Just my cup of tea

follow the tea-leaves to wonderland

I entered the cafe and emmiediatly scanned the room for Kate. It was my usual response soon as the Victorian-style doors opened up to my wonderworld. I like to think of the cafe as a wonderworld where I lose myself in my writing and travel along the path of tea-leaves to her. I realized my wonderworld revolved around Kate and everything she did. its core made up from the very fibres of her being as her grace seeped through the roots of its trees and her beauty shone in the reflection of the sunlight in the waters.

I spotted her perched up on the couch along the window with a cup in her hand. She stared out the window lost in her thoughts which looked as though it were tainted with sadness and longing. I moved over to the counter and waited for my turn to be served, all along eyeing out Kate. She never moved a muscle or took a sip from her tea and I knew my question of who's going to go up to whom first was answered. I could not spend another second away from her without knowing what troubled this bright flower.

I placed my order and headed towards her. "Kate?" She looked up towards me and a smile replaced the saddness on her face. "Hey Alice! I looked for you when I walked in. I was hoping you would be here." She looked for me? I'm pretty sure that's what she just said...but wait is that really what she just said? I tried my best not to show how excited I was upon hearing that and prayed secretly that I had gotten away with it. "Well I'm here now, how you doing?" Although I knew the answer to this I was hoping that Kate would confide in me, bringing our friendship closer.

"I could do with a spliff if you have time?" I know this sounds cheesy but I wanted to say, 'for you I would find a way to invent time if I had to', but I thought it best not to. "Yeah sure I have a little time to spare." Nice! Play it cool. Although she hasn't spoken about what troubled her I could see she needed an escape and it was a privilage to be just that for her.

"Great! Um where should we go to smoke?" I looked out the cafe window, the streets seemed pretty quiet. "If you chilled with it, we could always smoke as I drive around the area?" She let the idea play around in her head for a few seconds and like a kid with a candy cane said "let's go!"

It felt like hours and hours of smoking and laughing and talking. We drove along the coast and soaked in the sun through the sun roof. We spoke about religion and the church and so the topic of me being lesbian came up. "So how many girlfriends have you had?" She looked a little startled and uneasy about the topic and first but that vanished in seconds. "Well um one long term relationship and one short term relationship I guess."

I was never very lucky when it came to relationships. Either I got played on or dumped. Haha so I didn't really want to tell her details. It just made me sound like such a loser. "So what happened to your last girlfriend?" I don't want to lie to her so I guess I'm just going to have to tell her. "She played me over basically." Kate's face so easily portrayed her emotions.  The way she curves her lips when she smiles or frowns. The way her eyes radiate light when happy and become heavy when upset or sad.

Examining her facial expressions as it produces her emotions was like examining a piece of art. When a sculpture created a statue he carves every emotions with every sweep of his knife, every smoothing of the surface spread out with the coating of his hearts true desires. And if you looked close enough at her, you could see it all in her eyes. She was waiting for something, for anything really and she had been waiting a very long time.

"Are you alright?" She asked as she handed me the spliff. I paused. Not knowing how to answer. Was I alright? I seem fine I think. "Yeah I'm fine. I guess I just am too hopefull for my own good." I chuckled out trying to hide any pain I really did feel. She saw right through it. "I don't think you're fine." She waited patiently for a response, refusing to let me get away so easily.

"I'm a believer. In love and in freedom and I guess I'm just waiting for something that's real. The type of thing that literally shocks you. Where your thoughts and hopes and dreams become attached to the one you meant to be with. Like Gatsby and Daisy." She squinted at me, "like who?"

Gatsby and Daisy? F.Scott Fitzgerald? She looked at me clueless. "Gatsby was a poor boy who came from a broken home. He loved his parents dearly but he dreamed of more. He wanted to explore, to go out and work and make something of himself. He joined the army and soon enough met Daisy. With their first kiss Gatsby had stripped away all his power and handed it over to Daisy. With one kiss he unknowingly attatched everything to her. His goal to live the American Dream had suddenly become dependant on Daisy. Nothing would ever be complete without her. He went off to war and Daisy, under the pressure from her family to marry a suitor of the same class agreed to marry a rich man named Tom Bucanan. Gatsby spent years building himself up and once he did, he moved to a house across the lake from Daisy 's. He threw parties every night, hoping that one day somehow Daisy would stroll in and he would finally be reunited with her. That's the love I believe in. The love that takes over you where you know that you would dedicate your life to this person. That's when you know it's real. That's when you know that you're truley with that person or working to get that person because a day without her would be completely and utterly pointless."

"Wow." Kate sat there and never took her eyes off mine as she took in every word I said. "I know it sounds crazy and intense and you thinking I'm crazy for believing it's possible but this can't be it, I mean real love has to exist and I want that kind of love that makes someone do something so life changing, like Gatsby. I watched her face as she processes this and the result was something I didn't expect. I made her think long and hard. I like that I made her think, made her question things in her own life.

We smoked another spliff before returning to the cafe. Kate was fun and spontaneous and she always surprised me. She danced to my songs and sung along and for the first time since I had known Kate, she looked free. "Thank you, for a really unexpected fun time." She said as she jumped out the car. "I'm not sure if it's a compliment or an insult really." She chuckled, "don't be silly douche."