Blind hearts-ManxMan-boyxboy

Free food

Before making the last left turn for home, Alex pulled into the strip mall with its monk and nun roofs and its beefy red signs and its mosaic of red brick. The curvy font of the bakery sign shunted him forward to its abode, away from the slipshod profile of his mother, back in the car, languishing against the door. The shop smell of sugar and butter, lemons and vanilla brought him in relation to all things fresh and sunny of his boyhood, all those moments virtuous and vernal.

Bells tinkling hailed the entrance of a black, heavyset woman, her ashen hair tinged with a purple hue. They acknowledged each other warmly, and she went ahead to order a cake. Through homely timbre of her Jamaican brogue, an odd discomfort pricked Alex for not knowing her name. He felt like he had failed something fundamental, or perhaps the grateful feeling birthed by the circumambient bloom of sweets and satiety. 

“Finally graduated, did she?” a matronly clerk said to her, “Now she can pay for us both a cruise to the Bahamas.”

The customer’s jowls plumped roundly with smiles. “I just so proud of her—make that inscription in yellow and pink. She loves that.”

Yellow and pink, crisp white and baby blue, ribbons dangled around Susan’s neck as she tapped away determinedly at a sewing machine, Alex pictured in a rueful abandon to memory.  Soft eyes dampening her scowl, she would slap back his naughty little fingers away from her tomato-like pincushion. But that was then. Now she was just a frosty fat bitch. Alex gulped, waited for the Universe to annihilate him.

But behind the clerk, double doors burst open with Matteo, new, tight, buff, fresh, twinkling in his sleek apron, bearing a large tray of éclairs. Alex watched him in thankful lust as he reshuffled the tray of croissants, rearranged the bouquet of packed Madelaines, reset a paper roll into the credit card machine.

“I’ll take couple of those éclairs,” Alex said to him.

“Hey Alex, I didn’t see you,” Matteo said he was obliged to pay attention to the village idiot. “You pro’lly want the pear tarts too.”

 “You bet.” Alex grinned.

“You should try the mini crème-brulées.”

“Sure, a couple of those.”

“And the Napoleons.

“Add those.”

Matteo rolled him a stare. “Feeling rich?”

“I’m feeling something.”

Matteo shook his head in gruff nonchalance and proceeded to box his order. And weighing the box in his hands, Alex wished Susan would at least try the éclairs, even though she was not keen on sweets, or smiles. Suddenly the box felt like a ten-ton whale, and he shrugged and dragged away to the door.

 “You’re graduating, right?” Matteo’s inquiry sounded like a trick question.

“Yep! Can’t wait to be done,” Alex jeered too loudly.

Matteo’s look was unexpectedly considerate. As if fighting off miserly naysayers, he grabbed a pack of Madelaines and tossed it over to Alex, who caught it with a less-than-wished-for panache.  

“Congratulations,” Matteo said.

Matteo, beaming there behind the gold railing of the counter, healthy gums, silver teeth, lively eyes, and those bare biceps of a man hard at work: Alex scurried away a snapshot for the midnight use and said mightily, “Thank you.” And he returned to the car with a near-audible rhythm of a jig, and in that selfsame spirit of vindication, plopped down the crinkly pack of Madelaines over the gearbox like he was showing off a great catch of fish.

“I should tell everyone I’m graduating just to score free stuff,” he said to Susan sweeping a sleepy uncomprehending gaze over him. “Matteo gave me that for free.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I dunno. He’s happy for me?”

“Why? Isn’t he straight?”

Alex looked away from her tiny precise eyes and surrendered himself to task of sticking a key into the ignition.