P, cookies, the 3 o'clock coffee men.

i don't know many names, but i do know many faces. many. i know the lines in their foreheads, their jackets, & most importantly, the way each and every one of them takes their coffees & what they like to eat. i know their credit cards, or if they will have exact change, or if they prefer to pay later.

there's p. she's the first one i memorized because she was my first customer. as i clumsily looked through the case for the cookie she wanted on that first day, she told me, "oh darling, don't worry, you'll be great at this. we're all nice here." & she was right, though at the time, i had high doubts.

a small guatemalan in a white mug and a chocolate chip cookie. $3.93. every day. she eats only half the cookie, taking the rest in a white napkin. sometimes she'll come back later in the day to finish the cookie & take her free refill. she has that luxury - she is old, retired, i gather. she likes to talk to me at the counter when it's not busy. she tells me that she used to be "practically anorexic" back when she was younger. "I weighed 90 pounds," she tells me. "can you BELIEVE that?" she is fussy about her weight still, even today, and I always tell her she looks just fine, because she does. she is short, old-lady-like, rounded, but not in a heavy way. she has short dark hair & i can tell she worries a lot. she tells me that she lives alone. once, she came in sweating because she'd just been in a car accident - her fault. i gave her coffee on the house that day, even though i'm not supposed to do that. once, she began to tell me about a trip she'd taken to China, but a whole slew of customers came in, & our conversation was abandoned. I still wonder about that trip. I wonder if she's a world traveler. I wonder what's beneath all those years, what wisdom she has to offer. she tells me that i work too much (i do), & it's nice to have a total stranger worry about me. I wonder why she is alone, and I know she doesn't like it. When it's quiet in the cafe, I often want to just sit down and chat with her, because she is lonely and I can tell, she just wants to talk over a cup of coffee with someone, anyone.


& then there are my afternoon coffee men. three of them, all tall, older. a medium guatemalan, a medium dark, and a large dark. room for cream in all three. $2.07 & $2.28 they always pay with exact change.
they aren't the friendliest of guys. the guatemalan guy is probably the most outgoing and friendly of the three - he's the one with the beard and kinder eyes. the others seem distant, clawed at by life in some way or another. they all work together, i gather, probably in the nearby office i imagine is somewhere in the general vicinity of the cafe, though i have yet to discover where. they don't joke with me like many of the regulars do - they are very serious about their coffees, & i know they notice me as much as they notice the color of the door or the other coffee flavors - irrelevant. they dress casually, and they like to stand outside after they pay, smoking cigarettes and talking. coffee & cigarettes & breaks from the day. occasionally, one will order a chicken parm. sandwich - to go - & he'll sit quietly with his coffee, sitting & staring at his thoughts, i gather.

coffee jeans

the coffee has permanently stained my jeans. little coffee finger marks imprint themselves along my back pockets, my knees. my jeans have become my permanent wash-rags - they take what my hands must discard.

when i come home, my jeans smell like the cafe. it's funny how places - their smells - can seep themselves into the threads of our clothing. it's as if the places want to be remembered, and weave themselves into our fabric threads. those moments when we come home from a long journey or a place - say college, a backpacking trip - one whiff from our bags is always enough to relive the journey in its entirety, pleasant or not. my jeans smell of sour milk and long hours, and glimpses into hundreds of lives, & rubber floor mats.

i remember when i used to sweat in the summer heat behind that counter. hauling milks, grinding espresso, the sweeping and stooping - my pores cried with sweat, my shirt would drench & i'd hope nobody noticed. it was always the same thing in the summer - fill the iced coffees, brew fresh tea, & make sure we have plenty of lemons. in the summer, people were laid back & less frequent. in the summer, i was still the New Girl.

& now. i shiver in the morning when i grind the coffees in the basement. that cold, it creeps through my threadbare shirt, and i remember my flannel bed sheets and the days when i'd lie wide awake in my winter bed drinking coffee & reading poems & watching the snow fall silently over ithaca. i miss ithaca. it's in the mornings at the cafe, standing in the cold basement, alone in my coffee filled jeans that i miss it most.

cafe mornings.

it's always chilly in the morning. i stick my fingers along the heat vents in my car until they burn - anything to find warmth.

when it's 7:13, i am rounding the corner to get on the Highway. if it's a minute earlier or a minute later than this when I reach this bend in Littleton, I know I'll either be way too early, or five minutes late, haphazardly tossing my purse into the file cabinet, dodging disapproving glances.

when i get on the highway, i can breathe again. the sun is always rising and lately, the trees reach for the blue sky with their fiery leaves. fiery fingers. the warmth from the vents floods through my coat. i fumble through the radio and land a perfect song.

i've dodged the death trap merge onto route 2 hundreds of times now. i know when to slow, when to speed, when to cut someone off, when to honk and yell and flash the bird. i realize now how many profanities emerge from my mouth at that intersection on a daily basis.

& then it's the race against the clock. it's usually 7:43 by now, and i have exactly 17 minutes before i have to be standing, dressed in shirt and hat, smiling and pouring the coffee. i always get in the right lane and take off - route 2 is hilly but straightforward and by now, i could drive it with my eyes closed. praying there are no cops around, i fly with Little Red and we both always secretly know there are no cops. i think i have a sixth sense for cops - i have yet to be pulled over, and i attribute this to pure instinct.

arrival.

i let my hands linger on the vents for a minute or two, answer a few text messages, power down. outside, C is grilling. At 7:30 in the morning. lately, the leaves have littered his grilling area, but it hasn't stopped him. nothing stops C. ever.

i throw my purse in the designated second to last drawer of the old filing cabinet. the basement has turned so cold, now that it's fall, and i shiver as i pull off my long sleeved shirt, trading it for my Work Shirt. I throw on my old baseball cap, glance in the mirror, feel briefly ridiculous & wonder how i landed here. Clock in.

Upstairs, I can hear dishes clinking. Soft voices, murmuring into the morning. The little bell announces the arrival of more customers. The early morning hush is still present, though - I can always feel it as I walk up those rickety orange stairs, in the way the coffee steams from the pots, the machines lightly hiss, the gentleness that still resides in people's voices that is so absent come midday. I watch it every day - the way the cafe slowly opens its arms and eyes.

Coffee beans, esspresso machines.

This is my life right now as I know it, and I am going to write about it.