exactly right like Goldilocks

I was working in a cafe today for the first time in a while and the woman behind me had an extremely carrying voice. I had sought out a quiet corner by the fountain to write and she came along borne on her throaty rolling laugh, which she brought out every time the good-looking, shaven-headed maitre d’ came past, and sat down to wait for her friend. The friend arrived. The coffees were brought by a Japanese waitress who spoke in a very high, girlish voice, anxious to please. The throaty lady responded to this waitress in her own high pitch, the kind of friendliness that lacks warmth and is in fact sharply dismissive, “Ok great! Thank you!” Then they settled down to conversation and I was reaching the end of my narrative by now and her voice interrupted my thoughts, lazy me, I couldn’t help it.

Her favourite word was “Exactly!” She used it twenty-three times. With emphasis, and pronounced “Igg-ZAK-ly.” I pronounce it rather that way too, more of an “egg.” Exactly, she would say when her friend finally got to talk, exactly. ExACTly. Her second-favourite was “Ab…so….LUTEly,” drawn out in a way that seems sexy in a tired way to me, almost mechanical. So much affirmation, so much praise. She was like the world’s best world-champion good listener, only louder. Her voice was still ringing in my ears as I walked away. Under a fig tree I ducked into a shoe shop to turn over some suede pair of green things for men, and the sales guy came up and we chatted. We were telling each other how hot it’s been. I told him how the Berliner I brought with me couldn’t grasp it, how he said, I’ll just wear my jeans. “We arrived in December.” “Oh, no.” “I told him, you will NOT want to wear denim, in Brisbane in the summer.”

He told me his bedroom has no windows. “Wow,” I said, “that’s hardcore.” “I know,” he said. “But then – you couldn’t open a window anyway! Because of the mosquitoes.” “Iggsackly,” I told him, “iggsackly.”