“Go into business with your twin,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.
If you call sweating in a café, cleaning up after customers while your twin sister’s gallivanting overseas in pursuit of new teas and coffees to sell, “fun,” then they were right.
I sigh. Where to start with this clean-up operation? I watch the stain spread across the pale wood floor, seeping into the grain. It was her idea to get wooden floors, of course. Wood the colour of her platinum blonde hair that she insists on bleaching to look as different from me as possible. “Mousey,” she calls our natural hair colour. “Classy,” I always reply.
It’ll be ruined now. This would never have happened with my suggestion of grey tiles.
Even from across the continent her voice rings in my head. Think it’d be cool to have telepathic communication with someone? It isn’t. At this very moment, despite the seriousness of the situation, she’s launched into inane chatter about the merits of adding a Darjeeling infusion to our repertoire.
I decide to drown her out by sweeping up the glass first, the tinkling sound momentarily lulling me into an imaginary sparkly world. I try to block out her voice and the growing stain creeping into view. From the corner of my eye, it resembles a two-headed monster. Conjoined twins, perhaps, stretching out in opposite directions, reaching for different things but somehow unable to separate.
“… must get a later flight,” she mumbles.
“What? No way, Jen. You’re coming home now to help me sort this shit out!”
“I said, ‘the muscatel flavour’s light,’ you idiot. Honestly, Pip, you should get your hearing tested! Look, you got yourself into this mess. It’s nothing to do with me. You need some of this Darjeeling tea. It’s a proven stress-reliever…”
“It is your fault!” I scream out loud, even though there’s no need – she can hear my thoughts and I shouldn’t be drawing attention to the café right now. But it feels good. “Why can’t you pronounce your words properly when you think?”
A knock on the door makes me jump. Oh God. It’s the police.
The officers peer over my shoulder. “We heard shouting. Noticed you’re closed in the middle of the day. Anything wrong?”
They look so young I have to fight the urge to laugh.
“Just mopping up a stain. Red Thunder Gold, Autumn Flush Darjeeling. Dropped the whole pot. The rust colour’s a bugger to get out, but it’s delicious. Full of health benefits too!”
Baby-faced policeman number one sniffs the air. “Odd smell.”
“Ah, that’ll be the muscatel!” I smile.
He nods and they walk away. I don’t exhale until they’re out of sight.
“Well dodged!” Jen thinks. “But just for the record, this is your problem, not mine. The customer only broke a glass, for goodness’ sake! I very clearly said, ‘Bill her for it.’”
I turn the radio up. I don’t want to hear any more from her.
Now, where’s that mop?
