Gigi and I saw a movie that afternoon, a cheesy romance flick. It was kind of dumb, about a girl who was desperate to lose her virginity, but there was one scene that had me giggling: the girl and some guy were trying to have sex and the both of them were totally awkward. It would be cruel to say that other people's misfortunes were fun to watch, but it was just a movie, so I thought I could get away with it. I had fun that day.
On Saturday, I watched Marlene while Barret and Cloud went out to get my birthday gifts. The party was coming up in three weeks, but even that couldn't compare with the Sunday that was rapidly approaching.
When Sunday came, I spent hours waiting for six o'clock, when work would start. Looking back on it, it seemed stupid to have wasted all that time waiting, but I couldn't help it. You know, it was one of those times where everything seems boring up until the moment you've been waiting for.
I had a little issue with my hair. Down as usual, or up? Sef liked it up, but I already wore it like that on Friday and doing it again might send him the message that I paid too much attention to every little thing he said. I thought for a moment about calling Gigi and asking her advice, but then decided not to. I'd feel kind of silly doing that, and besides, guys didn't really pay much attention to hair anyway. That had probably been a one-time thing.
My verdict: up with the 'do. Sef might have liked it, but so did I, and that was my reasoning. I did it for me...mainly.
And so I floated into work that day. I was very lost in thought. Times like that were when I thanked God for reality. Work was very busy that evening and it kept my hands full, even though it also ended up leaving me with a short fuse as far as my temper went. Customers could be so aggressive, even the polite ones, when there was so many of them to deal with in one sitting.
Barret and Cloud dropped by around six-thirty with a very hyper Marlene, complete with a box of crayons and some drawing paper. "That's her thing now," Barret explained. "Gotta fridge door full of stuff."
It was cute, having her there scribbling away, quiet the way she always was. Sometimes I forgot she was sitting there at the bar, surrounded by Cloud, Barret, and a few patrons who were halfway down the road to drunkenness (and fortunately seated a safe distance away from her).
When I had a moment free from customer orders, I told Gigi in so many words that Sef was going to show up tonight. "If you see him come in, let me know."
She smirked at me. "I'll be lucky if I see 'im. It's too crowded in here. What's our lawful occupancy? Half these people are probably against the fire code."
Not that anyone would care if a fire started here, I thought morosely. Mentioning organized institutions usually got me a little depressed, given the world's situation. In Quintz though, I could forget and remain forgetful for a while, until something reminiscent was brought up. That was the advantage to being cut off from most major cities.
Gigi took interest in Marlene's artwork after a time. "Aw, she's an artist," she cooed. "That's one of the few talents I don't have." She impulsively left most of the work in the hands of Antoine and I to go inspect the crayon box sitting on the bar.
Cloud got a bit irritated at her, as per normal. "It's a crayon box, see?" he quipped. "I'll give you one just like it if you hurry with my shot."
"Sixty-four?" said Gigi, reading the print on the box and completely ignoring him.
"Yeah, the mother of all crayon boxes." Barret half-smiled. "It don't get any better than sixty-four."
Marlene was still diligently coloring away. She reached for another crayon when Cloud cupped his hands around his mouth and called to Gigi, "Get back to work! If you do..." He reached over and pulled out a random crayon. "I'll give you...magenta."
Marlene balked. "No!" She nabbed the crayon and put it back in its place.
Gigi scoffed Cloud. "Pfft. If I wanted crayons, I'd just get me a bigger box. Like the one hundred and twenty-eight box."
Marlene looked up from her work, interested.
"You jus' had to get her started," Barret began, head in hand now. "I jus' bought those crayons yesterday."
"So?" said a slightly miffed Gigi. "I'm just informing you that there's a bigger crayon box than sixty-four. One twenty-eight, it has all the colors you'll ever need...and all the colors you'd never use. Like titanium yellow. Or ass crack black."
