The Way Life Should Be (14 page)

“No. I wish.” I shuffle the cards, lay them in overlapping columns on the table. “I’m living off my severance pay. Which is fast running out.”

“Ah,” he says. “So you’ll need to get a job.”

“One of these days.” I’ve been trying not to think about it,
but between the rent and the logs and the lattes, I am zipping through the two months’ salary that Mary Quince charitably bestowed on me in parting.

“You know,” he says, “I could actually use some help around here.”

I look around at the empty shop. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. You’ve seen what it’s like. I can’t go anywhere for five minutes without closing up. Even when I’m here, it would be useful to have another pair of hands. It wouldn’t be much money; I could pay you, I don’t know—eight dollars an hour.”

“I don’t even know how to make espresso.”

“You could learn. Any drongo can do it. It’s not brain surgery.”

“Drongo?”

“That’s Aussie for ‘idiot.’ Not that I’m saying you’re an idiot, mind you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“So what do you think?”

I hesitate. “I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to feel…tied down.”

He snorts. “That’s silly. You’re in here all the time anyway.”

“I know, but what if I want to do something else?”

“Look, it’s not a prison sentence,” he says. “Why don’t you try it for a day or two, see what it’s like? You can always quit—no hard feelings.”

“Really? That’s nice.”

“Well, I’m a nice guy.” Opening the cash register, he takes the bills out and starts counting them. “I was lying about the hard feelings, by the way.” He looks up and smiles.

I smile back. “I’ll think about it.”

So much for thinking about it. The next morning I am be
hind the counter, wearing an apron, struggling to memorize the arcane lingo and processes of gourmet-coffee production. Arabica beans,
espresso breve, robusto, con panna, cremosa, chai, granito, ristretto…
It might not be brain surgery, but the terminology and techniques seem to me as complicated as those in a medical textbook.

Once past the blur of the morning rush, I relax and look around, inhaling the rich smell of ground beans, the tang of apricot tea. As the day progresses I am surprised to find that I like the half-brained rhythm of repetition: sweeping the floor, cleaning the condiment station (milk, cream, artificial sugar in pastel paper parcels, squeeze packets of honey), stacking paper cups, washing out the carafes, bantering with the regulars. I bring sweet lattes (caramel, mocha) to two older women, their soft bodies swathed in colorful knits, who sit at a corner table sharing a bagel. I recognize them; they come in together every day. They sit intimately, their bodies curved toward each other like schoolgirls sharing a secret. An elderly man who ordered a large coffee sits alone in the other corner, methodically reading every section of the newspaper as the hours go by. Then he folds and refolds the paper until only a rectangle of crossword is visible. Using a blue ballpoint pen, he sits until he finishes it, his cane hooked over the back of the empty chair across the table. I bring him free refills, and he beams with gratitude.

I can’t remember the last time anyone ever smiled at me like that.

I like this job.

Bright and early the next morning, as I’m filling vacuum flasks with milk at the condiment station—whole, half-and-half, 2 percent, skim, soy—I feel a tug on my shirt and turn to find a diminutive masked crusader at my elbow.

“Well, hello there,” I say, wondering simultaneously why this
kid is dressed up as Batman and whether I just filled the soy milk container with soy milk or, god forbid, cow’s milk instead. I’m holding both cartons.

“Holy smoke, Batman!” Flynn calls from across the room. “Trouble in Spruce Harbor?”

Flinging his cape over his shoulder and putting his hands on his hips, the boy says, “No worries. Everything’s under control.”

“No worries,” Flynn says, amused. “Good on ya.”

“Not so soon, Batman. Does this smell like soy milk to you?” I stick the flask under his nose.

He takes a sniff and groans. “Gross.”

“Must be soy.” Rebecca, the woman from New York, is standing in the doorway, and I realize that this is her son. What’s his name—Ethan?

“Awesome costume, Josh,” Flynn says. Oh yes, Josh. “I used to have pajamas like that.”

“Might as well be pajamas,” says Rebecca. “He’s been wearing this costume day and night since he dragged me to Wal-Mart to get it last week.”

Now it dawns on me—Halloween. I’d completely forgotten.

“Trick or treat!” Josh shouts.

“How about this?” Flynn says. “You get a trick and your mother gets a double tall skim cappuccino with extra foam.”

