Personally, I think she signed a contract with the devil. Elena has all my coworkers pretend speculating her youthful appearance comes from eating the hanger-ons she brings into the store. The Lesbian Cannibal, the thought does have merit.
“I’m looking to get some coffee, something not too dark. Know what I mean?”
“Coffee, black— to the phone: Look, just get me those TPS reports by 5:00p.m. Alright.”
“What size did you want sir?”
My mother makes it to the register and Jeb gawks and says, “Hey Jason’s mom. You want something to drink?”
Jeb becomes dumbstruck around my mother and she delights in it all the same.
“You know I’d love for you to help me, but I’ll wait until my adoring little boy can,” she says.
My mother will not be helped by anyone but me. She loves too much to see me struggle with staying in the corporate mindset when she knows I want nothing more than to ignore her.
“Look Jim, I don’t care—tall,black—how many reports you have to pull, just make sure it gets done.”
“Right, tall, coming up.”
With a flirtatious smile, Elena says to my mother, “You know, I could help you better than Jason ever could.”
This is where I have to struggle the hardest today. I can’t let my mother know that I have more than a little crush on Elena. If such information were in here possession, the cruel side of her would try to make Elena another one of her trophies just to see the pain in my eyes. She could do it too; she’s that clever and capable. My resolve must be strong, my course of action appropriate to deflect my interest in Elena away from my mother’s all seeing eye. So I turn the focus back to work and try for some misdirection, “Jeb, stop leering at my mother and finish getting out of here.”
My mother’s vanity is her Achilles heel. “Jeb, you can leer all you want, just remember, I’m old enough to have given birth to you dear.”
“Robin, don’t degrade yourself by letting Jeb put his lecherous eyes on you. You’re a respectable, beautiful woman,” says Liz.
My mother replies, “Liz dear, one day you’ll see that such strong feministic viewpoints are stronger when not mentioned aloud. Declaring yourself for all to see is for all to know where your weaknesses lie. Your own strength becomes your weakest attribute.”
“If you’re done with the lesbian feminine Zen master lesson for the day, would you mind finishing your order so that all the nice people stuck in line behind you don’t have to wait any longer?”
My mother’s face is an unreadable mask to all but me. Her eyes are holding a special little bit of evil, letting me know that I’ll pay for that comment. I’m stepping my toe into the lion’s pit and if I don’t want it chomped off, I better back out while I still can.
“I’ll take a medium cappuccino. That’s like a milk shake right?”
“No, but I can make you a blended coffee beverage if that’s what you’d like.”
Jeb pulls his till out of the drawer and begins to walk on to the backroom. He’s craning his head so he can still check out my mom when the Cow comes smashing out from the backroom at a pretty descent speed. The Cow walks mostly with her head straight down, I assume this is because her coordination is so bad she’d trip if she couldn’t see the ground, and she weighs in at somewhere around 220 lbs. Jeb weighs probably 120 lbs. If a train going eastbound from Chicago pulling 18 cars each weighing 2 ½ tons traveling at 78 miles per hour hits a small dog on the tracks.... The Cow slams into Jeb. Over six-hundred dollars in small bills and coins are sent flying in every direction. Jeb hits the ground just before the shower of coins and the flutter of bills.
“I’m not picking that up,” he says.
The Cow looks at him, mouth wide open, “Oh yes you are! You need to watch where you’re going, what if I would’ve had a hot cup of coffee in my hands?” If only.
I look at the mess of coins strewn about the floor and say, “How about you both pick it up and be quick about it. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re somewhat busy and I’m off in thirty with tons yet to do. God, I can’t believe what a waste of space you are Jeb.”
Elena is stifling her laughter and squeezes out, “I’ll help you guys.”
“No, you won’t, you’ll continue making drinks. Stacy, do a lobby sweep please.”
“Oh my. No problem Jason.”
“Hey, can I get some service here or what?”
“Is my latte ready yet?”
