fiction by rida abdul jaleel
Uptown Cafe
I didn’t quite know rain could come like that. I had spent a lifetime in a land of rain, which is to say that I’d seen all kinds of rain come and go. Rains that melt into the fabric of your day, gossamer soft and light, the patter so much a backdrop to your thoughts that you’d have to stop whatever you were doing and peek outside to make sure that it really was raining. Rains that thundered against your doors, converting your childhood home into a baby’s rattle, and suddenly you were wide-eyed and clutching the sheets, trying to tell yourself that you were not three anymore and that rains that come, they find a way to go. Rains that scare, rains that placate, and rains that wedged the past out of its page. But I never quite knew that rain could come like that. Without a moment’s notice; a surprise visit’s surprise visit.
The day had been slow to begin with, people languidly making their way in, dragging their feet in the deluge of dirt that puddled outside, imprinting our pristine floors with their murky DNA—dry grass from football grounds or twigs that stuck on the feather edges of frayed shoes, loose threads or expensive lipstick smudges from their universe; a bridge from their world into mine that we pretended to never notice, that nobody cared for. They’d scratch their heads, frown, and look up to the sky as though the weather would make their choice for them, before mumbling something predictable and boring like “an espresso” or “a cheeseburger.” Most times I wouldn't even have to nod toward the kitchen for Salim to know exactly what needed to be whipped up, which containers to reach for, and what sauces to acquaint the limp white bread with. So when the rain broke out with all the elegance of a burst tire, I couldn’t keep myself from sighing. The café was empty and it would remain so. The cuff of my blue server’s shirt chafed at my neck and I swiped a truant drop of sweat before wiping it down on my black cotton apron.
Immediately disgusted, I went to the back and washed my hands with soap. I sat with my phone in my hand, not realizing that I’d fallen asleep until my forehead dipped onto the smudged tabletop before me.
“Could I have a blueberry iced tea?”
I looked up, the rain outside sending a sudden swell of cold air into the shop that I had to tighten the cuff of my shirt over my chafed neck. I could, in that moment, however, only discern the order, not the voice or the shape behind it. The gauze glass that shielded the entrance
windows of the restaurant only succeeded in pixelating the figure further, a glowing lime-glass shell trying to gain purchase on a large, black bat that was threatening to fly out of its grasp–a world so thrillingly, ridiculously different from the one I’d fallen asleep in. I sighed again. An umbrella. Nothing but a girl holding an umbrella.
“You want a blueberry iced tea? In this weather?”
“Yeah, I’d like one please.” As she moved into the center of my field of vision and away from the haze of the windows, I saw that she was completely drenched. Her hair was matted cleanly to her scalp and her lime-green dress was dyed a darker shade with the water that was slenderly escaping through the plaits it made.
“It’s freezing out there.”
She looked up, the kohl against her eyes now a pronounced line, questioningly, as though asking how that had anything to do with her order.
“Whatever,” I muttered. I nodded at Salim at the kitchen door behind, me before I made my way back to my chair. “Won’t you be sitting down?” I asked, not a second later.
“No, I need to make my way back. My parents are going to be worried.” She clamped a palm against the umbrella, shaking it like willing the water out of a sullen dog. I shrugged again. This was their world, I was just living in it, making a minimum wage while at it. My phone rang and I was forced to reckon what awaited me back home in lieu of my world. A destiny of destitution I was king of. I rejected the call. It rang again. I rejected it. On the third ring, I picked it up and breathed down the receiver, hoping that the sheer nakedness, the audacity of my silence would do what a lifetime of words couldn’t. The gruffness had softened, and the tone lacked the fly-away quality of mid-morning grief; it was a day without a drink—at least until then. It was these days that I hated the most. The days I would be given a brief clutch of softness from a reserve that had none.
For weeks, I’d be thrown into the midst of chaos and clamor, and just when my ears would adjust to the din, I’d be given this. Words instead of rugged silence, gentleness instead of grunts, a sweltering sweetness instead of slurs. My Son and not Son of a Whore, absorption of paternity over a profane denial, manipulation instead of a maelstrom. It was these days that I hated most because it was these days I found it hardest to hate. It was these days I’d be forced to watch a tableau unwind, telling myself it was false when it was true, that it was true when it was false. Not knowing which one to believe. Not knowing which one I would be going home to, the difference between the two versions being but one bottomless cap of rum.
