glass & patron

[Deleted]

Lucas came in early to open up, as had become his preference. Since returning to his sleepy hometown, he had settled into a routine; take the longer route into work, walking about the outskirts of the town rather than cutting through. Get in early, restock what needed to be restocked, restore the machine from its deep clean the night before. Finally, make the first espresso of the day, his own. Nurture this at a table at the back, hiding from the public, scribbling into a well worn notebook until 7:30 rolled around and he was forced to officially open up. He had come to cherish these quiet moments to himself, especially since moving back home. Today was a little different. Today, the rota screamed a name at him, one belonging to a girl he'd barely caught glimpses of since coming home a few weeks ago. It was not the kind of town where it was easy to miss each other, which could only mean one thing: she knew he was back and she didn't want to see him. And so he felt mixed emotions as he stood and looked at the rota a final time, the printed name of his usual co-worker Anna scratched out, a new one written in biro: Judith. Before he has any more time to angst about it, he hears someone open the back door, hidden from the public. "Hey," he calls out, surprised by how casual he can make himself sound. "I'm out front."

[Judith Haddock]

Judith pulls her fleece Patagonia sweater over her head. This was Huey's masterplan to reunite his two children - one biological, the other taken under his wing. He'd set his plea the night before. Anna had suddenly quit (though rumor around town has it that she put in notice two weeks ago) and he was desperate for someone to step in. Of course he hadn't mentioned that she would be working alongside Lucas Patterson and here she was, discovering such details. A familiar voice prompts her to check the schedule and a sudden dread arrests her. "Seriously." She's going to give Huey an earful if she survives the next eight hours. Judith breathes in deeply and walks into the coffee bar. "Hey," she barely looks up at him as she sweeps her hair up into a pony tail.

[Deleted]

Keen to keep himself busy, Lucas slips his phone out from the large pocket across the front of the apron that's tied around his waist. Opening up his conversation window with Huey, he types out a quick message before she emerges: You sly old dog. Suddenly he can feel her presence behind him, making his palms start to sweat. "No hug?" he asks as he turns to face her, though he's stopped in his tracks. He had been informed of her transformation, of course, and he was no stranger to the odd social media stalking session, but seeing her in the flesh was a whole new experience. Familiar but so different. "You look... well."

[Judith Haddock]

"Ummm," she brushes past him to the espresso machine, "coffee first, maybe." Judith had become accustommed to the shock of her hometown peers. Christmas of 2019 she'd run into Will Henderson, who had told her she had 'gotten kind of hot' in the middle of a Walgreens. She'd grown into her big eyes and long legs, becoming an accepted form of beauty. The machine hisses and she turns back to face him, "you too. Really have grown into the whole beat poet persona."

[Deleted]

She was awkward and that at least was familiar. Watching her as she fussed with the machine, he leans back on the counter, crossing his arms and giving himself a chance to really look at her. Some obvious traits were still there, of course; her lips in a permanent pout, her big Bambi eyes as bright as ever. But looking more closely he noticed more familiar notes, like the freckle on the bridge of her nose. A smile comes easily. "Broke poet maybe," he says. "Nice of you to fill in today, don't know what happened with Anna. Do you need me to show you the ropes or have you got it?"

[Judith Haddock]

"Aren't they all?," she lets the coffee drain into a chipped mug and fills it with equal parts sugar and cream. "She quit,," she takes a small sip before dumping another spoonful of sugar into the mixture. She shoots him a look of confusion and judgement. Huey opened Matchstrike her last year of high school. 'There's nowhere to write and I'm not writing in that god forsaken Starbucks', was his reasoning. For awhile she and her brother were the only baristas. "I got it. Thanks."

[Deleted]

He laughs. "You sound like my mom." He pictured his mom at work right now, gleeful that he would be alongside Judith for the day. She was probably thinking about wedding venues. He side-eyes her coffee preparation, though before he can say anything the first customer of the day comes in. He sets about making him his coffee, hovering next to Judith at the machine. "Sure, I guess you've spent more time here than I have. I never really come home for very long." Despite of, or maybe because of Molly's insistence that he come back regularly, Luke never spent much time there when he did. He'd pop by to see his folks, maybe Huey, but then he'd be back in Boston without even spending the night, despite the 3 hour drive each way. "How's the art going?"

[Judith Haddock]

Judith shrugs and goes to cash out the customer while Lucas prepares his order. "Usually just the holidays," she notes, crumbling the receipt into the trash when he declines it. New York to home was just short of a three hour drive, but that drive was met with days of her successful parents trying to offer opinions and solutions to her problems. She takes a sip of her sugary fuel, her doe eyes watching as a moppy headed Lucas moves through the tiny bar. "Unemployable,," she thinks of her stacks of canvases in the garage. "How's the writing? Huey's showed me a few things."