“I didn’t want whip cream. Lady, I said I didn’t want whip cream!”
“I’ll be with you in just a moment, thanks for your patience.”
My mother looks over the counter, smirks as if she willed this to happen and says, “Well my little man it seems you’ve got your work cut out for you. I’m going to head on out. Remember, dinner this Sunday and don’t forget to bring me some coffee. Love you, ba-bye.”
The trophy speaks, “Let’s get a steak babe, I’m over this little fu-fu stand.”
Liz grabs a cup, begins to write down an order, and says out the side of her already crooked mouth, “Just think, this is the end of your day. I’m just starting.”
“I’ve got a wonderful grande cappuccino on the bar for Leticia! Thank you and have pleasant day.”
“Does the caramel mocha have whipped cream on it?”
“Yes, but you can get it without if you’d like.”
“How many calories are in the whipped cream?”
“Hey Kisha, since Jeb is going to be a little while yet, go ahead and count out your till,” I say.
Kisha looks at me and says, “How am I supposed to handle this day in and day out? How do you do it?”
“Honestly? I don’t have a clue.”
“240 calories. If you get it with non-fat you cut out another 175.”
“Here you go, no whip cream this time. Sorry about that.”
“Well I only said it three times. You guys need to get it together, god!”
“Sorry about the delay, pandemonium just set in, what can I get for you?”
Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere
I’m off. It’s been a grueling nine hours and I can’t wait to get out of this god’s forsaken place. I’m rounding the corner, road-Chai and cigarette in hand when I hear the Flower Girl holler at me, “Hey there handsome is that for me?”
I completely forgot about the Flower Girl. I clocked out two minutes ago. I’m no longer being paid to be nice, so it’s a struggle when I reply, “What this? It’s not a Mocha. But yeah it’s for you.”
She laughs and says, “Yeah right! That’s yours, I see you drink them all the time. You forgot my mocha, how could you?” she asks with the classic sad little girl pout.
“Okay, true, I forgot your mocha, but you should try this anyway. Expand your horizons a little in the world of coffee and tea. Here, have a taste if you don’t mind cooties.”
She tosses her hair back and laughs. “I don’t mind your cooties and I’ll forgive you for forgetting about me, this time.”
Handing her the cup, our fingers touch. I hand out hundreds of drinks a day and this happens only a few times and never is there a lingering of the touch. It is entirely within the boundaries of reason I am reading too much into this, but maybe this is just one of those subtle moments of human courtship. She does smile a little and look down demurely after, and who can say what that means.
“What’s it taste like?” she asks.
I reply, “Just try it. You might like it, you might not.”
She rolls her eyes and says, “Well duh! But I just want to know what to be prepared for before I dive right in.”
“Just drink it. It’s good. It reminds me of pumpkin pie.”
She cocks her head to the side and says, “Pumpkin huh?”
While she drinks from it, I notice how even a simple thing done by a pretty girl is totally and utterly fascinating. Men since the dawn of time have found women to be the most intriguing creature on the planet and it continues today unabat
ed.
“Mmm, that is good. What is it again?”
“It’s an iced vanilla chai tea latte. I told you it was good.”
She looks down into the cup and says, “Yeah, I don’t know if I can remember the name, but it’ll be a good change from my mocha every once in a while.”
Now that I don’t have anything in my hands, I’m starting to get uncomfortable and fidgety. When the skeptic in me goes away, I’m left with little natural ability to interact with a girl in a genuinely comfortable manner. My tongue also loses its usual glibness and my stomach starts to turn on me. If the silence continues for too long, my tendency to sweat heavily from my brow may make an appearance. Followed immediately by the final phase of embarrassment where my neck becomes many shades of red.
And the silence stretches on.
Eyes are moving about, peering this way and that, looking at nothing truly.
Ears pick up the sound of shuffling this way and that, keen to hear anything really.
Beads of sweat pop up on my forehead, waiting to cascade downward.
Creeping just below my collar, the color red awaits.
