Life After Coffee

by Virginia Franken

“I just dropped off Billy. I was gone for two minutes.” In the background I hear someone say, “That’s Billy’s mother.” Apparently this is somehow significant as there’s suddenly a ripple of comprehension through the crowd. I hear another voice speaking into a phone: “It’s okay, the mother has returned to her vehicle.”

  My God. Someone actually called the cops! A heavyset woman wearing nothing but Birkenstocks and a paisley shirtdress pushes through the crowd; she has a fire extinguisher over one shoulder.

  “Stand back!” she yells, and starts at a run for the back window.

  “STOP RIGHT NOW!” I yell. She catches herself just before she throws the fire extinguisher through the window. “What are you doing?” I ask. It seems a pretty sensible question. It’s not hot out. My daughter is in no danger. Or at least she was in no danger until people started threatening to throw fire extinguishers in her face. These women have gone insane.

  “I was going to save your daughter!” she puffs, dropping the fire extinguisher to the ground.

  “By showering her in glass?” This gives them all pause for the moment. The mothers at the edge of the circle start to step away, maybe perturbed by the realization that shattered glass in the back of a car might actually pose more of a realistic hazard to a kid than being left alone for a few moments. “I was gone ten minutes.”

  “It’s against the law,” says one of the mothers. I bite back an urge to say, “Blow me.” Instead I open the car door, get in the driver’s seat, and slam it closed again. I start up the engine, which quickly disperses the last of the crowd. Maybe they think I’m such a rogue outlaw that I’ll mow ’em down on the way out of here. I sure would like to.

  It doesn’t take me the full six blocks home to ’fess up to the reality of what’s happening here: I have no idea how to handle being a parent. This is not the kind of situation where you can learn on the job. These kids are too old. I never experienced the slow learning curve where you grow as a parent alongside your child. I’ve missed too much. They’re too messed up. They need their father back. I have to escape this hourly realization that I’ve no idea what I’m doing. I have to get away from the knowledge that I’m a ridiculous stranger in the eyes of my children. Again, it’s looking like I have no choice: I have failed at being a mother.

  I have to get back to work.

  CHAPTER 8

  From: Libby_Jansson@hotmail.com

  To: coffeegirl2000@earthlink.net

  Hi darling! Hope you are all doing well. Send some piccies of the kiddies when you can—I know you don’t have time for the Facebook but it would be nice to see their new long legs! I’d love to come and see them for myself at some point, but I’ve no clue when I’m next going to be able to visit—I’d be worried about leaving your father, to be honest. He’s still managing to walk into Farsley and back right now, but it seems to get a bit harder each week. Plus, I’m sure you’ve seen the price of flights at the moment—good God! How do they justify it?

  Anyway—love to all. Let’s Skype when you’re next not working.

  Love, Mom

  I hit the “Home” button on my phone—the quickest route to making the e-mail go away. We can’t Skype. The first thing Billy and Violet would do is spill the beans about my job and then I’d be in trouble for not telling my parents, on top of getting them all riled up. Sigh. Oh, to have been one of those women who found a job, met a guy, and started a family in the same town as her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. I don’t really remember ever making a conscious decision not to do that. Circumstance just decided to shred my chance at having that life the minute I hit double digits. It’s too late to try and claw any semblance of it back now. Too many holes in the fabric.

  After talking to Billy’s teacher at pickup, I found out the reason for his almighty fallout with Regina, and it wasn’t anything to do with her pushing over his epic Lego tower. It was, in fact, because of his nails. Or, as Regina called them, his “princess nails.” Since I’ve been at home, Peter has given up on every single aspect of childcare, including the washing of the children and also, it would seem, the cutting of their sharp little nails. I gave Billy’s nails a quick glance upon hearing what had caused all the drama, and I have to say, Regina had a point. They were like a row of shovels on the ends of his fingers. Along with the heads-up to cut my kid’s nails, Billy’s teacher also directed me toward a book she wants me to read on parenting highly emotional children. This is the first time there’s been an advantage to attending this hippie-dippie preschool: Billy’s been labeled an “emotional child” rather than a “problem child.” I’ll take it. I’ll take anything that implies that I haven’t raised my son to be an asshole but rather merely failed in the handling of his extreme emotions. I’ve downloaded the book to my phone. It hasn’t happened yet, but at some point soon I will make the time to read it. Maybe it will give me some pointers for handling Peter too.

