Smart Chance

By the time I made it to the café I had convinced myself Michael was just the type of guy to call events dates and so I didn't need to worry that much and it was a little silly I'd spent all morning deciding between which of my three nice but not work shirts were suitable. So it would be fine. A casual… Thing between… People.

I see him easily in the café, nothing like the painting, it's cluttered and the walls are painted an off grey-green under the picture frames on the walls, I see him easily because he's the only person there at midday on a weekend.

The café is intimidating from the outside with its dark interior and narrow entrance down an alleyway, I passed only one person on my way through, and the doors were heavy; you had to have the strength to open the door and to enter. I think i understand why Michael chose it.

He sees me and waves as if I need to be made aware of him, as if he isn't the most obvious thing in the room, "Alex! Over here."

I approach the table, it’s almost perfectly square, a chair opposite his and none either side, intimate and close, there is a vase of dying flowers off to one side holding a tattered yet laminated menu from falling over. Michael already has a cup in front of him, it’s white and has no saucer, a casual cup. I still can’t tell if it’s romantic or platonic cup, why am I even questioning it, its platonic. Act Platonic.

“Hey,” I say, taking my seat, “I didn’t keep you long did I?”

“I’ve been here since opening.”

I feel my eyebrows launch into my hairline and go to stutter out an apology for being late.

“We’ve been open since 11, ignore him,” The waitress interrupts with a quick glare in Michael’s direction; they know each other? He does this a lot? He comes here a lot? It is 11:30 am.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Just a white coffee, thank you.” It’s safe, if the coffee is over brewed the milk will mellow out the flavour, and if it isn’t it will just be gentle in a different way.

She excuses herself to behind the counter, a waitress and barista, makes sense for a small business that’s empty at midday on a Saturday. The coffee machine is loud; clunky but seemingly efficient enough at its job to have not been thrown out. I do not recognise the brand, but maybe the coffee will still be good.

“You looked so surprised, sorry,” Michael apologies but there is a smile on his face, he seems to enjoy when I make facial expressions but I’m not sure why. I would ask but I don’t want to find out if he’s mean, “So what do you think of the café?”

“It’s quiet.” I try to remember what he had taught me, “But comfortable. Everything feels soft and rounded. Comfy.” I run my finger along the edge of the table to demonstrate and feel it go through a smooth edge to a harder point at the end but still not sharp or splintering. Comfy.

“I know right! I like it here because no one turns up so I can focus.” He was leaning back in his chair as if it was from his own living room; perfectly at ease in all situations.

The waitress set my coffee in front of me, “You should invite all of your friends so we don’t go out of business.”

Michael laughs her off with a wave of his hand, “And ruin my favourite spot? I’ll just give you one of my paintings when I’m rich and famous as an apology.”

“You should paint the café.” I manage to interrupt and immediately feel like I’m going to be scolded as they both turn to look at me.

“Why don’t you draw the café? You’re always here.” She sounds genuinely interested and folds her arms as she looks at Michael. I can see there is no name badge on her black shirt, for safety or does no one come in here who doesn’t know her by name?

“I’m more…of a portrait artist.” He sounds suave, aloof, cool, leaning to one side so his plaid shirt (blue, orange and white) is draped one side over his chest and one side in the air between his arm and the chair back. The t-shirt underneath is white; a bold choice for a painter.

“Oh so you’re shit at everything else.” She says with a shrug of her shoulders, “Guess you don’t get to go on the wall then.”

Michael sits up, all the suaveness melting from his body and instead replaced by shock and soft aggression, she is right though; all the paintings on the cluttered walls are of interiors and exteriors, maybe eyes staring at you as you drink your okay coffee is intimidating.

“How dare you!” His voice is more appalled than upset and he reaches under his chair to pull out his sketchbook with a pencil tucked neatly in the spiral binding. It is a fancy pencil that looks like a pen so the clip holds it in place, “I’ll show you. I simply choose not to do interior portraits, I can do them. What is a building but an angular person anyway?”

She gives a shake of her head, as if she’s seen this before, and goes to perch behind the counter. For a few moments we sit in silence, I drink my coffee, and listen to the sound of fancy lead on rough paper as well as the mutterings Michael says under his breath. Comfy.

He finally breaks the silence and turns back to me spinning the sketch pad round to face me, there are a series of squares each with a sketch of the view to my left, his right, with varying small differences for some reason.

“Lesson time!” He proclaims, leaning the pad on his edge of the table with one hand and holding his pencil like a pointer in the other, his voice is excited again but I feel there is a faint edge of adrenaline to it, “These are called thumbnails, they are the first step in painting. The idea is to plan out your framing and composition ahead of time. You don’t want to waste valuable paint only to find everything feels off or expresses a different tone to your intended idea.”

I nod and try to take in the information, it makes sense, painting are often very large, I wonder what the thumbnails of the painting of the café at the museum were like, the hands did seem perfectly in frame to make you feel like it was your perspective.

“After this I’ll do a full sized sketch and try to get down the finer details, I know this place pretty well but having a good reference is always helpful. Then I’ll do the actual painting in my home studio. Then I’ll bring it back here and shove it in your face Tiffany!”

The last part was aimed over his shoulder at the waitress, Tiffany, just shook her head at him and turned around to clean the already cleaned coffee machine.

“How do you decide which thumbnail to adapt?” I gently asked, his energy was endearing but still a little startling, maybe he was just always keeping quiet, it was a museum after all.

“Depends,” Michael looked from the sketch pad to his side and then back to me, a smile crept at the corner of his lips, “Quiz; Which one do you think is best?”

I look from the small drawings to the side. My angle is slightly different, I can see more of the counter, his is just chairs and the opposite wall, it seems endless, a café of infinite length and width. Some show more of the ceiling and others more of the floor, one is almost concave and distorted. All of them look nice but I pick one that feels the most infinite.

“Really? Why?” He turns the sketchpad back to himself and give a slight frown, my heart shatters for a second, apparently this is evident on my face, “There was no wrong answer by the way. What pulled you to this one?”

“I liked the idea of an infinite café.” I manage to get out the vague gist of the thoughts I had on it.

“Huh…Kinda liminal. That could be interesting. Different too. I don’t like making gift shop art.”

I let out a sigh, internally, even though he said there was no wrong answer, people tend not to actually mean that, they just want an answer from you. Maybe art isn’t like that though.

Michael puts his chin on his hand and looks me over, “Can I do you next?”

I am pretty sure, in that moment, my heart beat is louder than the coffee machine.