Simultaneously, “So.” Mild laughter follows.
“You still wanna come over?”
“Sure.”
Into the Lioness’s Den
Her apartment is one of those places you can rent by the week. The building is an historical building located right in the middle of downtown. Historical, as in built in 1925. The elevator ride took probably three times longer than the stairs would have and was shaky enough to make me more than a little nervous. There are five locks with different keys she has to work before we’re granted access to her abode.
Most of the walk was spent in preparation for the sight I was about to behold. Temporary living arrangement was mentioned more than once. An unwarranted shame lurks behind her eyes as she says all this. I want to tell her that I’m not much for caring about these kinds of things and that my place isn’t much better but it felt like it would’ve been weird. She pushes on the door and looks at me with big open eyes and her vulnerabilities are exposed in that instant before my eyes leave hers to peek inside her home.
Dust motes stir in the beams of sunlight pushing through the blinds and my eyes soak in the details of her apartment. It’s small and the bolted down furniture is worn and more than likely older than both of us. Butterfly earrings lay on the floor next to the door, lipstick and hair-ties rest next to the lamp on the only movable piece of furniture. A boom box sits on the floor underneath the window and is accompanied by a Chinese take-out box. Purple sleeves are tangled around denim legs competing for space with rumpled blouses and castoff underwear in the corner. The far wall has handles halfway up to pull out a Murphy bed. The stove has two burners and a small oven beneath. The bathroom door is ajar due to a light pink bathrobe hanging from the corner. It has a musty odor lingering underneath the slight smell of incense and perfume. “This your first place?” I ask.
She grins and sarcastically says, “How could you tell?”
“It was the earrings.”
She looks at me strangely and moves on over to the wall.
“I don’t have a couch, wouldn’t fit anyway, but the bed comes out of the wall and it’s not too uncomfortable,” she says.
I can see that the clothes lie next to where the bed is about to be. “Cool. So what do you do for fun?”
She pulls on the handles from the wall and again I’m transfixed by the way her body moves while she takes the bed down. She sits down, waves a hand over the bed, and says, “I invite young men into my lair and eat them. Have a seat.”
“And just how do you go about doing such a thing?”
She raises her eyebrows and says, “Why, I seduce them of course.”
She purses her lips then slowly licks them.
It is now that I wish I had the proverbial “way with the ladies”. She looks beautiful and even though I know she’s joking, I want to believe she’s not. Is she handing out an invitation clothed in sarcasm and the easy cancellation it brings or is she just using her girlish charms to tease me because she can? A lack of confidence in myself has left me in an awkward moment. Thankfully, she ends my torment with an outburst in laughter and rolls over on her side to completely realize her fit.
“You’re too easy! Oh my god, way too easy!” she says loudly in between laughing.
I’m feeling very uncomfortable and put upon at the moment. So I put a smile on my face and mask my raging uncertainty. My stomach is twisting more and more and all I want to do is flee. Instead I say, “Nice, laugh it up why don’t you. But really, what do you do for fun?”
She quiets down and looks at me somberly and says, “Nothing really. I just moved down here from L.A. a few months ago, so I don’t really know anybody and most of the time I’m just trying to get by. You know, working at the flower shop and slinging on the side. Mainly I just get high. I’m not very good at too many things, but I can smoke like a pro, so...that’s what I do. Speaking of which, ready to get your smoke on?”
“Sure. I have to tell you though, I’ve only done this a couple of times. It doesn’t take much to light me up.”
She perks up a little and says, “Really? Well, do you want to smoke a joint, hit the pipe or do bong-loads?”
“Um, I’m not sure really. I’ve only smoked out of a pipe before, so how about a joint?”
“Okay” she says, and gets up and walks over to the pile of clothes and starts digging through them. She grabs a medium sized wooden box, comes back over to the bed, and sits down next to me. She’s close enough that our combined weight has sunk the bed having the effect of pushing us next to each other. She bends her head down to open the box and sorts through the various items of paraphernalia and the scent of her shampoo finds its way to my nose.
