Page 41 of Autumn at the Oak Leaf Café
‘That’s just it. I’m not sure if he is still interested. He threw my chocolate cake in the duck pond, didn’t even notice that I completely changed my hair, and my cat hates him.’
‘I would be hard pushed to find someone as petty as you.’
Madeline frowned. ‘Really?’
‘I’d like to say you disgust me, but I’m not allowed to use such language with my clients. It undermines their confidence. However, I will say that you disappoint me. I mean, I know you were a shallow bully at school, but I thought you might have matured just a little bit since then. It does seem, however, that I might have to make the rare decision to admit I was wrong.’ Janine shifted in her seat, adjusting her perfectly tailored suit, and stood up. ‘Please excuse me for a moment. I have to go to the bathroom. And it’s not to be sick, as you might think, having had to listen to your pathetic excuses for problems for the last half an hour, but simply to take care of regular bodily functions.’
‘Okay.’
As Janine went out, Madeline leaned back in the chair, wondering how much longer she could handle this exercise in self-flagellation. She had told Ruby about her last session with Janine. Ruby had cried with laughter and told Madeline she should record it, set it to music, and put it on TikTok. Today, though, Janine was in imperious form.
Needing to stretch her legs, Madeline got up, and wandered past Janine’s desk to the window. She could just see the theatre. Ruby had suggested they take in a show sometime, as there was a hip-hop version of Wizard of Oz opening in a couple of weeks. Madeline had been more interested in a travelling performance of Cats, but Ruby had rolled her eyes and told her to modernise.
The door opened, and Madeline spun around. Janine came back in, but just before Madeline hurried to sit down, her eyes scanned Janine’s desktop. Behind the rack of files which hid most of it from a client’s view were a handful of knickknacks from overseas trips—a metal Eiffel Tower, a paperweight with the Sydney Opera house inside, a line of Matryoshka dolls. And there was a little laptop, one of the micro-sized ones that could practically slip into a back pocket, barely bigger than a phone. It was open, a photo collage screensaver constantly shifting.
And Madeline found herself transfixed by images of Janine and Rory in a multitude of romantic poses, arms around each other, lips pressed to cheeks, hands held, engagement rings gleaming.
In a trance, she stumbled back to her seat.
Janine marched back behind her desk and sat down. She lifted a pocket watch, peered at it, and said, ‘I think we’ve gone overtime. I’ll ask Edith to adjust today’s fee. We did some good work today, Madeline. I see a ray of light for you. It’s not too late. I’ll see you next week. In the meantime, I would suggest attempting to focus on your work, and keep your roving mind out of trouble.’
Madeline just stared at her. ‘Okay,’ was all she could bring herself to say.
Ruby was in combative mood. ‘So what’s he doing showing up here if he’s engaged to that therapist troll?’ she said. ‘Honestly, the only good thing about you going there is that you now know the truth. I hope you cancelled next week’s session?’
Madeline grimaced. ‘You know when you have a bruise and you keep pressing it, even though it totally hurts?’
‘You’re not going again?’
‘Well, I might, you know, just once more. You see, I’m armed with information that I didn’t have before.’
‘That this ex-boyfriend she keeps berating you for liking is actually her own current boyfriend?’
‘Something like that.’
‘But you know that on that score, I agree with her. He’s a scumbag. You should kick him out to roost, or whatever you old people say. Block him on Snapchat.’
‘What would you do?’
‘You know what I did to some guy who bullied me at school?’
‘Do I want to know?’
‘I found out he hated rats. So I put one in his school locker.’
‘A real rat?’
Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘No, of course not a real rat. It like was a toy one. But I hung a little sign around its neck that said, “Mess with me, you mess with my whole extended family.” That told him.’
‘Did he understand?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I’m an only child, so he probably didn’t know it was me. But it spooked him, you know.’
‘That’s all?’
‘My dad was his maths teacher. I tried to convince him to give this kid a low test score, but Dad said that wasn’t ethical. He did promise to glare at him from time to time.’
Madeline smiled. ‘It’s great when your parents have your back. My dad hates Rory. He’d go mental if he knew I was talking to him again.’
