My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant Read online

  “What, Bluebelle, you’ve been here ALL this time and you STILL can’t make a coffee?”

  “Shut up, Max. I want to do one of those designs on the top.”

  “Latte art!” Marcel smiles proudly. GO AWAY, MARCEL. “I can do boobs.”

  Max tuts at Marcel. “I’ll show you.” He smiles at me. Sometimes he looks at my mouth when he speaks. His head is newly shaved. I want to say Have you had a haircut, Max? but I’m a bit worried that it’s slightly forward.

  “Do the boobs if you want to get a better tip!” Marcel interrupts.

  “It doesn’t make the coffee taste any better,” Max argues.

  “But it shows you care!”

  “Oh look, here’s your chance!” I point as an old lady with a sausage dog wanders in. “Go earn your tips, Marcel!”

  Max laughs and walks me over to the machine. “OK, your milk has to be all shiny and silky like this. You know if you have an espresso in the bottom of the cup, it’s about trying to get the milk to go over the top of the espresso, so that it cuts through; it’s what’s going to get you that ripple effect, see?” I watch him gently curving the cup in his palm, swivelling the side of it round, angling it so it slides into his hand. “It’s about pouring it from a height; then you begin to get closer….When you’ve got that, you tip it up, here—you have to move quickly—and then…”

  “A heart!” Could I be any more delighted?

  “Yeah. You try.”

  “Let me taste it first,” I say. “Bleugh! No, still vile.”

  Max laughs and hands me a fresh cup. The coffee machine churns. I do the same, following his precision. “Yeah, that’s it, but relax your hand a bit more….” He hovers over me like he wants to reach out and take the cup out of my hand. DAMN MY HANDS FOR BEING SO UPTIGHT. “Can I?” he asks gently.

  “Sure,” I say shyly, thinking he’s about to snatch it off me, finding it unbearable to watch me mess up his passion.

  But suddenly, instead, his warm hand is cupped around my hand. My tremor. The coffee flutters. I feel my heart racing a bit. Feeling a bit nervous.

  I thought all you had to do was do your life and go to sleep and wake up and eat and drink and be happy and work and your body would work it out for you if you fancied somebody or not. I thought it just did all the sums for you while you slept and gave you the results in the morning, in your private time, when you were alone. Not when you’re in front of the suspect, when you’re at work trying to make a heart on the top of a latte.

  Oh, how did I get here? I HATE MYSELF.

  “You’re shaking.”

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Why are you nervous?” BECAUSE YOU ARE LITERALLY MADE OUT OF CARAMEL AND ARE BRINGING ME OUT IN HIVES. DUH. “I had to do this hundreds of times to get it right.” He takes my hand. I feel like the coffee is doing that thing the water does in Jurassic Park in the scene with the car when the T. rex is coming. BETRAYING ME. Absolutely throwing me right under a bus.

  BANG. BANG. BANG.

  Before I know it I am saying what I just thought out loud. Oh, hideous brain, you deceive me. “Ah, it’s just like that scene in Jurassic Park where the T. rex is coming, you know, with the plastic cup of water…you know…the ripples…” Oh shut up, BB.

  “I haven’t seen Jurassic Park.”

  “You haven’t seen Jurassic Park? Sorry, do you live under an actual rock? I just…Am I meant to still be your friend or…” PERHAPS YOU COULD GET UPGRADED TO BOYFRIEND.

  Gross. I’m so easy to hate.

  “Come on, it’s so old.”

  “But it’s so relevant. The effects are still so good. Like how you use the thermometer for the milk? Well, Jurassic Park has basically become my thermometer to tell if films are good at effects. Like, if it’s a new film with a massive budget and the effects still aren’t as good as the effects in Jurassic Park, then it is a hundred percent a bad film.”

  “OK, I’ll check it out.” He pretends to write on his hand with his finger as an imaginary pen “Jurassic Park” and then pretends to throw the imaginary pen over his shoulder. I giggle and it’s the most annoying laugh you’ve ever heard.

  “It’s also become my thermometer to decide if I like somebody or not. If they haven’t seen-slash-enjoyed Jurassic Park, then we can’t be friends and they aren’t my species.”

