Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - 2. Waiting and Wandering from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Along the shore of Lake Sierra stood the café. It was aptly named after the lake. The café had a perfect view of the bridge over the lake and the perfect shape that it had. Perfect for climbing and staring closer to the water, or perfect for a murder to happen and no one would ever know about it. From the corner of the old café came the thoughts of Erica, who was eating a bagel for her breakfast. She was looking through her scrapbook of the fresh images that she had drawn only a few weeks ago.

As she was perusing, she stared up at the clock, 25th June 1959; a nice summer’s day where anything could happen. Anything could happen to anyone on that day. But she was happy. Eating her morning bagel and drinking her weak espresso, as she did every morning before she went out to do more artistic work. Before her creative juices stopped flowing for the day, she returned home in time to meet Ivan after school. Then she spent her evening relaxing in her comfy yet luxurious living room while Ivan either spent the night in his room or out with his friends from school. He had a variety of strange friends from school, a lot of them very eccentric and vibrant but Erica had not noticed this. She preferred to pay no attention to whom Ivan was friends. She would have preferred to keep him in, to make him continue his studies and learn how to be a man in this day and age of change.

Even though Erica hated to admit it, she knew that the world was changing. She didn’t know if it was going to be the highlight of the world, but she was under the impression that it was going to be mankind’s downfall when it changed from the norm of the regimented 40s when she grew up. She opened the book in which she had been drawing and began to sketch the clock on the wall. She did a lot of things often that she thought to be important. “A clock is an important thing to many people,” she thought. She could see a girl staring at the clock at the bar. This was Mellissa, a school friend of Ivan’s, who worked part time after school. Sometimes she worked during the school week when she didn’t have to go in. Mellissa was staring over in the direction of the clock when her eye diverted in the direction of Erica, who turned her head at the exact same moment. They maintained eye contact for a few seconds when Erica then sharply looked away. Erica thought to herself, “Is it me or are they everywhere?” She laughed which made Mellissa stir slightly.

Mellissa turned around and started to talk to a man who was also behind the bar at the café. This man was Carlson, the manager and owner of Café Sierra. A nice bloke but still flawed. He flirted with anything with two legs... Literally.

Erica placed her pencil on the table and began to sip at her espresso when she noticed another young man. She had met him before, forced into a photograph a few weeks ago, but she had not noticed this before. She had not noticed his beauty. He was not perfect by any way, but he was perfect for her. Tall. Brown hair. Always perfectly quaffed. Eyes that could kill. Not to mention his film star smile. Erica began to wonder about him a lot deeper than she had ever before, but she had to turn her mind off from such thoughts about men. She had believed that she had to suffer for her mistake with that sailor 17 years ago.

As her mind began to drift back to regular thoughts that she should be having, Mellissa, the annoying little girl we talked about earlier, approached her table. “Hi there.” Mellissa looked quite joyful. She wasn’t particularly attractive, her hair a wavy red and her face distorted from what seemed like a broken nose.

Erica thought to herself, “Ask no questions, get no answers.”

“Hello, what do you want?”

“I was wondering if you wanted a little refresher... if you do... I’d be happy to oblige.” As she said this, she bent over the table, showing off the red slinky bra that she was wearing, and Mellissa started to rub the rim of Erica’s cup. Erica began to stare at her with a look of complete dread. She had never been approached by a woman like this before. It felt strange...

Erica slowly began to pick up her belongings and said to Mellissa, “No... I’ll be fine... please go away.”

As Mellissa turned back to the bar, Carlson, the manager, could be seen saying, “I can’t believe you just tried to seduce your best friend’s mother... have you no shame?” Mellissa shook her head from side to side and smiled.

Erica picked up her pen, placed it in her pocket, drank the remains of her espresso and raced across the floor towards the door of the café.

As she left, the young man at counter noticed she had left her notebook resting on her table. Erica kept on walking and Tony raced across the floor. As soon as his feet crossed onto the tiled section of the floor, he slid foolishly across the floor and into a set of tables. He shouted, “I’m okay... do not panic.”

Mellissa and Erica both burst out into fits of laughter. Erica carried on walking to the door. The young man picked up the book and walked cautiously over to her, learning from his previous mistake, and said, “Excuse me Miss, but you left this book.”

