It was going to be a long day — made longer by the first chi of the morning.
Mr. Arrit arrived earlier than expected.
Five minutes early, which in his routine was almost an event. I heard the bell and looked up from the counter.
"Mr. Arrit! Mr. Arrit!" I called out, as if seeing an archangel. "Good morning! Good morning!" His coffee, I thought, looking toward the kitchen. "Mayo—" I indicated, only to discover she was no longer lying across the counter.
She had moved ahead, as if she actually enjoyed working.
"Good afternoon, old man," she greeted him, almost with a bow. "Take a seat wherever you like — I’ll take your cane if it’s bothering you." The smile she threw was one of victory, though I don’t think he understood it as such.
Mr. Arrit stopped for a mont, looking at Mayo with that puzzled expression, chin wrinkling. Then he looked toward the counter, searching for with his eyes again.
I made a small gesture — pressing my palm downward, signaling that everything was fine.
He nodded and walked to his table. The second one by the window, the usual one. He hung his hat on the back of the chair with that precise gesture that had been identical to itself for years.
"Oh, no, no," said Mayo, taking his hat. "You’ll see it better on the table."
Mr. Arrit sighed. "Alright, young lady."
She pushed the nu into his face, nearly throwing it into his arms. "What can I get you?" she asked, pulling out a notepad we never used.
"A coffee," he said, in that asured voice. "Black, no sugar, strong, in a ceramic cup."
"Crystal clear," Mayo noted — though I was fairly certain she hadn’t written anything legible. "I’ll have it right with you in a jiffy."
She began running toward the kitchen with a speed entirely unnecessary given the eleven steps between them.
The kitchen door swung open.
Nolan ca out with the coffee cup in hand — the way he did every day, the way he always had, the way he had for the two years before I arrived — and Mayo arrived at exactly the sa mont.
The collision was clean. The cup tilted its contents with that catastrophic precision that coffee only has when it finds a white shirt.
"Ouch!" said Mayo. "Watch where you’re going. Can’t you see I was running?"
"Damn," said Nolan, looking at his shirt. "I forgot how hot the coffee was."
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry," Mayo crouched down, touching his stained chest. "Does it hurt much?"
"No, I’m fine," he replied, looking at the cup on the floor. He was going to pick it up — but at the sa mont Mayo’s hand intercepted his with the sa intention, finding him, touching HIS HAND.
He pulled away. He looked toward where I was standing.
I was frozen, watching them. But I know my responsibilities as Ryne Moore. "Are you both alright?" I said, walking toward them.
But before I could reach them, Mayo lost her balance — or appeared to — tripping on just a few drops of coffee, falling forward, and Nolan’s arms received her by instinct. For a second her body was completely pressed against his, with the familiarity of soone who knows exactly how they fit in that space.
I stood still in front of the two of them.
Mayo looked up at from Nolan’s arms.
She was smiling. Just a little. Just enough for to see it and no one else.
"Sorry — I forgot how hard it was to work," she said, pulling away calmly. "I’m so sorry, little Nolan."
"Don’t worry about it," he replied, looking at his shirt, then at Mr. Arrit who was watching them from the second table with his usual patience. "Excuse , Mr. Arrit — I’m going to have to go ho and change." He looked for with his eyes. "Ryne, can you manage?"
"Of c-course," I barely said.
"I’ll be back in twenty minutes."
He grabbed his backpack from the hook.
The bell rang.
He left behind.
Mayo picked the cup up from the floor and placed it on the counter with a calm that didn’t belong to soone who had just spilled coffee on their boss.
"Mr. Arrit," I said, walking to his table. "Black coffee, no sugar, strong."
"Sa as always, dear," he replied, with that quiet expression of his that judged nothing but registered everything. "Sa as always."
The afternoon moved at its usual pace — though that pace wasn’t mine.
Mrs. Prats arrived at four with her fabric bag and her usual orange scarf, taking her place on the third stool at the counter.
"Ryne, sweetheart," she said. "You look wonderful today."
"You always say the sa thing, Mrs. Prats," I smiled.
"Because it’s always true." But then Mayo appeared from the kitchen. "And who is this young lady?"
"The beautiful and incomparable Mayo," she introduced herself, extending her hand with energy. "I’m working here this week. Lovely to et ."
"How delightful!" Mrs. Prats took her hand with both of hers. "And are you Ryne’s friend?"
"Her best friend," Mayo declared, sitting on the stool beside her without anyone inviting her. "Though she says we’re just acquaintances when she’s embarrassed."
"How terrible!" Mrs. Prats lowered her gaze.
"That’s not true!" I protested.
"You see?" Mayo told her, with a complicity that had no right to exist yet. "Super uptight — doesn’t give an inch."
