Regulars #

10 January 2025 #

Currently sending out to magazines

What kind of person ventures out to a coffee shop in the middle of a supercell? This was what I asked myself, peeling out of bed at five in the morning after reluctantly deciding to show up for my shift at the coffee house. Turns out some people value espresso over their lives and mine.  

The first regular to appear that morning was Andy, a slimy guy in his late thirties, never failing to show up two minutes before opening every morning. He began this routine a week after I was hired—I had handed him his drink and he only grumbled; his eyes pointed thirty-degrees south all the while. I’ve been wearing my apron full-time ever since.

Andy was waiting for me when I pulled up, tapping his watch. A cold breeze caught me as I scurried under the overhang, whipping my lanyard around so even just opening the door was a struggle. Andy’s big face, kissed red by the thick raindrops turned near to ice by wind chill, sagged into scrutinous contempt as I fumbled for my keys and unlatched the rusty deadbolt.

I flung open the door, and he followed me into the gloom. I looked up to the clock, cringing; I was five minutes late. Andy had been waiting seven minutes, and I knew I’d be getting a nasty text from the manager about it. When I presented him his drink ten minutes later, he smelled it, face folding like I’d handed him a urine sample. He shook his head, setting it on the counter.

“Not what I ordered,” he said.

“You didn’t actually order anything. It’s Monday, so I made you a chai,” I said, picking at my fingernails. I’d just splurged on a manicure, and already I screwed up my cuticles. In this job, I swear I’m not allowed to have nice things.

Andy grunted. He only spoke when necessity demanded it. “It’s raining, I wanted a mocha.”

“You should have said something, then. That’ll be five-fifty.”

He muttered under his breath, dropped a bundle of damp, crumpled ones before waddling off to the corner where he would begrudgingly sip for the next hour. I retreated to my safe-spot behind the espresso machine, sat on a black metal stool I wasn’t allowed to sit on. I’d be getting a text about that, too. I looked up and waved at the solitary security camera, pointed behind the counter.

I heard Andy scratch himself, talking crap under his breath. He struggled to inhale, his entire form quivering. He was in no way dressed for the weather, clad head-to-toe beige cargo shorts, brown flip-flops, and a bright red polo-shirt, dark stains spotting him all over. Most were from golf ball sized raindrops, but others were far more permanent.

He, in every way imaginable, repulsed me; and yet I’d taken to studying him like I was Jane Goodall observing a chimp, ousted from his group. He fascinated me with his strange behaviors and idiosyncrasies, and I often found myself wondering how someone could be so wholly unaware of his surroundings—and how he had yet to be arrested.

As I peeked around the corner, I watched him pick his nose and fling what he found onto the floor. He didn’t give it a second thought, just sent his booger loose unto the world until it solidified on the polished concrete or relocated to the bottom of someone’s shoe. The malformed confidence of crusty white men will never cease to amaze me.

Andy left without a word while I was doing inventory in the back. When I returned to the counter to count the register, I sighed deeply, relieved no one else seemed stupid enough to ignore a travel advisory for an overpriced latte. The wind shrieked outside, lifting the ceiling panels. My phone trembled with a tornado watch.

My relief was short lived, murdered by the blaring ringtone of the landline. I answered, heard the manager’s nagging voice: “You’re there alone, today. Julie is stuck at home and no one else is picking up.”

“Fine by me,” I said, picking coffee grounds from under my flaky nails.

“And stop sitting down on the clock. I don’t pay you to twiddle your thumbs.”

Click. She always hung up without saying goodbye. I put the phone back on the dock and suddenly felt so unbelievably tired. My eyes became hot and bleary, so I retreated to my stool to catch my breath.

The doorbell chimed as someone walked in, shaking the room beneath the roar of what sounded like a freight train speeding by in the parking lot.

“Oh, thank god,” a woman said. “They’re open!”

“I don’t know, hon, no one’s here.”

“Hello! Anyone home?”

I wiped my eyes and rushed back to the counter, donning my best customer service mask on the way. “Hi! I’m sorry, I’m the only one here today. Can I get you anything?”

“Thank god!” the woman said again. She was in her late-fifties, maybe early sixties, and still gorgeous—she looked like a copper-skinned Lily Tomlin, dressed in a flowing black and white dress, shrouded beneath a stylish wool trench coat. Her left ring finger was adorned with the biggest diamond I’d ever seen. “Yes, anything warm. It’s just hellish outside.”

Her husband squinted at the menu as he folded up a bent umbrella. He was drenched, wearing nothing but a white, long-sleeve button up and jeans. He swept a knobby hand through thinning white hair. “Are the macchiatos real, or just that Starbucks junk?”

“They’re the real thing, a double shot with a bit of froth on top.”

“Excellent, I’ll have two.” He analyzed my expression, then justified himself: “We’ll be here awhile, the roads are terrible.”

My eye twitched, involuntary and thankfully unnoticed.

I started on their drinks while they wandered around the common area. The man had his arm around his wife, whispering in her ear while he pointed at photos of the manager standing in fields and farms in South America. He’d say something he thought was extraordinarily clever, smirking devilishly, and she’d giggle like a schoolgirl. “Oh, George!”

While I pulled the shot for George’s macchiato, my phone rattled atop the espresso machine with a tornado warning: Stay indoors, seek shelter immediately. A shot glass walked off the machine, shattering on the floor. My heart crunched like Andy’s dollar bills in my chest, and I yelled.

“God dammit!” Involuntary, and unfortunately quite noticed.