She looked down at the book and realised she had left it, but she did not do it by mistake; she planned for this to happen. “Oh... did I?” she said in her weak and innocent tone. She looked up and stared into his eyes. She was encaptured by them. The way they glistened against the low lighting in the room gave her feelings she had never felt before. She stared into them as if the sun had not shown itself for days and the only light she could see was emitting from these perfect eyes... As she looked at him she realised that he was rather good looking. His face was perfectly clear, not a blemish or spot in sight, his breath smelt of a combination of mint and lemon. The way he held himself, she could tell he was a man who needed someone, who needed a partner... A woman like her. The way he held his hip with his wrist and his leg slightly bent to the side desperately begged for her to service him.

As her mind trailed off, the man said, “Excuse me, are you alright? You look ill.”

She came back into focus and realised he had caught her staring at him. She mumbled, “I’m okay, thanks for the book. I’ll see you later.” And without another word, she fled out of the café and back home to the familiar surroundings that she craved.

As the time went on, Tony found himself drifting back to thoughts of the stranger. The strange girl who he had met before, but had never really looked at before. The way her body was just the perfect size, not too tall, not too short. Her wavy blonde hair was something that he would be ready to die for. He found himself staring at her until he realised she was staring at him. He had to say something to break the awkward silence and he did. Only to have her storm out on him. He sighed to himself.

As he sighed, Mellissa took herself into the back room to clean out the dishwasher before her shift at work ended.

As she took herself into the kitchen, a fifteen year old boy, wearing a light blue top and brown cotton trousers, entered the café. He looked around the place, noticing that his mother was not there. He wandered over to the bar and talked to Tony, the man at the bar, and began to speak to him. “Excuse me have you seen a woman about 35 sitting over there recently?” He had quite a high nasally tone to his voice, which seemed to also have an angelic quality.

Tony stood there and stared at Ivan for a few seconds, receiving feelings about another man he hadn’t felt for a long time. He said to Ivan “I’m not sure, but I’m sure I can help you out in other ways my boy.”

As this was said, Mellissa came out of the back room and said to Tony, “Oh leave him alone. He is just a kid.”

Tony smiled innocently at Mellissa as said “Oh... sorry. I didn’t realise his age.” As this was said, he began to distract himself from the situation.

Mellissa took off her apron and hung it on the coat stand, as it was 6 pm and the end of her shift. She wandered over to Ivan and began to talk to him “Yeah I saw her earlier, she was in here but she left quite abruptly... I think I scared her off...”

Ivan poked her on the chest. “Of course you would scare her. You know what she’s like with people like us.” He put his tongue out at her.

As he did this, she slapped him lightly on the face. “Don’t play that game with me boy! I know what you have. At least you found someone like you! We had best go... it looks like it’s going to rain...” They began to make their way out of the café.

Carlson stared up at the clock on the wall and shouted to Tony, “Once you get that mess cleaned up you can have an early night... it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get busy tonight.”

Eager to escape his day of work, he rushed over to clean the mess that he had made. As he bent down, he noticed a piece of paper on the floor. He reached for it and noticed it was something. The facts didn’t really come to his mind at that time but he knew who had drawn it. Erica. The girl he stared at earlier. For it was a drawing of him...

**

Erica took her aging walking stick and began to walk over to the bar with her three photographs of a variety of people and sighed. She saw a newspaper on the table “25th June 1969”. As she looked up she noticed a coat on the stand. She thought to herself, “He can’t be here... he left as I came in...” She then struggled her way over to the bar and sat down. Then she saw it. The sight that burned her eyes to see. She saw her own son. Her flesh and blood. Her pure son. Never befouled by another person. Kissing. And not just kissing. Feeling, exploring, needing. With another man. The rush of feeling that she had could have killed her. She did not quite know what to think. Her only instinctive reaction was to take a page of her scrapbook containing pictures of her son, her straight façade of a son, and tear it and keep it in a place no one would ever look... inside her underwear. She stared at the sight before her, her son who was practically making love to another man and none other than the boy from across town, Brandon. She stared at them and not even the angels could stop her from weeping.