The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara

Thirty-Three

June 6

Thursday at the café is the same as Wednesday. Both Celine and I work until ten, ten-thirty, then we walk home. David calls several times and texts everything from You’re making a mistake to I feel so betrayed, and What will I tell my friends and my family? Celine asks me if I want to talk about it, but I don’t. There’s nothing to talk about. Although, obviously, David disagrees. His last text message, late at night, has a different tone. He’s asking me nicely to answer. He says he wants to talk to me, and he won’t give up. I don’t reply.

I haven’t seen the Lift driver today. He didn’t come to the café and although I kept my eye on the street, there was no sign of him.

I did meet a few more of the regulars today though. One of them is Alan, in his mid, maybe late thirties, he’s a lawyer in Monterey, who apparently comes to Café Azure every day after the gym. He has a latte, a three-cheese croissant and a small chocolate bar. He smiles from the door as he enters, comes over to say hi and pay for his order, asks Celine how she is and now me too. Celine asks him how his training went—he wants to do a marathon in the fall—and he says it’s hard, but he won’t give up, then he sits at the window bar and waits for his breakfast.

He also comes back in the evening; at least he did today. “I lost a case,” he said as he walked in, his morning smile replaced by a deep frown, and Celine nodded knowingly.

“A glass of wine instead of coffee then?” she asked him.

He’s handsome, in a classic way, seems to be in good shape and obviously has a good job. I’d expect he’d be great with the ladies, but he seems rather lonely. If this was the same time last year, by now I’d have a handful of ideas for Alan stories. Now, my mind just goes blank. And it’s such a pity because he looks like he deserves a good, happy story.

When we get back to the cottage, Celine orders pizza. After we eat, we sit on the terrace, listening to the ocean, drinking freshly made lemonade and talking.

It’s a good night. I haven’t been this comfortable and relaxed in a long time. Celine and I got close fast, which is unusual for me, but not uncommon for anything Carmel-related. She has a way about her that is inviting and comforting. She doesn’t pry into my personal life and doesn’t offer too many details about hers, but we talk about all sorts of things. Small things. Carmel, funny customers, annoying customers, movies, music. I hope we’ll talk about books too and her brother and I keep trying to push the conversation that way, without seeming too obvious.

“Did you always want to run the café?” I ask.

“When I was seven, I wanted to be a ballerina.” She laughs. “I was not good at it. No grace, that’s what my teachers said. Then I wanted to be a race car mechanic.”

“Really?”

“I love cars. And there are a bunch of races in the Monterey area. I’ve been surrounded by exotic and fast cars all my life. My father had a passion for them.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Who would’ve taken care of the family business? I had to make a choice. Besides, there aren’t that many women mechanics and I had my fair share of raised eyebrows and comments when I was learning how to fix cars and went with my father to the races. I can’t tell you how many times I was told that’s not where a woman belongs, so—”

“That’s not OK,” I say. “You shouldn’t let other people tell you what you can and can’t do. If you want something, you should go after it,” I say and then realize what a hypocrite I am and how patronizing that sounds. What gives me the right to preach? It took me forever to leave David although I was unhappy. Just like it took me forever to leave my job, and I don’t even know if I was brave or I had simply reached my limit. Brave is making a decision when you have multiple options and although the one you choose might be the riskiest, it’s what you know deep down in your heart is the right thing. Doing what I did and when I did it, is a feeble attempt at redemption. Pretty pathetic that someone like me would point the finger at someone like Celine.

“I know. I should’ve stood my ground, but I didn’t have support, except for Ethan, but he had his own problems to deal with. And now it’s too late. I’m too old. I guess being part of Laguna Seca and getting my hands dirty with those beauties will just be a dream.”

Too late? I’m twenty-eight this month—which is basically thirty—and I’m starting over. How easy it is to see what needs to be done when it’s not your life.

“When you’re not working at Café Azure, what do you do?” asks Celine. “In New York,” she says and smiles. “I saw it on your driver’s license.”

“In that life, I was a writer for a magazine.”

“Nice. Did you always want to be a magazine writer?”

Good question.

“I’ve always loved writing. I used to dream of writing books, rather than—”

“Journalism? You can do both—write books and write for magazines. Ethan does it too.”

In theory, she’s right; nothing is stopping me. Except with this manuscript where her brother and his new book—stolen book—stop me. But what prevented me from submitting it before? My fear of failure, undoubtedly. Getting an agent, a publishing deal and seeing my novel in bookstores is the last dream I hold on to and the most important. If I fail, there’s nothing left to look forward to. But now’s not the time to think about that. This could be my shot to find out more about Ethan Delphy. I finally got our conversation where I wanted it.

“So, your brother is a writer?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of books does he write?”

Jeez. When she finds out I knew all this, she’ll feel so betrayed.

She smiles. “Love stories. They’re in the library if you want to read them,” she says.

“The town library?”

She laughs. “No. Our library, I mean. Follow me.”

What if she has the new one? Here’s hoping.

We walk into a room filled with hundreds of books nicely organized by genre and author. Heaven! In the center of the room an antique desk and two worn-out red leather armchairs.

“Is this yours?” I ask.

“The library? Ethan’s. And it’s only a part of it; he has books everywhere. I love books too and reading, but I don’t always have the time. Been listening to a lot of audiobooks lately.”

On the wall by the window, six shelves of books all have Ethan Delphy’s name on them.

I thought he only had three novels out. There must be a hundred here.

“Wow,” I say, not even trying to hide my surprise. “Your brother wrote all these?”

She chuckles. “Yes and no. He wrote five books. A semi-biography and three novels. Wait, four. There’s a new one, which I don’t think is here.” She stops and looks. “Nope. Not yet. It’s going to be published—” She goes to the desk. On it, there’s a large monthly planner. “June 17. Correct. Hmm, I wonder if he’s coming the day of. That’s what he usually does.”