“Is everything alright?” George asked, rushing over to the counter.

“Yes, everything’s fine,” I said, switching off the machine. His shot overfilled, frothy brown film clinging to the sides of the glass. “I’m fine, thank you.” I was not fine—this was the third glass I broke this month. Yet another text waiting to haunt me in the wee hours of the night.

“Oh no, sweetheart,” his wife said behind him. “You’re bleeding.”

I looked down at my fingers, and sure enough my acrylics were ruined. My hand was red as a serial killer’s. Now that I noticed the cut, it burned horribly.

“Do you have a first aid kit? I’ll help you dress it.” The woman’s eyes were kind, she reminded me of my grandmother.

I shook my head. My heart was palpitating. I was going to lose my job, then I’d be evicted, and then I’d be homeless. I didn’t have health insurance, I couldn’t afford to go to the hospital, and even if I could… the roads were flooded, and a god-damn tornado was about to touch down.

“Let Parvati take a look,” George said, whispering for some reason. “She’s a nurse.”

“You are?” I choked out the words, for fear of crying in front of total strangers.

“Yes, sweetheart,” Parvati smiled, showing slightly crooked teeth. “George, go find that kit. I’ll get her taken care of.”

Without a word, George went off rummaging in the back. Parvati wrapped my bleeding hand with paper towels and ushered me to their table. Alone with her, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Tears streamed down my face, splashing on my lap in rhythm with the downpour outside. Parvati took me in her arms, petting my hair. She didn’t say anything, just held me.

George returned with a white and blue plastic box, opened it on the table to reveal a litter of empty Band-Aid wrappers. Parvati dug through the kit and found what she needed. She rinsed my cuts with hydrogen-peroxide and wrapped my index and middle fingers with medical tape.

“There you go,” she said, a gentle hand atop mine. “All better.”

I looked into her round, brown eyes, and I swear I saw an angel. “Thank you…”

“So,” George said, uncomfortable with even a second of silence. “Tell us about you. Are you a student?”

“Yeah,” I said, wiping my nose with a napkin. “I study anthropology at IU.”

“Very nice! Undergrad?”

I shook my head. “I’m in the last semester of my masters. My thesis is on the structure of Norwegian and Swedish homes between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, specifically on how their designs promoted their lifestyle.” It was an automatic response, given whenever someone asked me about school, but George had a countenance of genuine interest.

“Niche!” Parvati said. “I like niche! You need to be very specific these days, all the general topics have been swept up.”

“That’s always been frustrating. I feel like no matter how hard I study; I’m just piggybacking on someone else’s ideas.”

“You know,” George put a finger to his chin thoughtfully, “I just read a book on a similar topic. The author used a term… God, hon, what was that book I told you about?”

“George, you know I can’t keep up with all your new interests.”

“Seriality,” I said. “Andrine Nilsen, she wrote about how villages were built to be interchangeable, designed to change over time. I cite her a lot in my thesis… perhaps too much.”

“She’s a good source,” George nodded. “I used to teach in the Anthropology department. Way back when.”

“Before he got swept up in his writing.”

“Oh?” That surprised me. George didn’t seem the thoughtful type. “What do you write?”

“Poetry, mostly… I like to go out to Leonard Springs, sit by the pond, see what comes to mind.”

“He wants to channel his inner Dickinson,” Parvati winked, a practiced, almost stilted gesture.

“Bah,” George blushed. “I’m more of a Frost guy.”

“No, you’re not!” She looked at me, covered her face with one hand so George couldn’t see, mouthing, “No, he’s not.”

The house phone rang like a siren going off in the coffee shop. I swear it got louder with every subsequent volley. “I’d better get that,” I said, excusing myself. The call had gone to voicemail by the time I got to the phone. It was from the manager. I called her back.

“What the hell are you doing?” said a raging voice through the tiny, impossibly loudspeaker. “Chatting it up with customers! Are you serious, right now?”

“I hurt my hand, didn’t you see?”

“I see everything, now quit fooling around!”

I looked up at Parvati, wondering if she heard the conversation. Her face was indifferent, the face of a mother who allowed her children to make their own choices… their own mistakes.

“I quit.” I said.

Static.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you.”

“And?”

“You’re making a huge mistake,” said the disembodied voice of a dead god who longer held any power over me.

I snorted. “I’ll figure it out,” and I hung up. Both George and Parvati sat staring at me. I smiled wide, a wave of relief washing off my shoulders. “Let me get those drinks out for y’all! Then I’m closing shop the moment the rain lets up.”

I made a few drinks, two macchiatos for George, a large vanilla latte for Parvati, and a large oatmilk mocha for me. As I steamed my last pitcher of milk, I saw the clouds parting through the window. A beam of sunlight stretched into the room and touched me with warm fingers. The tornado had probably landed somewhere nearby, missing us by a few miles.

The couple followed me out the door, holding each other as I worked at the bolt, which always stuck. The sky was clear for the first time in days, the road clear enough to at least drive the few minutes home.

“Take care, sweetheart,” Parvati said, hugging me. “Better things are on the horizon.”

“Yes, they are.”

“Go straight home,” George said, “the storm might kick back up.”

I nodded but I had a feeling it wouldn’t. I crawled in my car, and they went back to theirs. For the first time in a long time, I was in control. The steering wheel rested in my battered hands, and I turned the ignition, delighted to hear my old beater roar to life. I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror, my mascara still mostly intact.

“You’ll figure it out.” I whispered. “You always do.”