beanie’s beanery, I

The wind sliced around the corner, youch.

Sam huddled into herself, deep into her shawl, hat, and jacket, hurrying towards her favourite place, Beanie’s Beanery.

Inside Beanie’s, there was one table left, right across the panorama windows, snug between the bamboo shelf and the gum-tree, a perfect hotspot, yes. Sam hurried over, and sat down, relief sighing out of her, finally. Just then a couple walked in, all stamping feet, red faces, and rubbing hands. They scanned the full room once, twice, then decide to just stand near the tall slab of slate with Only Good Vibes swung in chalk on it. Beanie’s lovely old-wood counter-top often functioned as an impromptu bar for those who really just wanted some great coffee.

After de-onioning herself and watching with satisfaction as her phone picked up a full cone of WiFi, Sam answered a WhatsApp from Tony – Haha yeah, ttlly – liked two memes and three Insta posts, one of them that new one from RyoRyo that was really sweet:

174
almost black, broiling
skimming-skating
racing across an endless sky

RyoRyo was this guy in Tokyo who liked to write in English. They DM’d sometimes, Sam had gotten curious and one evening just sent That was beautiful. How do you do it? And RyoRyo answered. Ever since they DM’d every now and then, mostly emojis and memes, but it as nice. The last one RyoRyo sent was a cat someone soaked in the kitchen sink, the poor thing looked positively murderous and Sam laughed for five minutes, genuine laughter that broke through the dreary day she was having.

Sam ordered tea, English Breakfast, when Sonia walked over with an easy ‘Hey, Sam!’ Sonia with the thigh gap and the really pretty eyes, Sonia with the hazelnut curls she loved and hated, Sonia who got a B.A. in Business because it was sensible, Sonia who found out she was one of millions who were that kind of sensible, Sonia who once said, ‘It’s like we’re all Made in China. Cheap and disposable.’ Sonia who was always sending out CVs and rewriting Cover Letters, Sonia who was trying to escape her gulag of a temp-job, Sonia who helped out in Beanie’s on Wednesdays and Saturdays so she could afford Bobbie Brown and vacations, Sonia who had that boyfriend, The Jerk, Sonia who sometimes crashed at Sam’s because of The Jerk, Sonia who was actually a great friend.

‘Big, small, drowning?’
‘Drowning,’ Sam smiled. ‘And hot, please, really hot, like, boiling.’
‘How boiling?’
‘Law-suit boiling.’
‘You sure?’
‘Girl, I need to warm up. Just – make sure Darren doesn’t ruin it. And add a TSG to that.’

A TSG was Beanie’s famed ‘Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese’, an enormous bowl of thick, fire-engine red, tasty tomato soup and a virtual slab of a grilled cheese sandwich made with whatever cheese Cook Masood felt like melting that day. A TSG was a full meal for less than a tenner, and everyone loved it, students, graduates, and The Working Dead as Sonia called everyone who could no longer hide out in dorm-rooms.

Sam small-talked with Sonia for a bit, the usual, The Jerk, gulag, The Jerk, yoga, The Jerk, how awful the weather was, The Jerk, and some Staff Room gossip about Greg and Darren. Greg was House & Country and very gay, Darren was very straight-from-Texas American and forever baffled by Greg. Just watching them was entertainment, but Sonia couldn’t stay long, people were looking over, trying to catch her eye.

Once alone again, Sam took her book out and started reading, scribbling notes in the margins. She slowly sank back into herself, wrapped herself up in the busy quiet of Beanie’s, and disappeared into a different world with words like

I
Visitation
1529

They are taking apart the cardinal’s house. Room by room, the king’s men are stripping York Place of its owner. They are bundling up parchments and scrolls, missals and memoranda and the volumes of his personal accounts; they are taking even the ink and the quills. They are prising from the walls the boards on which the cardinal’s coat of arms is painted.*

only breaking her reading due to the relentless blue-dot flashes beaming from her phone – oh, another tweet from @thejoycehater who was her colleague and friend Kingsley ‘Mac’ Macmillan (yes, his parents were that pretentious) :

