Clocks

July 4, 2004

“Commercial space for sale. 1000 square feet, includes workroom and back bar. For more information, please contact us at 89 ESTATE.” 

Martha Founder cocked her head at the sign. The dimensions were a little smaller than she’d been hoping for when she’d made the long way from her countryside home to the middle of the city at the whim of a friend. Katy had said it would be bigger, but Martha couldn’t argue that the plot was in a prime location, smack bang in the middle of the busiest part of town, and it had been their dream to start up a coffee shop for as long as she could remember; maybe it was time for them to actually do something about it. Besides, Martha added in her head, the price was lower than she could have ever imagined. 

Still standing in front of the sign, Martha dug around inside her purse for her cellphone. Finally, she flipped the damn thing open and dialled Katy’s number. They should at least think about it; and from their combined funds of ten years’ work, they finally had the money. 

‘Hey,’ Katy said, and Martha could hear her boredom from across the phone.

‘We should buy it,’ she said immediately, the excitement that was causing her hands to shake creeping into her voice. 

‘It’s absolutely dirt cheap; its the best deal we’ve found, and we’ve been looking for almost years, it’s in an amazing location, and besides, how long have we wanted to start a cafe? We aren’t going to be around forever, and we’ve had all the paperwork done for ages!’ Martha didn’t even know why she was justifying it so much; it had been Katy’s idea for her to visit the plot, anyway.

‘All right,’ she could hear Katy take a deep breath. 

‘You need to come over right now. I’ve already gotten the money together, all we need to do now is pay the deposit. Also, we still need a name for it!’

June 24, 2005

The building had been renovated. The part-time workers had been hired. The banners advertising opening day had been hung up, and the savings had been eaten through. The Clocks Cafe was launching today. Katy was standing next to the heavy, newly put in oak doors, talking to journalists and camera-people from a dozen different local newspapers they had somehow coerced to attend their grand opening. Katy was flailing her hands around, putting all the hard work and long hours they’d spent to fund the tiny cafe, into the flowery, eloquent sentences only she could spin. 

Martha flitted around inside talking to the three sleepy-eyed college kids they were paying minimum wage to turn up.

‘Come on, you have to admit this is at least a bit fun,’ Martha tried. She couldn’t have her front line looking as if they had only turned up under threat of torture. ‘You could be in the Times!’ one of them, Thomas, according to his nametag, smiled a smile she could tell was forced, 

‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said faintly. 

‘Well, at least try to look kind of excited.’ she said. 

She cast an eye over the dozens of clocks that decked the walls, none of them set to the same time and smiled, admiring her handiwork. The Clocks part of The Clocks Cafe had been her idea. Walking around the small space, she couldn’t find a single thing she would change. Until she spotted the thick layer of dust that covered each and every tabletop. 

‘Didn’t I ask you to wipe down the tables?’ she asked one of the other employees, who shrugged and mumbled something about not finding the paper towels. 

Martha stifled a groan, and took out a roll of Kleenex from under the sink in the kitchen, twirling around sharply bent countertops and the benches that stuck out from all the walls. They only had half an hour to finish everything, until people would start coming. 

‘...And without further ado, I am proud to announce the Grand Opening of Clocks!’ Katy announced, cutting the ribbon across the open doors with a flourish of the pair of ceremonial scissors that Martha had had to bribe out of her neighbours. There was a smattering of polite applause from the dishearteningly few strangers that had gathered, along with the steady dozen or so friends and family. At least, she thought as she found her husband standing with Katy’s son in the crowd, that meant they weren’t totally alone. 

‘Oh! And a reminder for those who need it: your first purchase is on the house!’ Martha added, stepping forward slightly from her place a couple of steps behind Katy. She was proud to note that her announcement got a few more people on the busy street to stop and look.

June 25, 2005

‘You know what,’ Martha asked as she stepped into her friend’s apartment, ‘yesterday went way better than I thought it would.’ 

Katy nodded her head vigorously from her place nestled in a couch piled with what seemed like a thousand throw pillows and blankets, angelic blonde curls bouncing all over the place. 

‘I was reading through all the papers that said they would write about us,’ she said, handing Martha, who had sunk into a loveseat opposite Katy, a few loose papers, ‘and almost seven of them actually followed through! I would have been happy with one!’