  “Hold on…you can’t go round saying ‘slash’ in real life.”

  “I can say exactly what the hell I like.”

  “You’re quite cocky, aren’t you?”

  HUH?

  “Me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yeah you are. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing or anything, you don’t have to be offended, but if it’s a weapon, a defence mechanism or whatever…all I’m saying is, you don’t have to use that weapon on me.”

  I stay silent. I watch the coffee out of the corner of my eye. I can’t shout at him because that will count as another weapon.

  “I like how you are. You can be—SLASH—SHOULD BE—yourself, because being yourself is good and please don’t rule me out as a member of your species because I haven’t seen Jurassic Park.” He whips the coffee cup up in the U-bend of his thumb. “And there you are; you did it!” He raises the cup like a potter spinning a jug on a wheel. “A sort-of-ish heart!” he announces. But I don’t think I can listen because my heart is raiding around my chest looking for an exit to physically thump onto the ground, grow legs and run to the chapel to be wed.

  “It looks like a broken heart to me.” I laugh and go to tip it down the sink, embarrassed.

  “No, no, wait!” Max says. “I’ll drink that.”

  I watch him sip it, pleased as punch, if punch was ever pleased. That’s my coffee going down his throat and into him. Sorry about me.

  “You OK?” he asks.

  And then I just say it, don’t I?

  “Er…have you had a haircut recently?”

  He rubs his head. “Yeah, went to the barber’s this morning.”

  “It looks very…barbery.”

  “Barbery. OK.” He grins and Marcel snorts. Shut up you, Marcel.

  And I have to put my whole head in the fridge to stop the blushing. My hand curled into a C-shape, frozen, from touch, recovering from THAT.

  VINEGAR

  I care a bit too much about vinegar. I completely love it. I love so much vinegar on chips that the hairs in your nostrils shrivel up, your ears block and your cheeks pop. Any kind too.

  I have an actual physical and emotional relationship with vinegar. I love vinegar MORE than I love boys.

  And I need to remember that, should I need to put things into perspective, like I clearly do now.

  * * *

  —

  When we were younger, we used to go to this after-school club. It was basically a church hall with chairs and tables and table-tennis. They did supply some games and stuff but you weren’t cool if you touched the baby games, sticky with the touch of five-year-old bogey fingers. Gross. Kids NEVER wash their hands.

  There was also a little hatch shutter thing that was pulled down as in the daytime the hall doubled up as a cafe for old age pensioners. There were little woven baskets stuffed with sachets of sugar, ketchup, brown sauce, tartar sauce and vinegar. I never tasted the food there but I always wondered what it was like.

  Most of the boys and girls would sit in corners, thinking they were being really discreet, and do first-time kissing and over-the-clothes feel-ups.

  But I just used to sit on my own, with the odd ends of fuzzy felts, making a farm or a beach scene, sucking on a sachet of tartar sauce or vinegar like it was an ice pole.

  That’s the sort of girl I am. A not-cool one.

  I like vinegar more than boys. Can somebody please make me a T-shirt with those words on it? Be
cause I think I need reminding.

  Because maybe…MAYBE…I like a boy a little bit more than vinegar.

  COLD PASTA

  The feeling has not worn off. I know I fancy him. Max. Because I am wearing a very big baggy T-shirt. That is how I know I am in trouble—and I do NOT want vinegar. And it’s not just ANY big baggy T-shirt, it’s one that has an astronaut body on it and when you wear it, your head becomes the head of the astronaut. Yes, it is THAT bad. I am wearing skanky old leopard-print leggings and manky old espadrilles and not one single stitch of makeup. This is the ONLY way I can know if Max fancies me back.

  If he fancies me back when I look like this, then it will be genuine and our romantic love affair can begin with a road trip to somewhere great like, errr, maybe actual heaven. (I hate myself and every word that comes out of my mouth.) Or maybe I’ll just TRY for one second to play it cool and reevaluate what to do next based on his actions.

  If not, then I can get over this messy hindrance of my personal excellence.

