Chapter Two
WHEN MY SHIFT IS OVER, I clock out and grab two to-go cups from the counter to make my usual departure drink: two macchiatos; one for me and one for Tess. Not just your ordinary macchiato, though; I add three pumps of hazelnut and one shot of banana-flavored syrup. It sounds gross, but you wouldn’t believe how good it is. I made it by accident one day, mixing up the vanilla and banana bottles, but my random concoction has become my favorite drink. Tessa’s, too. And now Posey’s.
To keep our young, college bodies properly nourished, I’m responsible for the refreshments and Tessa provides dinner most nights with leftovers from Lookout, the restaurant she’s at. Sometimes the meal is still warm, but even if it’s not, the food there is so good that it’s edible hours later. We both manage to drink good coffee and eat gourmet food on a college budget, so it’s a pretty sweet setup we have going on.
Tessa’s working a late shift tonight, so I take my time in closing down the shop. It’s not that I can’t be home without her, but I just don’t have any reason to rush, and this will keep me from thinking too hard about Dakota and Snakedude. Sometimes I like the silence of an empty home, but I’ve never lived alone before, and often the buzzing of the refrigerator and the clanging of steam pipes throughout the quiet apartment drives me to the point of insanity. I find myself waiting for the noise of a football game playing from my stepdad’s study, or the smell of maple coming from my mom baking in the kitchen. I’ve nearly finished my course work for the week. The first few weeks of my sophomore year are completely different from my freshman year. I’m happy to be finished with the tedious, required freshman courses and be able to start my early-childhood-education track; it makes me finally feel like I’m getting closer to my career as an elementary-school teacher.
I’ve read two books this month, I’ve seen all the good movies that are out, and Tessa keeps the place too clean for me to have any chores to do around the apartment. Basically, I have nothing useful to do with my time and I haven’t made many friends outside of Tessa and a couple of coworkers at Grind. With the exception of Posey maybe, I don’t think I could actually spend time with any of them outside of the coffee shop. Timothy, a guy in my Social Studies class, is cool. He was wearing a Thunderbirds jersey on the second day of the semester and we struck up a conversation over my hometown hockey team. Sports and fantasy novels are my go-tos when socializing with strangers, something that I’m not the best at to begin with.
My life is pretty uneventful. I take the subway across the bridge to campus, back home to Brooklyn, walk to work, walk home from work. It’s become a pattern, a repeated series of events that are completely uneventful. Tessa claims that I’m in a funk, that I need to make some new friends and have some fun. I would tell her to follow her own advice, but I know that it’s easier to focus on the overgrown grass in your neighbor’s yard than to mow your own. Despite my mom’s and Tessa’s strong opinion on my lack of a social life, I enjoy myself. I like my job and my classes this semester. I like living in a somewhat cool part of Brooklyn and I like my new college. Sure, it could be better, I know, but everything in my life is okay: simple and easy. No complications, no obligations aside from being a good son and friend.
I check the clock on the wall and cringe when I notice it’s not even ten yet. I had kept the doors open longer than usual for a group of women talking about divorce and babies. There were a lot of “Ohs” and “Oh nos!” so I figured I would leave them in peace until they solved one another’s life problems and were ready to go. At a quarter after nine, they left, their table covered in napkins, cold half-drunk coffee, and half-eaten pastries. I didn’t mind the mess because it kept me busy for a few extra minutes. I spent so much time closing . . . meticulously placing stacks of napkins into metal canisters . . . sweeping the floor one straw wrapper at a time . . . and walking as slowly as I possibly could to fill up the ice bins and canisters of ground coffee.
Time isn’t on my side tonight; I’m beginning to question my relationship with Dakota. Yeah, time rarely works in my favor, but tonight it’s teasing me more than usual. Each minute that passes is sixty seconds of mockery; the little hand on the clock keeps ticking, slowly, but those ticks don’t seem to add up—it doesn’t feel like time is moving at all. I begin playing that elementary-school game of holding my breath in thirty-second increments to pass the time. After a few minutes of this, I’m bored and move to the back room with the cashier drawer and count the money from the day. The shop is silent, except for the buzzing of the ice machine in the back room. Finally, it’s ten and I can’t stall any longer.
Before leaving, I glance around the shop one last time. I’m positive I didn’t miss anything, not one coffee bean is out of place. I usually don’t close alone. My schedule alternates between closing with Aiden and closing with Posey. Posey offered to stay with me, but I overheard her talking about having trouble finding a sitter for her sister. Posey is quiet and she doesn’t share much of her life with me, but from what I can gather, the little girl seems to be at the center of it.
I lock the safe and turn on the security system before I close and lock the door behind me. It’s cold out tonight, a slight chill comes from the water and settles over Brooklyn. I like being close to the water, and for some reason, the river makes me feel some sort of detachment from the