On What Grounds (Coffeehouse Mysteries, No. 1) (A Coffeehouse Mystery) (10 page)

“And what are you jealous of, exactly?”

Esther shrugged, turned away to stare at the girl in the ICU. “She’s just so beautiful and it’s always been so easy for her to just…I don’t know”—Esther shrugged again—“get what she wants.”

“Esther, tell me the truth now. Were you jealous enough of her to argue with her at the Blend last night and maybe accidentally cause her to fall down that flight of stairs?”

“
No.
No way. I may be jealous of Anabelle, but I’m also her friend. I mean, okay, we aren’t that close, but I’d
never
in a million years hurt her. Not like this.”

The distressed look in Esther’s eyes made me believe she was telling the truth.

“Besides,” she added with a sigh, turning toward the observation window again, “suspecting me of something like that doesn’t even make sense.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “I was nowhere near the Blend all night. And we share an apartment. Don’t you think if I was going to go postal on her, I’d have done it in the privacy of our own living space, like most domestic violence stuff?”

The girl did have a point, I thought.

“Have you been in to see her?” I asked.

“Just when they first brought her in. But the ICU is pretty strict. They wouldn’t let Richard’s mother in, either.”

“Where is she?”

“Oh, she left. Probably to give her son the update. I called Richard at school and didn’t get an answer so I called his parents’ apartment, and she came for him. They’ll only allow one visitor in there at a time. I was the one who called Anabelle’s stepmother, too, to tell her what happened, and when she got here, I got booted out.”

“It’s nice that you stayed here so long.”

“I don’t mind.”

I was just beginning to think the girl had a selfless streak I’d never before appreciated when I noticed her rapt gaze had shifted from Anabelle to another bed, farther up the ICU ward. A handsome young Chinese-American doctor in a white coat was finishing up there and swiftly walking toward the exit. Esther’s eyes followed him like a cartoon mouse watching a ripe hunk of traveling cheese.

“That’s John Foo,” I told Esther.

“You know him?”

“He’s a Blend regular.”

“Why haven’t I seen him before?”

“Because he’s an opener—he’s in and out by six-thirty in the morning, right after his martial arts workouts. And you, my dear, insisted on no shifts before noon.”

“I admit it, I’m a sleep whore,” said Esther, watching the young well-built doctor’s every move. “But
he’s
almost worth getting my butt out of bed for. Almost.”

Dr. Foo moved through the set of double doors that led out of the ICU and came directly toward us.

“Esther, you’re still here?”

“Oh, yes, Doctor,” she said, rushing toward him. “I was hoping Anabelle might wake up.”

I felt my eyebrows rise at that. For all Esther’s talk of being a direct individual, I had a hunch she was dulling the edge there for the good-looking Dr. Foo. Her tone, I noticed, had even softened to a perceptible purr—a marked departure from the usual snarl.

“Yes,” I said, stepping toward them. “Has she woken up at all?”

“Clare Cosi. Nice to see you.”

Dr. Foo held out his hand, and I shook it.

“Nice to see you, too, Doctor.”

“You weren’t open this morning,” he said. “I came by at the usual time.”

I pointed to Anabelle. “Your patient was our opener.”

“Oh, I see. I’m so sorry.”

“How is she, Doctor?”

“Not good. She’s in a coma.”

“Is she assigned to you?”

“No. I believe Howard Klein is taking care of her.”

“I don’t know Dr. Klein. Does he ever come to the Blend?”

Doctor Foo laughed. “Klein’s an anti-caffeine fanatic.”

“I see. Well…would you mind doing me a small favor?”

“What’s that?”

“I need some information.”

“E
XCUSE
me? Did you get that? A mochaccino with skim milk?”

“Is my latte coming this year?”

“Double. Double espresso!”

“What’s the holdup?”

“Is someone going to take my money?”

Coffee drinkers were usually very “on” people—ambitious, fast-thinking, fast-moving, aggressive, aware, and involved. I liked them, and I liked serving them. But gourmet coffee drinkers who had to wait an excessively long period to get their fix were not the most patient people on the planet to be wading through.

“Hi, Tuck,” I called over the crowd. “Need a hand?”

“Clare! Thank the lord you’re back!”

Tucker Burton was my afternoon barista. A gay thirtysomething actor and playwright, he’d been born in Louisiana to Elma Tucker, a single mother with a few Hollywood screen credits who had returned to her home state claiming her only son was the illegitimate offspring of Richard Burton. Thus, upon turning twenty-one, Tucker moved to New York City and legally changed his name from Elmer Tucker to Tucker Burton.

Maybe it was his Southern roots, but when especially agitated, Tucker seemed to take on the inflections of a revival tent preacher. He was also tall enough for me to see his mop of light brown hair and angular face over the bevy of bodies lined up three deep at the blue marble counter.

“Clare is here and we are saved! Hal-le-lujah!”

This was the lunchtime crowd from the offices located a few blocks away on Hudson: Assets Bank workers, Satay & Satay Ad execs, and Berk and Lee Publishing people. The neighborhood regulars were here, too, and I exhaled with relief.