Marlene gasped theatrically and put her hands over her ears. Barret cut in angrily, "Hey, hey, watch your mouth."
"And then get my shot," Cloud added.
When I had a free moment, I got Cloud his shot, came up beside Gigi and handed it to him. "Back to work, hon," I reminded her. "And while we're still on crayons, as long as Marlene's around, it's butt crack black."
Antoine passed us by briefly with empty disposable cups in his hands. "The hell are you talking about? I need help here."
Gigi and I left the bar and immersed ourselves in our jobs once more. "We're talking about crayon colors," Gigi enlightened him. "Like a---butt crack black."
"What? That's not a color," Antoine called back over his shoulder.
"Yes it is. It's the color of your hair." Gigi lightly ruffled Antoine's hair as she passed him by, en route to making a sandwich as per a customer request. I was handling a few orders at the time, and nearly ended up laughing in the midst of one.
That was basically work in a nutshell until seven o'clock. Sef apparently showed up right on the dot, because Gigi's words were, "Oooh, he's punctual! That's gotta be a good thing."
I looked up and saw his big form coming in through the glass doors. We made eye contact in a heartbeat, drawn to each other almost instantly. As you could imagine, there was a part of me that shouted a warning the moment our eyes met. It was probably just lingering ill feelings from our last encounters. I bit down on it quickly and wished it away. There was no need to feel that way, I assured myself. Things were okay now.
I went out of my way to pass by Cloud, Barret, and Marlene and mouthed exaggeratedly "he's here." Immediately Barret and Cloud's heads snapped around and skimmed over the crowd, trying to pick him out. When I was able to pass them by again, I stopped for a little bit. "Did you see him?" I whispered.
"Who?" Marlene asked.
I smiled, feeling silly. I was still unable to put a term to the oddity that was Sef. How about boyfriend? No, not yet, though I was pretty sure that I wanted him to be one of those. Friend? No, he wasn't quite that either. I realized then just how badly I needed to get to know him. I could tell he was hiding a lot from me, from everyone. Crush object? Yeah, that would work. So I told Marlene, "It's the guy I really really like."
She cocked her head to one side and stopped her coloring. The green crayon she was using was still entwined in the fingers of her right hand. "Is he gonna be your boyfriend?" she inquired innocently.
My grin turned sillier. I started blushing. "I'd like him to be," I answered after a time.
"Don't see 'im," Barret remarked, still looking over all the seated customers. "I didn't catch 'im comin' in."
"Me neither," said Cloud. "What's he look like? You never told me," he added pointedly, turning around to face me again. He looked suspicious, an expression that I never liked to see on him. "It's not like you to be so secretive."
"I'm not being secretive," I huffed. "I just..." Oh, he was right. I had been being secretive; I just never gave it any thought. My feelings for Sef weren't something I wanted to advertise. I didn't know why, but I felt they were too deep to be exposed, at least not for a while. "You never asked---"
"You never told. Nnot much anyway."
"You wanna tell me where he is or what?" Barret intruded impatiently. "I'm still lookin' and I can't find 'im. It's like he's the goddamn invisible man."
Marlene rebuked her father with the poke of a crayon. "Daddy!"
Swearing or not, I was so glad for Barret's interference I could've thanked him right there. I scanned the heads of the people again and found Sef where he had sat the last time he visited The Cafe---far off to my right, near the window. It was so crowded in the little eatery that the table he sat at had no other chairs aside from the one he was using. The other two that should've been there had probably been moved to other tables. There were tables with ten or twelve people at them. Sef's lucid eyes cut through the commotion like a pair of green knives. Something about the way he was sitting---bent forward slightly, hands folded on the tabletop---told me that he didn't care for the crowds, and that he was itching to be rid of them.
"He's all the way over on the right." I pointed in that direction. "Tall, with the black coat and the really light hair..."
