One thing about being part of the lower-middle class community of the city was that it seemed obligatory for at least one child to be working in a part-time job, with the responsibility usually rested upon the eldest child in the family. Of course, being sort-of the eldest child in the family, I did have a part-time job.
It would’ve been decent if I was at least an intern in some business company and all I had to do was just to buy and hand out coffee for the professional workers, or some low-paid worker at McDonald’s.
But no. There was no job available anywhere in any decent company. The only part-time job available that was near to both my home and school was a tiny coffee shop that was situated in a tiny terraced house that the owner rented for both as his place of residence and his business. Did I mention that it was also squished between other terraced houses occupied by the elder folk of the city that served as most of our very few daily customers?
It had been a long, exhausting day of school that involved becoming a complete ghost in class, playing dodgeball twice—with actual dodgeballs in PE class and paper balls in other classes—and the only peaceful, decent moment I had all day was getting to relax and calm myself down under the old tree in the courtyard, mindlessly doodling on my sketchbook as I listened to Jake mumbling about a funny incident that happened in one of his previous schools.
I didn’t know why, but he seemed to be enjoying my company as much as I was enjoying his, which was rather strange since nobody else could stand being in my presence for any more than five minutes. I could still imagine him leaning back on the tree bark, his hands behind his head and his expression relaxing almost immediately when I was quite sure that he arrived there with an anxious look on his face. As much as I hated to admit it, I relaxed in his presence, too.
I almost hit the windowed wooden door recalling all of this, opening my eyes to see the worn brown letter stickers that spelled out ‘Connors’ Coffee’ pasted on the clear window, quickly regaining my composure before pushing the door open. It creaked almost too loudly and the top of the door hit the tiny bell that rang lightly with the motion of the door. Stepping onto the wooden flooring, I looked up to see two people glancing up at me, both people whom I recognized. One of them was the short redhead whose face I got tired of looking at right now, which grinned upon the sight of me. The other, a man in his late twenties with curly brown hair, narrowed and rolled his eyes at me.
“Late again, Ms. Montgomery?” he sighed as he crossed his arms and circled around the mahogany countertop. I’d noticed he already had a navy blue Connor’s Coffee apron around him, before picking a similar one up from one of the hangers by the door that led to the back room and practically threw it to me.
“I have a first name, too, Jason,” I scowled under my breath, grabbing the apron as it hit me square on the face, dropping my bag by the stool behind the cash register before tying it around my neck and my waist. “Mel’s got a car, and all I’ve got is my bike. How the hell am I supposed to beat her to here when she runs thirty miles per hour and I run at twelve?”
“Leave earlier,” Mel immediately answered for me, smirking as she shoved a piece of brownie into her mouth with a fork. I could’ve sworn she had an insatiable sweet tooth. “Or you can just ask me for a ride here.”
“And leave my sole mode of transportation deserted and vulnerable to thieves?” I scoffed. “I’ll pass. How the hell am I supposed to go to places then?”
“And that’s why you need friends,” she quickly retorted, scooping another large chunk of cake. And to this day, I’m still confused as to why I wasn’t the slightest bit ashamed of the fact that my friend was indeed a literal pig when it came to brownies and any desserts, basically. “Oh, by the way Jason, there’s this new kid in school who’s totally crushing on Hayley, and I think her brain’s fried because she’s completely oblivious to it, even though she’s totally crushing on him, too.”
I almost dropped the mug I was planning to fill with Mel’s coffee with—inadvertently causing Jason to momentarily panic about his precious mugs he was so proud of—choking on air as soon as she said this. Cheeks burning slightly, I scoffed at her statement.
“I’m not oblivious to it,” I murmured, sneaking a quick death glare at her, who was busy chewing away the delicacy she was proudly enjoying right now. “Because it’s not even true. I was just being friendly to him, like any other normal human being would.”
“That’s the problem,” said Jason this time, cocking a curious eyebrow. “You’re not even the slightest bit normal.”
“I wonder why you’re not being such a dick to the customers as much as you’re being a dick to your employees.”
“Because customers are the people giving me my income,” he stated matter-of-factly, “and I’m the one paying you your sort-of income which you shouldn’t be earning because you’re still in high school. Don’t you people have, like, exams to study for? Calculus? Atoms? Shakespeare?”
Despite looking like a young man in his early twenties, Jason Connors was the type of guy who dropped out of high school thinking that he could make it out on his own as a ‘musician.’ Long story short, his dream fell down the drain because he refused to admit his lack of talent, despite whatever shitty, cheesy music he would write about heartbreaks and forgotten love that was probably ripped off of some mainstream pop artist. I admit, I had to give him some credit for attempting to compose, write and sing his own music, but the only chance he really ever got that took him one step closer to that near-improbable dream of his was an open-night in some of the bars around the area that was barely a mile away from the tiny coffee shop of his.