“You’ve been here for a while, haven’t you?” She asked, wringing the umbrella before slipping it into her white tote.
“Yeah. I remember you.” I said, noncommittally, as though I remembered everyone who walked through the doors of Uptown.
“Oh, do you now?” I looked up to find her grinning, the pleats of her dress bunching at her ankle; a fanned-out lime-colored accordion.
I found the grin irritating, presumptuous. “Yeah, there weren’t many university students who regularly created a row for the seat by the window. Even when it was occupied by customers.”
Her face fell, she bit her lip as she looked down at her feet. “Yeah, I was a tad much back then.”
I felt something akin to pity shift in my chest. She looked well-to-do, her hair no doubt blow-dried before it hung around in twirled ropes around her neck, dripping moisture. I could smell the floral scent of her perfume even from my seat by the door. She had no reason to be here, taking the mockery a spindly café server dished her. “Hey, whatever makes you memorable though, huh?” I smiled.
“I’ve always hated crowds.” She said, leaning her frame against the door. I was still not sure why she didn’t just step in, why she had to stand there, watching her feet plunge into the filthy water that the city let seep.
I shrugged. “India’s a bad place to be in, then.”
“It’s why I always wanted the window seat. It made me feel less…I don’t know, claustrophobic.”
I shrugged again, not knowing what to say. Young mothers want that seat so the sights outside could distract their kids long enough for them to finish their coffee. Couples want the window seat to live out some perverse, stupid image of romance. Teenagers want that seat for good lighting in the golden hour. Or to feel like they’re less alone. “That’s a coveted seat to many for a lot of reasons. Yours is just one of them.”
What I wanted to tell her was that she, with her lime-green dress and long, curly hair and eyelashes that rose like a store shutter on a warm evening–the dust motes sparkling for a brief speck before the shutter fell again–was not any more entitled to it. That the city-bred turn of her head or manicured nails or the clean, shiny plastic of the platinum card she’d used to swipe for her blueberry iced tea wouldn’t make her more special than any of the other contenders I’d have to pacify and smile to and swear under my breath at every day, before I told them that the seat had already been taken.
She laughed, an unexpected sound within the caved hollow of the café, made echoey by the rain outside. I looked up, suddenly surprised.
“You’re the only server who’s ever spoken to me like that.” “Like what?”
“Like I’m just anybody.”
I raised my eyebrows before narrowing my gaze. The brazen entitlement in the statement prickles the hairs on the back of my neck and it took every last ounce of willpower to keep my
eyes from rolling of their own accord. “You’re not. . . anybody?”
“Like I’m not here to get myself an iced blueberry tea. Like I’m here to see you. Almost as if we’ve already met, somewhere, in some other way.” She squinted. “Like we’re friends somehow.”
“We’re not friends.”
“But the impertinence. . . it’s almost warm, I’d say.” She grinned again. “Like you’re done with my shit already.”
“Oh, I am—” I bit my lip. The collar chafed against my neck again, as though a reminder. “Oh, don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” I looked back at the kitchen. How much longer for a goddamned iced tea?
“Hold your tongue. Suddenly remind yourself that I’m the customer and you, the server.” “You are the customer, I am the server. This pretty-girl routine, whatever this is, that’s not going to change that, is it?” Then I actually rolled my eyes–oh, sheer relief–but I did it exaggeratedly, with a theatrical little shake of my head, because while some part of me wanted her to take offense, some part of me didn’t.
Her eyes widened, a delightful pop of laughter accompanying the movement. “So you think I’m pretty!”
I huffed, peeling the collar away from my neck as I walked to the kitchen. Not a second later, Salim rushed out, paper bag in hand, muttering an apology like a prayer as he shot past me. As she took the bag, we made eye contact. “Bye, ol’ friend.” She yelled, as she gently extracted the plastic cup out of the brown bag.
“The window seat’s free!” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. She looked back and beamed, the black bat expanding in size over her figure before swallowing her up entirely. Salim threw me a strange look before going back to muttering under his breath again.
If you ask me how many days passed between that first time and the times that followed, I’d say a day. A moment. A minute on the wooden clock that had stopped working on my second day there and was condemned to its immutability for the rest of my career as a server. A breath.
