You
    You’ve been watching the front window for the last hour. He’s late. He told you he’d be leaving town around five, but he said that he’d stop to see you at work before he left—he needed to say goodbye. He wouldn’t just leave; you told him you’d make him his double iced heroin with a shot of hazelnut since he wasn’t allowed behind the counter anymore. He only stopped working there three days ago and already the coffee shop felt empty. Mark, your boss, had taken down the Michael Jackson nose from the photograph on the fridge that Gary had cut out from a magazine the last night he worked. You had supplied him the tape for such vandalism, and you and Gary both agreed that it was to remain the emblem of his existence at the Sun Shoppe even after he had left. This is the last time you’d see him so he’d have to keep his word, you hope. By this time tomorrow night Gary would be on the highway to Seattle. He was packing the last of his clothes when you first got on shift today. He had planned to drive straight from this little town in Florida to Washington, stopping only to piss and sleep. You hope to God that he’s just running late and that all the feelings and exaggerated conversation you had with your best friend wasn’t just whimsy ideals hazing your usual grounded perspective. You try to rationalize in your head the hypothetical reality that he may not stop in: You probably read into all the looks and body language. You took those subtle, flirtatious moments out of context. It’s okay if he doesn’t stop in because you’ll probably never see him again anyway. You’ve been looking toward that window every few seconds for the past hour.
Concentrate. You have a job to do. You turn your back from the counter and start a fresh round of Moka Java Coffee. You realize that was his favorite brew. Damn.

Co-Worker
    Niki’s standing unenthused at the espresso counter. “I’m in the weeds. Take over register.” I say to her. She doesn’t look like she’s in the mood today. She hasn’t been especially friendly to the customers like she usually is. It’s been slow and she hasn’t so much as faked working hard. It’s a Sunday, I think. It doesn’t get rushed on Sundays until 8 o’clock—maybe she’ll be off shift by then. I check the schedule on the side of the fridge and see her look back at me. There are three drink orders up and she hasn’t even started the espresso. I’ll do it so it gets done, but not before telling her to run the food order in the kitchen. She does so without an argument, and when she gets back behind the counter, after I’ve made and run the three drinks that she hadn’t done, I notice a small rush start to form. I scuffle to the kitchen to finish the first food order. Every so often I look over to ensure that Niki is getting drinks and getting through the orders with little problem. I run the food and one customer says he never got his Kim’s Delight smoothie. I apologize on behalf of Niki and tell him, “I’ll get that for you right now, Sir.” There are dishes piling up in the back and she still has a line of people waiting to be helped. I rush to the smoothie station to work on that guy’s order. I hit the blend button and start to move for the dishes when the blender starts to grind and wiz. I shriek. Niki looks over to me from the register and I say, “Shit. I think I just broke the blender.”
The Regular
    “Hey there,” Niki says to me from across the counter. What a great smile, I think to myself. “What can I get for you, Carlos?” She looks through me and to the window. Her eyes move back and forth and then grow bigger. “Hola senorita, que pasa? You look very beautiful today.” She is such a pretty girl, I say to myself, just like my first wife. Niki started working here, eh, four months ago and she still hasn’t taken me up on my offer to ride in my black Firebird. I decide to ask her. When I look back up from counting the change in my hand, her back is to me. She is already getting my usual—black strong coffee in a to-go cup. As she turns back to hand me my drink, she holds her hand out for the change and continues looking somewhere behind me. I try to catch her eye by playing peek-a-boo, but she doesn’t notice. “You need anything else, Carlos?” I tell her no and before I can say anything else she tells me to “take it easy” signaling for me to leave. I get the hint so I give a slight head nod, smile, and take my usual seat outside. Maybe next time, I think. Gary, one of the old employees walks by and squeezes my shoulder, saying hello before walking inside.