“Says the person who never graduated high school in the first place,” said Mel, clearly thinking the same thing I was when she shot me a knowing look and an amused smile. Jason simply grumbled in annoyance to himself, mumbling about how he was going to retreat back to his tiny office with no clear mention of what he was going to do in there, because he never usually did anything in his office other than watching re-runs of Friends or something like that.
“You know how people’s eyes are the windows to their soul?” said Mel suddenly, gazing mindlessly to the empty seats before her as if she was in a separate dimension. There was not even a glance at me, but I got used to that, too. There were many reasons why people at school thought that she was a rather weird girl. Other than the fact that her own half-sister hated her and that she was friends with the only friendless kid at school. “I can see it in his eyes, you know. The way he looks at you with slightly creepy but doubtless interest. It’s like he’s trying to crack open the little shell you put yourself in.”
“And I can see it in your eyes how you’re slowly becoming bonkers, like I’d suspected.”
“Always the doubtful, cynical one.” She sighed, and for a second there, I thought that she was going to finally regret her friendship with me. I thought wrong, for possibly the hundredth time since we’ve known each other. Doubtful, cynical but also hopeful… to an extent. “You can’t keep pushing people away, Hayley. What are you going to do in life? What are your plans after graduating? Lock yourself in your room for the rest of eternity? Have your literal mind downloaded to the Internet or something? You can’t stay like this forever, you know.”
“Maybe I can,” I said, lifting one shoulder as a feeble attempt to shrug. The coffee machine before me, surprisingly decent and surprisingly working despite all the shit I’d given to it, groaned and gurgled for a while before the coffee beans inside of it began to shift slightly. Dark brown steaming liquid began to pour from the bottom of the machine, straight down to the mug placed under it. “Maybe I won’t even live long enough to know what it’s like living in the real world.”
I didn’t notice what her reaction was—I was too busy putting adding in the sugar and creamer to the coffee, just the way she liked it, grabbed another slice of brownies and placed it on top of a clean plate. I grabbed both items with either of my hands and carefully brought it all the way over to her table, where I could literally feel her eyes staring and drilling a hole to the back of my neck. I kept my head down, refusing to meet her eyes until I felt a hand being softly placed on my shoulder. I couldn’t help but looked up, and sighed at her pleading expression.
“Don’t you ever say that again, alright?” she said, half-angry but also half-upset. Her voice was cracking only slightly, no longer light-hearted and silvery like it usually would be. With her hand on my shoulder, it felt awkward for me if I were to retreat back to my station behind the counter, so I stayed there and waited for whatever she was needed to say to me. “You have a thing for art, don’t you? There’s an art school not too far from here, just in the neighboring city. You can still visit your folks and Gwen. I’m not going anywhere, since there’s a college right here that offers a degree in psychology. I mean, it’s not really as good as the colleges with the big names like Harvard or Oxford or anything like that, but it’s something. And we can still see each other as long as we have the time, right?”
I didn’t reply. Once her hand fell back to her side, I immediately took it as a chance to return back to my post, quietly drying up and rearranging the other mugs that were still in the sink, even before I came in. I didn’t know who had the shift before me, or if there was even anyone else who took up a part-time job here, but I would be less surprised if that were so, knowing that Jason could barely take good care of himself, much less the coffee shop.
We remained being clouded with silence, just like that, as I purposely made myself as busy as possible, wiping all the counters and the outer parts of the machines until they were polished and shone under the dimming yellowish lights hanging overhead, even though they were still clean before. The place was quite decent really, despite the lack of commotion and the fact that the building had been like this for a few years now. The ceiling fans in between each light were lazily spinning around and slightly covered in dust, its formerly-transparent flaps now turning to a murky yellow. The tables, all mahogany brown, leaning against the wall opposite to the counter had stools while the ones in the back of the room had plush red velvet couches. Most of the walls were windows, but those that were made from solid brick and cement were painted toffee brown. A generally homely and welcoming place even though the owner wasn’t.
Mel had taken out her MacBook from her bag, fitted with a lavender purple case, and was busy typing away on the keyboard like a furious novelist trying to meet a deadline with their publisher. There were no voices heard from inside of Jason’s office, except occasional female shouts and his enthusiastic cheering which died down as soon as they began. This was the general atmosphere here in Connors’ Coffee half the time, and once my shift ended at six, I was free to return home while Mel, who really had nothing to do most of the time and only visited the shop during my shift hours, would go back to her house of horrors. If anything, I felt like Mel was the true Cinderella here, and if anybody had a fairytale life, it would be most likely that she did.
The tiny chime of the bell rang for the second time that day, and I’d expected for one of our regulars, Mrs. Pierce or Mr. Morrison, both senior citizens, to come by and visit just to buy their regular cup of coffee. Instead, a tall but slim figure appeared by the doorway, a mop of black hair appearing instead of the usual salt-and-pepper hair I was anticipating. It took me a second too late to recognize the familiar black hoodie, Nirvana t-shirt and dark jeans. I had to blink multiple times to make sure that I hadn’t been seeing things again.
