Chapter Thirty-Two
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Joan was always tinkering with the café.
She carved out a little shopping area up front where she sold whatever caught her fancy, Meissen porcelain and white chocolate Toblerone and dazzling geodes of amethyst and citrine.
She added new appetizers to the menu (Korean beef and radish soup, papaya salad); she had Leonard install a few booths in the back so that multiple customers could sit with a host. Sometimes there were small birthday parties for those who wanted to celebrate their special day but worried no one would show, or simply wished to spend the occasion at the café.
Tracy or Ellison would bring out a cake, Black Forest or vanilla with fresh strawberries, and everyone would sing.
In mid-April, the Satisfaction Café turned three years old.
The Saturday prior, Joan closed the café to the public and threw a big party.
She ordered catering and gave each of the employees a red envelope, even though she was aware that Americans sometimes had feelings about cash gifts.
“It’s supposed to be the thought that counts,” Lee explained.
“People want to know you selected something specifically for them.”
“I did put thought into it,” Joan said. She’d spent over an hour browsing Palo Alto Shopping Center before deciding on money.
On the actual date of its anniversary, the Satisfaction Café recorded an intake that, if maintained, meant the business would soon be cash flow positive. “You could grow,” Jamie said. “Make this space bigger. Open other locations.”
But from Joan’s perspective, there was no need to expand.
She had gone from a daydream to a real business; she had created something from her mind and with only herself to report to.
How narrow her path here had been! How many ways it could have gone wrong!
And Joan knew it wasn’t all her doing—she knew she’d been fortunate.
Nelson confirmed this. “There’s been luck, of course,” he told her.
“But you’ve also worked hard. No business like this thrives without work. ”
This, Joan knew, was as close to an endorsement as she could hope for; as a policy, Nelson did not approve of his retirement-aged clients opening small businesses with tight margins. And yet, even with Nelson’s blessing, Joan fretted.
Recently, when Joan woke in the morning she would discover she was sweating, and not from the temperature; for the first time she was experiencing an emotion she had on occasion disdained in others: the ennui of everyday existence.
The thought blaring in her head that something was wrong, wrong, wrong—if only there was some way to guard against whatever wrong was about to happen.
She became alert for creaking in her house: a rotten beam collapsing on top of Lee, killing her.
A gas leak in the café, undetectable, poisoning her employees.
She, who never had trouble falling asleep, who, even after Bill’s death and the destruction of Falling House, had ended each evening unconscious moments after dropping her head onto the pillow, now found herself lying awake for hours.
Joan visited her doctor, the same Dr. Marcus who had treated Bill, who prescribed her sleeping pills.
Dr. Marcus was old now, as Joan supposed she was as well—he refused to use the new computers in the examination rooms and scrawled his prescriptions by hand.
The Ambien he prescribed knocked her out, so she cut the tablets in half.
On nights when she felt it would be irresponsible to take another pill, Joan lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and comforted herself with a list.
The list: that her business was well; her house was well; her health was well; that her children seemed well, or at least fine, and even Theo had recently sent a note of apology, an output of therapy, though the apology itself was vague and cut with sulky undertones ( Dad always spoke of the family home…
I’ve come to question whether he truly regarded me as family ).
That Lee and Jamie were both unmarried was a state Joan would have worried over earlier, but she’d relented.
There were advantages to marrying young but also disadvantages. And one had to choose well there too.
Last month, a petite woman with dyed black hair had come to the café. Joan thought she looked familiar, but it wasn’t until the woman introduced herself that Joan recognized her. It was her old friend Kailie, whose wedding dress Joan had borrowed for her ceremony with Milton.
“I heard you started a business,” Kailie said.
“I thought I’d come see.” It had been at least fifteen years since Joan last tried calling Kailie, and Joan was no longer bitter about the dropped friendship.
Sure, Kailie had distanced herself after Joan’s split from Milton, but Joan understood how at the start of marriage you might believe you didn’t need anyone else.
