Lattes & Lace

by Annora Green

  Sophia’s heart beat faster and faster as what Veronica was saying sunk in. The tall woman, who had been in her younger self’s eyes so intelligent, so full of mystery and intrigue and confidence, had been infallible. She had known Veronica had some issues with depression and with substance abuse back when she was with her. But Sophia also looked up to her, as someone who had accomplished so much by age 30, becoming a professor, with a great intellectual capacity and teeming with knowledge about the world.

  At 22, Sophia had been too young and ignorant to realize the full extent of the demons that the woman had been battling.

  “I’m glad you got help, but I’m not sure that was my doing.” Sophia said quietly. “I was still too green back then to be of much help to you.”

  “No, you were. You had this... energy. You’d been through a bad relationship, I know, but you still had so much life and ambition. You spoke a lot about your goals and finishing school and your hopes for your career. I, in the meantime, had thought of... nothing, for a few years prior. I thought the rest of my life would be a black hole of university politics and research and waiting for tenure. That changed when I met you. I found new goals. I got a second wind. For that, I do owe you, Sophia.”

  “You owe me nothing,” Sophia said quietly.

  Their food arrived, and the women ate relatively quietly after that, saying little more than small talk about the food and the restaurant. Finally, as their meal settled and they sipped on coffee, Sophia felt brave again.

  “I’m in a good place now,” Sophia said. “I’ve learned a lot.”

  “I’m glad,” Veronica replied. “And so have I.”

  “I’m happy you seem to be in a better place now, too,” Sophia said.

  “So am I,” Veronica said.

  Sophia leaned forward, gazed into Veronica’s eyes and smiled warmly. “Come over to my house after dinner.”

  “For what?” Veronica asked, her lashes fluttering as she looked at Sophia, who was leaning so anxiously towards her.

  “For... old time’s sake,” Sophia said, hoping her nerves weren’t too evident in her voice.

  Veronica carefully set down her coffee cup, it clinking slightly against the saucer, and a sad look crossed her face.

  “Sophia,” she began.

  “We’re both different,” Sophia said quickly. “But in many ways, we’re still the same. We’re good for each other, Vera.”

  Veronica looked over at her with... with what? Sorrow? Pity?

  Sophia felt herself grow agitated. From that look on her old lover’s face, she knew what was coming.

  “Sophia,” she said softly.

  Sophia gazed down at her empty coffee cup and played nervously with a napkin.

  “I’m not the one for you,” Veronica said simply.

  “Why?” Sophia asked in a quiet voice, trying to remain calm, but her stomach sinking with disappointment and embarrassment.

  Perhaps she had come across as too eager.

  “I have a good balance in my life now, and I don’t want that to change. And you deserve someone who actually is on the same page with you. Who wants someone else to come home to. Someone who you can be a true partner with, now, in your life and its present state. You’re not a student any longer, Sophia. I know you, and you deserve someone who can give you more support. Everything you deserve. That person isn’t me.”

  Sophia raised her eyebrows and looked down into her lap, slightly ashamed by the rejection.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” Veronica said softly, and from the way she said it, Sophia knew she was, although that did not take the sting away.

  “I do have the most profound respect for you, Sophia. And it was truly nice to see you again.”

  The waiter came back and asked if they would be ordering dessert.

  Veronica shook her head. “The bill, please.”

  “One or two?” He asked, glancing at them both, Veronica delicately averting her eyes as Sophia quickly brushed a solitary tear from the corner of one of hers.

  “One,” she said, and Sophia, still too wrapped up in the conversation they had just had, did not protest.

  ¨°¨

  A deflated feeling filled Sophia after her dinner with Veronica. She was happy for Veronica, really. She was glad she seemed to be in a good place in life and had gotten better. And although she had left her academic career in the midst of her struggles, it seemed she now had a solid second career in a field she loved.

  Happy endings for us both, Sophia thought morosely to herself.

  Veronica’s rejection still stung.

  Sure, Sophia had moved on, too. It had been ages since they had ever been an item. Sometimes you just long to go back to a feeling from a period of time in your life that you had shared with a person, more than actually wanting the person themself back, she reasoned with herself. Maybe she did not really want Veronica. It was just that the ease and comfort that Veronica had brought to her during that time of life sometimes still seemed so very appealing.

  As she always did when she was frustrated, in the days after that dinner, she threw herself into her work. When she was not agonizing over lace imported from Portugal and Belgium, inspecting bolts of sleek new microfiber fabrics from Asia or sorting through fine yards of satin from Turkey, she was attending her Retail Association and town council meetings, or scraping together what energy she had left after her long days to spend time with Percy. He assured her he was doing okay, despite his perpetually slumped-over shoulders and persistent desire to return to his homework or comic books rather than chat with her.

  One Monday night after a town council meeting, Sophia was locking up. When she looked up, she noticed a man leaning against the wall of the building outside in the dark, smoking.

  “No smoking within 9 feet of the entrance,” she said matter of factly to the man in the shadows, stashing her keys back in her bag.