  Speaking of Peter, Violet and I have come out to HushMush today to surprise him. He doesn’t generally like surprises, but we’re doing it anyway. From outside I’m looking right at his laptop screen. Straight through the window, over his shoulder, and what do I see? Cars. He’s checking out Lexuses, or should that be Lexi? I don’t know why he’s checking out Lexuses—he’s got zero hope of trading in his Honda minivan anytime soon. Perhaps it’s research related. I knock on the window. He turns around to see Violet and me, noses pressed up against the glass, and hurriedly closes his laptop. Not research related, then.

  As Violet and I enter the café, the smell of refined sugar spirals up my nostrils. I can’t even make out the scent of what coffee they might be serving; my senses can’t get through the wall of sucrose. As we approach, Peter opens up the laptop again and starts rapidly typing on his keyboard. Oh, don’t try and fake it now.

  “Hey.” I smile.

  “Hey, guys! Want some coffee?” I give him a look. He knows I wouldn’t drink this coffee. It’s bad enough that I’m in HushMush. What if someone saw me? Does he not remember what I do for a living?

  “Daddy!” Violet gives Peter a hug. He pulls her onto his lap and covers the top of her head in kisses. They both look so beautiful with their matching dark curls and night-blue eyes. I feel like the ugly impostor.

  “I’ve missed my beautiful girl,” says Peter, beaming and holding Violet aloft under the armpits like she’s an animated rag doll.

  “Thanks. I’ve missed you too,” I reply. Yeah, I know he wasn’t talking about me.

  “Come here,” he says, and pulls me in to him. He nudges the top of my head back and gives me a soft kiss right in the center of my neck. Jeez, that makes the tops of my ears go cold. Is this why I put up with what I put up with?

  “What are you doing here?” asks Peter.

  “We have to talk.”

  “And what does the love of my life want to talk about?”

  “I’m thinking of looking for another job.”

  “Amy! Why? I told you, I’ve got this covered. This is your time with the kids. Enjoy it.”

  “Well . . .” I can’t confess to my husband that I’m a lousy parent and have to get back to work to escape my children in front of my child. Can I? “How are you feeling about the screenplay?”

  “Feeling?”

  “Do you feel like Matt’s definitely going to buy it? Do you feel like you could bear to see it go into production having someone else make changes to it?” Matt finally got back to set up our compulsory meeting. It’s next week. It’s been very hard work not to constantly think about it.

  “Changes?”

  “Any Lexuses in your screenplay?”

  “No, why?”

  “Never mind. I’m just trying to get a handle on how realistic a cash cow this thing really is.”

  “I don’t know if I’d exactly call it a cash cow.”

  “So essentially you can guarantee nothing.”

  “I have a strong feeling that, at some point, this screenplay will sell and make us some money. I don’t kn
ow what to tell you outside of that.”

  “Well, in that case, I’m going to Bean à la Bean to talk to Roth Ellis.”

  “About what?”

  “What do you think? A job.” Of course, you understand I was already intending to go and talk to Roth Ellis about a job today, but now that I’ve successfully squeezed a confession out of Peter that he realistically doesn’t know when this screenplay of his is going to make any money, I have justification. And now my job search is no longer about the fact that I have to get away from my children; it can be about the fact that yet again my husband can’t commit to bringing home the bacon—or even so much as a slice of toast to go with the bacon—and my salary is needed to save the day. Much better.

  “Mommy, I don’t want you to get a job and go away again.”

