The Barber

The Barber (excerpt)

Sonja Blonde

The Open sign in the window of the corner café overlooking the small square had barely been turned when Olivia’s hand was already reaching for the door handle. She was always the first to arrive. Greeting the two waitresses behind the counter—both in burgundy aprons—by their first names like an old acquaintance, she headed straight for the innermost corner. She dropped her handbag onto the richly carved two-seater sofa. The burgundy velvet immediately swallowed the small leather bag of a similar shade.

She rearranged the two armchairs across the glass table so that each of the four friends would have the same generous amount of space. By the time she was finished, the scent of the May morning had given way to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

She sat down. A satisfied smile flickered across her face. There were still a few moments she could enjoy alone in the café’s intimate atmosphere. Once the others arrived, a different kind of closeness would fill the place they came to every second Thursday of the month, right at opening time.

Adjusting her light-brown braid over her shoulder, she leaned back comfortably. With her eyes closed, she listened to the delicate clinking of cups and saucers, the soft murmur of newcomers. The waitresses didn’t disturb her. They were used to the four women ordering all at once.

Olivia flinched at the sound of the door opening. Martha’s arrival was unlike anyone else’s: she didn’t step inside—she burst in. Her sharp greeting tore mercilessly through the morning’s quiet, signalling that the gentle waking was over. The day had begun. Time to work.

Her flame-red hair flew behind her as she hurried towards Olivia. She didn’t even wait to reach the table.

“Don’t tell me you’re the first one here,” she laughed with mock astonishment. “Well, how surprising.”

She flung her enormous bag onto one of the armchairs and dropped into it so heavily that the wooden legs screeched as they slid across the warm brown stone. Crossing her legs, she flung one arm dramatically into the air.

“I loaded the crates of tomatoes onto the flatbed all by myself again, for God’s sake,” she snapped. “Got up at five so I could take them to you before opening.”

Olivia’s chest tightened. She always felt deeply uncomfortable when Martha complained about the delivery she herself had ordered. For years, she had sourced the cherry tomatoes for her greengrocer’s from her; it suited them both. Martha was spared the hassle of finding buyers, and Olivia could rely on consistent quality. The fact that she resold part of the stock was something her friend didn’t need to know. Martha still benefited—beyond growing them, she had nothing else to worry about.

Even so, Olivia disliked these remarks. She could never quite tell whether they were directed at her or at Martha’s lazy husband.

“He didn’t help again?” Olivia asked cautiously.

“You must be joking,” Martha snorted. “He didn’t even wake up when I shook him and said, ‘Get up, for God’s sake, come and help.’ I swear,” she went on, “I’d send him packing in a heartbeat. Let him move into a care home if he feels that bloody old.”

She switched legs, her left now crossed over the right. She ran her fingers through her hair again and again, glancing at her phone repeatedly, as if she were expecting an important call.

“I don’t think they’d take him on at fifty,” Olivia chuckled.

“He might get a reduced rate, the worn-out old man,” Martha shot back. “I can’t even remember when he became this lazy. One moment he was enthusiastically explaining what makes a tomato crop truly good, the next he was sprawled in front of the television in sagging tracksuit bottoms.”

Then, suddenly—as if something had flipped inside her—Martha fixed Olivia with that wild, amber-coloured stare. A strange shiver ran through Olivia. That look always unsettled her for a brief moment. Only until Martha spoke and it became clear she was teasing her again.

“So how many times have you had sex this week?”

Olivia’s face flushed instantly. At the word sex, a pleasant tingling swept through her entire body. The orgasm she’d experienced barely an hour earlier rose before her—the scorching breath at her ear, the tension coiled inside her. Her shoulders sagged as she surrendered to the warm, sensual memory. Her gaze dropped to the floor.

“Did I miss anything?” panted the latest arrival.

Olivia jerked her head up in alarm.

“Come quickly, Amira,” Martha beckoned. “We’ve just moved on to a more… slippery topic.” She grabbed Olivia’s knee. “Go on, tell us—let us be jealous,” she urged.

“Well… now,” Olivia murmured. “He’s had a bit more time lately.”