  “Won’t you make an exception for a friend?” the smoker asked in a Scottish accent.

  Sophia sighed and walked towards the man.

  “George. You should know better than to smoke here,” she scolded, her eyes narrowed.

  “And you should live a little,” he countered, offering her a drag of his cigarette.

  She took it.

  “Everything fine at your shop? No more broken windows, I hope?”

  “No.” She exhaled, and then pressed her back against the wall, looking up at the night sky. “It’s almost like someone is out to get me lately... broken window, we had a few issues with our website and some delayed shipments, and of course back around the holidays there was Ari and her endless string of headache-inducing concepts. It’s been an endless parade of unnecessary stresses in my life.”

  “And how are things going with your neighbor? I haven’t heard you complain about her lately,” George said.

  Sophia shook her head. “Nothing to complain about. She’s fine. Haven’t seen her in a little while.”

  “No more arguments over tables or decorations or who owns which part of the sidewalk?” He asked, his voice verging on laughter.

  “It wasn’t exactly like that,” Sophia said defensively, rolling her eyes.

  “It was a little like that,” George countered, laughing.

  “If you say so.” she handed the cigarette back and turned to leave.

  “Wait. Sophia.”

  “What?” she asked.

  George flicked the cigarette into the gravel between the sidewalk and the road, underneath a short palm tree.

  “Care to come back to my place?” He brushed a hand through his hair.

  Sophia paused.

  “Not particularly. I need to get home. I have meetings tomorrow-” Sophia said, but she did not move.

  A moment passed. Then another.

  Perhaps it was the stress, and her sheer desire to unwind. Perhaps it was the way that George looked at her. The way she sometimes wished more people would look at her these days. Or at least, if only a certain person she had dined with
recently had looked at her that way.

  She longed for that look.

  She stepped towards him.

  His eyes flicked down to her lips, seconds before she pressed her mouth to his.

  They kissed for a few moments. But then she broke it.

  Something did not feel right to her.

  Sophia looked up into George’s eyes and from the look on his face, she knew he felt it, too.

  He raised his hand to his mouth nervously and looked away from her.

  Their chemistry had all but disappeared. Veronica, and now even George, both were reduced to a distant memory.

  She was not going to linger.

  “Goodnight, George,” Sophia said, clutching her hand around the handle of her purse and turning to walk to her car.

  ¨°¨

  The next morning at work, Sophia watched out of the corner of her eye as Rupert brought Elle a coffee, delivering it with a kiss and a smile.

  “You didn’t have to,” she overheard the girl coo gratefully.

  “How could I resist a few extra minutes with my Elle?” the man answered in his low, gravelly voice.

  Elle giggled.

  Sickening, thought Sophia, rolling her eyes and scrolling through her emails on her phone as she walked towards the back.

  Being in love makes one act like a child.

  Later, in her office, one of her assistants had rolled in a rack of freshly-finished pieces that they had been working on for weeks. They were a part of her fall line, along with some ready-to-wear pieces, that would be shown to buyers at meetings in New York and Paris in upcoming weeks. Sophia inspected the final works carefully, looking at every detail, admiring the work that she had overseen from the conceptual phase, to the sewing room, and now this...

  The black floral lace, deep, jewel-toned fabrics, soft, liquid satin. They looked like pieces from a mystical Queen’s boudoir. Dark, sensual. Beautiful, elaborate, timeless, but still... wearable.

  By the time she was done inspecting them stitch by stitch and determining, with a few of her assistants, which pieces would definitely be shown and in what order, it was a little past closing time at the shop. She took a few of the items downstairs to show Elle.

  Elle’s suitor was already back, waiting for her to finish up her day.

  Sophia saw him, but ignored him, walking over to Elle.

  “Look at these,” she said, setting them on a table. “They’re ready for the shows. Just finished. What do you think?”

  Elleoohed as she delicately looked through them.

  “Stunning. Absolutely beautiful work, Sophia. Your best designs yet,” she said, gently holding up a translucent chemise that had a delicate floral pattern.

  “Would you start to arrange some of these other pieces I brought down in a new display in the window tonight? I’ll come down and help out in an hour or so,” she said.

  Elle nodded.

  Sophia smiled, and went back upstairs to finish up her email for the evening.

  Downstairs, Rupert walked over to Elle to take a look at the pieces.

  “How ironic,” Rupert said.

  “What’s ironic? Elle asked as she inspected a lace-and-satin corset complete with boning and trimmed with ribbons and hand-stitched beads.

  “That a frigid woman who isolates herself in her office day in and day out, and according to what you said is not in - and has not for a long time been in - a romantic relationship, is ultimately a purveyor of some of the most sensuous garments I have ever seen. These are clearly the work of a mind that craves passion.”

  Elle looked up at Rupert.

  “I’m not sure she’s the type that would want anyone to feel sorry for her for being a lingerie designer who isn’t actively in a relationship,” Elle said.

