After a while, Ethan squeezed my hand and stepped aside to grab our portfolios from the back of his car. I opened my eyes and stared up at the crows darting about like black comets. Dark omens. Shut up, Kaira, you’re being ridiculous. Then Ethan handed me my portfolio and began walking toward the café, and I followed, trying to push down the scent of blood lingering in my nostrils.
T’Chai Nanni was warm and humid and smelled like cardamom and cloves, which immediately brought my brain back to reality. The birds were just birds, and everything else was my tired imagination trying to fill in the blanks. Chalk one up to the artist’s brain: always creating, and especially great at creating problems.
Plinky guitar music drifted from the speakers. It felt like being in some hippie hobbit hole: The walls were all rustic wood, the ceiling exposed rafters and prayer flags; bronze elephant statues and paintings from local artists made up the eclectic decor. And—the first real blessing of the day—all the mismatched chairs and tables were empty. The coming snow must have scared people off.
“Score,” Ethan said.
The back curtain opened and Veronica stepped out. She was maybe forty, with light blond hair and green eyes and a willowy frame. As the owner, she also knew tea better than anyone else. On many occasions, Ethan and I had plotted how to steal her away to be our Tea Mistress in our future bungalow.
“Evening, Veronica,” I said, hanging my coat on one of the cast brass fingers sticking out from the entry. An electric heater hummed below it.
“Nice night, eh?” she asked.
“Lovely,” Ethan said.
“Hungry?”
We both nodded. “Hungry” was an understatement.
“On it.” She disappeared into the small back kitchen and Ethan and I took up our usual space in the far corner. The two sofas here were plush red velvet, the arms and cushions faded and threadbare. Ethan chucked off his sweater and threw it over the back, then unzipped his portfolio and began rooting through projects. I shuffled around in my own bag and pulled out a couple of papers, spreading them on the Tarot-card-mod-podge table in front of us.
Veronica came by a few minutes later bearing a tray with two handmade teapots and thick mugs. There were also two bowls of soup and a steaming loaf of fresh bread.
“You’re an angel,” Ethan said when she set the pot of faerie’s blood tea in front of him.
“And you’re a fabulous brown-noser,” Veronica replied, reaching over to hand me my pot of spiced lemongrass chai. Our orders were predictable, but since she hand-blended the teas each time we came in, the taste was always just a little bit different.
“What’s on the agenda for tonight?” I asked her. I poured a stream of milky tea from the pot; the scent was almost heavenly enough to make me forget my looming thesis. Almost.
Veronica reached into one of her apron pockets and pulled out a novel with a half-naked man on the cover and a woman kneeling in front of him, hands on his chest.
“The classics,” she said with a wry smile. Veronica had once admitted to doing a PhD in English literature; it had been enough to turn her away from reading “good” books for life. It also earned her another point in my eternal devotion department. That and her wicked-good chai.
“Can I borrow it after you?” Ethan asked, rooting around in his bag.
“Not until you give me back the other ten I’ve lent you.”
“Nine,” Ethan said. “The tenth was a gift. You said so yourself.”
Veronica just laughed and ruffled his hair before going over to a loveseat by the kitchen curtain to read.
With that, we settled in to working on our theses. Neither of us said anything for the first half hour or so. The music faded into the background and mingled with the occasional rumble of wind and the door didn’t open once to admit new customers. The warmth of chai sank into my bones as the electric caffeine buzz heated my veins. This was familiar. This was what I needed. Work was always the best answer for putting the past behind you. And yes, I realized what sort of complex that would create in my future years. It worked for now.
My project both terrified and exhilarated me, which was how I knew I was doing the right thing. I was going to be presenting with two other artists, and I had an entire thirty-foot stretch of hallway to fill. It was supposed to be thematic, to showcase the culmination of my work at Islington. Two years of practice and prep, two years of late nights and frustrated tears and way too much caffeine. Two years to sum up in a single, week-long showcase.