  Great. Peter looks up at me. It’s a look dripping with the suggestion that I’m the actual most uncaring parent of all time. I don’t feel like an uncaring parent; I don’t feel like a parent at all. More like a biologically related reluctant babysitter. I am not going to be made to feel guilty because I have to bring his Internet-surfing career to an early close. He just doesn’t want me to go back to work so he doesn’t have to deal with the kids by himself again. I absolutely do not blame him. I just wish he would be honest about it instead of running off to HushMush to pretend to work on his screenplay and giving me a mommy guilt trip.

  “Mommy isn’t going away—we’re just going to go and talk to one of my friends.”

  “That’s nice. Lie to the girl.”

  “Mommy, are you lying?” Why am I the constant villain in my own life? There is no right choice here. It’s not new news that there never is a right choice in my life these days.

  “Mommy’s not lying. Daddy’s just making a funny joke.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny.” She pouts. Such a pretty pout.

  “Me neither. Daddy isn’t very good at jokes.” I pick up Violet in anticipation of a tantrum. “We’ll see you later. Enjoy the Lexus perving while you still can.”

  “Amy? Can’t we talk about this?”

  “Nope.” And with that I make my exit as huffily as I can while carrying a long-legged three-year-old on my hip. Yup, I can be pretty inflexible. Peter can certainly spin out from time to time, but I’m not far behind him as far as crappy communication skills go. We’re a match made in heaven—maybe the rough inner-city part of heaven.

  Surprisingly, I have my archnemesis, Dexter, to thank for my job interview today. While I sit, my sit bones digging into the hardest bench in the Eastside, waiting for Roth, I pull out my phone to read through Dexter’s grovely e-mail one more time. I get a little bit happy every time I read it.

  From: dexterwarnock@gmail.com

  To: coffeegirl2000@earthlink.net

  Amy,

  Your recent reply of “You can shove your kind concern up your ugly, hairy rectum” to my text asking how you are leads me to think that a phone call may not be the most effective form of communication right now. Hence this e-mail.

  I know you are angry. I know you are wondering what on earth happened to our company and our mission to source and develop the best coffee in the world. I also know you’re steaming mad that I didn’t share the buyout money with you.

  I know it’s a hard thing to hear, Amy, but two million dollars isn’t really a lot of cash. I don’t get all of it. There are taxes to be paid, creditors. I’ll be lucky to walk away with a few hundred thousand. And, yes, that sounds like a lot, but really, it’s not that much for everything I’ve done. I’ll barely be able to pay off my mortgage. And then what? I know you worked hard for this company too, but I was the one who put my financial balls on the line to get it started.

  Having said that, you are right that I have let down our farmers and their families, and that’s what I’m e-mailing you about today.

  A friend of mine, Roth Ellis, owns Bean à la Bean—I’m sure you know of it. If you want, I can set up an introduction for you. Once he tastes the Yayu he’ll be interested, seriously interested. Who wouldn’t be? He’s about the only guy in the game who has the financial resources right now. If he takes you up on the Yayu, maybe you can persuade him to bring on some of our other farmers too.

  As I say—I can set it up, if you like. The rest is up to you.

  Dex

  P.S. Really, still with the EarthLink address?

  Ultimately I’d have liked to have seen a little bit more guilt-ridden hand wringing. However, the overriding tone of supreme self-justification leads me to think that rather than taking pleasure in sitting around all day in his newly paid-off house, he’s actually mentally torturing himself about all of this.

  I look at my reply again:

  From: coffeegirl2000@earthlink.net

  To: dexterwarnock@gmail.com

  Fuck you very much. I will take that intro.

  He knows he’s somewhat on the way to being forgiven. If I’d wanted to push the knife in deeper, I’d have been icy polite with him. He’ll be sleeping easier in his eco-certified platform bed tonight.

  Now Roth Ellis is very fucking cool. Quite a bit too cool if you want my opinion—which nobody seems to at the moment. Back in the nineties when I started working in coffee, coffee was definitely not a magnet for hipster nerds. At best it was probably slightly interesting to a few seriously noncool people. However, these days, to know your Kurimi from your Yirgacheffe makes you the hippest kind of hipster. Everyone in Bean à la Bean is dressed in a cutting-edge Silver Lake uniform of porkpie hat and skinny jeans, with big old holes in the earlobes. None of them have any real heartfelt knowledge of what actually had to happen in order for them to have their trendsetting beverage experience. When did all this hoopla come about? Can’t it just be about the coffee anymore?

