Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

3ᴿᴰ CHAPTER

                                                       3ᴿᴰ CHAPTER

               

           “If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there”

 

Leesh ends up sleeping at PJ’s that night. They talk about a few ideas for his article, but it was late when she arrived there to start with, so they don’t come up with something really useful. It’s settled then that throughout the week they’ll work on it, and by the weekend, they must have something done. PJ has only until the end of the month to get it all ready, and it means a lot to both him and Leesh, so they do want this to go on well. Can define both their futures, really.

By the morning, when the sun isn’t up yet, she leaves his place, goes straight to her old rented room and puts on some decent clothes for work.  The heat is still quite unbearable, but she’ll have to deal with it anyway, so she tries to hurry to the café, get the dishes done as soon as possible, and, hopefully, maybe, Edwin will need some help with the carwash again. She’s counting on that.

By the time she arrives at work, it’s quiet and lonely as usual; she uses her key to open the naturally fogged with dust door, pushing it with a cracking sound to reveal no one behind the counter, not even Dorothea, the old lady who owns this place and most likely Leesh’s heart as well. It’s probably too early in the morning yet, too hot for someone to be in the shop, with no air conditioners because they’re too expensive and Dorothy can barely afford the food. The only source of ventilation are the several ceiling fans, with dusty, old, wooden paddles that rotate with a loud noise, seeming as if they’re about to fall off at any moment, but don’t.

Leesh switches on the fans once she reaches the buttons on the wall behind the cashier, going for her black apron resting on the door to the kitchen, throwing it over her shoulders whilst she ties her hair up in a ponytail and kicks aside a few stools on her way to the fridge. She doesn’t usually stays in the café until – much – late, but she knows the rest of her friends do, and they usually have dinner there as well. Bridgit – a brunette 24-year-old with full lips and a bright smile (also known as Dorothy’s granddaughter) – is the cook for the evening (and also the whole day, basically, taking into account the fact that Leesh isn’t exactly a great one), and since she must hurry to go to uni, it’s settled that Leesha does the dishes of the night by the morning.

There’s always four of everything – four plates, four glasses, four pairs of cutlery –, because the only people who have dinner there every night are always the same: Edwin, Dorothy, her granddaughter and PJ. Leesh doesn’t bother a bit washing what they left. It’s not like she has much to do, anyway. But before she can go to the sink, she pulls out a bottle of milk and two eggs, placing them on the table and then putting the 8-inch stainless steel skillet over the stove, setting it over medium heat.

Leesh hums some old song whilst backing to the table and grabbing the butter, opening the top drawer of the cabinet to pull out a spoon, and right after she closes it with a push of her hips. She doesn’t hurry much to get it done fast, knowing no one should show up until sometime near 8a.m (it’s still 6:30, so).

She puts what she assumes is a teaspoon of butter into the already warmed up pan, swirling it around to have it coating the whole skillet, and then it’s eggs’ time. She cracks them carefully, trying not to let the shell fall into the pan (a task that sometimes she doesn’t succeed at), and lets them fry.

Her mind is actually busy with ideas she could give PJ when they reunite by the end of her shift, but, honestly, none of them sound good enough. She has good ideas, she must admit, but she reckons the ones that flood her mind at the moment are not in the level of a future well-known photojournalist. She needs more.