Authors: Kopano Matlwa
“Melissa, here is your decaf Moccachino. Now tell me, how was London?”
“When did you get back, Mike? It’s so great to see you again! We’ve missed you and your madness!”
“George, this espresso is on me. You look like death. I’m guessing we had a big night last night?”
“I know exactly what you need, Peter, something real greasy coming up!”
“Oh really Mr Potgieter, you don’t need to do that, I’m only doing my job. Thank you, Mr Potgieter, I do appreciate it. See you next Sunday.”
“Another waffle, Sheila? I know, I hate men too! I’m so sorry, Sheilz, but you’ll see, everything will be OK. It’s his loss, not yours.”
“Come, give Aunty Fiks a hug before you leave! Look what I found for you, my angels; lollipops! Now be good, don’t give your Daddy too much trouble. Bye, guys, see you next Sunday!”
It may have been all those magazines that I started reading. I had spent my whole holiday at Gogo’s indoors and reading one magazine after another.
Body, Catalogue Girl, Gloss, Fly Girl, Allure, Panache, Spoilt!, Chic, Live Life.
Gogo collected them from the white homes she worked at. The wives and daughters often threw them out before they even finished them. The more magazines I read, the more I wanted to read, and soon Uncle’s dusty old novels were out of the window and magazines were my bedside reading, my can’t-sleep-at-night reading, my afternoon tea reading, my only reading. I lived in those magazines, and the more I read, the more assured I was that the life in those pages was the one I was born to live. From who supermodel Christine Pau was dating to what perfume Gabrielle was wearing to the Grammys, I knew it all. At the age of fifteen I could even advise you what to pack when spending a weekend away in the Bahamas.
So when I got back to school in January, Vula Mehlo Secondary School, mind all air-brushed and sweetly scented in Ridgley’s new fragrance, I felt strangely out of place, detached, as if I was watching them. Bo Zanele, bo Thabo, bo Meshoe seemed to be on Bop TV in black and white. They were so dull, so dirty, smelling of petroleum jelly and wearing the same old faded brown tunics, white socks (now yellow) and worn school shoes. Their hair was done, plaited neatly into rows for the new year, but I knew, come next month, it would be filled with sand and itching because it hadn’t been washed in weeks. Everything they said and worried about bored me.
I did not care anymore whether I thought Shoki’s parents might make her marry Simba because he made her pregnant. I didn’t care about the guys at the car wash who would buy us air time if we let them see our stuff. It was only a month, a month of litchi, lime and mint cocktails in the pages of those magazines, but a month enough. It was like I was a puzzle-piece, pulled out of the puzzle and bent and now I could never fit back in. I’d seen pictures of another life, a better life, and I wanted it. So I walked out of the school gates and never went back. That was 1999, the beginning of grade ten, the beginning of Project Infinity.
“Casey, dear, do you want me to refill that? No, sweetheart, it’s my pleasure.”
“Your first time at Silver Spoon sir? Well, welcome. You are going to be a regular, I can just tell.”
“Josh! You are such a flirt! Does your wife know about you?”
“Timothy, your Mommy is right, you must eat your veggies. I promise to let you have a taste of all our ice creams if you do.”
“So, how’s the new boyfriend? Tell me all, I can see you are bursting to.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I not introduce myself properly? My name is Fiks, Fiks Twala. I have a second name, Fikile, which I never use…”
I think even before I consciously decided it, I already knew that this was the kind of life I was meant to live. The Silver Spoon life. The holidays abroad, the cashmere, the dramas at Mixy on a Friday night, the smashed R1.2 million cars, the tears over a bad break-up and the retail therapy after. The more time I spent with these people, listening to their stories, peeking in on their day-to-days, the more certain I was that the lives they lived were a reflection of the life I was born to live. I never did have the stomach for poverty. I am too sensitive. I could never deal with all that trash.
Paul walks into the shop, still in his suit, the same suit since Friday. He’s with two other men, both very drunk. James finally leaves after another Sunday morning spent watching women climb into and out of the gym pool. I seat them at his table, Paul with his back against the window and the other two at his sides. I do not want him distracted.