And also a hundred years. Long enough. Too long. If you ask me when lime green slowly expanded and propounded, melted and gurgled, pushed and pulled and perplexed itself into the color of bricks, I would both know and I wouldn’t.
The rain, at least for the year, had subsided. The sun was out, but not in an unforgiving, saliva-drenching sort of way. I watched the epaulets of the warm, evening light dance in the entrance of Uptown, the thin slices of sunlight surrounding me like broken shards of Mother’s glass bangles. I briefly dipped back into the memory of it, into the pocket of lightness it held, before folding it back and stuffing it into a vacant crevice. We were out of customers again, and I sighed, wondering if I’d have to start looking for a new job soon.
When she walked in, I could barely recognize her. Her hair was chopped into a long bob, curled inwards, and the brick-red dress danced past her ankles, light, and chiffon. A summer dress if I’d ever seen one. “A blueberry iced tea.” She said, flashing a smile.
I took care not to act too fast, not to free the clutched bird of expectation from behind the steel cage of my face. “Thought I’d never see you again,” I muttered.
“Where could I go?” She asked, casually sweeping the hair off her shoulders.
I looked at her again, and for once, didn’t know what to say. Because there were a hundred answers to that question. She could have gone anywhere. She could have gotten anything. At least four cafés in our same street sell decent blueberry iced tea—at least half of them markedly better than Uptown. She could be anywhere, and the world would have allowed it, would have propelled her without a word. But she was here. Why was she here?
“You really like the blueberry tea here, huh?”
She put on an expression of mock heartbreak on her face, before jokingly clutching at her chest. “What makes you think I’m not here for the splendid banter?”
“I don’t know, people don’t usually visit restaurants for the banter.” I knew that I was being peevish, I knew that I was forcing her to say something that I could use as an excuse to distance myself from her, to pick the lock of expectation that she’d left behind. “They don’t usually flirt with the server boy before picking up their food and leaving, either.”
“Which part do you have a problem with, the flirting or the leaving?” She bit her lip to conceal the smirk underneath.
“Very clever. Always so clever.” I clenched my jaw, mostly at myself for walking into ten on ten of all her baits so far. “Why can’t you just be a normal customer and storm off or something? I don’t understand this.”
“You always have to be, don’t you?” She frowned, narrowing her gaze again, suddenly pinning me under the weight of it. Had anyone really looked at me before, I nearly found myself wondering.
I looked at her, a question playing dress-up in a glance.
“You’re always in such hot pursuit to be something. And you want everybody else to be something too. A server who’s just discovered class boundaries, a toffee-nosed customer–undoubtedly from money–who ought to shut up after she spells out her order. And the words that come out of my mouth? They’re either barked-out orders from the fucking bourgeoisie or the perfected, pretty-girl routine of flirtation that I’m executing on a poor little server boy because I lead a sad, rich, boring life. It can’t be anything else. Nothing, whatsoever.”
The slight undercurrent of rage bubbling under the words surprised me more than the fact that what I had said about the ‘pretty-girl routine’ had hurt her enough to hold on to. “So do you not come from money? Am I not the server boy?”
“God.” She muttered under her breath, rifling through her wallet for her card. “I feel sorry for your friends.”
That day, she did, in fact, storm off, the blueberry tea swishing in her grasp. She needled her way through the cars that had materialized on the road in the minutes it had taken for us to have that conversation, and I heard the ice cubes rattle inside her plastic cup like dry pebbles in a palm.
“Bye, ol’ friend,” I yelled out behind her, partly to get a rise out of her and partly because I wanted to call a truce. But she didn’t turn back.
Not a day later, I found her there as I made my way to draw in the metal shutters. “The kitchen’s closed, I’m sorry,” I said, not making eye contact. I vowed not to turn, to run a cleaver clean through whatever it was that she left behind, the pungency of it growing stronger after each visit.
“I didn’t come to order.” She mumbled. “I’m sorry, alright?”
I had to turn. “You came all the way here to apologize.” It came out sounding flat, a statement when it was anything but. In the lone light of the street bulb, I couldn’t make out the logical successor to brick-red, but what I did make out was that behind the fan of her eyelashes, dust motes still hung, like glitter in the air. What I did make out was that she had kind eyes–not in a coy, garnered way–but in a way that just was. “Why?”
