The Weekend

She rings the doorbell: the metal knob is cold and hard to press. She hopes she won’t have the same coldness with them. She’s already a little stressed.

She gives Jean a big smile as he greets her at the door. Their beloved cat also comes to greet her, rubbing against its master’s legs. The cat knows her well, but is always wary of her for the first few minutes. It needs to observe her first with its piercing yellow eyes. It understands her: it can feel her emotions.

They head for the veranda, the only bright room in the flat. She squints for a second. The contrast between the darkness of the windowless living room and the brightness of the veranda is stark. The furball follows them in: perhaps they’ll fill its bowl with this mash, the smell of which wafts through the room as soon as the tin is opened.  The cat eats a few bites and then moves closer to the chair where she is sitting. It senses that she is uncomfortable and needs some support. It’s also a good way of getting a few caresses in the process.

“Hello Eve!” she exclaims with the same big smile, a little exaggerated to hide her concern. Eve is sitting behind her laptop at the table overlooking the garden. One of the veranda windows is open. The scent of jasmine is beginning to waft through the air on this late summer’s day. The house cat decides to go for a walk, but stays nearby on the terrace. It looks at her again.

“Hi there! I’m just finishing something and I’ll take a break with you”, Eve replies.

Jean prepares the coffee in silence. She exchanges a knowing glance with the cat on the veranda table, who is still staring at her. “Go on, explain it to them”, it seems to be saying. The noise of that machine so vaunted by George Clooney is deafening. It is no match for her old Baletti Italian coffee maker, which exhales a powerful, delicious fragrance from its spout as soon as the water begins to boil into tiny bubbles that burst delicately.

The questions come promptly. “How many of us are coming this weekend? Who did you invite? Why didn’t you make a WhatsApp group, that would be more practical.” Each of them pricks her like the tiny needles an acupuncturist applies. The pain is strong but extremely fleeting. And then, from time to time, there’s one that hurts more than the others when it penetrates the surface of the skin.

“Why do people always want to interfere in other people’s lives? she thinks. “I didn’t ask them to organize my weekend: I just invited them. They’re a close couple, which is fine… but then they’re also close when it comes to their bullshit! Am I not capable of managing things myself? I’m 45 years old, I can manage the logistics of an event like this, I can think of everything. I don’t need people chortling at me with insistent suggestions about how I should proceed.” 

Her whole being was boiling inside her, but she remained calm and suppressed any negative expression on her face. She turned her head towards the cat, still sitting on the wooden table in the garden. 

“There are too many of us, the WhatsApp groups are a pain because you get dozens of messages that aren’t necessarily very relevant. It’s fun at first, but it gets boring”, she replied as neutrally as possible.

“What can we help you with?” he asked abruptly but as naturally as possible. As if it were obvious that she needed help.

This time she stared at him with a look that no longer tried to hide her irritation. The cat came back into the kitchen and sat down on the chair next to her, feeling the tension rising. 

“How can I detach myself of these people who helped me so much at one time in my life but have now become a burden? As heavy as parents. My parents weren’t heavy, though, and I don’t want to end up with friends who take on that role. I shouldn’t have invited them. Anyway, I forced myself to. Among the mass of people who will be in this village, I hope they’ll leave me alone.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” she replied as a matter of fact. “Stay calm, stay calm” she repeated to herself like a mantra. “That’s not an aggressive question.”

As usual, she hadn’t thought it through yet. But Camille had already offered her help by message, and she would be arriving two days before. 

“Ah… Ok… “

She sensed a pang of jealousy. She hadn’t told them they could arrive earlier. Why did Camille have this privilege but not them?

So here we go: explanations, justifications, debates, insistent remarks and suggestions on their part. Eve looked at her discreetly out of the corner of her eye, her face half hidden behind her computer screen. It was obvious that she was jealous of Camille’s privileges. Jean didn’t react, just finished his coffee in silence and gave her a benevolent look. The cat had now landed on his master’s lap and seemed content with his attitude. It adored his soft, warm caresses.

She could already imagine the virtual conversation she was going to have with Camille that same evening. 

– That’s it, they’ve started to piss me off.

– What did they do?

– Intrusion into the organization, lots of questions. As usual. I got the feeling they were jealous that I’d offered you to come earlier.

– Well, stay calm. It’s going to be fine. 

For the moment, however, she wasn’t with Camille, but there with them, in their kitchen.

On her master’s lap, the cat closed its eyes, a sign of total trust and appeasement. She looked at the cat, and then at the couple. The paradox was that she already knew they were going to help her a lot once they got there. They will be efficient and will relieve her of many details she hadn’t realized the extent of. She would be grateful to them and this situation would happen again and again.