Silver hair. It flashed in the artificial lighting as he got to his feet, locked eyes with me again, and gestured, indicating that he wanted to see me outside. If he could, I thought. How was I going to slip out of work now? I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting Mr. Weiss to prod me into getting back to my job, which I should be doing anyway, considering how he already let me off the hook for drinking the last time.
"That's him? Why's 'e leavin'?" Barret wondered aloud.
Cloud hadn't turned around again. There was something funny about his expression. He remarked offhandedly, "Maybe he doesn't like crowds."
Barret turned around now, looking confused. "Ain't that crowded in here. We saw worse in Midgar---Wall Market on Fridays. Makes this place look like a wide-open space."
I didn't know what to think, but I knew what I wanted to do. I had to go out there and see him, even if it meant leaving only two people here to handle all the customers. I was afraid that if I didn't go out there, he'd leave and never show up again. Should that have bothered me so much? Maybe not, but I was getting attached. I couldn't help it; I did that way too easily.
I told Gigi what I planned to do. I didn't count on getting opposition from her, but I did.
"Dude, Tifa, ya have to know when not to push it," she told me. "I just got us off getting fired already. You leave now and there isn't anything I can say. Besides, I ain't dealing with all these people with just Antoine here. You couldn't POSSIBLY want to punish me like that. After all I do for you," she started mockingly.
Mockingly, but it still insulted me a little, all thanks to the short fuse I had due to job strain. It really figured that crowds would come when I was expecting someone. "It's not punishing," I fired back. "I'm worried if I don't go out there, he's gonna take off---"
"And if you do go out there, you lose your job."
"Not necessarily. Look, I won't be gone long. Just a few minutes! I'll tell him this was a bad time and see if I can arrange some other meeting, or something..."
"Ugh, Tifa, just ask the guy out, for Christ's sake! This beating-around-the-bush thing gets tiring real fast. You'll lose him that way anyway if you keep that up. So just get to the point!" She fixed me with her usual mischievous stare. "If you make it really, really, really quick, I just might be able to cover for you."
I bit my lip and started getting shy. I never liked to do the asking out part; that was the guy's line as far as I was concerned. I felt more comfortable being approached. I couldn't help it if Sef and I picked a bad time for this, but doing nothing about it would only make it worse. "You should tell Mr. Weiss to call in some of the other workers," I advised Gigi. "The three of us can't really handle all this."
"Oh, he's making calls now. Antoine tipped him off about that. See, he occasionally does a few smart things. Now get out there damn it, before I change my mind about covering you!" She gave me a little push forward.
I took things from there, though I had to backtrack for a moment to drop off the dishcloth I had in hand. When I got outside, I found out that it was pouring. Sef was still there, lingering against the building, clad in his usual long black coat and hat. His eyes had been staring out into the street, apparently in thought. I didn't get a chance to wonder what he was thinking about, because that was when he turned to me.
"I'm sorry," he started, a bit uncomfortably. Apologies didn't seem to be his thing. He seemed jumpy about them. "I don't like crowds very much. I usually try to avoid them."
Hey, Cloud had been right about that! "I can see what you mean," I said feebly, throwing a glance back at The Cafe's glass doors. "I think this was a really bad time. I can't stay out here very long, I'm so busy. But I didn't want to just leave you out here. Someone's covering for me, but only for a few minutes..."
"Tifa."
Damn it, I was rambling. I'd been a bit shy during our previous meeting, but now I was just acting silly. I hated being rushed. There was pressure to make things right here, pressure to go back to work, pressure to avoid getting fired at work because of pressure to make things right here... When I get home, I told myself, I'm making a cup of tea and locking myself in my room so I can bang my head against the wall. Then maybe everything would sort itself out.
Sef's eyes were unusually clear, very piercing. But at the same time, they told me he was uneasy. Was it with me, now that he was away from the crowds? There always seemed to be a deeper level to him, and just when I thought I was going to be able to travel far enough to see it, I'd get a wakeup call and find myself just scratching at the surface. It frustrated me at the same time that it made me curious.
