sixteen

I retired from my job four years later. My husband has been dead for half a decade and I feel no desire to meet someone new. My daughter is engaged to be married and lives on the other side of the country now. I receive a decent pension, live in a house I own, and apart from occasional trips to Europe with my daughter, there is not much for me to spend my money on. I miss George and think of him often, but it’s a dull and familiar melancholy. There is a different, sharper and more urgent kind of pain that has started growing ever since I had stopped working. I miss Delilah. 

I don’t drink anymore. I wear my hair long again. I open the café in our home town, and there are no rescue dogs, but I do allow guests to bring theirs in and they all get treats on the house. I brew large batches of strong, Greek coffee and learn to bake pita bread and koulourakia. 

The café is small and I barely make enough to cover my expenses. Every now and then someone feels the need to give me advice on how to run it more lucratively, but I don’t care for it. It may be a strange quirk that comes with my age, this complete dismissal of the discussion of profitability, though I take it as a privilege. 

The menu remains the same throughout the entire time I run the café, written in chalk above the counter where I take the orders, and next to it, the cafés only rule: On Tuesdays, we don’t talk about men. New customers find this odd, sometimes even offensive, when I explain it to them as I take their order. But five years after opening, a local newspaper writes an article about me, and now, Tuesday is my busiest day. 

I doubt all my customers abide by this rule, but when I walk through the tables and overhear the conversations, I do find that on Tuesdays, they seem to be more intimate. The drinks seem to be drunk slower, I am often asked to reheat the coffees. I have quite a few Tuesday regulars now who come with their friends, their mothers, daughters or sisters, and occasionally, when I find a moment to chat with them, they tell me how much it has helped their relationships. There is rarely much time to talk, though, and anyway, I have found myself becoming quieter as I age, listening much more than I speak myself. I feel that I have said all I need to say to the people around me, and the only person to whom I have left something unspoken can no longer hear me.

Sometimes, when a customer learns my name, I can see their face light up as though in understanding of a joke, and it’s the same spark that flared up in my friend’s eyes, all those years ago – “Oh, Olive, that’s funny. You know, with the Greek café and all.” And then I force out an awkward chuckle and even though it happens at least once a week, reliably, I still don’t know how to respond to it.

Other times, though more rarely, someone will ask about the name of the café. Usually, I just reply – “she was a friend”. Though nowadays, when the mood strikes and business is slow, I end up telling them about Delilah.