“Hi, Fiks.”
“Hi, Paul.”
“No kiss today?”
“I’m working, Paul!”
“You done something new to your hair?”
“No, Paul.”
“Well, it looks good. You look good, as always.”
“Thank you, Paul.”
Paul has been in here every day this week. Virgin on Monday and regular ever since. I know he wants me, that is the only reason he keeps coming here. He never eats, just buys a drink or two and then pays with a R200 bill and tells me to keep the change.
But I’m no whore, I made that clear to him when he came in for the first time on Monday, flashing his money around and calling me ‘baby.’ He left a couple of hundred rands and his phone number and got up and left. I ran out after him. “Sorry sir,” I said, “you seem to have left some of your belongings behind.” ‘Belongings’? Ja, I know, it sounded smarter in my head.
He laughed and then said, “Those belongings are yours, sweetheart.”
“I’m afraid we are not allowed to accept such extravagant gifts from customers, sir, it gives them the wrong ideas,” I told him.
“What kind of ideas?” he asked.
“The wrong kind.”
That’s when he grabbed my arms and pulled me towards him. “Would this be wrong?” he asked and then kissed me before I had a chance to figure out what was going on.
That was Monday, almost exactly a week ago, and today we were flirting as if we were old friends who had been estranged before the friendship had an opportunity to blossom, meeting once again after many years. Perhaps we really were old friends, friends from a previous lifetime. Maybe that is the explanation of the instant connection between us. I have had older white men look at me before, but not like Paul. The other men were just bored and horny but Paul, Paul is different.
Infinity.
Mrs Zodwa had said it was a number larger than any number that could be imagined.
How crazy, I had thought. “Then it is no number at all,” I had yelled out.
It’s a concept, Mrs Zodwa had explained, expressed by the symbol
∞
.
I got up from my desk and looked it up in the dictionary on the bookshelf. I did not believe that such a thing existed. Of course I was only eleven then, unable to comprehend something so endless and so boundless.
Infinity. It came to represent all I strove for in life. It became my secret word, a charm I hung around the neck of my soul, the key to something limitless. I knew that some day I would achieve Project Infinity. It did not matter that I was not exactly sure what Project Infinity was, because I knew it would be infinitely better than where I was then. I would leave this life of blackness and embark on something larger than large and greater than great, something immeasurable and everlasting.
“Fiks, dahling, the Tlous? Have you taken the Tlous’ orders yet?” Miss Becky says, looking a little flustered. She holds a broken plate in her hand and her cheeks are red, hinting that she is slightly stressed.
“The who?”
“The Tlous. They are still sitting with their menus. What has gotten into you today, sweetheart? Goodness me. I really do hope the taxi strikes come to an end soon, I need Ayanda here, you’re useless on your own.”
What? I can’t believe this. She thinks Ayanda isn’t at work because the taxis are striking? Such bullshit! Ayanda doesn’t even take a taxi to work, his father drops him off in his shiny Chrysler at the Schubert intersection every morning.
“He’s lying,” I say to Miss Becky, regretting it immediately.
“Who’s lying?”
“Ayanda, about the taxi strikes. He’s lying.”
“It’s in the paper, Fiks, on the radio. There’s strikes everywhere, Fiks, everybody knows that.” She shakes her head and is about to walk away, but then stops, looks at me for a while, as if she is seeing me for the very first time, and then speaks. “You shouldn’t be so vindictive, Fiks, it’s not good for the spirit. Ayanda is my favourite because he works hard.” She pauses again. “So work hard.”
“Yes, Miss Becky,” I say, wishing I had just left the whole thing alone. But I am right! Yes, there are strikes going on but they are the bread company strikes, not taxi strikes. Why is it that I am always the one in the wrong? Ayanda’s the favourite yet he’s sitting on his arse at home in his family’s mansion while I’m here breaking my back.
“You are still standing here?” Miss Becky is screaming now. “The Tlous, Fiks! The Tlous!” Miss Becky never screams.