"I understand you're going out of your way, but there's something you should know...before anything goes any further." His eyes looked away momentarily, then came back to me. Their power cut right through me; I was pinned there to that spot on the pavement, getting soaked in the rain but not caring one bit about it. "There's a lot you don't seem to know. And there's a lot I'm still confused about." He paused there, taking his chin into his hand. The shadow from his hat cast his features into darkness, making his eyes all the spookier. I was tempted to go on a mental tangent about how sexy that made him look, but now wasn't the time.
So I kicked that thought to the back of my head. For later. "What are you confused about?"
"Well, for one thing...you."
My eyes popped out of my head. Cue bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Me?"
"Generally speaking." He paused, then realized that doing that was awkward and went on to explain himself. "I came here because I really wanted to see you, but I can't figure out why..." He stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. "You must think I sound stupid."
Could you turn around and pick me up? Yeah, because you left me a few sentences back. "What? No, no, it's not that. I just..." Was lost. He did it again---he let me get so far and then showed me how much farther I still had to go in understanding him. I felt like someone blindfolded me and sent me out into the street, leaving me to grope my way across.
The first obstacle. Those three words were in my mind when I stepped closer to him. All those little musings about helping him, about finding out what he had to hide and making it better, just rushed to the front of my mind. If I kept telling myself I couldn't go as deep as he'd let me, then I'd lose him. And I didn't know what he was to become to me, not yet anyway, so I was taking great precautions to keep him close.
He smiled at me then, wanly, as I drew closer. "You have your hair up again."
I chuckled. Men, they never knew how much thinking and debating and agonizing went into that process. "You said you liked it." Even though I swore I did it for myself, but what did it matter at that point? The answer kind of fell out of my mouth.
"And I do." And he started adjusting it again. I didn't tell him, but there was something really nice about his touch this time. Nothing overly shocking, just a pleasantness that made me very comfortable. I was at ease; I forgot about everything then as it melted away into oblivion. There was the rain, his fingers, and me. That was it.
But then he broke the moment and pulled away. "I have to apologize. I'm not very good with other people." He frowned there.
I gave him a smile as reassurance. "Don't worry about that. You're just shy. I'm that way too."
"Oh? I would've never thought. You don't seem that way at all."
"Well, when I have to be forward, I do it. Sometimes people have to break out of their shells."
Sef turned pensive at that remark; I could read it in his eyes. "Perhaps," he agreed with me after a time, but the tone of his answer was moot. "Well, I don't want to keep you out here any longer. You're getting soaked---"
"So are you," I pointed out, poking at his chest. Kind of a bold move if you thought about it, since there was an underlying feeling of wariness around him. He sounded naive now, but that was apparently reserved for relationships. He obviously had no experience in that department.
He'll learn from me, I decided. I made my commitment there. Yes, I was going to go after this, after him.
His eyes caught my finger when I poked at him. Was he amused? He never commented on it. "When can I meet you here next? When it's hopefully not crowded," he added as an afterthought, glancing distastefully at the interior of The Cafe through the windows.
"Come here on Tuesday morning. The earlier, the better. It shouldn't be crowded then. I hope not, anyway."
He nodded acceptingly. "All right. Until then." And he said that very smoothly. Ugh, me without a little tape recorder to play that back over and over again to my utter delight. He made to leave.
I stopped him. "Wait! Don't leave like that!" I ran up to him and turned him around. "We're not business partners or total strangers---it's okay if you hug me before you go."
His eyes grew large. "It is?"
I nodded assuredly. "Yep. I'm a very huggy person, so you don't need to be shy about that." It had to start somewhere---the contact, that is. And what better way to start than with a simple little hug? Heck, even my friends got those when I was in the mood.
