Chapter Sixteen

sixteen

The view from behind the espresso bar is as chaotic as it is glorious. After ten months of renovations and two months of setup, Sip’s doors reopened this morning to a news van, a camera crew, and a line of customers snaking two blocks down Third Street. We were expecting a solid turnout; what we got was half the county.

Over half a shift later, the line has reportedly not gotten much shorter, which checks out based on the constant crowd packed inside. The Black Friday shoppers stumble in and out between doorbusters, but everyone else sticks around to defrost and check out the details of Sip 2.0. The place is packed with familiar faces and out-of-towners alike, and in the thick of the chaos, my camera and I are capturing it all. Plenty of people mention the write-up in the Tribune , but just as many say they’ve been waiting for this all year, and I take shot after Christmas card–worthy shot of anyone willing to smile for the camera. As I set up my angle for a time-lapse video of the crowd, I try to document the moment in my memory too. The past year—the last two months, especially—have been grueling work, but it was all moving toward this. The Dream House is built, and the Barbie dolls have moved in. The PTO moms, the artsy couples, the theater cliques moving in packs—I’m so happy they’re back, even if it means I barely have time to swap my SD card or catch a breath.

“Murphy, we need backup!” My manager’s voice carries from behind the bar and over the customer chatter. I was supposed to focus only on capturing content today, but since a few of our fastest baristas are out of town, I’ve been ducking behind the bar as needed to lend an extra set of hands. For the first half of my shift, pulling triple duty as the photographer, videographer, and backup barista wasn’t so bad, but around one o’clock, I got hit with the side effects of running solely on adrenaline and four hours of sleep. That part is no one’s fault but mine. I shouldn’t have stayed up till two in the morning scouring the U of I website for proof that Professor Meyers was wrong and I could still transfer next semester. I found nothing except proof of the exact opposite, and now I’m paying for my choices in exhaustion and eye strain.

“Murphy!” my manager calls a second time.

“Coming!” I weave between tables and back toward the bar, but I can’t resist stopping to snap a few shots of a mother-daughter duo, each of them dipping their noses in whipped cream as they sip their hot chocolates. I capture them midlaugh. Perfectly candid. It should probably make me miss my own mom, but instead, my mind wanders back to playing photographer at the bar Wednesday night and my own flop attempt at a candid photo. My chest tightens a little. I like those stupid pictures of me and Ellie more than I care to admit.

I haven’t spoken to Ellie since I left her house last night—not that I’ve had the time. Between transfer research, sleep, and work, I haven’t had the headspace to even begin processing yesterday’s mess. I’ll need a lot more sleep before I’m really up for the challenge, but before I even started this shift, I promised myself I’d keep up the girlfriend act when Ellie and Carol swing by. If Ellie and Carol swing by. I’m not sure where our argument leaves today’s plans, but I’m still sort of hoping she shows.

“MURPHY!” A third time. My manager is going to kill me.

“Yup, I’m coming!” This time, I actually mean it. It takes another minute to shoulder through the crowd and back up to the bar. The air is thick with Scuse me and Can I squeeze past you and How long are you planning to be at this table? Even with the new addition, the building is packed to the gills. Coffee shop customers are a liquid; they will fill whatever space they’re given. By the time I’m back in my apron, I’ve fallen down a memory of an emptier Sip, when it was just me and Ellie, soaking in the details of the shop and each other. There’s a tingle arching up my feet, but I ignore it for the moment. Right now, I’ve got espresso shots to pull.

“Do we have any more of this?” Brooklyn, our new holiday hire, wraps her neon nails around a half gallon of oat milk and shakes what sounds like a backwash amount left inside.

“There should be more in the basement fridge,” I direct her. “Downstairs, on the right.”

She nods, her braids swaying around her face. Apart from that, no signs of movement.

“Can you, uh…grab it?”

“Oh, right,” she says. “Got it.”

I watch the Gemini sign stick-and-poke tattoo on her shoulder disappear down the stairs much slower than it should. A little hustle would be appreciated, but she’s probably overwhelmed; I would be, too, if this was my first real shift. While Brooklyn is gone, I pick up where she left off, working my way through the growing stack of to-go cups with orders scrawled in Sharpie on the side.

“Still waiting on those cold brews with oat milk!” the manager on register shouts over the clang of the cash drawer slamming shut.

“We’re getting more oat from backstock.”

She gives me a thumbs-up over her shoulder and gets back to the line of customers, leaving me to pull espresso shots in peace. Or something close to peace. The best that today can afford. Each time I snap a lid into place and slide an order onto the bar, I check the green velvet bucket chair where Ellie sat just a day and a half ago, as if she’ll reappear there somehow. So much of Wednesday night feels smudgy, like a dream or a hallucination, but the memory of Ellie in that chair is hauntingly clear.

