This was written just recently as an exercise to my Creative Writing Fiction class. We’re supposed to write a flash fiction in the POV of a person completely different from us doing something routine. Well, I’m certainly not a boy and not English, so I figure I might as well give my fake Harry Potter accent a try at some serious fiction. It was immensely enjoyable to write. I hope it’s just as good to read.
It’s twelve o’ clock. Time to meet Julia at Ritzy’s.
We’ve been doing this since the time we played hooky at Coombe Dean. Well, not Coombe Dean exactly. School hadn’t started for that day and we were both riding on the blue bus line getting there. We were just talking, I swear it. But then suddenly she grabbed me by the wrist (and you can imagine I was quite the flustered, freckled little boy) and dragged me out of the bus. I thought she’d gone mad. It wasn’t until I found us taking the Victoria line that I started to enjoy our little escapade, and before I knew it we were at Brixton’s. The last stop.
We parked ourselves at Ritzy’s café for lunch at twelve o’ clock. We were a spectacle, two young teenagers in their school uniforms nibbling on one small slice of cheesecake (understand that I was unprepared for our adventure and didn’t have more than a few pounds in my wallet) all the way at Brixton’s in the middle of the day.
Well at least the waiters were happy.
And so it was that every Wednesday we would cut whatever it was we happened to be doing and take the blue line to meet each other at Ritzy’s. The first few lunches were filled with each other, and I found myself getting to know Julia better than I’d known most of my girlfriends (although that’s not saying much) but soon we ran out of things to say. Luckily we were both equally catty when it comes to people, and so uncomfortable silences were turned into small whispers about the fat woman in the corner, or the boy with the horrendous haircut, or the questionable person outside who’s body couldn’t decide on whether it was male or female.
Over time it turned into a fun little game for us to play well into our college years. Come graduation we swore to keep the game even after we found ourselves employed. Three years later and here I am, back in Ritzy’s café, waiting for fair Julia to arrive. Ah, here she is now, the devil herself.
“Sorry Bruce, I stopped by Stockwell to meet a curator and my God that woman just won’t shut up. Were you waiting long?” she says, taking the seat across me. Her hair is pinned up in that sloppy bun that artists wear all the time. Wisps of it land on her cheeks. She looks at me with those mischievous grey eyes, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She is short for an Englishwoman, and peculiarly dressed in a bright yellow poncho and white shorts.
“I might as well have gone to lunch with a cockatoo. Julia, what unearthly being has possessed you to wear shorts in spring?” I joke. But really, I’m staring at her legs.
“I’m an artist. What I wear or do does not have to make sense. To other people, at least. But if you must know, I bought these yesterday and it would be a shame to wait for summer to use them.” She gestures to the waiter. “We’ll have the usual, Arthur. Thanks.”
“So how goes the stockmarket these days, Bruce?” She smiles gorgeously, and I know she doesn’t give a fuck about the stockmarket. “Do you really want to know, Julia, or shall we start?”
“No. And yes.”
“Alright, see that couple near the counter…”
She laughs like bells and I continue to critique. Her mole is much too big, it could practically fit into one of his monumental nostrils. I talk and laugh and listen to her voice and laughter even after our cups are empty and our plates clean. And we laugh every other Wednesday, at every other twelve o’ clock, passing the hours to our heart’s content.
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