Coffee Morning

[Published in Death's Door]


"I think he fancies you, Jennifer," said Cathy, in much more than a whisper, as if she were deliberately wanting him to hear her words. She then took another bite of her cockroach sandwich.
An embarrassed Jennifer furtively cast her eyes in his direction, believing that there was no way he could hear them through the glass.
"I don't think so," she said, although she couldn't be certain. Then, in order to change the subject. "Are those really cockroaches?"
"As real as you can get," June chirped in, herself indulging in the delights of a bluebottle biscuit, washing it down with percolated coffee. "This is indeed an excellent spread, Cathy."
"Thank you very much," smiled Cathy, as she chewed on a cockroach that refused to go down.
Jennifer glanced at the window cleaner once again. To her he looked early twenties, with a trendy goatee and sandy collar length hair, not to mention those dreamy blue eyes which appeared to be gazing her way the whole of the time. If only she were ten years younger, and unmarried, and not so incredibly shy -- if only she were in another world.
"Biscuit, Jennifer?" June offered, handing over the plate filled with the strange delicacy. "Come on, you haven't tried anything yet. Cathy's gone to so much trouble too."
Jennifer awoke from her dreamworld and hesitantly eyed the contents of the plate. They looked just like normal biscuits, but on closer inspection she could recognise the flattened shapes of bluebottles implanted within, like fossilized flies embedded in ancient rocks.
"You won't want any cake then?" said Cathy, nodding in the direction of the immaculate confection on the coffee table.
"Cake?" gasped Jennifer, after swigging a gross amount of coffee to absorb the ghastliness of the biscuit.
"Spider cake with a silverfish topping," said Cathy, grinning.
"Oh my God!"
More laughter. Despite the oddities contained in the buffet Jennifer did not regret attending Cathy and June's coffee meeting. Apparently, they had informed her, the two of them got together every weekday morning for the said coffee plus 'a pleasant buffet', they had called it. Jennifer began to invent an alternative reference.
"Beetle tart?" chuckled June.
Jennifer refused. She was preoccupied, studying the attractiveness of the window cleaner through the glass of the window.
“He’s eyeing you up something rotten,” said Cathy.
Jennifer escaped the man’s blue eyes to face her friend. She had known Cathy for years, with her living in the same street, but she had never realised her penchant for preparing such hideous delicacies -- but then why should she?
"How's the baby?" asked June suddenly, munching into the remains of another squashed bluebottle.
Childbirth -- yes, let's talk about that, thought Jennifer. All that sweating and pushing and suffering and frustration and discomfort…
“Fine,“ she muttered unenthusiastically, "Mike's looking after him.”
"Good for Mike," said June, expressing more than a hint of sarcasm, and gleefully picking up another biscuit.
There followed a noisy kerfuffle outside as the blue-eyed cleaner removed his ladders in order to begin work on another section of the house. Jennifer wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not, as she was kind of enjoying the attention. She started to picture him minus that sleeveless T-shirt he was wearing, all beautifully muscled and bronzed. Then she mentally stripped him bare, imagining his youthful nakedness, trying to compare him with Mike.
There was a knock at the door, and her body jerked abruptly.
"Who's this?" Cathy said as she downed the last of her cockroach sandwich. She arose from the settee and approached the window, unashamedly twitching the curtains. "For God's sake, it's him -- the window cleaner!"
Jennifer watched as the hostess raced to the front door, with June leaping from the settee, sweeping biscuit crumbs from her black mini. She thought how absurd June looked in that short skirt, a fortysomething with a toothy smile and a lipstick overdose endeavouring to appear twenty years younger. As for Cathy, she looked sensational in red ski pants, her fabulous legs being her best feature by far. She opened the door and a husky voice was heard.
"I need some hot water for my bucket."
Jennifer viewed him with interest as he was ushered into the kitchen, and he returned the stare. June followed with the untouched tarts and the coffee pot, like a bee trailing honey. Jennifer was appalled at her behaviour -- the hussy, she thought. Then she too ventured into the kitchen.
"Fancy some coffee? Beetle tart?" enthused June, raising her voice above the sound of running water.
Cathy pushed her away, as if to say, "He's mine, he's mine." But he was glancing around, apparently searching for Jennifer. He completely ignored June. Jennifer caught his gaze yet again, absorbing his male smell and wallowing in their close proximity. Her two friends silently observed. Until Cathy intervened.
"This is Jennifer," she said, spreading her hand in the direction of her friend's trembling figure.
The youth smiled, and his blue eyes sparkled, as Jennifer snatched the carving knife from the kitchen table and viciously sliced open his throat. There followed cries of horror mixed with an odd gurgling sound as he sank to the lino with warm blood leaking from the throat wound.

Five minutes later Jennifer was standing in her own kitchen, having quickly fled from Cathy's in order to escape her two hysterical friends. She couldn't understand it -- spider cake, bluebottle biscuits, beetle tarts, cockroach sandwiches. She had been disgusted by all that, but when she had suggested some real delights, all hell had broken loose. She just had to get out of there in the end.
"What's for lunch?" asked Mike.
His words caused Jennifer to visibly shudder, for she had not really noticed him sitting at the kitchen table, a newspaper spread in front of him. She gripped the handle of the carving knife more tightly in her sweating palm, holding the lethal object closely to her side, the serrated blade almost inadvertently nicking her plain knee-length skirt and piercing her thigh, as she steadied herself with her left hand on the refrigerator door. She then grabbed the handle and tugged it open to reveal the awesomely-lit compendium of cold delights. She stooped to peek inside.
"There's just an arm left," she said, spotting the tiny fingers half-curled into a ball, "just enough for a sandwich, I reckon. Will you carve or shall I?"
Mike sighed, then produced a mischievous smirk. "Perhaps we ought to start trying for another child.”