My brain malfunctions and I spurt out, “I’m not really good with girls. I mean, not that I think you’re interested in me, or that I’m interested in you. Not that I wouldn’t be, I mean, I’m not saying you’re not interesting, you totally are. I’m just saying I would be, but if you’re not, I’m not going to be all like lame or whatever. I just. I just. I think you’re pretty cool so far, I mean, I know we don’t really know each other, god I’m stupid.”
My heart is beating too fast, my hands are starting to sweat and I feel my forehead beading up again. I stand up and look over at her and she’s just staring at me with her mouth slightly open and her expression is unreadable to me. Then she laughs again. She tilts her head back and laughs and laughs and laughs. I’m still standing and my face is getting hot and I know I’m the color of tomato soup. It’s times like this when I just want to drop dead and not have to feel so completely out of sorts. My only course of action to forego any further embarrassment is to vacate her place immediately.
“I’m sorry. I’m, I’m just going to go now.”
She stops laughing and says, “Hey, wait, I’m the one who is sorry. Don’t feel embarrassed. Look, you’re very cute. God, you’re so cute, especially now. You just need to relax. Come over here and sit down. Okay?”
Now, more than ever, I seriously just want to leave. I’m feeling slighted and I really just want to go home and take a shower. However, I have to see this girl nearly every day because of work and if I leave like this, it’ll just make for many more uncomfortable days in the future. The last thing I need is another reason to hate going to work.
“I still feel embarrassed.”
She chuckles a little and says, “It’s alright. Come on, sit down. I’m not going to bite you. I’m sorry. I know I can be a little much to handle at times. And besides, I am into you. Like I said, you’re cute. Plus, your innocence is refreshing.”
I breathe aloud and sit back down next to her, but not as close as before. My mind is racing again. She’s into me? Maybe I like her. What am I thinking? I don’t even really know her.
I feel my heart start to race again and say, “Look, I’ve not had a lot of experience with girls
and I’m really not sure how to, how to talk to girls. I mean—”
She interrupts me, “Easy turbo, easy.” She smiles and continues, “God you’re so adorable! No need to rush things. We’re just getting to know each other right now. Even if there’s nothing to be had, at least we can be friends and maybe I can show you how to handle yourself in front of us ‘girls’. Then again, maybe we’ll go somewhere, but right now, you should relax. Here, light this up.” She hands me the joint.
“You know, I’ve never been this candid before with a girl. I wish I would’ve known all it takes is to just lay it out in the open,” I say as I take the joint and fish my lighter out of my front right pocket.
“That’s not necessarily true. Sometimes it’s nice to toy with someone and dance around the edges and flirt, makes it interesting. You just have to have a little more confidence in yourself and stop reading into everything so deeply. We women are complicated true, but a simple approach is most of the time your best bet. You just want to be yourself. We can totally tell when a guy is trying too hard to impress or pretending to be something he’s not. Also, if you get your hopes up, don’t get discouraged if you get shot down. Not everybody is meant for each other and you got to be able to deal with rejection. Now light that up kid,” she says with the air of a road philosopher.
Grinning like a little boy I say, “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Ma’am! Don’t call me ma’am. I’m not even able to buy my own beer. Hey! After this, you wanna go to the liquor store on the corner? I could use a 40 oz. or something?”
I light the joint and take a deep pull on it before I pass it and reply, “Sure, I don’t work until nine tomorrow.”
She hits the joint and laughs at me as I start to cough. “You alright there kid?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I say as I continue to cough. I feel my head get heavy as the weed starts to take effect. My focus is shifted and my external awareness dims. A moment ago, the room was alien and unfamiliar, now it feels like a weird cocoon. My thoughts slow down and spindle out in too many different directions. Did the lights get brighter? Is the floor slightly more sloped? Does my face look as different as it feels?
The Dark Roast Page 4