“I shouldn’t have said what I said. You didn’t just discover class boundaries, you were born into that realization. I know I made you uncomfortable, and I definitely overstepped my grounds. I’m sorry.”
The apology was easy, clean in a way without being casual. And for a second, I allowed myself the reverie of being someone who mattered to this girl. I allowed myself the imaginary ease with which I could then wade through my days, the impossibility of that simple act shrinking like a strip of dried apricot under my tongue, sweet even on the days that were hard. I allowed myself the image of surrounding myself with people like her, who gave what they promised, who clucked when you screwed up and apologized when they did, who didn’t breathe fire one day and gentleness the next. What would that be like, to be deserving of that? Of reliability, of beauty and banter that just was. I looked at her soft, fine hair, a lock shimmering under the lightbulb in a way that made it look burnished, brushed in gold. I looked at her expensive dress that would never bear the indignity of a thread and needle when it gave way, at her strapless shoes that would change with the seasons, at the shiny coat of pink nail polish devoid of a single chip. I didn’t even know this girl’s name, and I didn’t want to. I don’t think I could have taken it if I did.
“You should probably head back, it’s late.” I heaved a sigh. It had been a long day at Uptown, the summers sending streams of regulars in for our frozen Milo delight.
“So you don’t accept my apology.” “I will if it’ll make you feel better.” “It would.”
“Then I do. It’s okay.”
*
At the café, the promise of rain hung in the air like the smell of balm; impenetrable and unavoidable to anyone who stepped outside the thresholds of their house, the notes of moisture gathering precedence as the heat sent everyone spiraling. I wanted to cry. The rain came and went, spitfires of water that careened into the entrance of Uptown, once again dousing everything the distinct shade of dirt brown. It was only when the sole mayflower tree in front of the café perked up, the foliage shedding itself to reveal its crisp coat of colors, that I allowed myself the luxury of hope again. I watched the tree each day, as it meandered along the hues of cider and hickory, mahogany and ochre, desire and despondency. On the third day, she walked in, in a dress the color of crushed marigolds, her smile and the familiar flick of her hair not betraying the months that had slipped in between, in a chasm forged entirely of my waiting.
This time, I couldn’t quite quell the smile that bubbled on my lips. I stood by the door, staring at her and, funnily enough, seeing the mayflower behind; two flowering trees that had somehow, impossibly, bloomed that day.
“I never know when you’ll come,” I said, my heart clattering breathlessly against my chest, not caring that I was being absurd, perhaps expecting too much.
“Neither do I.” She shrugged, like it was answer enough, like she hadn’t squeezed the last few months into a thin strip of yarn before tying it on my wrist the last time she had left.
In the winter I turned twenty-four, she came twice, long hair swinging in a soft, messy braid.
“You do know that we sell other drinks that aren’t blueberry iced tea, right?” I swiped her card and handed it back to her.
“What do you suggest I get the next time?” She asked, one foot sweeping casually over the entrance step.
My chest tightened at the mention of a next time, and it took my everything to not ask her when that would be, to not revolve the tight coil of my days around that singular date until it basked in the glow of that promise. “Actually, nothing. All of our other drinks suck.”
“You really don’t care about my patronage at all, do you?” She laughed, that same soda pop cadence briefly lighting up the interiors of Uptown. “Okay, if I was a friend, what would you buy me?”
“We’re not friends,” I responded without looking up.
“Ugh, fine.” She huffed dramatically. “We’re not friends. But it’s not a terrible idea, is it now, server boy? What is it that scares you so much about being my friend? What is the worst thing that could happen?”
She was in a quizzical mood now, I could tell. Every word that came out of my mouth would be parceled in a retort before it landed back on my lap. I shook my head. “It’s not about what scares me. It’s the fact that we don’t know each other.”
“That’s a lie. I’ve known you for years. Sure, I’ve never bothered to ask you your name–and you’ve returned the courtesy–but I’ve known you a lot longer than you’ve known me.” The levity in her voice had erased itself of any traces. “I remember you from when I was in university. You’ve served me more times than I can count. I recognized you way before you recognized me.”
