THE DEADLINE CAFÉ EPISODE #23

Helen liked to leave a short break between her readings in the café. Of course, this respected each client’s need for a certain amount of discretion, as much as one could find in the back of a busy café. But more importantly for Helen, it gave her a bit of time to close her eyes, release the departing client’s energies, and make room for the next guest, as she liked to think of them.

Today, when Helen opened her eyes, she felt something unusual, a strange new sensation that caused her to hold up a hand to her forehead, palm facing outward, as though it were a small satellite dish, picking up faint beams from the universal consciousness.

“Picking up some vibes are we, Helen?” the professor said, watching this phenomenon.

“Actually,” she said, with a bit of a dramatic pause, “I was. Until you spoke.”

“What? The noontime news on WGN radio?” he quipped.

“Nothing of the sort. I sense something about to happen, someone important about to…”

No sooner had she said that than Sergei, limo driver to CEOs and Hollywood stars visiting Chicago, held the door to the café open and a slender, good looking, once youthful now middle-aged actor strode into the café as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be there then.

Heads turned. Faces in the line at the counter lit up. This was one of them who had made it big out west and who still, somehow, kept his local roots. Someone at a table said, “Hey, how ya doin’? Good to see ya!” They shook hands. Within a minute most people in the café had taken at least one look and Helen turned her face to the professor, smiled beatifically, then said, “Logic has its limits, professor.”

Sherman came out of the back room and proceeded to rub against the star’s leg. “That’s some cat you got here, wow. Sergei told me about him,” the star said, brushing a tuft of Sherm’s shedding hair off his West Coast designer jeans.

“What would you like?” Lissa said, leaning forward on the counter, smiling. “Can I get you anything?”

Hank, who saw the star give Sherman a little nudge with the tip of his cowboy boot, and had been watching this spectacle ever since seeing Sergei’s town car pull up in front, had heard just about enough of this fawning and groveling over the star, who was still wearing his Cub’s ball cap and scanning the small crowd through his RayBans—less a faint effort at anonymity than a veiled attempt to garner more attention, squeeze more drama out of this visit.

“Can I help you?” Hank said, gently pushing aside Lissa, who was still looking at the star with googly eyes and a frozen smile like she was twelve years old.

“Actually, you can. You must be Hank. Am I right?” the star asked. “I’m - - - -,” he said, as if it might be possible for someone not to know who he was. “I’d like to talk with you. Is there somewhere we can go?”

***

Word about their arrangement spread around Evanston faster than the Chicago Fire. When the star told Sergei on the way in from O’Hare that he was getting ready for a role as the love-struck owner of a small café, Sergei told him about the café in Evanston. “You look perhaps a leetle like Hank even,” he said. So the deal was that the star would shadow Hank for a few days. Live his life, the lawyer said. But with some differences. For one, the star slept in the Four Seasons, not in Hank’s apartment. He’d follow Hank around for an hour or so, just once or twice, and Hank would show the star how to make an espresso because that’s what he did in the film.

But there was more: no coffee for the star, just green tea; no Sherman, just a trained cat they’d bring in; absolutely no autographs; and definitely no jokes about the star’s last film. It was all right there in the contract.

They all thought the star was a nice guy, even Hank. That is, until the star seemed to be shadowing Lissa more than Hank.

Slipping off his apron at the end of the first day, the star asked Lissa if she would like to join him in the city for some sushi.

Hank looked up.

“I’d love to, but I have plans,” she said.

“Well, if you change your mind, here’s my number,” the star said before heading out to Sergei’s town car.

“Nice offer,” Hank said after the limo pulled away.  “What plans do you have?”

Lissa had moved to the cash register.  She looked distracted.  Hank started to repeat the question.  “What plans---“

“Hank, look at this.”

There it was, in big block letters on the piece of paper the star had given Lissa with his phone number. 

24 DAYS.