Who knew what sort of rumor hit the streets at the sight of an ambulance in front of the Blend—botulism could not be ruled out. Bacteria-laden half-and-half or salmonella in the cream cheese strudel.

Now that the police had allowed us to reopen, I was overjoyed our customers had not flocked elsewhere. It was a satisfying affirmation that the Blend served the best damn cup in town.

“Can I get my latte this
decade
!”

“Clare Cosi!” Tucker shouted. “Will you get your blessed booty back here and help me!”

“Coming, Tuck! Excuse me, excuse me!” I snaked through the bodies, slipped around the counter, and tied on a white chef’s apron.

“Take over the register,” I told him. The register position took the order, collected the money, and poured the regularly brewed coffees into our paper cups with the Blend signature stamp.

I took over the barista position. This division of labor made perfect sense. While Tuck was competent enough at making the Italian coffee drinks, I was better at pulling shots and less flustered under pressure. Besides, as a stage actor, Tuck was a pro at working a crowd.

“All right, people! Line it up! Work with me, work with me! Make a queue, for lord’s sake! C.C.’s back and she’s gonna make magic!”

Espressos are the basis of most Italian coffee drinks. The dealer who’d sold Madame this gleaming, low-slung machine claimed a good barista could pull 240 shots every sixty minutes, but speed wasn’t the objective because an espresso made in under thirty seconds was
merde
(excuse my French). So no matter how many customers screamed to be served faster, I wasn’t about to sacrifice quality.

“Clare, got that cappuccino?”

“Working!”

Freshly drawn shot of espresso, fill rest of cup with one part steamed milk, one part frothed milk.

“Latte!”

Freshly drawn espresso, fill rest of cup with steamed milk, top with a thin crown of frothed milk.

“Mochaccino!”

Pour two ounces chocolate syrup into the bottom of the cup, add one ounce shot of espresso, fill with steamed milk, stir once around lifting from the bottom to bring the syrup up, top with whipped cream, lightly sprinkle with sweetened ground cocoa and curls of shaved chocolate.

Sure, it looked easy from the other side of the counter. But how many of those demanding gourmet coffee palettes knew there were over forty variables that affected the quality of their espresso alone? Forty ways to mess up the perfect cup, including machine cleanliness, ground coffee portion, particle size distribution, porosity of caked grounds, cake shape, cake moisture, water quality, water pressure, water temperature, extraction time, and, oh, about thirty others.

Just last year the industry issued a report saying only approximately five percent of coffee bars in America operated their machines properly. Only five percent gave their customers a true espresso experience.

I was appalled, but not entirely surprised. Take “Perk Up!,” the rival coffeehouse that went into business across the street from the Blend a few years back then swiftly went out again the very same year, and for a very good reason—they bragged about making their espressos in record time, seven seconds.

Now most people in the food and beverage service business would agree that speed in making your product and getting it into the customer’s hands is usually a lucrative idea, but here’s the problem: To produce a quality espresso, you’ve got to have nearly boiling water at pressures of eight to ten bars. Creating hot water at these pressures is the basic function of an espresso machine. Unfortunately, at these high pressures, water can be forced through the ground coffee too quickly if the barista does not make sure that the coffee is ground fine enough or the grounds are packed tightly enough into the filter-holder cup.

If the grounds are too coarsely milled or too loosely packed, coffee practically gushes out of the portafilter spouts. This rapid process extracts only the soluble components of ground coffee, making it
brewed
coffee,
not
espresso.

Thus are standards lowered, and as Madame says, when we lower our standards, we lose our soul—not to mention our returning customer base.

When I make an espresso, I slow down the extraction process by using a finer grind and a
very
packed filter-holder cup. That way the espresso
oozes
out of the portafilter like warm honey (as it should) instead of gushing out like water. When it oozes out, you know that oils have been extracted from ground coffee and not just the soluble components as in brewed coffee.

A quality espresso should consist entirely of rich, reddish-brown crema as it flows easily out of the portafilter spout. Crema, or coffee foam, is the single most important thing to look for in a well-made espresso. It tells you the oils in ground coffee have been extracted and suspended in the liquid—the thing that makes espresso, espresso.

“Got that mocha?”

“Got it!”

“XXX!”

Triple espresso.

“Skinny hazelnut cap with wings!”

Cappuccino with skim milk, hazelnut syrup, and extra foam.

“Caffé Caramella!”

Latte with caramel syrup, topped with sweetened whipped cream and a drizzle of warm caramel topping.

“Caffé Kiss-Kiss!”

Otherwise known on our menu as Raspberry-Mocha Bocci. One of my favorite dessert drinks. “Got it!”

“Americano!”

Also known as a Caffé Americano. An espresso diluted with hot water.

“Grande skinny!”

Twenty-ounce latte with skim milk.

“Double tall cap, get the lead out!”

Sixteen-ounce cappuccino with decaf.

Decaf.

A shudder ran through me as I glanced up and saw the wane, pale, overanxious face of the man ordering the decaf.