I looked up, blinking. I wasn’t self-defeating. I knew that I had a nose that was slender enough to be asked to be painted by a beach road artist once. I knew that out of the three girls I had seen until then, only one of them had dumped me. I knew that I had a side profile that, if the lights were just the right amount of haze, you’d look at twice. I knew that I was perceptive enough to mourn what once was, resilient enough to keep myself from mourning what hadn’t passed yet. I knew that I had my mother’s eyes and my father’s tenacity–long after his had run out. But I also knew that I had the clarity to survey the remains of my life at twenty-four with eyes that were neither obscured by the prospect of new chances or beguiled by a convenient escape from my means. I knew that I was the sum total of the people that had passed before me, of the mistakes that had already been made, of the chances that already rang hollow with smoke and clear liquid. I knew that it was too late, too early, too little, too much. I knew that I didn’t know how to love. I knew that the eyes that turned to take a second look would wander soon enough, suddenly encountering the emptiness of their object, soured by it. I knew that I wasn’t memorable. This much, I knew.
“You’re lying,” I said, and hoped that she wouldn’t counter it, that she would have nothing to say to singe the fire paper tucked inside the pocket of my blue server uniform, the one that chafed my neck.
That winter, the city was a bruise. The sky ran in thick, calloused streaks of mournful blues and mauves and I kept my eye out for blood. It had been six months and seven days since the last visit. Salim had been replaced twice and I had extended my working hours–popping in on the weekends under the pretext (read: reality) of having little else to do–for fear of missing her. At night, sleep sparked like firework ruptures, coming and going before I could catch it in my palm, before I could gather enough time to hold on to it. At the café, I waited, wide-eyed and laconic; a cauterized wound curled in on itself.
Somewhere between listerine and lapis, she walked in one day, in a slate blue dress. “One blueberry iced tea.” I rubbed at my eyes, standing like a boy looking up at the unforgiving expanse of the sky, eyes planted on a kite he thought he’d lost.
“What if you come once and see somebody else standing in my place?” I had asked once.
“I’d order an iced tea, pay him and leave.” “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I thought we were friends.” I bit my lip then, lowered my gaze so she wouldn’t see everything that swam in my eyes, the sheer weight of not just the feeling but of carrying it around like a sin from the past. Days and nights–whole weeks–that would hinge on her answer. “I thought we were anything but.”
She had walked out that day, iced tea in her hand, and I’d known then that she wouldn’t drink it. That she’d probably push it into the hands of some tousle-haired cousin or shove it down the bright pink trash can that lined the street opposite Uptown.
I never dared to look for her outside of the café, always tucking my eyes to the floor, to my feet. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like–to watch her make her way in the world in the same casual, insolent, almost brashly honest way she had demanded my friendship in, her arm looped unthinkingly in that of a cousin’s or a friend’s. A man’s. I couldn’t imagine running into her at a tea stall or amidst the crowded aisles of a shopping mall. Couldn’t imagine her eyes brushing over me like skimming over a spot on the wall, not even lingering long enough to register the absence of blue on my shoulders, dribbling down my chest. The thought of her seeing me like I was, the sheer puniness of my existence put on full display, crammed amidst the aisles of expensive linen shirts, mortified me, crushed my insides like a handful of shaved ice.
Uptown was our bridge, the only way we could meet, the dirty verandah fate’s sole blind spot. It was in Uptown that she shone like a stained glass window, a curio cabinet full of colored cloche hats that I could pick and keep. In Uptown, I had lines, I had a costume, cues to look out for and a character to carry out. In Uptown, I was the boy who would hand her a drink in plastic, and she was the girl who’d never refuse.
I don’t know when the visits truly dwindled, although the signs should have told me. I was wide-eyed, but clearly not looking enough. In conch pink, she had seemed pale, tired but still upbeat enough to attempt retorts, winking as she took a sip before leaving. In orange popsicle, however, she was withdrawn, acerbic–almost angry–and I had been afraid to venture into the cragged territory of a jibe, had quickly handed her the tea for fear of staining the next few months with her leftover distaste. But it was the day of the raspberry slushie that was my favorite, that I’d never forget. I hadn’t said anything, still teetering on the memory of the last time, of the coldness she’d unsheath the minute I’d forget about its possibility.
“Looking a little dull, server boy?”
I didn’t look up and she cocked her head, trying to follow my eyes, playing catch with her own. The pink of her dress matched her lipstick, and she shimmered, the dust motes of her liquid stare settling between us.