“Marvelous idea,” Rebecca says.

“No, I don’t
get
a trick. I trick
you,
” Josh says.

“Aah,” Flynn says, working the cappuccino machine. “Well, eight in the morning is a little early for tricks
or
treats, don’t you think? Come back this afternoon and we’ll see what we can do.”

Josh nods and Flynn raises his eyebrows at me and stage-whispers, “I’m sending you out on a mission. Find. Candy.”

“Oh, you’re working here!” Rebecca says with surprise. “I thought you were just a helpful customer.”

“If mixing up soy and regular is ‘helpful,’” Flynn says.

“Yeah, I just started,” I say, ignoring him.

“And are you still seeing…?”

“Touchy subject,” Flynn says.

“It really isn’t,” I say. “But—no. I’m renting a little place in Dory Cove that Flynn hooked me up with.”

“So you’re sticking around.”

“For now, at least.”

“That’s great.” She smiles, taking her cappuccino from Flynn. “Maybe a real New Yorker can do something about the terrible bagels in this place.”

Flynn is, naturally, a coffee snob.
He orders beans from a boutique company in Vermont that roasts and sells a variety of blends. But that’s all he appears to be obsessed with—that, and clean countertops. The only food in the shop, other than the cardboard bagels, is store-bought biscotti. There’s a kitchen in the back, though Flynn never uses it.

“So I’ve been thinking,” I say a few days later as I’m wiping down tables.

“Uh-oh,” he says.

“Rebecca is right. The bagels are terrible.”

“C’mon, they’re not
terrible.
”

“Flynn, they’re inedible.” I scrub at a spot of caramel goo. “The thing is, you’ve got great coffee. A good location. A nice space with a big window. But even in the off-season, people want to be able to get something to eat, don’t you think?”

“Forget that!” he says, swatting the air. “I make coffee. Food is a different can of worms.”

“So to speak. Well, here’s the thing,” I say. “I think a few breakfast items and maybe some soup for lunch would attract more customers. And I also think that with some paint and bet
ter lighting and a few other little changes, you can make this place a whole lot more inviting.”

“Bloody oath,” he says. “If I’d known you were such a troublemaker, I never would’ve hired you.”

I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m not, by nature, inclined to meddle. But I have a clarity about this that has caught me by surprise. “I could help. What if we start with something easy—maybe just soup?”

He washes behind the toaster oven, taps a sludgy filter into the trash. “Look, food is not my thing,” he says. “I can barely boil an egg. To be honest, I
can’t
boil an egg. I’ve given up. They say three minutes, but do you put the egg in boiling water, or cold? And is it from the time you put it in, or when the water boils?”

I decide to bring something new into the shop for Flynn to try every day, a campaign of culinary seduction. When I get home from work that evening, I go into the kitchen and pull out the pans. I hear my grandmother’s voice telling me how to caramelize garlic in a saucepan, cooking it in olive oil on low heat for forty minutes or so, until golden brown and velvet to the touch. I make chicken broth and chop canned tomatoes and soak dried cannellini beans.

“What are you having for lunch?” I ask Flynn casually the next morning.

He shrugs. “I’ve got some Campbell’s under the counter.” He glances at the clock. “I guess it’s about that time, isn’t it?”

“Well, actually, I made soup last night. I brought some for you, if you want.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“That’s awfully nice. What kind?” He comes over to where I’m sitting and I take a plastic container out of my bag.

“It’s pasta
fagioli,
” I say.

“Fah-zhool?”

“Yeah, spelled f-a-g-i-o-l-i. It’s Italian,” I say.

“Fa-gee-oli. Fah-zhool. Weird,” he says. He peers into the container. “Look at that.”

“My grandmother makes this. It’s pasta and white beans in a marinara chicken broth.”

“Smells incredible,” he says. He hops up, gets two mugs and spoons, and takes the container to the microwave to warm.

The day after that I bring apple-cinnamon muffins and barley soup with tiny turkey meatballs. The next, split pea soup and corn muffins.

By day four he is overwhelmed and bleary-eyed. But like an addict, he looks toward me eagerly. “What’ve you got?” he asks, and before I hand him the bag I say, “All right. Here’s what I want.”

“Uh-oh,” he says, reaching for a cheddar and dill muffin.

“I want to make the changes we talked about.”