Our eyes immediately locked with each other’s as soon as he closed the door firmly behind him, his wide-eyed expression completely mirroring mine. I cursed silently to myself for the existence of coincidental occurrences.
“Hayley?” he asked in unmistakable disbelief. “You work here?”
“I have to get my allowance money from somewhere,” I replied swiftly, shrugging as I forced out a faint laugh, to which he responded with an awkward, goofy smile. I was just as shocked to see him here, a place where no one else at school knew was part of my daily routine other than Mel, especially with him being a new transfer student and all. It was the whistle of steam from one of the wretched contraptions behind me that snapped me out of my mind, and I realized that I still had a job to do.
I stole a quick glance at Mel, whose widened eyes I could’ve sworn started to twitch a little bit, while biting her lower lip as if she was trying to stop herself from uttering a single word that she might regret. Instead, she slowly waved at him when he finally noticed her presence, to which he pressed his lips firmly and waved back.
“Should I even be asking why you’re here out of all places in the city?” I asked again, wiping my suddenly-sweaty hands on the apron.
His lips parted and closed slightly, seemingly fumbling for the right words to say. “My mom… she, uh, told me to fetch some coffee to bring home to her. I can understand your need for allowance money, since I myself apparently found my way over here instead of the Starbucks down the road in favor for the cheaper coffee.” He took a few slow and cautious steps forward, his eyes wandering around the entire room to everywhere except me. “I hope it’s not like the cheap coffee they sell at the diner my mom works at, though.”
“I can assure you it’s not. But does she literally want you to buy from here rather than the coffee in her diner? I mean, I’ll be happy to serve any customer here at all as long as it’s not Mel, but I’d thought…”
“Yeah, the owner of the diner’s greedy as fuck because he doesn’t allow his employees to take anything from the pantry other than what the customers ordered,” said Jake, scoffing. “But anyway… What do you guys have in here?”
“Just the regular, I suppose. And I take it that you have been so preoccupied haven’t taken a peek at the menu written in the chalkboard up there?”
As soon as I said this, his eyes glanced upwards at the row of green chalkboards I was mentioning about, words scribbled in white chalk describing everything that the coffee shop sold, the few best-selling ones even with unreasonably high prices. It was originally handwritten by Jason himself, but each new customer that came in here couldn’t read his gibberish chicken scratch that Mel and I had to take them down one by one and rewrote everything. We didn’t have the best handwriting either, but at least they were legible.
Jake laughed nervously, realizing what I’d meant. “I was just… I’d thought that you’d never be caught dead in a place like this. Not meaning to offend you or anything, but you’re kinda like a hipster—you know, those people who refuse to follow the mainstream. You’re also more of a silent loner, so I would’ve never imagined seeing you conversing with customers without getting criticism about your sarcastic wit.”
Just as I was about to reply, a familiar, agitated voice came from inside of my boss’ office. “Hayley, I paid you to be work as a cash register and a barista, not to flirt with the customers. I’m sure you have a more interesting love story than The Notebook, which can be continued someplace else other than my place. Also, probably not because you’re literally the worst person I’ve ever met, and that’s counting my ex-girlfriend’s mother. No offense, by the way.”
“None taken,” I sighed, already accustomed to Jason’s cynical responses, and turned my focus back to the young man standing before me, pushing in the right buttons on the cash register as he blurted out two orders, a standard-sized latte and a grande-sized cappuccino. I prepared the orders dutifully and efficiently, since it was one of the few times during my shift I actually did any work other than sweeping up the floors or serving cake to satisfy Mel’s sweet tooth. But even as I moved around the counters, trying to not take my eyes off of my work, I could literally feel his stare piercing into my back. The one time I did glance at him, his eyes seemed to be staring at the orders instead, staring right past my shoulders. Confused, I resorted to finish the damn thing already, and secured the two cups with their lids before placing them in plastic carrier bags. He paid with a 10-dollar bill, and decided to do some more small-talk while I worked the register.
“How long have you worked here, anyway?” asked Jake, the corner of his lips curving up to form an impressed smirk. “You seem to be as proficient in making coffee as you are in art and sketching. Do you purposely draw coffee art using skimmed milk on the surface or something during your free time?”
“Well, as you can see here, Mel is the only regular we have to the point that Jason, my boss, is thoroughly bored of seeing her come here during my shifts. And yes, I do happen to be quite skilled in coffee art, but that doesn’t mean that I will waste my time here drawing an entire portrait of you on top of a tiny cup of coffee, okay?”
“Can you draw a portrait of me, then?” Behind him, Mel piped up with hope lighting up her earlier-grim expression, apparently back from her digital world.
