Try Again Later

Prologue

Harper and Lee Stenson are twins.

Born to a mother who took the better part of her pregnancy to complete To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper is two minutes, thirty seven seconds older than her little brother.

You will know this if you've ever bought a latte, a shortbread or a mimosa at Mockingbird because Harper likes to talk.

Mockingbird is the cafe the twins co-own right outside my college campus.
The place is primarily a cafe, but also a bar.

That's what Harper tells anyone who asks why there's a bar top at one corner of the cafe.

With time, the bar started edging out the cafe, but Harper firmly holds her ground of "first a cafe, then a bar".

Lee thinks otherwise. It was his idea to buy the first floor of the building and convert it into an extension of Mockingbird.

This, he said, was going to be the mystery of the city. When asked what exactly was going to be mysterious about the place, Lee, in an uncharacteristic show of cryptism, said "You'll see. Or maybe you won't."

Everyone soon knew what he was all about when "Radley", that's what they named the first floor extension, opened for business.

Radley, has an exclusive members only entrance. But it's not money or charity that makes you a member. It's the twins that do.

They seem to assess prospective members based on their personal judgement. They let close friends and family become members, but if you're not any of them, you will probably spend a major part of your life fantasizing about what lies within.
A funny assortment of people have ended up becoming members over the years. My professor of Anatomy, the traffic policeman down the road, the owner of the only grocery store on my campus. We always observe the people coming in and out of Radley but our expectations of hot glamorous celebrities, thinly disguised actors, Presidents of nations, sexy football captains never seem to make the cut. The only thing everyone exiting the place has in common, is the look of wonderment on their face, as if they cannot believe they got to experience the hottest place in town.

Given how completely ordinary they look, yes we can't believe it either.

What's worse is that when you're made a member, you have to sign a document that legally binds you from talking about Radley or sharing pictures taken inside on social media or discussing what goes on there.

Lee officially did succeed on establishing a mystery that not many were able to solve or in fact, be a part of.

He heard our theories of what went down upstairs and only laughed. The one thing we did manage to get out of him was that "Radley is primarily a bar, but also a cafe."

Since Harper was around when he said this, we don't know if he said it just to annoy her or if it held some nuance of truth as well.

But it did do the trick of annoying her

I was fat when I started Med School. I spent the first year losing weight and drank only sugar free cappuccino. Since I said no to alcohol (its fattening) and barely ate outside the hostel mess, I didn't gain much popularity. I didn't gain much weight either and so I was happy.

I had attained my goal weight by the second year but that was too late to change the general impression of me that was afloat. I shrugged it off, since by then, my core group of friends had already been established and I was happy with them.

In my third year of college life, I was walking back from Lesley, a pharmaceutical shop, a couple of streets down my campus when I rounded a corner and walked into what looked like two men trying to mug a third. One of the them held a knife while the other patted down the victim.

In a spontaneous show of heretofore hidden bravery, I yelled out, distracted the guy with the knife, then sprayed him with the can of rat poison I had just bought. He dropped the knife as he doubled over and I picked it up. The other guy gave me a terrified look and ran. My yell had attracted a couple of people from across the street and they came over to help. The man I had saved from getting mugged turned out to be Lee and that was how I became a member of Radley.

That was also how I became the most popular girl in the University.

The only student to have ever become a member, everyone now flocked to my side in the hopes of becoming a friend. This was a direct result of the fact that I could bring as many guests as I wanted to Radley, as long as I accompanied them. If I was running late, they weren't allowed to enter. If I left early, they were politely asked to leave.

My friends and I came up with a rule. Whenever the five of us hung out at Radley, we didn't bring dates.

You see, not only was I the attention of every last boy in the University, my immediate friends had been subjected to this attention as well. Any connection, no matter how remote was exploited.

As a result of my new found popularity, I failed to distinguish between boys who actually liked me and boys who liked Radley. So sometime in the middle of the fourth year, I gave up on trying to find someone for myself and soon after, found myself developing feelings for one of my best friends.

My life seemed to revolve around Mockingbird, Radley and the twins. Very often, I would find myself sitting with either of them and just talking about my life, my dreams, my past. They weren't much older than me. I was about to turn 23 when they were 32. They liked me, they liked listening to me and they even followed up on my idea to turn a section of Radley into a karaoke stage. They soundproofed the walls, changed the lighting and the furniture lay out and bam, a brand new selling point.

After that, I started spending even more time at Radley, if such a thing were even possible.

On so many days, I'd stay on till last call, singing to empty chairs, pretending I was a thousand times more melodious than I was in reality.
Birthdays, celebrations, bad days, heartbreaks, anger, frustration, there was a song for every mood, every occasion and there was also a drink for every day.

My days at med school became a busy blur of exams, friends, singing and coffee. In the middle of it all was Radley.

And that was where I met Phelps Kane.