‘Almost seven?’ Martha asked, rifling through the increasing pile of papers in her hands like she actually knew what they were. 

‘One of them had an article about us, but it somehow ended up in front of a really cute picture of a puppy, and it’s impossible to focus on the text when there’s a picture of a puppy right there.’ she said, handing the article over the Martha, who had to agree. Even she was having trouble focussing on the article!

The door heading to Katy’s son’s bedroom clicked open, and he tossed a small grey object towards his mother,

‘Please give it back after, ‘he called after her, ‘I need it for my homework!’ with that, he shut his door. Katy had snatched the object, which Martha realised belatedly, was a calculator, out of the air, and was currently in the process of drawing out an impressively complicated-looking table on a sheet of graph paper. She lifted her head momentarily, just long enough to catch Martha’s completely lost expression. 

‘It’s an expenses table,’ she explained, ‘we need some way of figuring out our profit and loss, and I thought that I might as well put what we learned in Year Nine to good use. Here,’ she threw a highlighter towards Martha, who fumbled the catch and just missed bumping her head on the coffee table as she bent to retrieve it. ‘Highlight all of our expenses in yellow, and all of our profit in the pink one that’s already in the file,’ Katy said without looking at her. Martha put the papers that were, for some reason, still in her arms, onto the table, and started reading through them. A shop may be fun to run, but maybe Martha had misjudged the amount of paperwork involved. 

23 December 2007

Thomas Collins had worked at that cute cafe on Chapel Avenue since its opening almost two years ago, but that only meant that he took comfort in the place’s warm atmosphere even more when he visited as a customer. Christmas was the one times of the year when the cafe could be called bustling. Thomas had made it a point to come early to wish the owners Merry Christmas to the owners. He has known it would be impossible for him to find a booth to sit if he came in later. His family was celebrating Christmas a bit early this year; his younger sister was going on a trip with some of her friends to Europe to celebrate the end of her High School career, and she was leaving later today. Thomas thought this was as good a place as any to celebrate Christmas, and with the many presents he had received from the owners, Katy and Martha, he was sure the love he was feeling for his workplace was incredibly rare.

3 October 2008

“We apologise for the inconvenience, but unfortunately the Clocks Cafe will be closed from 14th September 2008 to the 26th February 2009. Renovations are underway, and when we reopen, we will be bigger and better than ever.” 

The sign had hung on their door for almost a month now, and the plot next to theirs had been completely razed to the ground. There was a truck on the road, and people in fluorescent safety jackets were hauling bags of bricks and wooden planks and plasterboard and stuff she couldn’t name onto the emptied plot. Katy smiled, looking out over her newly doubled land. It had barely been three years and they were already expanding. Soon, the Clocks Cafe would become a chain store; she could travel and put it down under Work Expenses! 

If only Martha was here, they could share the moment; Martha had, after all, promised that she would be here...

‘Ma’am?’ a voice startled her from her thoughts, and she looked up to see one of the men in his bright yellow jacket.

‘Yeah?’ she asked.

‘You need to sign right here, to say that you’re authorising the build to take place,’ he said, handing her a clipboard and pen. 

‘Also, you’re the one with the co-owner, right?’ he asked suddenly, as if just remembering. Katy looked up from signing. 

‘Yeah…’

‘Well, she needs to sign here too,’

Katy rolled her eyes. ‘Well, do you see her here?’ 

The man sighed, ‘Ma’am, we legally can’t start anything until she authorises it also.’

‘Martha?’ she asked into her phone.

You have reached the voicemail of Martha Founder, please leave a message at the tone. 

Katy groaned. She hadn’t been able to reach Martha all day, and she was getting nervous, ‘Where are you, I’ve been waiting for half an hour already, and one of the builders just told me that you need to sign the forms too before they can start building the extension, please come quickly.’

‘I’m sorry ma’am, but we have to go. We can come back next week at the same time to prepare the site for construction, but you’ll have to still pay for today because it was technically your fault we didn’t start,’ the man in the fluorescent jacket told her an hour later. 

‘Oh whatever, leave then.’ Katy told him irritably. 

‘See if I care,’ she would call Martha once more, Katy thought, and then she was going to drive herself to her absent friend’s house, and figure out what in the world was keeping her. That was when her phone rang. 

