Page 8 of Of Literature and Lattes
Alyssa slowed and found a parking spot. She got out, stretched, and glanced toward the bookshop. Her mom still worked there, and Alyssa wasn’t ready to see her. But coffee? That she needed.
She pushed open the glass door and stalled. The interior knocked her off balance. Gone was the kitschy, comfortable world of the Daily Brew. The sights, smells, sounds, and even the tastes of honey and walnuts from Mrs. Pavlis’s baklava that filled the air and enveloped you upon entering had been scrubbed away by orange-scented cleaning oil. She wondered how Winsome was handling a coffee shop that rivaled any in San Francisco—and one without a pillow in sight. She wondered how she would handle it.
She let her eyes trail from the scored cement floor to the exposed beam ceiling and back again, hovering midway. Gone were the family photos and the big bulletin board where Mrs. Pavlis pinned Polaroids of customers. When the shop was packed and no one waited at the counter, she would weave her way through the tables, camera in hand. Customers clustered and grinned, then pored over themselves, laughing, as they stood in line ordering their coffees the next day.
Now the walls stood bare, except for a series of several small portraits near the front plate-glass window. Their broad strokes and abstract design gave just enough definition to hint at character and physicality, but not identity. They reminded Alyssa of Picasso’s Cubism works and her favorite class in college.
She tilted her head, staring at one with the sense that if she gazed hard enough, long enough, she’d recognize the subject.
“May I help you?”
Alyssa startled to find herself at the front of the line. “A medium drip coffee, please.”
She tipped her head back, noting how odd the motion felt. At five eleven, she rarely needed a full head tilt to see eye to eye with anyone.
“I’ve got the San Roque from Colombia or the Yirgz from Ethiopia. Which would you like?” The man’s voice was all eager friendliness, which somehow pulled Alyssa’s already frayed nerves.
“Your house favorite.”
While a valid question in San Francisco or Palo Alto, where coffee was bathed in unicorn tears and roasted on coals from Pompeii, it didn’t fit in Winsome. Alyssa let her tone tell him that.
“The house doesn’t have a favorite.” The man batted the tone back with a stiff smile. “Do you prefer clementines and cherry cola or lemon zest and vanilla?”
“You’re teasing.” Alyssa floated a quick smile to smooth his ruffled feathers.
He didn’t accept her smile, and his disappeared. “Not today.”
“Lemon zest.”
“Yirgz it is. Grab a seat and I’ll bring it over.”
“To go, please.”
Alyssa slid her card in the reader resting in front of her, then perched against the side counter to wait. There was now a fireplace! Although part of her wanted to scoff, she had to admit, even in June, the effect was appealing. It almost made her want to run three stores down and buy a book to curl up with. Almost.
The man set her coffee on the high wood counter next to her.
“This is nothing like what I remember.”
“I bought it a few months back, closed it for renovations, and reopened two days ago.” He lifted his gaze across the shop. “The style is a little different, but I hope it still feels welcoming.”
Alyssa noted how his voice lifted. Everything in her that chafed before melted in empathy. Not sympathy, as if she understood or pitied him, but true empathy—she identified with him. To try to make a home in the world, a spot that’s truly yours, yet still yearn for approval and acceptance, was tough stuff.
Yet his home had changed hers—and left her unsettled.
“It’s Winsome. You hardly needed to go to this much effort. You could pour swill and this town would come running, because there aren’t other options.”
He studied her, eyes widening.
“No, I mean... I grew up here, and this place was always packed, despite the fact that Mrs. Pavlis’s coffee wasn’t— Never mind.” She glanced around. Andante was decidedly not packed. “It may just take time.”
Embarrassed to linger longer, she grabbed her cup and fled the shop. She’d been rude—beyond rude. But she’d been surprised too. Sure, there were a few obstacles to a summer of relaxed bliss—no money, no job, and who knew what her dad would say when she landed on his doorstep? But even with all that, she had convinced herself she could make it. She could find sanctuary here.
But something about Andante had undone her carefully fabricated lie.
Chapter 4
Dropping back into her car, Alyssa watched customers come and go at the Printed Letter Bookshop. Her dad had taken her and her brother, Chase, there almost every Saturday when they were young to buy a book from Mrs. Carter, the owner.
