Behind closed doors

Janice fixed her scarf with hairpins, behind her ears and across her temples, to make a hairband. She adjusted the bun at the top of her neck and hid the remaining of her camomile strands under the silk patterns - without metamorphosis, she struggled to slip into her evening role.

She rolled down the iron curtain of her dry-cleaning shop and switched the sign on the door to “Closed”. Her hand glued to the top of her headscarf, and her long pleated dress floating in the wind, she rushed down to the bar at the corner of the littered street. Cherry blossom tainted the air of another spring evening she would be spending indoors, for client privacy. Her low heels tapped the wooden parquet as she stepped into the bar and her gaze slid down to avoid the barman’s eyes behind the counter. He watched her walk over to her usual table as he wiped wine glasses.

Janice soaked a tissue with lemon flavoured water from the jar and scrubbed the wood. Her clients would lean on the table and she did not want it to be sticky. They were already stuck enough in their lives.

“What would you like this time?“, the barman asked, a hand on his hip while she ran her finger down the lines of a menu she now knew by heart.

“Crispy tenders with barbecue sauce. And fries. Lots of fries.”

He grabbed the menu back with a smirk - I know you're on to something, his eyes read. And you won't get any fee from me, her eyes replied.

“The woman with the scarf, what a great idea to find you, Mrs BehindClosedDoors," her client said as he slipped off his jacket. He looked young. “It’s a nice place here." He looked around at the coloured glass partitions behind them. “I saw there’s a pool over there.” He looked back at her with a genuine smile. He was young.

“Would you like to order something? Their iced tea is good.”

“Iced tea, then.” He rubbed his laps under the table. His cheeks were red and his teeth soft, Janice wondered who he would address his letter to. The barman glanced at her as he brought a tray with chicken tenders and sauce. Janice pushed the tray towards her client and fetched her pen and stationary from her bag. That pen was her favourite because it rolled seamlessly as clients recounted their stories.

”So,” she said as she flattened the paper, “what do you want to tell her?”

“Should I first give some context?“

“As you wish.”

“Alright. Because I cannot really... I don’t know how to... I mean, facts are easier for me.”

“Let‘s go with the facts, then.” She took a sip. By now, she knew that when it came to closure letters, as she called them, the words she used to help clients open up did not matter. Her tone did, her eyes did and fried chicken did. The rest was only fluff.

“But before that, how did you know it’s a she?”, the client asked. Janice smiled - clients always wanted to start with context and ended up contouring the topic by asking her what she had perceived. They expected her to frame what they felt, before even trying to phrase it themselves. Over the past twenty years, Janice had learnt how to decipher her clients' body language. There were three types of clients: those who wanted to contact a past lover, those who contacted a family member or a friend and those who wanted to make a written promise to their old or future selves. The main clue to figuring what category a client pertained to was how and when they had positioned their coats on their chairs. That gentle man, for he seemed gentle, had tossed his jacket onto the back of his chair as soon as he had entered and hadn't noticed it sliding down to the side as they spoke. Typical mix of hastiness and oblivion.

“Your eyes,” she said.

“Oh.“ He blushed. “That’s a good sign - you can read well.“

"I can write even better.”

He smiled and leaned his elbow on the table to grab fries.

“Actually, we don’t need facts. What happened is...”

Janice helped the young man articulate what he wanted to say to a stranger he once met at a gas station in Big Sur. They had moved on with their lives, for who has time for love fantasies across time zones and states. But with time, she had come back to his mind and he wanted to express what he had felt for her. Who, amongst us, wish, yet fear, recontacting past encounters for another lap? Most, Janice found. But to her, it was easy - she listened and scribed. Beautiful letters in cursive, with words and flavours. Feelings and regrets. Images and prospects. Part of the process was the casual setting and the rest was the light-heartedness of a conversation with an ego so alter that clients had the impression of talking to a wiser self. With writing skills.

"So you'll post the letter tonight and... keep me posted?"

"I will write your address at the back of the envelope, so you can receive her response directly and take it from there."

"Do you think she will reply?"

"A heart-felt letter is the best way to know."