He doesn’t answer. He is busy opening the still warm container of black bean soup.

“Will you at least consider it?”

He breathes deeply, with his eyes closed. “You are a criminal mastermind.”

“C’mon, Flynn—it would be fun.”

“‘Fun’ is not what it would be,” he says.

“I’ll do the work. Most of the work,” I say.

He sticks his pinkie in the soup and licks it.

“You’ll make money.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve been planning events for almost a decade, and I have a pretty good sense of what people want. Up here, people
need a place to hang out that’s comfortable, where they can have a decent breakfast or lunch without spending a fortune. You’ve already done most of the work; you have great coffee and a prime location. This is about adding versatility.”

“That’s quite a sales pitch,” he says, chewing a muffin. “But the truth is, it’ll be a load of work. Are you up for it? Because I’m not sure I am.”

“I’m up for it,” I say.

He looks at me for a long moment, and then he says, “God damn it.”

“What?”

“I really don’t want to do this.”

I’ve overstepped my bounds. “Okay. I’ll stop.”

“Ugh.” He sighs. “It’s not you. I mean, it
is
you, and you should’ve minded your own bizzo in the first place, but now that you’ve brought it up…God damn it to hell.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it makes sense. It makes fucking sense.”

“So—you want to do it?”

“No, I don’t want to do it. But I probably should.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We’ll give it a burl.”

“‘A burl’?”

“A go!” he says impatiently. “We’ll give it a
go.
”

“Really, Flynn?”

“You are one pushy broad,” he says.

I grin. “Will you help me paint?”

He nods, and then shakes his head with disgust.

“Will you reimburse me for expenses?”

He nods again.

“Are you going to nod at everything I say?”

“I’ll keep nodding until you shut up,” he says.

“You should never do business on an empty stomach, you know,” I tell him.

“Bloody oath,” he says, “I know!”

Over the next few days,
I traipse back and forth to the hardware store, buying samples of colors: mellowed ivory, waterbury cream, soft pumpkin. I drive into Ellsworth to Home Depot and pick up halogen light fixtures with amber glass shades for over the counter. At Marden’s I find a gigantic multicolored rag rug to cover the cold linoleum. From roadside flea markets and thrift stores, I collect upholstered chairs and round tables. I stumble on a cardboard box of old black-and-white maps of the island on sale for a dollar at the town library, and stick them in Wal-Mart frames.

The thrum of pleasure I feel these days reminds me of when I was in college, working on set design for a production of
A Doll’s House.
In the final weeks I practically lived in the theater, working around the clock to finish. At one or two in the morning, I’d walk across campus to my dorm in a sleep-deprived haze. When I ran into people I knew who weren’t involved in the production, I’d look at them blankly. Every waking thought was about the play: ideas for props, colors, aspects of the story I was responsible for. It was a strange ecstasy, half conscious and yet hyperaware, a sustained hallucinogenic high, the closest thing to a religious experience I have ever had.

My father thought my grades would suffer, and he was right. After the last performance he said, “Now it’s over. All that hard work, and the review in the school paper wasn’t even that great. I hope you’ve learned a lesson about what’s worth spending your time on and what isn’t.” I crashed—stayed in my dorm room, slept until midafternoon. And my dad’s words extinguished
something in me. I’ve never had that feeling again, that sense of camaraderie and purpose.

But now, when I wake in the night with an idea, or scour recipe books, or daub paint colors on the wall, my body remembers that feverish intensity.

Flynn grumbles about the mess and chaos, but I think he’s secretly pleased.

I try different soups on him: turkey and wild rice, broccoli and cheddar, vegetarian vegetable. I find a banana bread recipe on an index card, which I remember copying from my grandmother’s instructions, a lemony pound cake, oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies. I begin experimenting with muffins—blueberry, pumpkin nut, cranberry orange—seeking the perfect ratio of berries to batter, spice to nuts.

A week and a half later the walls are three different shades, from cocoa to adobe; the lighting is muted and indirect; the chairs, finally, are comfortable. The counter used to run along the length of the long rectangular space, but I convinced Flynn to place it along the shorter end about two-thirds back, still accessible to the kitchen through a door to the left, so there’d be more room for tables and chairs. The deli case now holds fruit, yogurt, juices, and bottled water. Muffins are stacked in a pyramid under a glass cake cover.