Brooklyn thuds back up the stairs with oat milk in hand, and I lock the portafilter into place, keeping the espresso assembly line going. I watch as Brooklyn sets the carton down on the counter before carefully lifting each half-filled cold brew cup, verifying the order scrawled on the side before topping them off. Detail oriented. She’s a good hire, if only for the month. She pops the lids on and sets the drinks on the bar, then starts in on the next order in the queue.

“Peppermint oat milk latte with no espresso,” she reads off the side of the cup. “Isn’t that…”

“Hot peppermint milk,” I say. “Probably for a middle schooler.”

She breathes a scoff through her lips. “Middle school? Come on. I was drinking my coffee black by seventh grade.”

“Yeah?” I arch a skeptical brow. “What required that much caffeine at age twelve?”

“Uh, have you ever been twelve? That was the hardest shit of my life.”

Our laughs are a little too loud, but it’s just what I need to power me through the rest of these orders. I hope we keep Brooklyn on staff after the holidays.

As I dig out the vegan hot cocoa mix from the back cabinets, my manager’s gravelly voice scatters over the crowd of uncaffeinated hopefuls. “I’ve got two large cold brews with oat milk for Kara!”

If a name could cause an allergic reaction, I’d be reaching for my EpiPen. This morning’s quad shot of espresso gurgles in my stomach as I supervise the two sweaty cups of cold brew, waiting for them to be claimed—which they are, by a thirtysomething woman in a pea coat struggling through the crowd with a stroller. A hiss of air leaks through my teeth, lost beneath the whir of the coffee grinder and some indie version of a Christmas song playing over the newly upgraded sound system. It’s not her. Of course it’s not her. There are only four people I specifically invited today: Kat, Daniel, Ellie, and—

“Hiya, Murph!”

Carol’s familiar, bouncy voice ricochets off the espresso machine and lands between my ears. Speak of the hippie and she shall appear. At the register, her bracelets jingle like sleigh bells with every exaggerated wave. She’s not wearing a coat, just a black turtleneck beneath a teal sparkly poncho, her silver hair braided down her back. “Found ya! That line was somethin’ else, but the place looks unbe-freaking-lievable.”

“Thanks!” When I smile at her, I look past her, searching the line for a familiar flash of white-blonde hair. There isn’t one, and my stomach plunges toward my knees. Do I have any right to feel disappointed?

Carol takes a little too long squinting at the menu before I step in and order for her—one 16-ounce chaicoffski and a plain cake doughnut, made in house. I make her drink, then grab my camera and duck out past the bar under the guise of taking more pictures. It seems rude not to at least say hi, even if she’s short one highly anticipated plus-one.

“Special delivery.” I hand the cup off to my happiest customer, who is already covered in cake doughnut crumbs.

“Thid id unbuhleevabuh,” she manages through an oversize bite before wiping her mouth with her poncho. “And what a turnout. I’d freakin’ kill to have a tenth of these people in my shop in a week.”

My brain instinctually switches into marketing mode, dreaming up wine nights at Monarch or jewelry making classes hosted at Sip. “I think you could pull it off.”

“Maybe with a little help.” Carol crumples the parchment paper from her doughnut and tosses it toward the trash can, missing by a pretty wide margin. I guess poor pitching form is genetic in the Meyers family.

I open my mouth to ask Carol if she knows anything about when Ellie might come by, but I’m instantly interrupted by a screeching toddler and the wet clatter of a mug breaking across our brand new floors. Who the hell gave someone ceramic? Today, of all days?

“I bet they’re gonna need my help with that,” I say with an apologetic wince.

Carol nods. “I gotta get back to the shop anyway. Spent my whole lunch break in line.”

“Maybe I can give you a full tour some other day?”

“Sure, sure. And hey.” Carol hands her cup back to me, freeing up both of her hands to dig through her quilted crossbody bag. She emerges with a slightly bent business card with her name and info printed in Curlz MT. “Take this. Drop me a line with your rates.”

I hand over her drink in exchange for the card. “My rates?”

“For marketing stuff. For any of this.” Carol twirls an index finger toward the ceiling in a whoop-de-doo . “Whatever you did for Sip, I gotta hire you to do the same for Monarch.”

My eyes dart between Carol and my manager, who is just a few steps away at the register. There’s too much noise in here for her to overhear us. “I, uh. You were serious about that?”

“Dead serious. You said there was a big ol’ list of Geneva businesses who wanted your help with marketing, right?” She stretches her arms wide, seemingly indicating the length of this very imaginary list. The demonstration nearly costs her one entire 16-ounce chaicoffski. We narrowly avoid a spill, and before I can invent a lie or come clean on my nonexistent marketing business, someone shoves a dustpan and broom into my hands. The only reasonable punishment for slacking off: cleanup crew.

