Sketch № 6: Cheesecake and Thunder
Given that Pastor Sweeney blamed the Quake on certain people who frequent Café Confictura, and blamed the place itself for offering them “refuge,” it’s surprised me that no one over the past week has picketed the café, ranted at customers, or even boycotted it. That’s not to say they won’t. Sweeney’s pitch to the public last week sounded like just that — a promise to show how to rectify the town’s “apathetic youth,” and you can have it all for the low, low price of reporting to weekly mass and bumping up Sweeney’s attendance numbers.
But lava lurks beneath the surface of his words. At some point, there will be an eruption.
And this past Friday, it looked to us like the lava may be starting to vent.
“Us,” in this case, are Violet, Mrs. Creaverton, and me. During a lull just before 3:00, Violet had sat down in the Fireplace Room to go through fashion magazines. The enormous hearth the room is named for was crafted from thick, rough planks of gray hickory trunks, and with alcoves and pockets along the walls of the odd-shaped room, even when a fire isn’t lit it’s a cozy spot. Particularly on a day like Friday when, all morning, thunderstorms rumbled along a steady path toward town, customers liked to hunker down in there.
I approached Violet, who flipped through magazine pages even when her eyes shifted suspiciously to me as I neared. I asked, “Is that for The Fastionista?” I was careful to enunciate “Fast-ionista,” because when she first told me about her side business, I made the mistake of calling her The Fashionista, and that resulted in two days of muttered jeers and overcharged coffee.
The Fastionista is Violet’s alter ego, helping people create wardrobes that make them feel stylish and confident, and arming them with basic principles so they can put together great outfits fast, in the course of their busy lives. This is why she calls herself The Fastionista. She spelled this out to me — and also literally spelled it out, her French accent punching each letter — before calling me “a member of the unimaginative hoi polloi who assume they hear ‘fashionista’ but are wrong.” Apparently that’s my alter ego.
When I pronounced it right this past Friday, her suspicious squint was mollified, and she didn’t even chase me off with a swizzle stick when I cautiously sat down at her table. She said, “Wilhelmina Washington owns a construction company, and over the past few years her wardrobe has been commandeered by denim. She would like ideas for new outfits that are not traditionally worn while hammering things.”
A crack of thunder hit just over us, and a moment later heavy rain spattered down on the roof. I got more comfortable in my chair and asked Violet, “Can you show me what ideas you’ve got so far?”
She didn’t hide her surprise. “I did not take you for the clotheshorse. You wear cargo pants.”
“Well, you know, all my ballgowns are still up in Boston.”
“Yes,” she said like she wasn’t sure what to make of that quip. But she turned the magazines toward me, pairing a stylish poncho with a jean skirt — a denim piece already in Wilhelmina’s closet — to create a new outfit that showed a little leg.
“The poncho,” Violet explained, “is more casual than a blazer and flows more than a sweater, so that she can be professional but this is appropriate for a work site, and then she goes out for the cocktails after work.”
“I never thought of a poncho taking the place of a blazer,” I said, and she seemed satisfied at the indirect compliment, so I pushed a little further.
“Have you always been interested in fashion?” I asked over another thunderclap.
“Since I was little,” she said, glancing through the magazines again. “I will be a fashion analyst in New York one day. Until then, Mrs. C allows The Fastionista to meet clients here. This does not pay enough, so she pays me too much as her head cashier and barista.”
“You two seem to have a mother-daughter relationship,” I said. “How long have you known each other?”
(I should note that, while I gather puzzle pieces about Applewood and Confictura and the Quake and occasionally I lock them in place on my way to forming a complete picture, even after a month of camping out at the café, basic questions about Mrs. C and Violet and Roscoe are as yet unanswered. If Phillipa Creaverton is Mrs. Creaverton, for instance, where’s Mr. Creaverton? What else, besides overseeing a literary salon, does Roscoe do? And just how old is the youthful but wry Violet?)
I prompted Violet to reply to my question. “I’m guessing it’s been at least a few years you’ve worked here — ”
“I’ve known Mrs. C since I came to town,” she said, then clammed up.
As I tried to think of another door she might unlock for me, the faint chime of the café’s bell travelled from the front coffeehouse room, through the aptly named Book Room, and to us in the Fireplace Room. This was not remarkable, as the shopkeeper’s bell tinged whenever customers came or went; but the next sound caused Violet’s head to jerk up like a hound dog who’s just smelled a fox in the yard.
“The weather is out to get me!” came a woman’s voice as loud and rugged as the storm outside. In fact, the thunder clapped again as though recognizing its kin. “You there, be a dear and help me with this so I don’t drop it?”
