After the last customer had drained their final sip of coffee, Marta had flipped the sign on the door to read 'desolc' and we started tidying up. While I did I kept playing the events back in my mind, wondering what I could have done differently. I also kept thinking about Alexander Strong. There was something about him which made if difficult to think of something else like a personality equivalent of trying to flick away used chewing gum. I just had to stand behind the bar and imagine he was there before me. I got strict on my self. Why would he do anything but flirt with the cappuccino girl?
"What did you think of him?" said Marta.
"He was arrogant and super rich, but that doesn't mean he could be rude and obnoxious to people no matter how rich he might be," I said.
"No I meant the captain, the one arresting everyone," said Marta.
"Oh," I said picking up more cups, "he was very arresting. "
"I quite like that tall dark nice looking man with too much hair," Said Marta while cleaning the espresso machine with a cloth "he was cute. I hope the Homeland people didn't put him off. There was something deliciously mysterious about him.
"Tall dark and mysterious. Yes TDM was cute" I agreed. "In the Venn diagram of Tall, dark and mysterious he was the intersection set. Do you think he was a good kisser?"
"Not as good as you," said Marta playfully. She was referring to the time she had given me some kissing lessons a year or so ago. I had been moping around worrying about what would happen if some boy did kiss me. So Marta had decided to make sure I wouldn't spend my life a kissing virgin. I shouldn't have done it she had never let me forget it.
"Speaking of having that billionaire in the shop. I hardly recognized him. He looks so much bigger in person than he does on the internet. I have a picture of him here and he's no bigger than my thumb" said Marta, Looking at the phone.
She was right. He was six foot something.
"Perhaps I should have been a wild thing and gone with him for the adventure." I said to Marta while loading the dishwasher " Who am I kidding? I'm not a wild adventure spur of the moment type. It normally takes me four visits to the shop just to buy a pair of shoes and they only go on my feet. While I like the idea of being spontaneous I'm about as spontaneous as an infomercial and a dull infomercial at that."
"You certainly need to learn to let loose and give up more." said Marta hand washing a latte glass.
"There is so much I want to do. I'd like to visit London" I said cleaning a mark from a seat.
"It's a ruin surrounded by wilderness," said Vicky from the computer.
"Paris?" I said
"Ruin," shouted Vicky.
"Rome" I added.
"Stinky ruin," Vicky said. I'm not sure how she knew.
"I'll like to get out of here, but I doubt I ever will," I said. My long term future as Mom/Sister carer didn't fill me with glee. I'd do it because I loved them, but my heart would always be on the horizon and following every train leaving town. I knew inside I would never summon the courage to leave them or even go into the wasteland to one day go some were for a holiday. It wasn't me and if I could surgically remove that from my brain, I'd let Marta trepan me with a blue coffee scoop.
I consoled myself with the fact I would not be seeing him again.
"That General Samael Freaked me," I said.
Vicky started counting doughnuts.
"...Four. I heard he was some big heavy weight witch finder general sent to sort our possessed problem. Five. " said Vicky while she counted. "apparently he's uninfected so he knows how the possessed think. Six. I heard in his last sector he had a 100% cleanup rate. Oh fish sticks I've lost count."
"So not all possessed are evil? Who knew," said Marta.
'Reminder to self', I thought, 'don't confess possessed status to Marta'.
"Well, the virus did bring us all down to the same level. That will show those smarty pants so called smart folk what it's like for real people for a change. I mean I'm infected and I don't feel any different now... Seven ! Seven that it's Seven" said Vicky her eyes bright with realisation and she wrote another number on her notepad.
Then I noticed something under a chair. It was the chair in the window with the chess set, where Mr Wallace had been sitting before his arrest. Moving the chair I noticed that his chess book was on the floor. I picked it up wondering if I should put it in lost and found or take it to his house. I realised it was a library book. There was a scrap of paper sticking out like a book mark. I opened the page and something odd struck me about the book mark. It had a number on it. 04005562. The thing which made it stand out was it had been written in pen. The hand writing was joined up and had a slight sense of thoughtfulness about it. Above the number was a drawing of what might have been a brain, or possibly a maze printed on the book mark.
When I stood up I remembered what Mr Wallace had said. 'Its a labyrinth out there'. Weird phrase, he had looked at me when he said it. Perhaps if he was possessed and faking it then maybe he guessed I was possessed to. I always tried to be as dumb as possible to fit in at school. I'm naturally strawberry blonde and that helps. Everyone assumes your about as dumb as a bag of fighting ferrets when your a blonde. It worked so well even my glasses didn't make people think I wasn't dumb . Girls kept asking why I died my eyebrows. Rather than explained my hair was naturally that color. I just replied 'I dun know'.