Martha let out a loud neigh of laughter.

“Passed his exams, did he?”

The shame forced upon her crept insidiously beneath Olivia’s skin. And yet, when she had writhed almost unconsciously in the final-year student’s bed, clawing at the crumpled cotton sheet, neither the age difference nor her friends’ sharp opinions had troubled her. On three mornings a week, it wasn’t a thirty-nine-year-old business owner and a twenty-five-year-old student making love, but two bodies craving passion and satisfaction, perfectly attuned to one another.

“He doesn’t have classes anymore,” Olivia breathed, “and he still only works two days a week. Tuesdays and Fridays—same as when I’m at the greengrocer’s.”

Amira clapped her hands. The movement made her tall ponytail sway lightly, and her distinctive, sweet tobacco scent drifted around the small circle of friends.

“My dear, his studies are finished—how adorable! I can’t wait to finally take a proper look at him,” she gushed, then settled comfortably beside Olivia.

A mocking smile tugged at Olivia’s lips.

“Because you’re expecting me to tell you where he works?”

“Exactly,” Amira declared theatrically. “You can’t keep it a secret forever.”

“I have no intention of telling you. The last thing I need is the two of you turning up at his workplace…”

“And what if he gets himself a girlfriend?” Martha asked, posing the dispiriting question.

There was a trace of delicate mockery in her voice.

A shadow crossed Olivia’s forehead. She shrugged.

“I don’t know—but I’m glad you brought it up,” she replied coolly, then pretended to give it some serious thought. “It might be,” she began slowly, “that we should schedule an extra sex day…”

She glanced sideways at Martha, who rolled her eyes—not playfully, not with exaggerated humour, but with clear irritation. Olivia regretted it instantly. As if she didn’t know that Martha would trade an entire year’s tomato harvest for a single good bout of sex. With a husband more than ten years her senior and a low libido, sex only ever crossed his mind when, in the middle of an argument, Martha hurled it at him that they never did it.

The awkward moment was finally broken by the arrival of the fourth friend, Tatjana, close on the heels of a waitress. With her customary composure, Tatjana walked over to the coat stand in the corner and, while the others placed their usual order, carefully hung up her ankle-length, gossamer-thin mohair cardigan and her own hand-crocheted handbag. She took nothing out of her bag — not even her phone. Those few hours were sacred to her.

Her strawberry-blonde hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, catching the sun’s upward-climbing rays. Like some angelic being, she waited in silence, a patient smile on her lips, until the waitress stepped away from the armchair beside her.

“I’m starving,” Amira said, rubbing her hands together. “I pushed myself a bit today and ran five kilometres instead of the usual four. I didn’t even have time to grab a bite.”

“Well, Olivia certainly wasn’t shy,” Martha sniggered, her face flushed. “I suppose she had a taste of this and that for you as well.”

Her voice wavered under the strain of forced laughter.

Remarks like that tended to stir pity in Olivia, sometimes irritation. She wasn’t angry, but coarse comments always sent a shiver through her—especially when they were aimed at her or at someone close to her. Their morning encounters were about passion, tenderness, and care. She disliked it when anyone tried to cast her relationship in a different light. Just because it was purely physical didn’t make it lesser or something to be dismissed.

She glanced cautiously at Tatjana—the only one in the group, besides herself, who enjoyed a balanced sex life. She wasn’t disappointed: Tatjana seemed to be waiting for her friend’s silent plea.

“All right,” Tatjana stepped in at once to help Olivia, “enough guessing—let’s get down to specifics.” Then she turned to Amira. “You start.”

Olivia sank back into the soft velvet backrest with relief. She’d escaped having to snap back at Martha. She didn’t want tension—neither between friends nor with someone who also happened to be her supplier.

Amira’s love life was an endless soap opera for her friends. Even years later, they still waited for the next episode, because with her there was always something going on. Men came and went around her at speed; none of them stayed long enough for it to become clear what she might be capable of in a real relationship. By the time Amira truly began to open up, there was usually no one left to open up to. Sometimes it only emerged later that not everything had been told to her, and more often than not she found herself cast not as a partner, but as a supporting character in someone else’s story. The romances most often ended with unexplained disappearances.

