I want to die. Preferably quickly.
Unfortunately, the next few hours move at a snail’s pace. Ordinarily I’m a perfectly competent barista, quick, but bad at small talk.
Today I am all thumbs. Whenever Roderick stands close to me, I lose my train of thought. He smells like baked goods and citrus. Sometimes he hums a bit of a tune under his breath, and the notes bounce like rubber balls inside my chest.
And every time I catch myself paying too much attention to him, I become a little more of a self-conscious wreck. Each order takes twice as long to fill as it should.
Still, I hold it all together until Roderick suggests that we work assembly-line style to clear out the line. “Do you want to fill the orders or work the register?”
“Fill the orders,” I grunt. Because I’m better at coffee than people.
On the one hand, this new arrangement is a relief because it keeps Roderick out of my personal space. I no longer have to take so much care to avoid bumping into him. But now I have a new problem. Roderick jots the orders on the cups, and he has terrible handwriting. So, and this is an introvert’s nightmare, I have to ask him questions.
“Dark soul? Dark scar?” I guess, squinting at a cup.
“Dark roast with a scone,” Roderick says with a flinch. “Sorry. I’ll do better.”
Of course that says scone. My face reddens as I dive into the pastry case. He’s more careful on the next few cups. But then the Retired Teachers Knitting Club descends on the Busy Bean, and the line grows long again.
“You guys okay out here?” Audrey asks, dropping a fresh tray of muffins into the case.
“No problem,” Roderick says with a quick smile, although his blue eyes flash with panic.
A busy shop doesn’t rattle me, so long as I don’t have to make small talk with anyone. Maybe that’s why I don’t ask him what the next few scribbles say. I start guessing instead. It goes fine, until I fill an order that asks for “BB and BCH”, and I serve up a breakfast blend with a buttered chive biscuit.
One minute later though, Mrs. DeAngelo, my third-grade teacher, is standing in front of me yelling. “Coffee? I asked for a Berry Buster Tea. And this biscuit looks good, but it is not the bagel with cream cheese I ordered.” Naturally, Audrey sticks her head out of the kitchen just then, a question on her face.
“Sorry, Mrs. DeAngelo,” I stammer. “Let me fix that.” I take the coffee out of her hand and look for the tea bags.
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” Roderick says. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I was that hard to understand.
“S’okay,” I mutter. Everyone is staring at me, which is my least favorite thing in the whole entire world.
“You could have asked,” Roderick says under his breath, reaching for a bagel while I make Mrs. DeAngelo’s tea.
Yeah, I could have. But talking to you is like crossing a bed of hot lava.
“It’s a shame that you’re still so distracted,” Mrs. DeAngelo says loudly to the whole planet. “Always doodling in class instead of listening.”
Roderick cringes on my behalf and hastily spreads cream cheese on the old bat’s bagel. Then finally, we’re rid of her.
“Sorry about the terrible penmanship,” Roderick whispers. “If my teacher ever showed up, she’d have plenty to say about that.”
I only grunt in response, wondering how it could be only ten in the morning. Four more hours of this? I don’t think I can take it. Mrs. DeAngelo was right, anyway. I can’t concentrate this morning to save my life. Roderick wipes down the counter, humming under his breath, and the rich sound climbs right under my skin and vibrates through my consciousness.
I glance at the time. It’s only advanced a minute since the last time I looked, and I let out a sigh.
Roderick
As the day wears on, I charm Audrey by keeping the customers happy. And when Zara comes in at noon, I charm her with my baking success. “We had to save you a bagel and a pretzel to try because we sold the rest,” I tell her.
“Someone bought a dozen pretzels for her office after tasting them,” Audrey chirps. “She said it wouldn’t be right to keep them to herself.”
But the one person I cannot charm is Kieran Shipley. He avoids eye contact with me, even when I’m being super friendly.
I don’t take it personally, of course. He must be worried about our high school encounters. Maybe he thinks I’ll tell his family that...
Okay, I don’t have the first clue what he’s worried I’ll say. He obviously remembers me, and not in a good way. But I can’t tell if his chilly attitude is because he’s embarrassed, or becaue he’s a jerk. Either way, I don’t have any fucks to give about shit that happened in high school.
Maybe if I could get him alone for a minute, we could talk it out, though. Clear the whole thing up.
But Kieran leaves for the day before I get my chance. And then Audrey asks me to come back tomorrow and open the coffee shop with Zara. “We both want a chance to get to know you,” Audrey says.
“Excellent!” I say with a bright smile. “Sounds great.”
I sleep like shit that night in my car. You’d think being halfway to getting a job would’ve relaxed me, but instead, I lie there in the cold car and think of all the ways I could still screw it up.
If they run a credit check on me, will the bank say that my credit cards have just been canceled? Is that how credit checks work?
My bigger fear is that they’ll ask Kieran whether or not they should hire me, and he’ll talk them out of it. Kieran is one of those people who listens more than he talks. He can probably smell my desperation.
And he’s family. Audrey is married to Kieran’s cousin. “They’re a big, close-knit family,” she’d said as we chatted.
I’m doomed. And doomed people sleep poorly.
The result is that I’m bleary the next morning when I report for duty with Zara. The bagels and pretzels turn out great, but I’m sluggish behind the counter. I need more calories, too, but I don’t want to stop to take a break.
When Kieran shows up for work after the breakfast rush, Zara declares that she’s taking a break to check in on her daughter. “Can you bake another batch of muffins and some cookies for this afternoon?”
“Of course!” I say brightly, relieved to give up counter duty.
I can almost feel Kieran rolling his eyes. He’s not buying what I have to sell. He steps up to the counter, and I go into the kitchen, retreating to our separate corners like fighters between rounds. I put the muffins into the oven and wait.
I’m having a happy dream. The best kind of dream.
I’m in a gleaming restaurant kitchen, cooking a meal for the actor Henry Cavill. And he’s flirting with me. But I can’t tell if he’s flirting for real or just being friendly. As I set a plate down in front of him, I’m trying to decide whether or not to slip him my phone number.
“You’re really cute,” he says. “But it’s too bad we knew each other in high school. That ruins everything.”
“Why?” I ask Dream Cavill. But he can’t answer me, because the oven timer starts ringing loudly. I look around but can’t find it.