“I’ll add you to the list,” I promise her, and she grins like the Cheshire Cat.

“Thanks, Murph. You’re the best.”

I follow Carol toward the door, which coincidentally is also toward the crash site, and she doesn’t leave without giving me an extra tight hug. “Congratulations, sweetie,” she murmurs into my shoulder, then holds me at an arm’s length, taking me in with a wobbly smile. “You have so much to be proud of.”

As she disappears out the door and down the bricks, passing by a line that stretches halfway to her store, I let myself actually believe her.

The rest of my shift blurs toward its end, and as the line of caffeine seekers gets shorter, I start to recognize more of the customers standing in it. My tenth-grade biology teacher orders a decaf latte. One of our usuals grabs his standard drip coffee and tips a ten. Isha Burman’s mom makes an appearance, showing off baby photos to the rest of the line. I point out our regulars to Brooklyn, who quickly assigns each one a code name. Dr. Science. Drip and Tip. Proud Grandma. As I count familiar faces, something warm and certain blooms in my chest. There’s character in this building’s bones that reflects on the community we’ve built. Even with a fancy new espresso machine and a 20 percent higher maximum occupancy, we’re still the same old Sip. Same menu, new floorboards. Same staff plus new hires. Things only change as much as they’re meant to.

“Hey, Murph! Over here!”

For the second time today, a familiar voice plucks me out of my head. On the other side of the pastry case, Daniel and Kat are waving and grinning like lottery winners. Kat holds up her phone to snap a few photos of me on the job, then hands photographer duty off to Daniel so she can be in a few. I guess boyfriends aren’t just good Uber drivers; they make good tripods too.

“Um, hi, we have a zillion things to talk about,” Kat says with wide-eyed wonder, then steps up to the counter and orders three chaicoffskis in the largest size we have—one for her, one for Daniel, and one for later, I assume. I have my manager comp their drinks, and with the amount of money we’ve brought in today, she doesn’t give me any of her usual grief. As I scuttle around the back of the bar, Kat shamelessly talks at full volume to be sure I can hear her over the espresso machine. “How did things go at Ellie’s last night?”

“Um, kind of bad, actually.” I catch my manager’s gaze over my shoulder. “But now’s not really the time to talk about it.”

“Got it.” Kat mushes her lips. “Maybe we can discuss over dinner? We want to take you out to celebrate your big day.”

“When?”

“How’s now?”

I glance at the clock. “Um, lemme think.” Technically, my shift ended ten minutes ago, but I’ve been holding out hope that Ellie will dash through the door at the last minute, ready to exchange an apology for a free chaicoffski. I could sell myself some excuse about her planning to come by later or how I somehow missed her in the crowd, but I know the truth. She didn’t show, and even if I’m hurt, I don’t exactly blame her. I probably owe her an apology too.

“Don’t tell me you have plans,” Kat whines, “unless it’s…you know.” She shrugs her eyebrows at me. “A date.”

“No date,” I say. “But maybe some damage control.” I set three perfectly poured chaicoffskis onto the bar, and Kat nudges two of them toward Daniel while taking an ambitious swig of the other. Her eyes flutter closed as she smacks her lips.

“Oh my God, how is that better than I remember?” She asks from somewhere deep in a chai-induced trance. After a few more sips taken in rapid succession, she turns toward Daniel. “Have you tried yours? Hang on, I want to film it.” When she’s ready with her phone, he takes his first sip, clearly playing up his reaction for his girlfriend’s benefit. A deep sense of knowing settles behind my chest. I guess that’s what you do. If you care about someone, you go a little over the top sometimes, just to remind them you will.

“Anyway. Dinner!” Kat pockets her phone and licks cinnamon foam off her upper lip. “What’s the verdict? Are you free?”

I roll my lips over my teeth, creating a vacuum seal. Five minutes ago, I would’ve said yes, but even with all the success of the reopening, I still have some unfinished business. My lips open with a pop. “I don’t think I am,” I say. “I think I need to go see Ellie.”

Kat’s face breaks into a proud smile. “Yeah? Keep me posted, okay?”

“Thanks,” I say. “I will.” I untie my apron and am headed for the office when a question I’ve been meaning to ask my manager turns me around. “Hey, real quick. Seven or eight years ago, did you ever work with a guy named Marcus?”

My manager turns her back on the line and fakes a gagging sound. Or at least I think she’s faking. “Yes, unfortunately. That guy was such a know-it-all. We fired him after only a few months when we caught him stealing from the tip jar. Why do you ask?”

“Huh.” I run my tongue along my teeth. “Interesting. No reason. See you later.” I wave goodbye to her, then to Kat and Daniel one more time.

“Good luck, Murph!” Kat yells.

I’ll probably need it, but if you care about someone, you do what you have to do.