There was another clumsy pause before we ended up in each other's arms in a flash. It happened so fast: one minute I was cold and wet and anxious, the next I was surrounded by him, drowning in great arms concealed under that black coat. It was a funny thing---I never thought about how strong he was until I was this close to him. Oh, sure, I could tell from a mile away that I was just a little scrap of nothing much compared to him, and I was no fragile china doll myself, but studying from a distance was different from actually feeling a person. It brought back all those memories of Thursday night when he carried me home.
I'd never forget that, no, not ever.
He smelled nice, of some faint cologne that I couldn't put a name to, combined with something earthy and masculine. It wasn't overpowering; it was as subtle as his nature. When we pulled apart I found myself longing for another chance to steep myself in it. We smiled at each other.
"You have a lot to learn," I told him teasingly.
His response was one I didn't expect. "So do you, but if we're both lucky, I'll never have to tell you." He was all grace then, for the moment: he leaned forward and gave me a fleeting peck on the forehead, then tipped his hat, said, "I'll see you on Tuesday," and turned and left.
Wow. Er, well, at least I got him to overcome his shyness...a little.
But what did he mean? If we were both lucky, he'd never have to tell me? Human nature being human nature, I was dying to know what he was talking about. At the same time, however, I got that creepy feeling again, the one that I was sure had left me a while back.
What did I just commit myself to?
I felt robotic as I turned and headed back inside The Cafe. It was almost like a reflex---Sef was gone, must go back inside. I weaved my way around the crowded tables and back to the bar, where everyone was waiting for me. Antoine and Gigi were busy of course, so I went to Cloud, Barret, and Marlene first.
Marlene wasn't interested in coloring anymore. "What happened, what happened?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but Cloud cut me off when he made a little kissing noise. Barret shot him a corner-of-the-eye glance and chuckled that deep, rumbling chuckle of his.
Marlene looked from Cloud to Barret to me, saucer-eyed and confused.
"Am I right?" Cloud asked. There was humor in his voice, but it was pretty much absent from his eyes. I didn't answer him right away, because I was too busy trying to figure out what he was thinking.
"Oh, well---no, not exactly. Just a little peck."
"S'gotta be more than that. You was out there for a while," Barret leered at me.
"What're you talking about?" Marlene asked.
"Oh, nothing," I answered as innocently as I could, when Antoine passing me by with two plates of something for some customers. He leaned over and made kissy noises at me.
I groaned. "Oh, quit it."
"'Oh' nothing. I saw you out there," he informed me. He sounded accusing, but in a playful way. I watched him hand the customers their food. "Oh, and Trish and Jessi should be showing up soon. Weiss called them in."
Commence the gossip wagon, I thought. I put myself back to work, washing the dishes. I noticed then that I always got stuck doing the dishes, usually, but I had too much on my mind to devote further thought to that. I should be happy, but I couldn't get Sef's words out of my head. What wasn't he telling me?
Gigi sidled up to me then. "Finally working again, are you?" she teased. "You heard Jessi and Trish are comin', right?"
I nodded.
"So...what happened out there? I tried to spy on you, but I was too busy."
I had my hands in dishwater then. I didn't bother to take them out; I just stopped what I was doing. "Well...for starters, he's shier than I ever thought was possible---in a relationship, I mean."
Gigi knitted her brows. "What'd he do?"
"He said some things that have me thinking. He said he felt confused about me, like he didn't understand what was happening between us. He sounded like he was trying to solve a puzzle or something, like, really thinking it over deeply. It was weird."
"Well, he was always a little weird. But at least he's hot," Gigi assured me, grinning suggestively. "Can't go wrong what that. Hey, wait, he's a writer, isn't he? They're weird...aren't they? Or am I thinking of some other job where people are all weird? Ahh, throw me a bone here, Tif. I'm all confused."
She patted me on the back hard and left me to my work. I started picking up a shot glass and scrubbing at it absently. I was all confused too; I could empathize. What was I getting myself into? I could only hope it would end up giving me more blessings than burdens down the road.
I could only hope that, because I had a vague feeling that there was no turning back now.
