The Space Between Us. Megan Hart
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bandanna around it, very 1940s Rosie the Riveter. Well, except that I was frothing milk and filling coffee jugs instead of fixing airplanes. If crazy was retro clothes and lots of eyeliner I might qualify, but not because of my day-to-day life.
I made a little wiggling gesture with my fingertips. “Yeah, o-o-oh. I’m s-o-o-o wild. And cra-a-azy! Watch out, I might just do something really nutty like wipe up the crumbs on your table.”
“I meant it in the best way,” Meredith said.
“Thanks.” I started to say more, but my boss came out from the back room and shot me with the death-ray lasers of her gaze. “Talk to you later, when Joy’s not breathing down my neck.”
“Did you refill the self-serves?” Joy asked, and continued without waiting for me to answer. “I need you to pull all the baked goods today at four instead of five. Someone’s coming from the women’s shelter to pick them up. And listen, that panini on the menu? We’re taking it off at the end of the week, so push it hard so I can get rid of that avocado.”
We had half a dozen panini sandwiches on the menu, but at least the bit about the avocado tipped me off. I gave Joy my best and brightest, if dumbest, smile. Made sure to add the blank doll eyes, too, just because I knew how much she loved feeling superior. Hey, everyone’s got a hobby, right? Hers was being a bitch. Mine was letting her think she was getting away with it.
“Sure thing. No problem.” I settled the empty jug near the coffee machine.
“Don’t fill that now—it’ll be off temp when it’s time to replace it.” She said that as if I hadn’t worked here for almost two years already.
I didn’t bother arguing. There are just some people in the world you can’t please except by not pleasing them. And life’s too short for making drama, you know? Sometimes you just gotta play nice, even when someone else is trying to grind your Play-Doh into the rug.
But then she floored me.
“I’m leaving at twelve-thirty, and I’m taking the rest of the day off.”
“Are you okay?” It was the first question that rose to my tongue.
Joy took most weekends off, her privilege as manager, but that meant she never took days off during the week. And leaving early? No way. Privately, I thought this place was the only thing she had in her life.
Her sour expression showed me I’d stepped out of line. “What? Of course! Please don’t tell me I need to stay, Tesla. I mean, you can handle this, right? Do I need to call Darek to come in earlier?”
Her tone made it clear she had about as much faith in me handling the shop as she would if the mop in the corner came to life and started grilling up paninis. “Yes. Of course. Have fun.”
“It’s an appointment,” she said. “Not fun.”
I shut up after that and got to the business of serving coffee and pastries and pushing panini sandwiches on poor, unsuspecting squares who didn’t know the reason I raved about the turkey avocado club was because we were trying to get rid of it before the end of the week. By the time Joy was about ready to leave, the line of customers stretched all the way to the front door. That happened every day, though. I wasn’t worried.
“I called Darek,” Joy said. “He’ll be here in twenty minutes. I can’t really wait for him….”
I liked working with Darek. Still, the fact she’d needed to call him in early twisted my nipples a little. “It’s fine, Joy. You go. I can handle this.”
“With one hand behind her back,” said the next customer in line, Johnny D., without being prompted. I love that guy.
You can’t work in any sort of job dealing with the public and not get to know the people who come in day after day. Regulars. Well, I have regulars and then I have favorites.
Johnny Dellasandro was definitely a favorite. He’s older than my dad, but has the most adorable little boy I’ve ever seen. He’s made of fabulous, that guy, always with the smile and the wink. A dollar in the tip jar. A girl notices those things. He likes flavored coffee and sweet things, and he likes to sit with his newspaper in the booth closest to the counter. Sometimes he comes in with his girlfriend, Emm, sometimes with his little boy, sometimes with his much older daughter and his grandson.
Joy never gave him a sour look. She shot me another one, though, as if it was my fault she had to leave. Then she shrugged into her coat and left.
“Where’s your little dumpling?” I asked Johnny when she’d gone.
“With his mama today.”
“Must be nice to be a man of leisure,” I teased. “Swanning around coffee shops and whatnot, being all pretty and stuff.”
Johnny laughed. “You caught me.”
“What can I get you?”
“Chocolate croissant. When you getting in those peppermint mocha lattes again?”
“Not until closer to Christmas,” I told him as I pulled out the biggest croissant from the case and settled it on a plate for him. “We have the pumpkin spice, though. I can get you one of those.”
With Johnny served, I moved on to the next customer. One at a time, that was how to do it, making sure to listen carefully to the orders so I didn’t make mistakes—it was no good being fast if you were sloppy.
Eric was an emergency room doc who liked a pot of tea while he sat at a table in the front window and wrote list after list on yellow legal pads. Lisa the law student always had a jalapeño-cheese-stuffed pretzel and an iced tea while she studied. Jen was a regular I hadn’t seen in a while, and we chatted about her new job for a minute. I spotted Sadie the psychologist at the back of the line and gave her a wave. Sometimes Sadie came in with her husband, another tasty bit of eye candy, only Joe was the kind of man who never even looked sideways at another woman. Today she was alone. Sadie waved back with the hand not on her hugely pregnant belly.
“Hot chocolate, extra whipped cream, and …” I tilted my head, looking Sadie up and down when she got to the counter. “Bagel with lox spread. Am I right?”
She laughed. “Oh … I was going to be good, but you’ve convinced me.”
“If you can’t indulge when you’re pregnant, when the heck can you?” I tipped my chin toward the front of the shop, where Meredith had snared some other regulars into telling stories. Laughter rose and fell. “I think there’s something exciting going on up there. Grab a seat. I’ll bring it over.”
Sadie huffed a sigh. “Thanks. I swear, I used to be fit. Now just the walk from home to here has me winded. And my feet hurt.”
“No worries.” While she waddled to a table in the sunshine coming through the large front windows, I set to work toasting the bagel, steaming the milk, adding the chocolate syrup.
“The queen’s holding court,” Darek said as he moved behind me to hang up his coat and put on his apron.
I looked up at the sound of Meredith’s laughter floating toward the back of the shop. “Doesn’t she always?”
I’d known her only a few months, uncertain of when she’d gone from a regular to a favorite and then to a friend. It might’ve been the day Joy went into one of her raging shit-fits and Meredith had calmly but coolly put her in her place by reminding her “the customer is always right, or this customer goes someplace else to spend four-fifty on a mocha latte.”
Since then Meredith had weaseled out most of my life history over coffee and sandwiches. I guess I’d had a crush on her from the moment she’d walked through the front doors of the Mocha with her oversize handbag and complementary dark glasses, her shoes that matched her belt, her perfectly styled blond hair. Meredith was the sort of woman I thought about trying to be sometimes, before ultimately accepting it took a lot of money, effort and desire I mostly didn’t have. She’d become a part of our little coffee shop