“I’ve drawn enough portraits of you, thank you very much,” I said. The first full-body portrait of an actual person had been my sister Gwen, of course, mostly because she would remain still as long as she was preoccupied with her books, and because her smaller figure made it a lot easier to draw her. Mel was next, then my parents before it eventually evolved to an entire scenery of our entire family, plus Mel, during our summer trip to the cabin by the lake that my dad and granddad built themselves a long time ago. I would sometimes just sketch portraits of random people I saw on the streets or characters from television series, but never my classmates or teachers, the people whom I definitely met every other day. I didn’t feel like they deserved such privilege, other than the art teacher once when I got bored in class.
“But would you?” asked Jake all of a sudden. I quickly turned my attention back to him, and saw him staring back at me with bright, curious eyes. They almost mirrored my sister’s whenever she got a new book that piqued her interest.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, would you sketch me, if you got the chance?” At first, I’d thought he was joking, but seriousness was written all over his face that it nearly scared me. “I’m not that vain that I demand for you to draw me or anything, but just for the record, you know?”
I grew silent the moment he said this. He was legitimately serious about it, as if getting drawn by me was some sort of privilege to him, a great honor that paralleled with the honor received from knighthood or something. I doubted that I was even that good or anything, and he’d only taken a peek on my work once without carefully observing it. It had been just nothing more but a hobby, not something I would actively pursue and base an entire career out of to the point that I would spare large amounts of time doing it. I still had my responsibilities as a student to take care of, and the only reason why I cared about school at all was because I didn’t want to become a worse disappointment for my parents.
I thought for at least a good couple of minutes before answering, “I guess so. Why not?” It wouldn’t hurt, would it?
He beamed after hearing this, taking the carrier bag in his hands. When I was about to give him the change, he raised his hand as a ‘no.’ “Just keep the change,” he said without much hesitation. “Take it as a tip. Or consider it payment for the free lunch yesterday. I promise I’ll be the one bringing lunch tomorrow—my mom’s making lasagna tonight, and she makes the best ones.” He then turned to Mel, who seemed to be surprised that he hadn’t forgotten about her being there yet. “I’ll bring some for you, too, if you’d like.”
“Better than the cafeteria’s ‘Mystery Meat’ tomorrow, I suppose,” said Mel grumpily. Her face scrunched up in disgust just by the thought of the so-called ‘Mystery Meat’, which we were both quite certain was only about 25% meat and the rest were a mix of intestines, liver, lungs and other edible but distasteful animal organs.
“Then it’s settled,” said Jake, his smile not faltering one bit. “I’ll be expecting both of you tomorrow for your order of lasagna. I’m sorry I can’t have it prepared as quickly as Hayley can brew coffee and do all sorts of coffee art, but I’ll be more than happy to share it with you guys at no cost at all. Well, maybe you could’ve made the coffee for free, too, if you hadn’t been working in an establishment to do so, but…” He trailed off, scratching the back of his head while glancing back and forth between the two of us. “I think I’ll just stop talking now. See you both tomorrow.”
I couldn’t help but giggled lightly. A feeling of bubbling lightness appeared within me when seeing him acting slightly awkward and goofy despite his usual air of confidence. Even if he seemed like a loner such as myself, he had no problem with it and rather chose to be that way, whereas I was aware that it would be better for me to disappear in the shadows to avoid any unnecessary confrontations with anybody I wasn’t in good terms with, which were a lot. He didn’t even mind being caught dead conversing with me as if I was normal, didn’t even mind the stares everyone else was giving us.
With that being said, he fumbled his way out, almost slamming his own face to the glass door before he stopped himself, took a pause and actually opened the door like a normal person before heading out. He shot one last glance in our direction before he turned away, walked a few steps down the street and disappeared from view.
“I can tell you’re blushing,” Mel announced from where she sat, in a nonchalant manner like stating the obvious. “Your face is burning as hot as jalapeno peppers, my friend.”
“I’ve eaten one of those babies once.” I wiped my hand with a spare ragged cloth and went over to her table, grabbing the plate I placed there earlier but without any signs of the cake other than the few crumbs and chocolate filling left over. I served another slice and placed it back, this time she looked up and had a thankful smile across her face. “They aren’t as bad as you think they are.”
“Of course, they’re like nothing to you with your ridiculous tolerance for all the spiciest things in the world.” I circled around the counter again and wiped my hand on a spare ragged cloth, watching her intently. “But mark my words, Hayley Rose Montgomery, there will be nothing spicier and sweeter than your love story with Jacob Parsons.”
I sighed. Back with this again, weren’t we? “You’re delirious,” was all I said as I returned to the counter the register was on. Sitting down on the stool, I grabbed my familiar sketchbook and opened it to a new blank page as I began to work on my next project.
ns 172.69.59.87da2
and then Add to home screen.