, with large windows which let in sun.
All around the space were riots of color in the form of fresh flowers, tulips and peonies spilling from vases, interspersed with green.
Standing out front alongside Joan for the opening was Patty. After the children outgrew babysitters, Joan and Patty had kept in touch, but Joan had been surprised when Patty asked if she needed a manager.
“I thought you were retired,” Joan said, not daring to ask whether Patty might be too old.
“I’ve been selling jam at the farmers market, remember?”
“Do you have restaurant experience? The position has a lot of responsibilities.”
“No problem,” Patty said.
Patty dressed in the same loose, free-spirited fashion; on opening day, she wore a paisley blouse and a long lavender skirt that caught the air when she moved.
Joan had to admit Patty wasn’t what she’d originally envisioned as a café manager.
Then again, Joan was aware she herself didn’t present much like a café owner , either.
Isn’t that funny, Joan thought. Because of course people can do many things—I’m sure Misty could have been a CEO of some big company in another life, and Nelson a famous artist, and the list went on.
Joan had found most people were more talented than the opportunities they were presented with, but on the rare occasion when someone did try and muster a change, they were told: Well, where’s this degree? or: Not enough experience.
Petty little bureaucrats, she fumed. Small-minded gatekeepers!