  But then why am I looking for Max’s name on the schedule? Why is he not in today? Why am I walking past the odd jumble of left-behind coats and jumpers on the hangers to pick up his fig smell in case one of them belongs to him, even though it’s full-blown summer? Why did I make myself fancy him? Get over it. You don’t need to stoop this low like some hideous fangirl. OK. Do something productive with yourself, write a novel in your head, make an album, learn how to be a scuba diver or make a wristwatch with your bare hands or become a calypso dancer…anything but wasting your days obsessing over a BOY. Boring. OK? OK.

  Fine.

  Over.

  No more.

  Done.

  I might just steal his number out of the staff contacts.

  No. Psycho. Absolutely not.

  I hate him. I actually hate him. I do not even like him. He’s not even funny. Goodbye. Goodnight. Adios, amigo.

  OOOOOH, what’s Spanish for Will you be my boyfriend?

  NO! STOP IT!

  Calm the fudge down. Wish so bad I could take a nap so this nonsense could blow over.

  * * *

  —

  The day is so dry at work. Alicia insists on listening to the cruddy playlist entitled “Chill-Out” or “Sunday Morning” on shuffle. It’s not even relaxing: it’s just the album tracks of pop stars that you would skip, which are only decent when an actual cool band or artist performs them for an ironic unexpected cover. It’s quiet today because the weather is sunny and nobody wants to sit in Planet Coffee roasting their bums off when there’s sunshine in the park. I think it’s funny that we’re like particles that have to be charged by the sun. We are just simply plants.

  With the place empty, Marcel is on the takeaway coffees, so I’m, in Alicia’s words, “giving the place a spruce.” She so is pregnant. What the hell? I have to wash and dry tea towels, mop the floor and then clean the fridge out, which I don’t actually mind because I can just imagine that me and Max are meanwhile running away to Japan to eat those cute cakes and go to those excellent cafes where there are cats just freely around and available for you to stroke whenever your heart desires.

  The fridge inside the staff room is way more interesting than the big fridges out the front. I like poking through the old lunch boxes and seeing what gross things people have left behind, and working out people’s personalities from that. There are two more members of staff that I don’t ever really see because they work on the days I don’t, but I guess soon I’ll get to know them more. So for now, I judge them by the stuff they’ve labelled: carrier bags shoved in the back of the fridge containing just a wilted pear, now soft. Odd crusts of half-eaten sandwiches and orange-stained Tupperware. Healthy packaged salads dressed with good intention before they’ve been sacked off for a McDonald’s instead. My favourite labels are the ones that say “MINE. DON’T EAT!” ultra-aggressively in black marker, as if there is some sort of feeding beast that works here that just HAS to eat ALL the homemade Tupperware-packed lunches….

  There are some boxes that stink, so I have no choice but to throw them away, the contents and the box. Old curdled milk, wedges of hardened cheese mottled in furry blue dots that crack like worn heels. Browning fruit and straggles of tinfoil, half-sunk juice cartons. Labels wallpaper themselves onto the fridge walls but my worst is cold pasta. Pasta that cements to the fork in clumps, that snaps and rejects sauce.

  There’re no leftovers from Max. There’s no label saying “MAX.” How dare he leave this mysterious untraceable trail for me? What is he, extinct? Is he really that chill that he doesn’t have anxiety about spending lunch money like the rest of us?

  Doesn’t he want me to obsess over him? Doesn’t he want to go to Japan and stroke all them cats? Doesn’t he know how brilliant it would be to have a cool girl like me fancying him?

  I see what he means about “cocky.”

  I hold my breath and reach further into the fridge for the odd crinkled-up stalks of tomatoes and soft grapes. I run a damp cloth around as far as my arm can reach without straining too hard. I mean, I like to do a good job but I’m not gonna clean it like it’s my own fridge.

  There’s an itch on my nose but I don’t want to scratch it because I don’t want all these fresh fridge germs to touch my pure innocent face and my nails aren’t long enough to have a good scratch without any cell-on-cell action. I mean, it’s not like I’m working with a freezer here where these viruses get killed off; I reckon they thrive here in the lukewarm, puke-swarm fridge.