  And then in the middle of this mecca for hipsters there’s me, wearing cargo pants purchased in 2001 and a sensible Old Navy tank top. My ears were once pierced, but the tiny holes have since resealed through lack of penetration. And yes, there’s another analogy in there, but let’s not get off topic.

  My lack of cool is clearly a problem for Roth when he finally turns up. He’s on the opposite end of the style spectrum from me and seems to be going for the surfing-CEO look, wearing a tailored jacket over a pair of pin-striped board shorts. His hair is fascinating. It’s shaved and dark at the sides but long and ash-blond on the top, with gas-flame-blue roots. Either he’s part elf or he’s been getting some serious assistance from someone at Supercuts. It all seems a little involved for a guy in his late forties. I can read the internal conflict scrawled across his face as I tell him about my new rust-resistant wonder bean: This bean could be the answer to all of my pricing issues. Wait . . . are those cargo pants she’s wearing? I’ve got to get her to cup those beans for me. Where is that clingy kid’s nanny? Is that glue across her glasses?

  “So you can see why I need to get back out there as soon as I can. Getu trusts me. He wants to work with me, but he can’t sit on this forever.”

  “And you have the beans now?”

  “I have the beans. They’re something special. They’ve got such a syrupy softness, Roth. It’s like drinking just-cut sugarcane.”

  “How do you know it’s rust resistant?”

  “That’s just Getu’s observation. He had rust come through recently right before the rain and it’s still over everything. But this varietal’s completely clean. There’s a lab nearby in Jimma—I can test it there.” Violet monkeys up onto my lap and starts twisting my hair around her fingers. I can see Roth’s interested, super interested. I’m just about to start talking terms, when someone behind me catches his eye and a smile bursts across his face like sunshine from heaven.

  I turn around to see a supermodelesque woman and a little boy dressed like a miniature hipster approaching. This must be his family. His pupils almost double in size; he must be completely smitten with his wife—and no wonder, she’s foxy. All swish-swash bouncy hair and almond-shaped eyes that take up half her fac
e.

  “Daddy!” The kid runs across the store and barrels into his dad. He may be dressed like a minifashionista, but under that flat cap and all that label, he’s kinda dorky.

  “Hey.” Roth looks pleased and annoyed all at the same time. “Amy, this is Hendrix.” Hendrix? As in Jimi? Puh-lease.

  “Hey, Ji . . . Hendrix. This is Violet.” Violet flashes her big eyes his way and then nuzzles into my neck. She’s gone into full static-cling mode. Wait—could it be nap time? “And you must be Roth’s wife?” I go to shake hands with the green-eyed goddess. She looks shocked.

  “Oh. I’m Hendrix’s nanny. Mirabelle.” Nanny? Unless my husband was legally blind, I would not be happy with my nanny looking like that. I’m pretty sure disapproval flashes in neon lettering across my face, and we’re all three suddenly thrown into the middle of a spontaneous conversational shutdown. My mistake about Mirabelle is only awkward because Roth’s obviously in love with her. Hendrix, sensing the weirdness, breaks out into song.

  “Winkle winkle wittle star.” He’s loud, high-pitched, with a certain grating quality, and the polar opposite of cool.

  “You still free for lunch, Roth?” asks Mirabelle through the singing. I wonder if his wife knows about these lunch plans.

  “Sure,” he says, like the idea only just now occurred to him. “Go on over to Forage and order for us. I’ll be there in a sec.” He doesn’t have to tell her what he wants to eat. She already knows. Obviously. Creep. “See you in a minute, li’l dude,” he says, and yanks Hendrix’s cap down over his eyes. Mirabelle leads the still-singing Hendrix out of the store. The hipsters are craning their skinny necks around to stare. They do not approve. Hendrix was obviously not named for his singing skills. I can sense Roth’s attention wandering off out the door after Mirabelle.