‘Hey Katy,’ Martha said, and it sounded like she was whispering. Katy bit back a dozen differently sarcastic responses.

‘Where are you?’ she asked instead, ‘I’ve been waiting at the building site all day and you haven’t turned up!’ she could hear Martha wince from the other side of the line. 

‘I’m sorry, Katy-cat, but you might want to come to the hospital,’ she said, and katy almost fell over from where she was leaning against a telephone pole. 

‘Why? Are you hurt? Are you okay? Does Peter know?’ she fired in quick succession, glancing around as if she might be able to conjure her friend’s husband from thin air. Martha chucked, still in that peculiarly low voice. 

‘It’s fine, but you told me that you wanted to be there when I gave birth for the first time, and considering I couldn’t warn you beforehand, I at least want you to be one of the first ones to hold her.’ she said. Katy held back a gasp, ‘I thought you weren’t due for another three weeks!’ Martha laughed softly, ‘apparently not,’ she said.

4 March, 2009

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve been running the place for barely four days, and I can already say that I can’t handle another week of it,’ Katy said, hands on her hips as she glared at Martha.

‘Well I don’t want to leave her with a babysitter, and Peter refuses to take to much of a break; I don’t want to ask it of him either!’ she protested, gesturing haphazardly to the baby that was fast asleep in a crib nearby. 

‘If it’s really that bad, then maybe we should consider hiring a temporary replacement for me!’ 

Katy sighed, ‘I don’t want to hire a temp,’ she said, ‘I want you to come back.’ Martha just shook her head sadly. 

10 July, 2010

‘I sold it,’ Katy said in a low voice, hovering at Martha’s front door, not stepping in. ‘It’s gone. It’s not ours anymore.’ 

Martha smiled waveringly, but her eyes were sad, ‘we had a good run.’ she said. She had her hands clasped into a child’s, and Emily cocked her head curiously, tugging at her mother to let go of her hands. Katy stared ahead, her eyes unseeing, ‘what am I going to do now?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘You’re going to come inside, and I’m going to make us some coffee,’ Martha said, leading her inside and closing the door. ‘And you’re going to be fine.’ 

11 July, 2010

Sarah Dunn had managed many shops before. They all differed in size and shape and colour and specialization, but they all had the undercurrent of crisp organization that she could work with. The Clocks Cafe did not have that. What it did have was a wonderful, ambient atmosphere that most people could only achieve with rigid rules for staff and a non-stop schedule, but she couldn’t see that in the cafe either. It was a puzzle.

She didn’t know why the co-owners were selling the shop; they obviously loved it dearly, and it wasn’t like the cafe was running at a loss either. Most small businesses failed in their first year of opening. Owners argued, opinions differed, and the businesses suffered for it.

3 January, 2011 

The clocks on the walls had all been rewound to the same time. The crazily mismatched couches and chairs and tables had been replaced by uniform, straight backed wooden chairs and tables. The cashiers wore pleasant, neutral aprons instead of the fun casual wear that they had been allowed to work with. There was a little brisker, new atmosphere to the cafe, that honestly wasn’t all bad. 

Thomas Collins had quit working at Clocks ever since the owners had sold their cute, quaint little place to some big corporation that he could no longer remember the name of, but he still liked to visit the cafe now and then, if only to see how it was going. He had to admit, the cafe was doing better than ever, it was packed to the brim on the chilly Sunday, but he had preferred it under Katy and Martha. He still didn’t know why they had sold their shop; even though he still exchanged Christmas presents with them, he didn’t really keep in touch with the two women who had maintained a constant, aunt-like presence in his life for years. 

He had long since graduated college with a degree in Advertising in the Media. Thomas had found himself, if he did say so himself, a rather well-paying, high ranking job in the marketing department of a big tech start-up. He had a steady girlfriend. He had made a life for himself that he liked living, but that didn’t mean he was immune to those sudden bursts of nostalgia; he had to admit that he kind of missed his life in the past, with its crazy weeks of no sleep and its non-stop feeling of happening. Thomas didn’t know why his feet had brought him here in nostalgia, though. The face of Clocks had long since changed into something unrecognizable. A bitter feeling rose in him; reproachment towards Katy and Martha for letting their sweet, ambient cafe be run over by unemotional corporate greed. It wasn’t a feeling he was keen on experiencing. 

He left.