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she’ll ask me how old do you think I am? Then I’ll say about 40? Then she’ll laugh and say I’m actually 48! ) She has long dark hair worn loose swinging down her back. Not very hygienic for someone in food services. She has a smile she rations, with a tiny hint of gold filling peeking out on a left upper molar. She wears a black apron around her waist and a pen behind her ear. Then she speaks: a random choice between ‘Nice day, eh love?’ and ‘Shocking weather.’ It’d be nice if she could oscillate through these or even choose specific clichés for each day of the week, but that’s the trouble with small business. No systems.
    Cheryl will say, ‘What’ll you have, love?’ as if there’s a question, as if there’s any doubt in my mind or hers. If we lived in New York I’m sure she’d say, ‘Usual, pal?’ but she never acknowledges that there is a usual. Perhaps she has a bet with her friends waiting for the day I order something else.
    But I never order something else. I order a hot chocolate with 2 marshmallows and a slice of orange cake. While she’s gone I double check the tables. 17. The chairs. 59. 1 missing. Perhaps it’s in the kitchen so tired cooks can rest their feet. It takes between 3 and 7 minutes for Cheryl to bring my order, depending on the number of people in the café, and she says, ‘Here you go, love. You enjoy that.’
    I do enjoy it. I dunk my 2 marshmallows in the hot chocolate and stir, and its layers swirl into consistency. It is hot and sweet with foam on the top like a cappuccino. The cake is my favourite part of the whole day. It is a flourless orange cake, moist and crumbly, with pieces of softened orange peel spread evenly through. It has a cream-cheese icing and is sprinkled, not coated but sprinkled, with poppy seeds. And the chef is not consistent—some days there are 12 tiny seeds spread out like ant hills in the desert. Other times there are 50 huddled as if there’s a stiff wind, or there are 75 squished on the small piece of cake like flattened children on the train coming home from the Royal Melbourne Show.
    First, I count them.
    Then this number, this number of seeds, is the number of bites I must take to eat the piece of cake.
    Anywhere between 20 and 30 is no hardship—I generally take small bites while I sit here drinking my chocolate. Fewer than 20 needs some skill—mentally divide the piece, calculate how big each forkful must be, then eat it. More than 30 is a large number of bites, and once there was an incredible 92 poppy seeds and I virtually had to eat the cake crumb by crumb.
    That’s how it’s supposed to go, but today when I walk into the café at 10.48 a.m., there are no spare tables. Full. Every one of them full.
    No spare tables.
    What do I do now? How do I leave? How do I get home?
    No table. No table. No table.
    There’s always a table.
    No table. No table. No table.
    Then I begin to hear a noise. I listen closely. It is the noise of my blood running through the small capillaries in my ears. It’s starting. It’s starting again.
    I breathe quicker but I’m not getting enough air. My shoulders ache because my joints have unhinged and my arms hang, connected to my body only by the skin. My head spins, praying for an empty table. If I can’t sit I can’t order my cake and chocolate and if I don’t order my cake I won’t be able to count the poppy seeds and know how many bites to take and if I don’t eat my cake I won’t finish my cake and then how will I know when to go home? I’m loose now, there’s nothing to bring me back home. I’m loose and the wind blows through me and I could end up anywhere. I begin to feel cramps in my abdomen. Perhaps this is cholera. Soon all that is in me will leak out.
    That’s when I see him, the man from the supermarket. He is sitting at the second table from the back on the right hand wall. He sees me. There is an empty seat at his table. He waves like he’s in grade three.
    I wear a watch on