[Deleted]

He swirls some generic latte art into the cup, only to immediately cover it with a lid. He gives the customer his coffee with a brief smile, turning back to mop the sticky milk off the steamer while it's still fresh. He can't quite get his head around this conversation, having expected to be greeted with either warmth or disdain... the chill of neither is worse. "I hear ya," he says, his back is still to her when she mentions his writing. He stiffens, unsure how he feels about that. The unpublished pieces he shared with Huey were private, and he feels exposed, like someone glimpsing him nude. But in much the same way it's also intimate, and the thought of those big brown eyes scanning his words, of him being alive to her when he thought she couldn't care less, it's also exhilarating. He turns to her, looking at her directly, properly, an eyebrow slightly raised. "He has? Okay then, you tell me, totally honestly too. How's the writing?"

[Judith Haddock]

The bell on the door chimes as the man leaves. The airs becomes more still and Judith quickly realizes she's said the wrong thing. "No, not like read them," she says sheepishly, trying to pull her dad from under the bus she's thrown him under. "He's just read a couple lines to me," she begins to transfer baked goods from a tin to a display. "He thinks you're clever." Huey spoke of Lucas frequently on the phone to her. 'Listen to this', he'd start off and she immediately knew who the words belonged to. Even eight years of distance, Lucas held real estate in her mind and it was distinct. "Yep. Clever."

[Deleted]

He grins. "I'm disappointed. Here I was thinking maybe you'd taken an interest in my work, but it's just my biggest fan." His heart swells at the idea of Huey praising him behind his back. He respected the man so much, and poetry in particular was a hard thing for other people to appreciate. It meant a lot. "I search up your stuff all the time. You're really talented, but I'm sure you know that." He greets a new customer, a shy teenager who surprises him by ordering a black coffee. She was wearing a Joy Division t-shirt and a flannel shirt, her eyes framed by thick rimmed glasses. His heart hurt for the teenage experience he probably should have had, instead of the one he landed, being a professional boyfriend. "You're in New York these days, right?"

[Judith Haddock]

"Ah, no. Your transformation into a narcissistic douchebag with a girlfriend who never missed a chance to bully me, kind of overshadowed any interest I had in you." She raises her eyebrows and shoves a brownie into her mouth, moving past him to cash out the 2021 teenage version of herself. Judith nods at his compliment; her talent had been praised and encouraged since she was drawing on walls. "Nope," she shakes her head, "I'm here these days." Moving home was a sore point. Rent prices were climbing and the gallery she worked at had shut down, it had become impossible to maintain the lifestyle she yearned for. "And you? You're here these days, right?"

[Deleted]

"That's fair." It stings, but he's glad she's bared her teeth, if only a little. Moving past the hurt, he hands the girl her coffee, ignoring how obviously uncomfortable she is to have been privy to this conversation. "Weren't you ever curious if any of the poems were about you? One was, by the way. One I won an award for." He tilts his head, surprised by her response. "Oh yeah? Covid evacuee?" There were plenty of them. Lucas had been working at various coffee shops for years and the difference was obvious; whilst the mornings were still busy, there wasn't that same rush of commuters all trying to get their caffeine fix before 9am. "Yeah. Stupid place to be, really, with two parents who work in a hospital, but I'm trying to help out around the house as much as I can."

[Judith Haddock]

Judith's big brown eyes look up at him. She finds it hard to recognize her feelings, but her face wears the look of surprise well. "Cool," she remarks, following his last moves with a cloth, "congratulations." She wants to ask more but is too stubborn to act anything but disinterested. She kept telling herself that moving home made sense. It was a chance to catch her breath and figure out what direction she was going. But she ached for freedom. "Lost my job. Home seemed logical until this morning," she refers to her meddling father. "Your mom is probably loving that."

[Deleted]

Lucas is starting to ease into the conversation, excitement at the prospect of spending all day with the girl he hadn't spoken to properly for almost a decade making him giddy though he tries to play it cool. "Thanks. It's called First Snow," he says casually, inwardly praying that she'll go home and Google it. It was a poem heavy with loss and it wasn't until it was done that he realized who it had been about. His initial thought was to send it to her, to just slip the handwritten page into an envelope with no note and hope for the best. But then her father had read it, declared it some of his best work, and before long he was submitting it to literary journals. It felt easier saying how he felt to strangers. "I'm sorry, that sucks. Did you like your job?" he asks, ignoring the dig. "Oh God yeah, she's showering me in kisses roughly every five minutes. This place has been my sanctuary."