Customer
    “Alrighty, what can I get for you sir?” The girl behind the counter is friendly, but isn’t making eye contact. I see her coworker talking aloud to herself off to the side, busy at the sink. My wife slips her hand into mine. I ask her what she would like and she says she isn’t sure; there is so much on the menu to choose from. “What’s good here?” I ask as the curly haired girl is walking back from the sink. She hesitates, I notice. “Well, our most popular drink is the iced mocha. It’s like caffeinated chocolate milk.” She isn’t
mechanical with her responses, but obviously is trying to push me through the line. Understandably so, I decide, there are quite a lot of people here. I wonder if it is always this busy. My wife asks what the mocha is made of, and a few other questions regarding the drink. The girl answers all of them, continually looking over the line of people trailing behind me and my wife. The girl’s responses get shorter and I tell her, “How about you give us one hot and one cold.” She smiles at me, and I sense that she is preoccupied and not normally so passive. She says she’ll bring it to our table when the drinks are ready. My wife asks where the restroom is and says that she’ll meet me in a minute. I decide to wait at the counter for our drinks. The girl puts an order slip on the tab above the espresso machine and looks to her coworker who is trying to put together something hurriedly. The girl turns back and looks immediately at someone in the line, then tends to the people who were standing behind me. She greets them the same way she did my wife and me.
Gary
    “Hey...” I feel my face flex into an uncontrollable grin. “Hey.” There is a moment between the next exchanges where nothing exists except her face. Tunnel vision maybe. “I started to think you weren’t gonna stop by…” “I told you I’d stop in before I left. I couldn’t not say goodbye to you dude.” I grin slyly, keeping her eyes steady with mine. She looks beautiful this afternoon, I think to myself. “Well, you want your iced heroin or what?” She smirked and let out a giggle that had been bubbling up inside her throat. She made the drink to go but didn’t realize that there were two orders before me. I put money on the counter but she pushes it back into my hand. “On me.” “But…” I start. “I got it covered Gary, don’t worry about it.” The other customer’s wife returns from the bathroom. I needed more time. “If you two want to take a seat, we’ll bring your drinks to you when they’re ready.” She said and the couple complied, thankfully. She asks Chris if she could go on break real quick, saying, “I started your espresso already.” Chris agrees and I walk to the end of the counter where Niki meets me. I’d been running over what I wanted to say all day and now the only thing I wanted to do was kiss her.

Dining Room
    The dining room was fairly busy but not overwhelming anymore, and they both stand outside the counter in front of the condiment table. They look at each other for a moment. No more than a foot’s length apart, she opens her mouth in an attempt to explain how she feels about his leaving town, but no words come out. He steps in and places both hands on the sides of her face. Awkwardly, she puts her hands on his hips and feels his small frame poking out from his shirt. So fragile, she thinks to herself. He looks straight into her eyes, holding her gaze with his hands along her jaw and neck. No words are exchanged. You faintly see tears welling in the creases of their lower lids and he pulls her in tightly. They embrace, hands wrapped tightly around torsos and, for a moment, she opens her eyes to see the café moving busily around her. Closing her eyes, she inhales the scent of Marlboro cigarettes and coffee. He whispers in her right ear, “I’ll miss you Niki. Thank you so much…for everything.” Her eyes burn and she clings tighter to him, “Good luck.” The only coherent thought she can form. A second later she pulls away and studies his face. “I’ll miss you,” she moves aside the long hair that hangs in his face and kisses him on the cheek. His eyes spark and he grasps her forearm and does the same.
There is nothing left to say, but something holds the two of them in place anyway. Finally, like an alarm waking them from some strange mid-day slumber, they are released back into the café where a line has formed again. He picks up his drink, smiles and quickly walks out of the coffee shop and out of her life. Swallowing hard, she returns to her position behind the register.
You
    Chris is at the sink washing out one of the two blenders and says, “I definitely broke it.” She laughs at herself again. You look over to the table where the black man and his wife were sitting to make sure they got their drinks—they did. His wife was alone though. There were a few people in line whom you haven’t recognized yet and the husband is standing to the right of the register, as if he were waiting for something. You say, “Did you need something else, Sir?” The pleasant nature of your voice is still there, but not in your face, you can feel its heaviness in your eyes and cheeks. The man looks hard at you and says, “You’re in love, aren’t you?” You hear stutters coming from your mouth but feel separated from your body somehow. Your skin gets hot and he smiles, replying rhetorically, “It’s a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?” He takes a straw and returns to the table where his wife sits patiently. You turn your back from the dinning room, the counter, and all its inhabitants, clenching your teeth hard to keep the tears from falling in the steamed milk.