Recently even Joan’s memories of Milton had been fond: the way he used to skip without embarrassment when excited; how in the winter he hugged his peacoat around himself and his cheeks went pink from the cold.
It seemed to Joan a terrible reality that this youthful Milton would never exist again.
That were she to call and say, Remember your scratchy wool coat , at best she might receive some faraway nostalgia.
I suppose that’s why I’ve got the café, Joan thought. I’ve got this place to make people feel better, and now look who has come to try. Kailie wore a short-sleeved lavender sweater, and the skin on her arms was thin and crepey, like rice paper.
Joan had not kept up with anyone from Stanford or her life before. Her brother Alfred had called once, when he was on a trip to Los Angeles. Joan had offered to drive down and meet him in Monterey Park, where he was staying with his wife and children.
“Or you could visit me,” Joan offered. “Bring the family.” There was a short silence before Alfred coughed.
“Maybe next time,” he said. He hadn’t given her his phone number and never called again.
It was sad, Joan knew, but some families weren’t made to stick together. They fell apart and stayed that way.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kailie said. “About old times. All the things I might have done.”
Joan thought she recognized the specific note of melancholy in Kailie’s voice.
“You might enjoy meeting Lila,” Joan said gently.
Lila was an amateur birder in her seventies and an excellent listener; she often said people her age had many stories, including new ones, it was just as they grew older it seemed fewer people had the patience to wait for them to start telling.
She could be flirtatious without going overboard, and possessed a comprehensive memory that she utilized to ask thoughtful follow-up questions the next time she saw a client. “Please. Enjoy an afternoon on me.”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t.”
“Just try,” Joan insisted. And Kailie had been a regular ever since.
Sometimes Joan would arrive at work and see Kailie already in the corner with Lila, the two of them with their hands curled over mugs of hot tea.
On occasion Kailie brought sushi. Outside food wasn’t technically allowed, but Joan let it be.
Kailie and Joan didn’t chat like they used to.
They weren’t friends anymore, really; Kailie was a customer.
Joan knew Kailie had judged her in earlier times, though Joan wasn’t upset over this.
After all, Joan had judged herself plenty.
But now it was as if all the doors of her past were open and she could walk freely between. This was what the café had brought her.
Lee told Joan she should spend more time with Jamie.
“Why?” Joan asked. “I do spend time with him! He doesn’t spend time with me!”
“Just ask him over more. I think he needs interaction.”
“Why?” Joan asked again, but already her mind was racing: perhaps this was why she’d been worried.
She knew Jamie was not completely well; he appeared the same, but it was as if he were acting a role.
When the children were little, she had a way of extracting from them their problems; she would prod and ask until they became frustrated and confessed, and then she would tell them it really didn’t matter, whether it be a bad grade or not being invited to a sleepover.
None of it mattered. But what Jamie had endured, well—she didn’t know what she could say.
Except that life was senseless and unfair and it started over like this each day.
But really: life could be nice, too. It could be gorgeous.
The next day was Saturday. Early that morning, Joan called Jamie. “Why don’t you come visit me at work today?”
“Why?”
“To, ah, taste some new menu items. Besides, Lee will be there,” Joan added, slightly flustered. Now she would have to ask Lee to come.
“I’m heading to the gym,” Jamie said.
“I don’t think you’re there all day, are you? Visit after. You don’t even have to shower. Just don’t stand around customers.”
There was a pause. “Did Lee ask you to call me?”
“What about?” Joan asked innocently. Jamie sighed and said goodbye.
Joan pecked a message to Lee on her phone—better a message than a call, as Lee was less likely to argue—telling her to come to the café, and then left for work.
She arrived an hour before opening and played the voicemails from the night before.
First was a call from Dustin asking to move their appointment to Thursday.
Next was a rambling message for a host named Blake, whose older clients liked to comment resembled a young Paul Newman.
This particular message leaver, a young woman, said she wished to share with Blake a poem.
“I won’t say it now ,” the girl said, as if she didn’t want others to hear.
“But I’ll read it the next time I see you, Blake. Okay?”