  “Oh, I don’t feel sorry for the woman. I just find it interesting, is all.” Rupert studied a chemise, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

  Elle smiled at him and gave him a tender kiss. “It looks like I’m going to be done a bit late tonight. Mind waiting for me next door while I finish up?”

  He kissed her again, nodded and left.

  4. Inside

  10 years ago

  Ari watched carefully as Jacques poured the fragrant, steaming coffee into the ivory-white hot milk.

  “Don’t use too much - watch and make sure the proportion is like this,” Jacques instructed, lifting the press pot away from the cup and presenting the finished product to Ari with a flourish.

  Ari nodded, then tried to make one of her own.

  “Très bien, very nice Ari,” Jacques said, nodding approvingly as she presented him the finished product.

  “Not too shabby,” their manager Nate chimed in, observing from the side. “You’ll now be in good shape if the president of the company comes by.”

  “Is he French?” Ari asked.

  The coffee stand where she worked was located in the front atrium of the headquarters of a software firm called Oscuro, the company where her mom worked as a corporate trainer in human resources, and her father worked in security. They had worked for the firm since Ari was a baby, working their way up in the organization, growing as the company grew. It was only fitting that Ari’s first after school job would be at the place where her parents had spent their time all of these years.

  Nate shook his head. “Nah, the president’s not French, but he likes his coffee in that style. He was raised in South America, I think. Whatever it is, he likes his coffee in a more European way. Either a little shot of espresso, or made into a proper cafe au lait.”

  “I think I’ve got it under control,” Ari said confidently.

  She loved coffee, the smell of it, the taste of it... it was a perfect first job. And not only was she getting paid to be around something she enjoyed, she also got all the free coffee she could drink when break time rolled around.

  Ari spent her days after school working the late afternoon/evening shift, observing all of the young, ambitious developers and marketing types, fresh out of college, grab their coffee in between meetings and type away on laptops as they worked late into the night. It was such a cool environment, she thought, observing tables of professionals only a few years older than herself brainstorming in the open, bright and airy atrium.

  It was an ideal after school job, and Ari liked her coworkers, and after only six months she amassed a pretty respectable little savings in her bank account thanks to the job. The only thing she did not love about it was that her dorky dad sometimes dropped by to order a coffee, chatting far too enthusiastically with her coworkers, laughing and joking and generally being way too excited about his daughter working there.

  “I’m busy, dad,” she would groan when he stopped by to bond with her and Nate or Jacques, whoever happened to be sharing her shift.

  “It’s a perk of my job that I get to see my daughter,” he said, grinning widely. “Get it... perk?”

  Ari rolled her eyes at the endless dad jokes, but she didn’t fail to notice he also put a $10 in the tip jar before he left to go back to his cubicle upstairs.

  Well, at least that was a perk, she thought to herself.

  Only a few months later, however, the creative, upbeat buzz that had characterized the general environment at Oscuro that Ari enjoyed so much shifted overnight.

  “What’s up with people today?” Ari grumbled to Nate one afternoon when her fifth customer in a row had barked an order, complained about how something was wrong with it, and did not so much as leave a penny as a tip.

  Nate glanced around, motioned for her to move closer to him and lowered his voice. “Rumor is this company’s going to be bought out by a huge multinational. They’re after some of the technology that’s been invented here, but like a lot of other businesses they’ve bought in recent years, everyone knows they’re probably just going to buy the company for its patents and trademarks and will maybe keep on a few people, but almost everyone else will be shown the door.”

  Ari’s heart sank. Her parents... both of t
hem worked here. That couldn’t happen. She hoped it was just a rumor.

  It was not just a rumor.

  Oscuro was purchased a month later for a staggeringly large sum, and most of the employees were laid off shortly after, including her parents. Except, weirdly, for Ari and Nate and Jacques, who were offered positions in the food service program. Ari could remain a barista, working at one of several in-house coffee bars at the multinational company’s headquarters (they called it a “campus”) only a few miles away. She reluctantly took it, only so she could save up as much money as possible before she quit on her own terms.

  She offered to give at least some of her paycheck to her parents, who in their late 30s were suddenly scrambling to find new jobs after nearly twenty years of stability, and trying to figure out if they could get her mom’s lifelong dream of opening up a cupcake shop off the ground so they would have something to do other than collecting unemployment.

  They refused to take money from their daughter.

  Finally, after serving coffee to the very man who had ordered the layoffs of most employees at Oscuro for the eighth time in the same week - an old, quiet guy who was rumored to be dirt rich and yet absolutely talentless, but because of his power and wealth he was key in securing acquisitions of companies like Oscuro - Ari grew tired of being reminded of how unfair the world was.

  She quit and spent the next couple of years driving around the West. She told her parents she was just figuring out what to do next. In reality, she was blowing off steam, knowing she was making mistakes by not having a plan for her future. Still, she prioritized escaping the cold, unfriendly, unfair and fake world that she left behind in Silicon Valley.

  She vowed never to depend on anyone else for an income after the experience of watching her parents crash and burn after devoting their entire careers to a company that thanked them by kicking them to the curb in one fell swoop.