“I almost thought I wouldn’t catch you today. It’s the weekend.”
“Where could I go?” I mumbled, throwing her words back at her, the words sitting snug in my mouth, perhaps better than in hers.
“I’m glad I did, though. You’re my favorite server, for what it’s worth.”
“That supposed to mean something to me or something?” I was bristling at her audacity.
At her simple belief that she could undo months worth of anxious, painstaking waiting, of ripping my heart out of my chest as it throbbed in my mouth, with a throwaway word of kindness, with faux-praise. The fact that it worked infuriated me almost as much as the words themselves.
“Ah, that same impertinence that I’ve grown to love.” She chortled, and that day I’d scraped it on my mind with a chalk pencil, so I’d have something to stencil the rest of my days in, to draw in joy through the curves of that sound. “You absolute fucking moron. You think anybody in their right mind would love blueberry iced tea as much as it seems I do?” I looked up. “You don’t like blueberry iced tea?”
“I mean,” She squinted. “It’s alright. It’s sweet and cold and something I can just about drink. It’s something I occasionally enjoy, but not enough to warrant a trip to the city every time I want to have it.”
My heart thumped inside like a child behind shut doors, cracking it open just a bit to let in a slice of light, a warm band of sunshine that would ripple over pale, cracked skin. I bit my lip, not knowing what to make of anything.
“Why don’t you order something you actually like then?”
I expected her to laugh, but her face suddenly turned placid, eyebrows dipping, dust motes briefly dimming. “Because then I’d come back more often.”
“Suddenly, I’m finding myself wishing that I worked somewhere with a better drink menu.” I coughed and swallowed the swell of feelings that had risen. “Because as it stands, you shouldn’t spend a single penny more than you do on this disgusting place.”
The laughter struck belatedly. “They really should hire a new server, you know.” And I had tagged my grin along with hers.
When she left, her drink was halfway done–more leeway than she’d ever given me, more time than we’d ever shared together, standing a meter away from each other, on two sides of a dingy threshold that needed a wash, her favorite window seat laying empty and waiting as always. I should have known then. Before walking, she had turned back, her gaze landing on mine again. “Would you say we’re friends now, server boy?”
I looked down at my hands. Three years had passed since that first visit. Enough time to realize both the possibility and the paucity of moments like these. “I’d say we’re friends.”
That was the last visit. But it can’t have been the last, could it? Two years and nine months had passed since I’d seen her walk away, dressed in a raspberry slushie, hair swinging as though in a wave. Another monsoon rolled in, the rains beating down like a hymn, and I sat behind the counter, perched behind the pixelated window, watching the rain and waiting, scared to take my eyes away.
Father had died, leaving me the messy, capricious home that still smelt of his rage in the early evenings. I thought I’d feel better after he died, but the lack of his fury on the days I returned now left even more space for emptiness, for thoughts that would flit in and out, for colors that sparkled lime-green, brick-red, pickle-yellow, slate blue, wildflower purple, and raspberry pink. Colors that both existed and didn’t. Colors I both knew the name of and didn’t. Maybe tomorrow then. Or the day after. Surely she’d drop by the month after that, right? I sat there, as the hours dripped into each other, smelling the moisture that the season towed along with it, knowing but never telling myself the lesson I’d learned at the tail-end of all those storms as a child; rains that come, they find a way to go.
Rida Abdul Jaleel is a 23-year-old recent Literature Graduate who has spent her entire life around the comfort of books—specifically Contemporary and Indian Realism. While she dabbled in rudimentary poetry in the younger grades, it was only at the tail-end of high school that she discovered a small flair for prose as well. Since then, her life and career have been a whirlwind of choices based entirely off of this passion. She did her UnderGrad and PostGrad in Literature and continued to write short and long stories - but lost the intrigue for poetry somewhere along the way - and managed to self-publish a novel in the year 2016. The novel is called What Lies Beyond and it was unveiled at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF). Her other hobbies include crooning alone to her trusted uke, reviewing books, and watching incredibly slow arthouse movies.
In 2021, her creative non-fiction piece The Garage Sale was published in the Rathalla Review. In early 2022, her short fiction Park Street was published in the Breakbread Literary Anthology.