Kaleidoscope

five

“The world would be easier if it were an automatic.”  - Iain S. Thomas

Jesse flung open the door of the café. They crowded inside, water splashing from their clothes onto the floor. The room was small, the walls painted a shade of yellow that would have looked sunny in any other weather, the seating area furnished with smooth-worn chairs and tables made from light wood.

“Whew,” said Kat, wringing out her hair with one hand. “We made it. It’s nice here, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He motioned at the chalkboards hanging behind the counter. “What do you want to drink? Tea?”

“Earl grey.” She smiled. “Do they have blueberry muffins?”

Jesse frowned at the scribbles on the board. “Looks like it.”

“I’ll have one of those, too.” Kat bit her lip, then glanced towards the back of the café, where an arrow marked the way down the hallway to an orange door. “Would you mind if I went to the bathroom? I’ll be back in a minute. I just want to get the water out of my shoes.”

“Sure.” Jesse looked back at the board. “Am I supposed to wait for you, or…”

“No, of course not. You can go ahead and order. Here.” She dug around in her coat pockets and pulled out a damp ten-dollar bill. “I’ll join you at the table.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She walked away. Jesse stepped up to the counter and placed his order. The woman grinned as she fished a blueberry muffin from behind the glass.

“First date?” She asked, pushing the plate at him and starting to fiddle with the coffee machine.

“No.”

“Second, then.”

“No.”

She clicked her tongue. “That’s a shame.”

“I know.”

The woman nodded, trying not to smile. She’d already made up her mind about him. Another version of his life was unfolding in her head. It was exhausting, having so many parallel lives. A new one for every person he met. It was easier to be alone. That was one of the few things Jesse understood about his mother. Her longing for silence, for space. She’d known all about the exhaustion that came with living. She’d known all about the pressure to say the right thing. The pressure to act in the right way. She had been a dancer, sometime in the past, before she’d started to disintegrate.

Except that his mother had failed. Not just as a dancer, but as a wreck, too. She’d wanted to be alone. The eternal solitude. She’d wanted it so badly. But she’d had Jesse.

Too bad for her.

Jesse had no one. Not anymore. It was easier to be alone. But sometimes, it was easy to be with Kat, too.

Maybe he should try to make something out of it. Maybe the woman wasn’t totally wrong.

“That’ll be ten-fifty,” she said.

Jesse tucked Kat’s money away and got out his own.

The woman smiled. “You’re sure it’s not a date?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He lifted the cups from the counter and turned away. Kat would be back from the bathroom in a moment. He needed to find a table.

❀

Kat didn’t come back from the bathroom. Not in a moment and not in fifteen minutes. Jesse sat at the table, drumming his fingers against its surface, and stared out the window.

This was a mistake.

It was stupid. Stupid to think he could turn things around by buying a fucking muffin. If anything, he’d jinxed it. He shouldn’t even be here, in this café, drinking too-sweet coffee and being a part of all the things going on around him. He shouldn’t be with a girl. He wanted to. At least partly. But since when had wanting gotten him anywhere?

No. Kat was a jinx, even if she felt like a spell. She’d probably changed her mind about him. Created another version of him to dislike.

Jesse pushed back his chair and stood up. On the other side of the window, the rain fell thick and shadowed like black paint. He paused to pull the hood of his sweatshirt over his hair.

“Excuse me.” An elderly lady from the table beside Jesse’s tried to move past him.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“That’s quite all right.” She smiled and bustled away in the direction of the bathroom. Jesse frowned, shook his head. Had Kat left? Or was she still there, hiding in one of the stalls, waiting for him to leave?

The old lady opened the bathroom door. Jesse caught a glimpse of the space behind if before it could swing shut again. White tiles. Neon lights. And -

In the split second before the gap narrowed into nothing, a flash of color near the floor. A shimmer of bright geranium pink.

Kat would never have left her flowers on the floor.

Jesse pushed down his hood and ran.

The woman behind the counter jumped in front of him. “Sir, you can’t go in there. That’s the ladies’ room, the men’s is downstairs, you can’t just - “

“No. No, you don’t understand - “

Behind the door, someone screamed.

Jesse shoved the woman aside and rushed into the bathroom.

The flowers lay fanned out on the tiles. Pink and yellow and red petals. Pale ones, fine like lace, so delicate among the glossy dark leaves. They glowed under the neon light, radiant as gems, and beside them lay Kat, her face white and her body still as a corpse.