A Spy, a Mom, a Business Man, Among Others, Walk into a Café
The hybride café, or café hee-briiid in French, is a hip place on a large and sunny boulevard in Montpellier, south west of France. Montpellier has 300 days of sun a year, or so the city Mayor keeps telling us. Which makes it a city drenched in natural light, even the moon is brighter around here. How much brighter? I was deep in slumber one night, woke up to a brilliant light shining into my room. I looked up expecting some urban lighting fixture that should not have been turned on so high at this hour, only to find it was the moon. Just your common, everynight moon. That’s how bright.
Today, the café was buzzing with people, dispersed on tables scattered across the large, high-ceilinged room. The general feel was that people were there to get out of their usual place, and do some work in a relaxed environment. No one was there to see or be seen, if there is even such a place in Montpellier. A tiny waitress, barely visible behind the on-purpose-stapled-bare-wood bar, took orders and cashed in l’addition for you. She would sometimes venture out from behind the bar, to give her colleague a hand if the place got too busy. Between the two of them, they catered to all 25 tables of the café.
A baby, two tables to the right from me, cried incessantly. It was a sweet sound to me, it reassured me that baby was functioning well: she wasn’t happy and she was letting the universe know. Luckily for this baby, her universe (her mom) was holding her in her arms fretting to figure out what she needs. But mom was simultaneously attempting to have a conversation with her friend sitting across the table from her, also with a baby, but hers slept soundly.
Of course, as with everything, not everyone found the sounds and the scene agreeable. The young-er man in front of me was clearly irritated, he kept glancing at the moms with his eyebrows knotted in a tight point of V . When he decided he’s had enough, he stood up goofily from his chair, eyebrows raised high now. He looked like he just got out fresh from a barber shop, his hair shaved close to his oval head but raised high to the skies on top. Probably a trick his coiffeur advised to give his miniscule forehead more space to juggle his eyebrows across. He headed to the caisse looking for the tiny waitress, eyebrows now in a tent formation so well shaped, you can camp there. He had a funny manner of walking at the tip of his toes, probably another trick this time to seem taller. He had his head and eyebrows so high on his toes he didn’t see the petite waitress that passed right below him at that moment juggling trays full of food and drinks. They both fumbled and he went all-in splat on the floor, taking the tray with him. His eyebrows finally settling in a straight line signaling his surrender.
A very handsome, and very young, couple sat to my right. Between me and the baby. They were discussing moving in together. She glanced at the two ladies and their two babies and told her male counterpart she wanted to wait — at least 4 years — before having a baby. Good for you, I almost said, wait more if you know what’s good for you.
A business man sat across the room from me. The white wireless Apple earbuds in, going from call to call and switching languages seamlessly. He too did not appreciate the crying baby, he was staring straight at the mom while participating in his virtual meeting in a loud voice that I’m guessing everyone in the room could hear distinctly. Still he plowed on, not a hint of slowing down all the while staring dead straight at the pretty lady with the crying baby.
I looked on to mom with a kind smile on my face, genuinely thinking if she catches my eye and smiles back I will suggest to take the baby for a walk in the café so she can enjoy her coffee (fair-trade, of course! just that kind of place) with her chic friend. She never looked my way though, she did not look anyone’s way. I believe she just wanted to be ignored, avoiding any attitude be thrown at her.
I continued gazing around the room. Skimming, scanning, just taking my eyes on a stroll … Wait, c’est quoi ce type? A dude looks completely out of whack. He was sitting on the couch across from the business man, wearing a hat that’s halfway between a cap and a beret. Perhaps his cultural orientation is still, as of yet, unspecified. He held his paper midway, between his face and the table in front of him. He kept his dark sunglasses while reading. He looked like a spy from a bad movie. Every time a woman walked across the room, he would stare, looking her up and down, as if fearing to miss a detail. He would be the kind of person who would notice if you put on a kilo or two, and would give you the specifics on where that added weight went exactly on your body. You know, that exterior shell of yours that is forever held to society’s judgement.
Baby was fussy again. Eventually, Mom gave her the boob. I can hear from two tables across that soothing sound babies make when they finally latch on after desperate attempts in their tiny overwhelming hunger to grab the nipple and the milk starts flowing. Another beautiful reassuring sound that it’s working. That sound used to be like balm to my tired nerves as a new mom, and still is as soothing as a veteran mom. My babies have grown, you see. Someone once told me that one day, you put your baby down and you never picked them up again. To which I replied indeed, and the day they got out of their diaper is the day I stopped kissing their feet. (end of baby insight). Mom was finally able to eat the food on her plate she ordered an hour ago and have a conversation with her lady friend. Both with their babies on their breasts. Party of four, for lunch!
A lady walks in, and sits where the bad spy dude was sitting. He wasn’t there… How did I not see him leave? She had burgundy everything, her coat, sweater, pants, lipstick and hair. Voyeur afandi reappeared, I just noticed he has a burgundy shirt under his sweater! He noticed the monochromatic lady, and approached her hesitantly and then more confidently when she looked up and smiled back at him. Do they know each other? Was the burgundy some kind of color code or was this instant attraction? Like a moth heading towards a lightbulb? A few minutes later they walked out of the café together, moth and bulb.
I went back to my coffee and banana cake, and got on with the writing I had set out to do in Heebreed café, Montpellier.