Violet bolted to the front and I followed. The barista on the register collected a huge cake in a plastic cloche carrier that had obviously just been dumped into his arms by a woman shaking out an umbrella.
With nostrils flared, Violet rasped, “Nessie.”
I’d gotten my first glimpse of Nessie Fyne last week at Pastor Sweeney’s blame game funfest. She’s not plump like Mrs. C, not slender like Violet, but somewhere in the range of sturdy, with round, puffy cheeks that make her eyes and lips seem too small. She dyes her pixie cut blond and turns fifty-one this year, so says Violet, and she runs Ambrosia, a bakery a couple of miles away.
If Nessie heard Violet utter her name, she paid no attention. She tossed the umbrella to the side of the front door and snatched the cake back from the barista. “Phil?” she barked toward the kitchen off behind the front counter. “You here?”
Mrs. C came through the swing door. “Nessie, I’m so glad you’re here, because I have to tell you, I’m worried for you.”
“Hello to you, too,” she laughed. “What’re you worried about me for?”
“This brain fog that hit these poor kids in Roscoe’s literary salon? I’m wondering if you got it too.”
“Well, I don’t — ”
“Because I’m trying to figure out why, after all these years we’ve known each other, you’ve gone back to calling me Phil when you know how much I hate that.”
Nessie waved her off. “Oh, Phil . . . lippa. Sorry. Just an oopsie. I’m distracted because I’m actually very worried about you, dear. For real.” She held out the cake. “This is to help you feel better.”
Mrs. C didn’t take it. “You heard about my contracting Syndrome 43, I take it?”
“I heard you had taken ill and that quack of a doctor came rushing in to try using you for his mad scientist experiments.”
“Doc Graham is no quack,” said Mrs. C. “In fact, he’s the only doctor around here taking me and the others seriously.”
“He just wants to make a name for himself, Phil . . . lippa.” She added the “lippa” with a roll of her eyes as though calling someone by their preferred name was just the silliest notion. “I heard the medical community is none too thrilled with him, and Pastor Sweeney isn’t entirely sure he didn’t help to bring all this on, the Quake and such.”
“Nessie, if he had the power to exact a cataclysmic event on our town, why in God’s name would he need to create fake illnesses to make a name for himself?”
At the invocation, Nessie blessed herself. “Now, Phillipa, taking His name isn’t necessary. I know this is an upsetting truth to face — ”
Several rolls of thunder overlapped, and the lights flickered. Nessie’s hand went to her heart, and she looked up before continuing her thought. “Um, but I hope you think again about adjusting your whole life to fit some cockamamie plan this so-called doctor has for a cure.” She held the cake out again. “He says this could hurt you because it’s a cheesecake. I say enjoy it and prove him wrong. You’d be doing this town a great service.”
It looked like a good cheesecake. But we’ll never know because Violet launched forward and karate chopped it. It tumbled to the floor and landed in a big splop, cloche top and all. Considering a pie from Nessie kicked off Mrs. C’s Syndrome 43 and Violet thinks Nessie wants to kill Mrs. C to get her hands on the café, I think Violet showed excellent restraint.
Violet smirked and raised a cool eyebrow to Nessie. “Sorry. Just an oopsie.”
Mrs. C smiled. “That’s Vi for ya. She’s a bit of a klutz, but the thing is, she is always around. Girl never leaves my side. Good luck getting anything past her. Know what I’m saying, Nessie?”
A flash of darkness crossed Nessie’s small eyes, and then it was gone. “I’ll pray for you, Phil.”
She turned to pick up her umbrella just as Clarke, a member of Roscoe’s literary salon, rushed in, his normal Afro melted into longer coils from the downpour.
“You know all the volunteers from Father Jack’s Table who haven’t slept since the Quake?” he blurted to anyone listening.
Violet turned to Mrs. C and said in a quiet pout, “Klutz? Moi?”
“What about them, Clarke?” said Mrs. C.
“As of a half hour ago,” he said, “they lost consciousness. Every one, including Father Jack himself. They’re asleep, finally, but no one can wake them up.”
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This and any related blog posts are works of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any reference to living or dead public figures, entities, places, events, and the like, are of a fictional, opinioned, and/or parodic nature. No healthcare professionals have been consulted in writing this. Any advice given or inferred is anecdotal and used at your own risk. Consult your doctor in all healthcare matters.
Clarissa J. Markiewicz is the author of Christmas In Whimsy — a heartwarming, fun novel readers compare to Hallmark Christmas movies, and recipient of Readers’ Favorite 5-star Seal — and the genre-bending new-age mystery The Paramour Pawn.
