her seventies or eighties, with a mass of white hair and a wistful smile. I catch her eye and she grins at me. I take it as a sign.
“Good morning,” I say, pushing open the door. But now the old lady doesn’t look at me, doesn’t take her eyes off the window. Other than her, the café is empty and, as I approach the unmanned counter, I start having second thoughts. No customers means no need for extra staff, and I’ve had my fill of rejections today. I’m about to turn back when a young woman with an enormous amount of curly red hair hurries out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. There’s something familiar about her, though I can’t put my finger on what. Perhaps I’ve seen her around town, though I’m sure I’d have remembered that red hair.
“Sorry,” she says, a little breathless. “What can I get you? Tea? Coffee? Cake?”
“No, um, I—” I stumble. “I didn’t—I just wondered i-if you might need any s-staff?”
She laughs. “Do we look like we need staff?”
“N-no,” I admit. “Th-thank you.” I turn to go.
“Wait.”
I stop.
She regards me. “Have we met before?”
“I don’t think so.”
She gives me a thoughtful look, the way Teddy will look at me sometimes, as if he’s searching for secrets. Then she glances at the old lady sitting by the window, a glance so private, so intimate, and so filled with sorrow that I feel embarrassed to witness it. I begin to back away. “Th-thank you anyway. And, um . . . g-good luck.”
The beautiful girl doesn’t say anything. She’s still gazing at the old woman, so lost in thought now that she doesn’t even see me leave.
11:15 a.m.—Scarlet
When Scarlet looks again the girl is gone. Although she is and she isn’t. Because it’s as if she has left an imprint of herself on the air. Scarlet can still see the curling hair, like her own, except golden instead of auburn. She can still hear her nervous chatter, can still feel the sense of slightly off-kilter strength. For a moment, Scarlet’s struck by the notion that they could be friends. Then thinks that befriending her might be a bit like biting into a fresh doughnut while not being entirely certain what you’re going to find at its centre.
“Scarlet!”
The sound wave of her grandmother’s panic knocks Scarlet out of her thoughts. She moves so fast she hits her hip against the counter as she runs across the café.
“What is it?” Scarlet reaches her grandma. “What’s wrong?”
Esme points at the window, where a large brown moth is bumping against the glass. “Get it away, Scarlet, get it away from me . . .”
“It’s okay,” Scarlet says, relieved as she reaches out to the window. “It’s only a moth—I’ll catch it.”
She scoops up the flapping insect between her palms and opens the door with her foot. Its frantic wings flutter in her cupped hands.
“Bugger off, you bloody little troublemaker.” Scarlet leans out the door, into the fresh air, and opens her hands. But the moth has gone. And in place of frantic wings is only a pinch of ashes that sprinkles the pavement like icing sugar on a bun.
11:59 a.m.—Liyana
“So, you’re a . . . lesbian?”
Liyana looks up to see Aunt Nya folding and unfolding her long legs. Her aunt, at fifty-two, is still an exceedingly beautiful woman. Surely, Liyana thinks, she could find herself another husband if she set her mind to it.
“I suppose so,” Liyana says, though that isn’t how she necessarily labels herself. Not as a lover of women, but a lover of Kumiko. Liyana can’t separate knowing Kumiko from loving her. From the moment they met, it was nothing and it was everything. The way she looked: small and slight, porcelain skin, midnight hair, dark almond eyes that seemed to take up half her face. The way she dressed: black silk, white cotton, red lipstick. The way she spoke: slow and soft, so you had to lean in to listen. The way she moved: seeming not to walk but glide through life like a river fish. The way she was: confident, certain, unlike any other teenager Liyana knew. And perhaps most of all, it was the way Kumiko made Liyana feel about herself: as if she was exactly as she should be.
Nyasha folds her legs again. She picks up her teacup. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Liyana looks up from her milky coffee. For days, weeks, months, she’s been anticipating her aunt’s reaction to this news, expecting rejection,