Mrs. Prats burst out laughing.
I made her chamomile tea with honey, with her butter cookie on the plate even though she hadn’t asked. But before I could set it on the counter, Mayo picked up the cup.
"I’ll take it," she said, placing it in front of Mrs. Prats with an exaggerated bow. "For you, your majesty."
"Oh, how funny!" said Mrs. Prats, taking the cup with that wide smile of hers.
I wiped the counter from left to right.
Mayo leaned on the counter beside , watching the café with her arms crossed. "Hey," she said quietly. "Let’s take a break."
"I have to clean," I replied, moving the cloth to the left—
"You’ve already cleaned that part twice," she interrupted.
"There are custors."
"They’re drinking their coffee — they won’t die if you leave them alone for five minutes." She pulled my arm. "Maybe they’ll start a war. Nothing serious in five minutes."
"Mayo."
"Fine, four," she insisted. "Co on — you’re not going to grow moss."
"But that’s unbecoming of an employee of the month—"
"You’re the only one working, Ryne — you do the work of five people alone," she repeated, with the sa conclusion as before. "Co on, sit down."
"Only three minutes," I clarified.
She smiled. She took my arm and pulled toward a table. "You may be seated, young lady," she indicated, with a half bow. "Here is the nu — you may order whatever you like."
I looked at her — not because anything about it was unfamiliar, just going along with it. "A foamy lemon tea," I said, pointing with the hand she was holding the ribbon with.
"Sowhat pretentious taste," said Mayo, noting it in her pad. "Coming right up."
She went behind the counter. I heard her use three utensils and unnecessary machines — perhaps five or six attempts, failures that delayed it thirty more minutes than necessary until she produced sothing decent.
It was carelessness. She always has those.
"Here you are, Magmuasel," she said, handing a beaten tea with a spoon and bits of lemon still in the water.
"Since when do you speak French?" I asked, taking a sip. "Not many people master that language in Vancouver."
She pulled out a chair and sat down. "A year ago I t so good people in France," she said. "I rember them well." She smiled. "A very young cook with your sa taste for tea, and her older brother — a young artist who refused to paint undressed."
"Of course not," I agreed. "That would be indecent."
"Ha. I think you’re right," said Mayo, looking at her hands. "You would have liked him — he was just as uptight as you. Though his sister was freer, but an emotional ice queen."
"Do you rember their nas?"
"Yes — I had wanted to see her before her flight," she said. "But her uncle, a taxi driver around here, said her flight left yesterday." She sighed. "Her na was Dilein Ross."
"I know her," I said. "A good friend of Nolan’s."
Mayo was startled. "Surprising that you speak so well of her."
"Why?"
"She was a total troublemaker," she said. "Not the type to sleep with a different man every day — that I’ll give her — but the type who would string along admirers until they went away."
"I... I didn’t know that," I lied, looking at the tea, rembering that mont at the window. "And Michael — I don’t know him."
" neither, honestly," she settled in. "I saw him a couple of tis in the month I was there. Every ti he saw with Dilein he’d go to his room and start painting." A smile ford on her face. "Once I walked into his room undressed and offered to let him paint with a happy ending — he shouted at to get out. There I was, running half-naked through his house trying to make sure nobody saw ." She sighed. "He’s one of those who wants to wait until marriage." She smiled. "I would have liked to possess him too."
"What?"
"There’s nothing better than being with a virgin," she smiled. "Yes, they’re clumsy and sotis don’t know how to move their tongue. But it’s lovely to see the energy they put in."
I looked at her, she looked at , we stayed quiet for a mont until she let it go.
"Do you know what I like most about this place?" she said, more quietly.
I didn’t respond.
"The order and the peace it creates," she continued, touching the counter with a finger. "Every cup, every chair, every mark on the floor. It’s as if soone decided that here the world has order." She glanced at sideways. "Not many places are like that."
"I work at it," I said, lowering my head.
"This kind of peace only cos with a good person," she comnted. "I only felt it with Michael for two weeks, before I walked into his room properly."
"Completely understandable," I agreed.
"Sotis I want to not be ," she began. "To be a little more like you."
"What do you an?"
"Don’t play like you don’t know, gir—" she sighed. "Soone shaped differently." She looked at her shoes — my shoes — tapping them as the tap tap sounded. "That’s why I wanted these," she admitted. "I wanted to mold myself a little more like you, by having what you have."
"And do you like being like ?"
"Well, the shoes are tight," she replied with a laugh. "But that doesn’t make them any less beautiful."
Sothing in her words didn’t make smile, despite the beauty of the mont.
I looked at the clock — it was a quarter to seven. No custors, just the two of us up front and Nolan in the kitchen.
She smiled at . "Can we close yet?"
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