“I’ll get the coffees going,” she says, and hears the key in the lock downstairs as the baker’s deliveryman lets himself in. “The baker’s here,” she carries on, as she struggles into a dressing gown. “Oh, come on, Jordan. Cindy’ll be pounding on the door any minute.”
“Damn woman,” mutters Jordan, and Ruth wants to believe he’s referring to Cindy, the part-time waitress.
“You haven’t forgotten that I have to go to get those test results today,” calls Jordan as Ruth’s heavy footsteps on the wooden stairs vibrate through the old building. “Damn woman,” he mutters again, and takes a chance on another thirty seconds before Ruth’s voice shatters his dream.
“Jordan—Get up, now! Cindy’s here.”
Cindy is forty, but is stuck, like her name, in permanent adolescence. In her own mind she is barely out of college, the consequence of an unnaturally prolonged spinsterhood, and she still sports the ponytail, the obnoxious attitude, and the geeky glasses to prove her point.
The nauseating smell of stale coffee hits Ruth as she opens the door to the café. Cindy slips in the front door under the baker’s nose and uses her wet coat to demonstrate her annoyance as she angrily fights it off.
“How come he gets a key an’ I don’t?” she moans. No, “Good morning, Ruth. How are you?” No pleas-antries; just bitching.
“Because you lost the first three we gave you,” snaps back Ruth. “Anyhow, you wouldn’t need one if that lazy ...”
Jordan’s footsteps on the stairs behind her cut her off. “I’ve gotta be at the hospital by ten,” he says, seeking recognition of his suffering, hoping for a touch of sympathy, perhaps.
“You’ll have to go by yourself,” says Ruth. “Cindy and Coral can’t manage lunch on their own. And knowing that place, you’ll be there all day.”
“Thanks,” he mumbles as he shuffles into the kitchen to fire up the stove for breakfast.
Cindy is still bitching about “the crappy evening girls” who didn’t wipe the tables properly—who never wipe the tables properly; her crappy landlord, crappy men, crappy life, crappy job ...
“If you don’t like it ...” starts Ruth, then lets it go as she switches on the percolators. With Jordan shuffling around like a constipated duck, she doesn’t need the hassle of trying to find a replacement for the woman. “I’ll get dressed,” she calls to Cindy as she heads back upstairs, then stops at the sound of tapping on the glass front door.
“We open at seven ...” screeches Cindy, then hardly drops a notch as she looks to Ruth. “It’s crappy Tom.”
“You’d better let him in,” says Ruth, “Or the poor old guy will crap on the doorstep.”
Tom rushes through like an express, scoops the daily paper, and hits the washroom at full speed. “Thanks, Cindy—I was bustin’,” he calls in his wake.
“Shut the crappy door this time,” shouts Cindy.“Nothing worse than some jerk fartin’ in the morning.”
“You haven’t been married, have you?” chuckles Ruth, halfway up the stairs, and starts Cindy off again. “Nah. Crappy men ...”
The open front door is a magnet. “You open?” calls Trina Button, strolling in with wide-eyed innocence.
“Looks like it,” laments Cindy, “but the coffee ain’t ready yet.”
“Herbal tea and horoscope is all I want,” replies Trina as she drapes her jacket on one chair, her purse on another and sits on a third. “Can’t do anything without my horoscope. Where’s the paper?”
“It was here... Tom,” Cindy calls, “you got the paper in there?”
“Yeah.”
She turns to Trina and shrugs. “I would buy your own if I were you—God knows what he does with it in there.”
“I’ll wait,” says Trina, “I’m not going back across that road again without checking my stars. It might say I’m gonna get hit by a bus.”
“Not today,” says a new arrival who’s swept silently in, as if on skates. “You’re safe today, Trina.”
“Tomorrow, Raven. What about tomorrow?” demands Trina of the newcomer, as if she was looking forward to the experience.
“Ah. You’d have to consult me professionally about that,” says Raven while fumbling in her purse for the key to her consulting room at the back of the café.
Raven is not the young woman’s real name, but is so apropos of her startling appearance that no one challenges it. When Ruth had placed an ad for the small room in the window six months earlier, there were only two inquirers: the impossibly tall, sleek-bodied, black-haired psychic channel, who appeared from nowhere one suitably sultry morning; and someone equally dark who was exceedingly circumspect about his intended use. Raven got the room partly because she had held Ruth’s nigrescent eyes in her gaze and announced, matter-offactly, that as she could see the future, she wouldn’t have bothered to apply unless the outcome was assured. It was a logic that Ruth had been unable to refute.
Raven, who may well have been hanged for her beliefs in less enlightened times, set up shop in the back of the café and lived on herbal tea and tofu while she read palms, auras, and fortunes for a pittance. However, her practice grew phenomenally when word leaked out that, for a more respectable fee, she would lay stark naked, inert, on a black velvet chaise-lounge, while spirits channelled through her. Why Serethusa, her spirit guide, would only speak to her when she was nude was a question no one had ever asked. It was the message, not the medium, that people came to hear; although quite a few—men and women alike—were happy to pay to see the medium.
“You’re early ...” starts Cindy, but Raven is impatient.
“Where’s Ruth?” she demands. “I’ve lost my damn key.”
“Don’t expect her to give you another ...” complains Cindy, but Ruth is back down, dressed, and cold-shoulders Cindy as she unlocks the office door for the incredibly slender woman.
“There you are. Take no notice... Man trouble.”
“No it ain’t. I ain’t got a crappy man.”
“That’s what I mean, Cindy,” says Ruth. “And I’m not surprised, the way you treat them.”
“Harrumph!” Cindy exclaims, as she marches back to the counter and finds Trina using the phone to wake her kids for school. “You might have asked,” Cindy moans. “Anyone would think you work here.”
In the harsh light of a fluorescent tube, Raven’s office is stark and cold, the chaise-lounge sleazy. The young woman hustles to light candles then, turning to Ruth, she stares as if she has sunk into a sudden trance.
“Do you ever buy lottery tickets, Ruth?”
“No. Just the government’s way of taxing the stupid and the poor,” she answers, then questions, “Why?”
“Buy one today Ruth ...”
“Ah. I don’t think ...”
“I know you’re not a believer. Just humour me. What have you got to lose?”
“But, I don’t ...”
“Today’s your day, Ruth. Everyone has a day.” Raven is earnest as she continues in a sing-song voice—like an ersatz preacher hosting an evangelical television show. “You mustn’t waste your chance. The rest of your life hinges on today, Ruth. I came in especially to tell you ... I received a message from my channel. ‘Tell Ruth it’s her day.’ Serethusa said, as clear as ...”
Cindy barrels in. “Quick. Trina’s had an accident and crappy Coral’s phoned