Janice lit up the lamp by the TV of her small living-room and opened the window to get a glimpse of the cherry blossom scent she had missed out on. She lit a cigarette and skimmed through the three letters she had composed that evening. Client stories were all similar, especially in that they were jailers, holding them prisoner. Janice slipped the envelopes into a box, where the other letters to lovers, former or to-be, awaited. Letters she had never sent and never would.

Janice switched the sign on the front door of her dry-cleaning shop to "Open" and started the day with the pile of blue shirts she had to iron. Everyone deserved to start anew and leave their hopes behind. To charge a minimal price to her night clients for writing and sending closure letters, Janice had kept her old job and worked hard by day. She poured lavender water in the iron and pressed it onto the pleats. She liked the sound of the water moving inside the iron. She stopped at eleven, like every morning, to drink coffee and watch rushersby through the window. To some it was an ordinary day, to others an important day. They were visiting their future houses, meeting their in-laws for the first time, hiring their first nan, or going to an interview. Those for whom it was an important day had tensed foreheads and a tiny smile at the corner of their mouths. Worried optimism.

"Janice."

"Good morning Madam, may I help you?"

"You know why I'm here."

"I'm afraid I don't."

It was not the first time a night client entered her day shop.

"We met three months ago at the bar, at the corner of the street."

Janice put her cup on its saucer and the china tinkled between her wrinkled hands.

"Andrew hasn't replied." Her client's suit and heels stood out in the shop. "Has he received the letter?", she asked.

"How would I know?" Janice said and turned around to face the vitrine again. She crossed her arms onto her chest tranquilly.

"Did you send the letter?"

"Did I send the letter?"

"Janice, you can't... that's not... I paid you for a service and -"

"Which I did. If Andrew hasn't replied, and doesn't want to, that is another matter."

"Why wouldn't he want to? You said a genuine letter was the best way to-"

"Best doesn't mean successful." Janice turned around, arms still crossed on her chest. "Were you expecting an answer?"

"I hoped..." The woman looked down at her handbag.

"Would he answer?" Janice joined her hands and came closer to the woman. "Would Andrew answer a heart-felt letter?"

"I don't know. I... I had so much to say, now -"

"Now it's up to him. Hence my question to you: is that lack of answer surprising? Think clearly."

A dark veil covered the eyes of her client. Janice recognised that veil - it was a mix of sorrow and hatred. That look in her clients' eyes bit her in the chest, each time. She removed the basket of shirts from a chair by the counter and pushed it towards her client. A tear rolled down the woman's cheek. Janice pinched her lips. That part was probably the one she hated most. No matter how many times she had done this, it still transpierced her chest. She kneeled down and took her client's hand.

"I don't understand. I thought he would ... but now.... Why?" The client's earrings tinkled as she turned her red nose towards Janice. "Why would he -"

"Ignore you?"

Silence, she had learnt with the years, was the best way for her clients to face the flow of potential answers in their heads and understand there were none. The abundance of answers and their ironic absence. Janice's thumb caressed the back of her client's hand. It was soft. She wondered if Andrew would have enjoyed caressing that hand again. But she would never know. And neither would her client.

"I have to go back to work." The woman said, wiping tears with her fingertips to avoid spreading mascara over her cheeks. Janice brought her a handkerchief and led her to the entrance of the shop.

Janice watched her zigzag through traffic lines with her beige high heels and grey-striped tailored suit, her blow-dried curls floating in her back. Janice grabbed her diary and marked the day in two weeks with a cross and the name "Andrew". In two weeks, her client would come back to return the handkerchief she would have wept in and washed. Janice would then offer her a "spontaneous" tour in her car. A tour she would have curated just for her.