Most recently, she had fallen hopelessly in love with one of her clients who was in the middle of a divorce. Amira ran two TRX sessions a week for the handsome lawyer. According to him, he drove half an hour just to train with her—and that alone was enough to sweep off her feet a woman whose own marriage hadn’t lasted more than a year and a half.

“That’s it, for God’s sake,” Martha perked up. “Tell us.”

She turned her chair towards Amira. Resting her elbows on her knees, eyes wide open, she watched her friend’s every move.

As if preparing for a performance, Amira excitedly adjusted her sporty, tight white top, through which the thick, padded bra showed faintly. Then she slid her hand between her tightly pressed thighs and waited for all attention to turn to her.

“First of all: he kissed me,” she declared dramatically. Her gaze travelled around the table, anticipating either outrage or excitement.

The expected reaction didn’t come. Instead, patient curiosity settled on their faces.

“You’re not even surprised?” she bristled for a moment.

Olivia gently stroked Amira’s arm.

“It’s more that it didn’t catch us off guard. That kiss has been hanging in the air for a while now…”

Amira nodded shyly.

“Well… that’s true. And before you start—I want you to know that this time it’s different.”

A brief silence followed her words. One by one, she looked into each of her three friends’ eyes.

“Believe me, I can feel that he’s not like the others. I can see it in his eyes. There’s something so clear and sincere about him.”

“And you should believe this,” Tatjana cut in warmly, “that when we point out warning signs, it’s not because we want to hurt you. It’s because we love you—and you deserve the very best.”

“I know,” Amira whispered. “But this time I’ve really struck gold.”

“And how is the divorce coming along?” Martha took it upon herself to ask the uncomfortable question.

Amira’s face turned grey. She cleared her throat.

“His wife is nitpicking over details—just dragging things out. But we’re not pushing it… the date doesn’t matter to us. What matters is that we love each other. Everything else is irrelevant.”

“Have you met his children yet?” Martha pounced again.

Amira’s face went ashen once more, and she coughed lightly.

“Not yet. We think it’ll be better after the divorce.”

“You both think that?” Martha pressed on.

“It makes no difference to me. He knows them—he knows what’s best for them. And I think it would be tasteless to appear together before then.”

“I don’t understand,” Martha persisted. “You said the woman already has a new partner, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Amira nodded vigorously. “But they only want to make it public once it’s official.”

As if on cue, Tatjana stepped in once again to rescue her friend from the tight spot.

“I think that’s right too,” she said calmly. “Children don’t need silly rumours circulating about their parents. And neither do people going through a divorce. Remember—things would only have been harder for Olivia if, back then, they’d been publicly seeing someone else.”

As the toasted sandwiches were set down in front of them, Tatjana gently drew a line under the delicate topic.

“Girls, you haven’t forgotten that tomorrow is sports day at school, have you?” she shifted into a light, motherly tone. “Make sure you put some sunscreen in the kids’ backpacks—the sun is already quite fierce at this time of year.”

The women nodded eagerly, but their gazes were already fixed on their plates.

*

A few empty vegetable crates lay scattered across the middle of the shop. Olivia had promised Tatjana she could take some of them, to turn into storage units for her studio. She was absently sizing up the plastic boxes when the small bell above the door chimed.

She didn’t turn around. She assumed Tatjana had stepped up beside her, about to slip an arm around her shoulders.

“I hope I’m not interrupting some serious crate training,” a warm, melodic male voice said behind her. “I can see they’ve already learned how to lie down properly.”

Olivia clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the laugh that threatened to escape. Slowly, she turned her head. She had never heard this voice before.

A pair of green, smiling eyes looked back at her. She barely registered the body they belonged to. The depth of that gaze pulled her in, drew her in, left her mind blank. The man didn’t move either, as though the moment had frozen around them.

The silence was broken by the dull thud of an apple hitting the floor, then rolling slowly beneath the counter.

“What can I get you?” Olivia asked hoarsely.

“I can’t even remember why I came in,” the stranger replied softly.