MacMillan @thejoycehater
@tullytullytoo @whohoomans
@padmesam @wathefek @jujuice79
@decomfekin @madmommy77
@dropitnow91
Fuuuuuuuuuck people
it’s only Wednesday.
#humpday #ugh #shittyweek #ineeddrinks

JuiceJune @jujuice79
Replying to @thejoycehater
I CAN’T EVEN.
LIT-ER-A-LLY.
#wtf #humpdayblues

another WhatsApp

Julianna: OH MY GOD I HATE THIS PLACE!!!!

and a couple more Insta-likes of her last skyline snapshot, ah, Jason and Lou-Anne, nice. Sam dutifully answered all,

Samiam @padmesam
Replying to @thejoycehater
I hear ya boo. That’s why
I ran off to the B
TSG 4 life ♥
#humpdayblues

Sweetie, I know
But it’s only 2more weeks
Remember Lisbon
Make it your mantra:
#sing I love Lisbon in the Spring
√√

By the time she had finished answering Julianna, Sam’s notification bar was full of mentions, like @jujuice79’s RT PREACH! [handsintheair] quickly followed by

Omigod TSG would be fucking
HEAVEN now ♥♥♥
#foodheaven #hangry

from @tullytullytoo and

TSG!!! YAS!!! Goddammit Sam,
why do you torture me so? [sob]
#ineedfood #hangry #crying

from @whatthefek who was in San Francisco for a month due to work, which was why @dropitnow91 replied

wtf you have fab sushi & dim sum
just down the block. Get. Out.
#seriously #nah

which was immediately liked by @madmommy77 @jujuice79 and 12 others, but the count was still running. Her count was currently at 15 likes, no 16 likes, nice, 11 of them actual friends and 5 of them people she probably met at some party once. And again Sam felt that warm glow of satisfaction: she had read the mood right, everyone just wanted some TSG and a time-out. The shitty week and the weather had dragged everyone down, no wonder Mac tweeted that, his count was at 35 at the moment, and it was probably still rolling.

In moments like these Sam felt they really were all connected, all at the same place at one with each other, all their minds synced to one. No wonder Dunya called them The Hive, Dunya who’d been part of more than one mad night full of cocktails in The Shak back in the day, Dunya who hooked up with richboy Sergio nobody ever took seriously he was such an insufferable twat, Dunya who got pregnant with Angelo and cried all night, Dunya who accepted Sergio’s pretty sweet proposal, somehow he’d managed to grow up when no one was looking, Dunya who became Mrs DeLuca three years after graduation, Dunya who became a full-time Mom. Dunya who did her best to get a babysitter in time, Dunya who really did call herself Mad Mommy, Dunya who never exempted herself from The Hive.

Anyway. Sam put away her phone, ignored the blue blinking dot yelling a silent CHECK ME off the screen, and continued reading, refusing to look at her phone until she got her tea. Sam sank back into Renaissance England and tried to remember which Thomas was who, finally took out her notepad from her olive-green Snipes with the tan tags – the one Sonia bought the day after she saw Sam come in with it – and jotted down words, thoughts, questions, and memories of lectures past, she’d had more than one Shakespeare course in her uni life.

Sam watched the ink seep sweetly into the smooth paper, swoops and swirls, simple curlicues that were just so satisfying to see. These were her words, this was her writing. This was her notebook, full of brainstorms for the next review she would post on that place that was all hers, her blog: The Orsay at padmeorsay.com. None of her friends knew it existed, no one in her life was to know. The Orsay was hers and hers alone, which was part of why she liked writing her posts out first. It added to the privacy, almost as if she was really writing a journal of her life. There was something about seeing her own words in ink on paper that made it more real. So Sam wrote down: Imagine you’re in 15-Whatever and get robbed of your ink and quills. No chill.

*Hilary Mantel. Wolf Hall. 4th Estate, 2010, p. 47.