Janice rolled down the window of her car and drove off. The shop shrank through the rear-view mirror until it faded away, as her own life and that of her clients. Although, not really, for, on the passenger's seat, sat the box with letters to lovers. Janice drove through the forest, via dusty paths. Gripping the wheel, she replayed the story of Andrew in her head. She remembered every single story, perhaps because she wrote down the letters. Andrew who had left her client for no reason, most likely for another woman. Andrew who throughout the story had shown no sign of magnanimity. What had worked in other cases would work in Andrew's case, Janice diagnosed. Her client only needed to understand that the doors at the end of the corridor that separated her, in time and space, from Andrew were now closed. That, faced with closed doors, one could only turn around and walk in another direction. Hence the closing letters - they helped close the door on both sides and force the right ones open. Janice lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out of the window. She knew what forgetting someone we once loved tasted like. Especially, when one only had hopes and no answers. Which is why Janice had decided long ago to never post letters addressed to past lovers - they were never worth it. Longing for an answer, a sign, anything, crushed down passion and hopes into ashes. Expressing feelings and regrets was a first step to moving on, hitting the wall was the second and a walk in the forest by the ocean was the next.

Through the rolled-down window, the salty air from the ocean and the scent of pines embalmed the car. Janice played Moving On by Leonard Cohen on her dusty player. The car shook from side to side as she progressed across the stones of the dirty path. She gripped the wheel stronger, to not shiver and not let the lyrics carry her too far. The guitar strings always hit the same. Be it as she thought of Carl or Tonio. She pushed the gear box. Carl's eyes like coffee beans and his brown hair, not dark, not black. Intense brown. Tonio's face as his tiny fingers twined around hers. She pushed the accelerator.

She soon reached the spot she had in mind for her client, amidst sequoias and cedars. She parked by a fallen trunk and grabbed her bag. Was she here for herself or her client? At times, she wondered. She picked a daffodil along the path. She would wrap it in newspaper and slip it into her next enveloppe to Tonio - daffodils were his favourite. Cohen's guitar strings still played in her mind as she walked down the trail that led to the cliff far ahead. From the cliff, she saw the ocean. Its waves and foam, its smell and spray. A large bird deployed its wings and melted into the setting sun. The daffodil spun between her fingers. That very view helped her clients move on but, each time, it reminded her of the same question: why? With Carl, the story was confusing yet simple. She had forgiven him and learnt her lessons, although without answers. But Carl, who was and would forever be part of herself, was not her son. Tonio was. He was their son. Janice grabbed a tiny stone and threw it down the cliff. It fell flat into the ocean. It did not ripple, it just fell flat. She saw it, she felt it, she knew it. But she kept watching, hoping the stone would bounce back and time reverse. It never did. Why had Tonio ignored her letters for more than twenty years? Question. The rosy clouds in the sky blent with indigo nuances as the sun slid into the horizon. She rubbed her shoulders and glanced a last time over the cliff. The stone was gone.

She sliced pieces of meat for Debbie her cat and caressed her silky hair. She grabbed the batch of letters she had received that day and went through them, caressing her fluffy cat. Five letters. Her heart stopped as she noticed a familiar handwriting on one of the envelopes. She ripped it apart.

"Dear Mrs BehindClosedDoors, I saw your ad in the newspaper and I would like to make an appointment to send a closure letter. I've heard you do miracles..."

Something pinched into her chest. Her hand shook out of disappointed excitement. She put the envelope on the table with the batch of "potential new clients", she would look at only on Monday. The rest of the letters were "Thank you" notes from existing clients. She threw them onto another batch that she would browse through on Tuesday. Tuesdays were her favourite day. It warmed her heart to know clients had moved on. It warmed her heart to know they had achieved what she couldn't do. Through their moving on, she experienced what she wished for. None of her clients had figured she never sent out letters to past lovers. She did send those to old and future selves for the client was the recipient. But those letters were rather insignificant - who needed a third party to write down something to oneself? No, those letters were only a way to hold oneself accountable and do it. Janice had little respect for people who sent letters to themselves via her, she found it theatrical. But still offered the service. Past lovers, not worth it. Old and future selves, grandiosity. No, the only letters she took seriously and did post were those to friends and family members. She even paid extra for the letter to arrive faster for she would have given anything to receive one from Tonio, across continents.

The window was open and, outside, the branches of cherry trees shivered to Cohen's poem. She locked the door of the living room, folded her long skirt and curled into the sofa. Behind the living room's closed doors, she fetched stationary and twirled the forest daffodil with her fingers. Her favourite pen, the one that never lied, marked the date at the top right corner of the paper. Dear Tonio. The pen stopped. Behind closed doors, the daffodil laid, waiting for another attempt to flow out.