I looked at Mr Wallece's book. Perhaps Mr Wallace had deliberately dropped his book and said Its a labyrinth out there' for me. I guess he wanted me to do something with it but I couldn't figure out what.
I put the book and the bookmark way under the counter in the lost and found section.
"Do you want to go to the tattoo place with me. Brad Logan asked me out" said Marta.
Marta had a habit of tattooing her boyfriend's name onto her body somewhere. If she broke up with them she would cross it out and get another one placed somewhere else on her body. She was running out of places. Her body was currently held ink. I had suggested her foot but she told me the one person she really wanted but could never have was on her foot and she never let me see the spot. She was right I would tease her brutally if I knew. We went way back and came from over old homes on the bus together. I Was told she had once been the smartest girl in the school. We still got on, but she was a third generation photocopy of her old self. The strange thing was you didn't have to be smart to be a nice, kind or loveable person. So I enjoyed my time with her. Even if I did have to pretend to look disappointed when we went looking at wedding dresses in a newly opened bridle shop. Glass half full, she come back with a nice ridding hat and harness.
"I think I have the back of my thigh free would you have a look." said Marta.
"Is Brad Logan a good idea?" I said remembering his ass in the test. I might only go window shopping for boys but I think I would make a pretty good buyer. If I was suitably dumb and suitably confident.
"Why?" said Marta.
I rolled up Marta's sleeve and looked at Marta's arm near the elbow. There right where I expected it was Brad Logan's name that had been crossed out a year before.
"Dumb ass I said my thigh," said Marta.
My eye's rolled so loudly they sounded like Mayan temple doors.
I noticed another name on her bare arm. It was from James Herbert.
"Do you remember when they found out that James was possessed?" I said.
I remember James now. He had always been a quiet boy. He had done really well in his exams all the way through school until he hit the final year. Then suddenly his scores had dropped to normal. And then he had been arrested or at least that was what everybody thought. He had just stopped coming to school. On the one hand, I could see why he had managed to hide, he didn't have any friends speak of. I was afraid of that happening to myself. I have known Martha before the epidemic we had been sent to the same safe area and I was finding it hard to pretend I was dumb with her. She kept dating boys who were awful and I couldn't explain why. This was really why I never dated anyone. I was afraid with a boy it would be impossible to keep the truth from them. I couldn't allow myself to close to anyone no matter how much I wanted them. That plus good looking boys seem to effect my tongue like peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth.
There was a knock on the cafe door.
"We're closed" we both shouted. There was another knock. I turned round and went to the door. There at the door behind the glass was Alexander Strong.
"I think I forgot something," said Alexander through the glass to me.
"What?" I asked.
"You," he said.
"I don't belong to you. I'm not one of your possessions." I said through the glass.
"What?" said Alexander turning his ear to me.
"I don't belong to you. I'm not one of your possessions." I said.
"I think you need to adjust your volume or something you're very quiet. Normally I can hear people much better than I can now. Maybe I'm going deaf. Is this what it's like to go deaf? Do you have a phone number of a deaf person I can phone up and ask them about what it's like not to hear?" said Alexander.
I opened the door it rang a high pitched bell.
"I don't belong to you. I'm not one of your possessions." I said.
"Hey you turned the volume up that's good," said Alexander. "Now my hearing is better you can come with me." He smiled.
"Where?" I asked.
"I don't know. Where ever I am I guess," said Alexander.
"That's really nice and thank you, but I have to go home. " I said. I was tired and just a little freaked by the arrest.
"I need to go home to. Perhaps we can go together " said Alexander.
"No" I said "we have separate homes. We need to go to different places. I thought you were going to a wedding?"
"Yeah, turns out it was an accident," said Alexander. "It was a big mistake. The couple didn't know each other. We didn't know them. Cost me a washing machine just to find out. Still I met you, it wasn't a complete waste. Usually, after this much conversation, I've normally kissed the girl by now. There's nothign wrong with you ? You find me sexy right? Apart from being infected and occasional bouts of deafness, I'm in good condition."
I looked at him, he did look in good physical condition, 'golly is he in good condition' as Marta would say... " I don't see anything wrong with you. Aren't you supposed to be dating that actress?"
"Celia Heffert? She was the one getting married" said Alexander.
"What happened to your sister..." I said.
"She's.." Alexander paused and looked around. He looked about and checked in his jacket pocket. He turned around and walked towards his $4.5 million self driving Lamborghini Veneno. "I'll be back, hang on." He said leaving.
"I won't be here" I said waving goodbye happily.