I hurry over to their table. They are all still there. I thought if I’d wished them away, I’d turn around and they’d be gone. Oh no, not them, they’re not going anywhere, they are bent on making my day hell. The daughter agitatedly moves her cell phone from hand to hand. When I get to their table she looks at me with such deep disdain I want to rip those snotty ‘I am better than you’ eyeballs out their sockets and crush them under my foot.
“Hi. My name is Fiks. Are you ready to order?”
“Yes, we have been for some time now,” the daughter says, irritated, her ugly face all scrunched up in a scowl, her large nose up in the air.
“I apologise. We’ve been very busy today,” I manage to get out, not prepared to let her make me lose my cool.
“Yes, we’ve noticed that
you’ve
been very busy indeed.” She says this with a smirk, her eyes pointing to Paul’s table, who sits there staring at me. He sees us looking at him and blows me a kiss.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snap back. She does not respond, but instead carries on fidgeting with her cell phone.
“Ofilwe, don’t be so rude to the nice, pretty girl,” the father says, as if suddenly realising the tension around him. “Three Traditional English Breakfasts please, sweetie, and some orange juice.” He winks at me. The mother fires a warning look at him.
Screw it, I think. And wink back before walking away.
I can smell new money from a mile away. I do not need any background information. You do not need to even open your mouth. Just a two-second head-to-toe analysis and I am able to identify you as the real thing or that other thing. I am very seldom wrong. I give you ten minutes at most, and you will have exposed yourself. When I ask you if you want your pasta with penne, fettuccine or spaghetti, you will ask me which is the biggest. If I ask you if you want feta cheese in your salad, you will say, ‘Yes, grated please’. When I go get your fruit smoothie, you will stop me and say, thinking that you are really smart, ‘Make it decaf!’
Why am I so good at this, at picking you fakers out? Because I cannot stand people like you. You sicken me. You remind me of everything I do not want to be.
That is why I need to be able to identify you as early as possible. So I can avoid you at all costs.
Paul calls me over to their table. “We’re leaving now,” he says when I get there.
“OK, so I’ll go get your bill then.” I respond, a little disappointed. I was hoping he’d stay longer, play for a little longer, maybe even take me home so I don’t have to ride back in that wretched train.
“Sure. You coming with?” he asks, reaching for my hand. I pull away. Miss Becky would fire me on the spot if she saw me holding hands with a customer.
His friends start to laugh. “Your wife know you so feverish, Paul?” one of them asks.
The other looks at me and smiles. “Jungle fever, honey. Jungle fever. You know what that means?”
“Ignore them, Fiks,” Paul cuts in. “Come with me. How much are they paying you here? I’ll give you what you make here in a year, today. I’ll even double it. Triple it. You don’t belong here.”
Paul’s not lying. He probably could give me what I make at Silver Spoon in a single day. Paul reeks of money. But I am not for sale, am I?
His phone rings. Paul looks at the screen and quickly switches it off. He places a couple of hundred on the table. “Will this cover the bill, Fiks?”
I nod. The three of them get up. They struggle a bit, using their chairs and the table to help them up, not because they’re drunk but because they are so old. For the first time I wonder how old Paul really is. Sixty, maybe even seventy.
“Think about it, Beautiful,” he whispers, as they leave the shop. “I’ll be back for you.”
I do not know in which form Project Infinity will present itself to me, but I do not think it will be obvious. That is why I do not let a single opportunity slip me by without giving it some serious consideration. Like this waitressing job at Silver Spoon. It isn’t exactly spectacular living but it is a stepping stone which allows me to mingle with the A-list, who will some day be friends and neighbours. People like me have to make difficult choices. We were not the fortunate ones who were born into the lap of luxury, and so we have to fight our way there. Anything worth having in life comes at a price, a price that is not always easy to pay. Maybe Paul is right. Maybe it is time I leave Silver Spoon. And so what if the world does not approve of us? He seems to really like me and I enjoy his company. What do I have to lose?