Okay, I’m sorry, but decaf drinkers
annoy
me.

Expectant mothers I can understand, but lifelong decaf drinkers give me the creeps. They’re usually the sort who have a half-dozen imagined allergies, eat macrobiotic patties, and pop Rolaids like M&Ms when their acid reflux kicks in from anxiety over the Chinese restaurant’s delivering white instead of brown rice.

Look, I’m not saying anyone should overdo ingesting caffeine, but let’s face it, researchers have already declared too much
water
is a bad thing. So overdoing anything isn’t a particularly good idea. All I’m saying is that I find it difficult to believe the bedtime story that true “health” completely hinges on the number of milligrams of salt
not
consumed, always and forever ordering bernnaise on the side, and—god forbid—ever letting yourself enjoy a warm, satisfying beverage in the natural state it’s been consumed for, oh, about a thousand years.

Okay, lecture over, back to work—

“Mocha-mint cap, vanilla lat, espresso, espresso, espresso!”

During a typical day, when things were in control and enough hands were on deck back here, I took the time to talk to the customers, savor the look on their faces as they took that first sip.

But for a solid forty minutes there was no time to enjoy their enjoyment. Not even any time to ask Tucker where the hell Matteo had disappeared to. Eventually, however, the crowd thinned. A dozen or so bodies lingered at the marble tables on the first floor, but the bulk of the waiting customers had gone, returning to the offices whence they’d come—whether cramped cubicle, receptionist desk, or the plushest of executive suites. (All hail mochaccino!—the great equalizer.)

With the lunch rush over, I fixed Tucker and myself double espressos. Most espresso drinkers like their shots black or with sugar. Some like lemon zest (gratings of lemon rind) or a twist of lemon and sugar.

Matteo drinks it straight black. Tucker and I like a bit of sugar.

(The thing to remember when adding sugar is to use white granulated—it desolves much faster and smoother than cubes or brown sugar.)

Some of my customers even add a bit of frothed milk, but this version of espresso “stained” with a bit of milk is technically called a caffé macchiato (
macchia
being Italian for stain, spot, or speckle).

As I finished making our drinks, Tucker put a New Age instrumental CD into the sound system. The mellow music was a tradition I had reinstated.

Before I’d returned to managing the Blend, Moffat Flaste, the previous manager, had driven customers away not only from his lack of attention to store hours, his improper cleaning of the espresso machines, and his laziness in keeping the seating areas tidy—but also with his exclusive and incessant playing of Broadway show tunes on the coffeehouse sound system.

As Madame put it: “How can one read, write, cogitate, or converse with Ethel Merman caterwauling in the background!”

Unfortunate but true. I mean, Broadway musicals are fine things, but their raucous tunes are distracting: worthwhile when ensconced in a velvet theater seat or cleaning the refrigerator, but downright irritating when trying to relax with a cup of cappuccino.

So about four weeks ago, on my first day back managing the Blend after more than ten years, I instructed the staff to return to the routine that the Blend had maintained for decades: classical, opera, and New Age instrumentals in the morning and afternoon; jazz and world music in the evening.

In less than a week, the old customers began to return. And with word of mouth traveling as quickly as it does in the Village, the customer base was now almost back to a profitable level.

“So where the hell did Matt go?” I finally asked Tucker.

He shrugged. “All I know is that he was helping me get ready to open when he said he’d be right back. He went up to the manager’s office, came back down about fifteen minutes later, said he had to take care of something very important, and left.”

“He said it was very important?”

“
Dire
was the word Matt used.”

“Dire,”
I repeated and took a fortifying sip from my cup. The stimulating warmth reached out to rally every weary nerve ending in my weary body.

Tucker had no way of knowing this, but
dire
was a loaded word for me, especially when it involved my ex-husband.

When we’d been married, and Joy was very little, Matt had described as dire the various “business networking” events that to me sounded more like they were ripped from a page of Hugh Hefner’s daytimer, e.g.: “It’s dire that I attend that club opening,” or “It’s dire that I stay in Rio another two weeks,” or “It’s dire that I accept that coffee broker’s invitation to his hot tub party.”

Eventually I realized my Peter Pan husband was simply dropping the letters
es
in the word
desire
to get the desired reaction from his little wifey, home taking care of the little daughter and managing the little coffeehouse.

I put up with it for almost a decade, mainly for Joy. But after a few major epiphanies in the wake of a few minor discoveries, I finally realized the fool I was and moved Joy and myself to Jersey, leaving a simple note behind:
Dear Matt: It’s dire we divorce.

Thus ends my unhappy history with the D word.

Unfortunately, in this case, Matteo had not been exaggerating. What he’d discovered in the upstairs office
was
dire. But I wouldn’t find that out until I saw him later that day.

It was still early afternoon and a few surprises were about to come through my front door, starting with a cacophony of yips and barks attached to a stampede of long legs.

“I’m no wildlife expert,” quipped Tucker, his head deep under the counter, checking on supplies, “but that’s either a pack of roving hyenas or the Dance 10 crew.”