  “Hello, BUM!” Alicia shrieks. HA-HA-HA. Slow blink. I imagine the view she must be witnessing, me face-first in the open fridge, like the back of a horse in a stable munching on a hay bale. She steps forward, bumping hips with me. “I’m on my lunch break, got to make a few phone calls and take some stuff to the bank…might pick up some sushi. Doesn’t this weather just make you want to get wasted?”

  “I…errr.”

  “I just want to sit in the park with a few wines and relax, you know?” She rubs her belly. “I’m exhausted.” Cracking her neck she grabs her purse. “And I meant what I said the other day…about the shifts and the weight-loss…you’re glowing, looking totally rad.” And she heads out.

  Not again. REALLY? I don’t look “rad.” I look horrendous, deliberately. Just hurry up and fill out my stupid form and sign my letter so I can take it to Julian from Careers already. So my mum gets off my frigging back.

  TONGUE

  I wait for her to leave and then I poke my tongue at the back of her head and then think about sticking my fingers up at her but then wonder if perhaps she watches the security videos, so I get anxious about that and poke my tongue out again as if I have food on my chin or something I am trying to get off. Then I become conscious of that and pretend I have a tic. I figure six or seven tongue pokes over the next hour should cement the fact I have a possible tic.

  I feel like my hands need a hundred scrubs after touching all the butter-cold whiteness of the staff room fridge. My fingers are stale and pink and prawny, ripe with bacteria. My hair smells. I go out the front, watching Alicia trip-trap down the high street, placing her Ray-Bans over her eyes. Bopping down the road like she’s some insane female detective with baggage.

  “Let’s get this music off!” I say to Marcel. “Quick, change it.”

  “Hallelujah!” He rushes to the laptop.

  “That doesn’t mean you can put something on,” I warn him.

  He listens to house.

  “What about a movie soundtrack?” he suggests.

  “Sure.”

  I stretch. I crick my neck; it cracks like a walking stick being dragged along a set of railings. Not ideal.

  “Can you please make me an icy hot chocolate?” Which is exactly as it sounds.

  “Anything for you, my darling.” Marcel is in a good mood.

  “Thanks.”


  I think Marcel could make a good feeder, like if someone was into that. He always puts extras on everybody’s everything. My icy hot chocolate is going to have cream and sprinkles, I can already tell. I don’t ask him to not put the cream on, though, because I don’t want him to make a comment like “Watching your figure, are you?” I just don’t like cream on my hot chocolate. I scrape it off with a tissue and flush it down the toilet.

  I watch the boys and girls flutter about in the summer sun. Vests and skirts, shorts and sunglasses, box-fresh trainers and new fold-lined T-shirts. Girls suffer in new sandals that rub and blister the backs of their heels and squeeze their toes in to reveal varnish-chipped stubby, hangnail trotters. Pale legs or sunburn, red-raw dots of fresh-shaven skin. The soft touch of inner thighs. Dry skin on knees. Dark patches. And kids, melting-lolly chins and hats and premature freckles, ice cream spilling into fatty folds on joints. There’s always one in a car too fast, music too loud, the roof down, top off like we’re on Venice Beach.

  And then it’s a bit like staring at a painting, I suppose, say of a river…and suddenly the river begins to glisten and move. Tall, white T-shirt, tanned skin, green eyes, big smile. He is eating one of those Calippo lollies, the classic orange, a cool ice pole.

  “Hey, Maxy!” Marcel jumps up and fist-bumps with him. He smiles, all dimples and scrunched nose. “What you doing here on your day off, man?”

  “I was just passing through.” And then our eyes lock.

  And I am fat.

  And hot.

  And flustered.

  And I smell of cheese.

  And I’m wearing that stupid astronaut T-shirt. I mean, I knew I wanted to look normal today, but not Normal Minus.

  “Hi, Bluebelle.” Max licks his lolly. Oh to be that lolly for a day. Jealousy rattles my big bones.

  “I’ve been cleaning the fridge out,” I say. Grinning, breathlessly proud, weirdly. He smiles back. With those teeth. “What you up to?” He rubs his shaved head and I say, “You off somewhere nice? You look nice.”