Let’s get something straight. I’m not bothered that you live in a country town and have parents that never have to worry about money. That you had a good education, and study medicine at a swanky university. I’m not fussed that you’re planning a winter skiing trip to St Moritz either. I’m presuming all these things because you speak in an educated manner and are charming with customers, which means that the owner of this cafe is fortunate to have you.
What matters is the present. I’m more interested in my latte and the fact that at any moment you’re going to bring me a pear, stilton, and walnut salad that will be the best I’ve ever tasted. Will I want balsamic or french dressing? I will choose balsamic.
I discovered this cafe years ago. It was cold and dark, the windows steamed up so that you couldn’t see in or out. I returned here two days ago, but now it is August, and the town drowns with too many tourists, but this place is out of sight and a good place to sit and write.
By coincidence, that same winter day I bought Ernest Hemingway’s memoirs at the bookshop next door. A Moveable Feast opens with a chapter called A Good Cafe on the Place-de-Michel, where he sits writing notes in lined notebooks like the ones schoolchildren used in Paris of the 1920s. Inexplicably, he stored them in a Louis Vuitton trunk which he left at the Hotel Ritz in 1928 and forgot about it. The manager reminded him of its existence when he went back in 1956, and he was reunited with his lost scribblings.
I’d look silly, because writing in a notebook is no longer stylish, so I’ve brought my laptop as an excuse. On the way here in the car, I heard a radio programme about people who never completed their work – art, writing, and even needlework. I look at the dozens of stories on my laptop that remain unfinished. I’m reinvigorated to complete them, and you might be responsible, and are the reason I’ve come back.
The other day you were sprawled across a table, scrolling through your phone, and picking at a sandwich. I was perfectly placed to notice that you were handsome. I thought that you were a customer but realised that you worked here and was on an afternoon break. It was enough for me to return and carve a memory that won’t easily be forgotten.
Have I been disappointed? Well, I’ve spotted a few things. That you’re shorter than I imagined but that is fine. There’s that nervous tick that goes almost unnoticed because you hide it with a smile. Then there’s the pale unblemished skin, that expensive haircut and that tiny earring in your left ear.
But it comes down to the pear, stilton, and walnut salad that you bring me, and I think about the gay thing, unless I’ve misread the situation.
It is a bit like my latest story called The World of Bianci, which is about an Italian boy I met on a bus in Verona. This is someone else I didn’t know and whom I also fell in love with.
Spot the problem here?
There is an American psychologist called Robert Sternberg who created the Triangular Theory of Love, which is intimacy, passion, and commitment. Love at first sight is the passion part of this simple hypothesis.
I once read that this may be a sign of something called ‘anxious attachment’ and this sense of attachment increases if I engage in conversation. I couldn’t do this on the bus because I didn’t speak Italian, but here the situation is different. This time it is about your excellent English and talking about lattes and salads and asking me if everything is to my satisfaction.
Infatuation is a terrible thing. That feeling of obsessively intense love, admiration, and the fear that I might never see you again, and that you have spoiled everything because nothing afterwards will come close.
You are on your break again, and on my way out of the cafe, you look up with coleslaw fingers and a mouthful of brie, tomato, and salad leaves, and say thank you.
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 