Between Books and Coffee

Janie ignored the glare from her boss as she slipped through the door he was unlocking in anticipation of the morning’s first customers. She hurried past the rows of books and headed right for the café, slipping her vest on as she kicked her backpack into the corner behind the door to the store room. She took a deep breath and prayed for an easy day.

“Café staff is supposed to be here half an hour before opening,” Jeff reminded her as he flipped the Open/Closed sign around. Janie just grunted an acknowledgement of his comment but didn’t apologize. It wasn’t that she disliked Jeff per say, it was just that she didn’t think he deserved the job he had. But being the son of the couple who owned the bookstore had its perks and the title of “assistant manager” was one Jeff took great pride in, even though it wasn’t really one he deserved by any stretch of the imagination.

As Janie flipped the switches to start the coffee makers she sent up the second silent prayer of the day, one of thanks that whoever worked the night before remembered to set everything up. She watched as Jeff stood by the door just as he did every morning, looking up and down the street just waiting for the first customer of the day to arrive. Janie just shook her head at him, why he expected people to be knocking down the door to buy books at nine in the morning was beyond her. She was barely functioning at nine. Probably had something to do with the fact that she’d been averaging about four hours sleep for the past week.

As Janie filled the pitcher of water and set it on the counter next to the little plastic cups the first customer of the day arrived. She knew without looking up it was one of two people, little Mr. Klein who came by every morning to escape his domineering wife or Ted, her current crush. Luckily for her, it was Mr. Klein as she hadn’t really had a chance to put on any makeup nor to do anything more than throw her hair up into a scrunchie on the way out the door that morning. She put Mr. Klein’s order, one medium decaf coffee, on the counter so it would be waiting for him when he finally arrived at the café. He’d had a stroke earlier in the year and was still walking with a cane. He complained about it, yet found it came in handy when he needed to get someone’s attention; a swift whack in the shins always seemed to do the trick. “How’s my favorite girl?” he asked in the Brooklyn accent that lingered despite living in suburban New Jersey for over twenty years.

“You really don’t want me to answer that do you?” Janie replied with a smirk as she took the money he held out to her. His response was, as usual, a wink, a smile and a motion for her to keep the change. She slipped the change into the pocket of her well worn jeans. A quick glance of the front door told her no one was on the way over for coffee. “Hold down the fort, Mr. Klein,” she called as she ducked into the supply room to do something with her hair before Ted arrived.

Ted Wilson, or Edward Wilson as his Visa card clarified, was the next to arrive in the bookstore. He grabbed the newspaper and stood in front of the bakery case trying to make up his mind about what to have for breakfast. Janie usually liked when customers ordered the same thing every day. It made her life easier; she could just set everything out when she saw them come in the front door. But she didn’t mind the extra time Ted spent in front of her. She’d gone to high school with Ted; he was a few years ahead of her and didn’t run with the same crowd at all. Or more to the point, he ran with a crowd, the jocks, and Janie pretty much stuck to herself through most of high school. Since Janie had finished high school a year earlier, she and Ted had become friends, sort of. They saw each other almost every day, at the bookstore. They were friendly with each other, sometimes things even bordered on flirty banter, but never seemed to go any further than that, much to Janie’s dismay. Also to her dismay, he had a girlfriend. That fact was something Jeff liked to remind her of on a daily basis.

By the time Ted had made his decision, cinnamon bun and an iced coffee to go, Janie had run a brush through her red hair and put on a little lip gloss. There wasn’t much she could do about the freckles that seem to multiply daily on her face. Everyone called them “cute” but she wasn’t exactly convinced. Maybe at eight years old they were cute, but at nineteen she wasn’t so sure. “Hey” she said to Ted, in what she hoped was a casual, yet interested voice.

“Morning,” Ted mumbled in that adorable, distracted tone of his. Janie smiled, hoping to lure him into a real conversation. He wasn’t much of a morning person, much to Janie’s dismay as she usually worked mornings. But when Ted stopped by on the occasional evening she worked their conversations tended to be a little more interesting as they managed to have a conversation with more than one word sentences. Those evenings were too few and far between, making Janie look forward to them all the more.

Bringing herself back to the present, Janie watched as Ted reached into his pocket his blond hair fell over his eyes as he counted out the change. He put the money on the counter, tucked the newspaper under his arm and picked up his coffee and the white bag with his breakfast. He sort of hitched his chin in Janie’s direction and gave a little smile before turning to leave. Janie watched him go, staring longer than she probably should.

“I saw his girlfriend in here with him last night,” Jeff said in his usual annoying way as he pushed the swinging door and joined Janie behind the counter. He reached over her to snatch a cup. Janie made no effort to help him make his latte, even though she knew he was all but helpless behind the café counter. She held in her laughter as he managed to spill milk down the front of the counter. As she tossed him a rag the front door opened and customers three, four and five arrived.

An hour later the rush of people who seemed to think they needed books first thing in the morning was over. Janie wiped down the counter, filled the creamer and milk pitchers and started a fresh pot of decaf. She flipped through the newspaper, finding nothing worth more than a few minutes of her attention. She poured herself an iced coffee in the hopes of the caffeine rushing to her head and bringing her out of the fog she’d found herself in lately. She glanced around, and not seeing Jeff anywhere in sight, she sat down at the counter that lined the one wall of the café.

A million and one things ran through her mind in the ten minutes she allowed herself to relax, what classes she should sign up for in the fall semester, what was the best way to get out of the blind date her friend Denise had set her up on and what was the likelihood that her Dad would remember to put the roast in the oven so they could eat dinner at a reasonable hour. She glanced out at the bookstore. It was fairly busy for a Monday morning in June. The weather in New Jersey had gone, as it usually did, from slightly chilly to uncomfortably hot and humid. Spring never really came to the state, she’d decided years ago.

The bookstore was nice and inviting. Not nearly as big as the big chain bookstore on the other side of town but it was a place where parents felt free to bring their kids and where pre-teens hung out in the hopes of appearing mature by drinking lattes. It was where people could gather for coffee and treats and not have to spend big bucks like at the overpriced coffee place with the famous logo. It was four blocks from Janie’s house, all the more reason Jeff got annoyed when she was late. The hours worked for her and left her plenty of free time to do whatever she wanted. Not that she really had a life or anything like that but it was nice to know she had decent, fairly regular schedule, unlike her friends, most of whom were waitresses and had no idea when they were even getting home at night. The people she worked with, aside from Jeff, were fine. Her coworkers in the café were cool for the most part and they did have a lot of fun when they worked but they never really hung out after work. Or maybe they did hang out together, just not with her. Truth was Janie preferred to be alone, more or less.

“Misunderstood” was what she picked when she had to pick only one word to describe herself in her high school yearbook. A little bookish, a little introverted, very creative and yes, misunderstood. She’d finished one year at the local community college and was starting to think about transferring to a four year school but wasn’t sure she was ready, academically or emotionally. She worked hard in school, got decent grades, enjoyed reading, writing and dreaming of bigger and better things, yet she often thought she lead a “small life”. Vague plans for the future changed on a pretty regular basis, she wavered between teaching, writing and something in the medical field, although she didn’t think she had what it took to become a doctor and nursing just didn’t seem like her “thing” but she was fascinated by medicine and read everything she could get her hands on. The couple that owned the store, Bob and Dottie Waltman, indulged her use of the store as her own personal library and let her take home whatever she wanted, provided she returned it in saleable condition.

The mid-morning lull ended and the lunch crowd started to file in. There wasn’t exactly a lunch selection at the café, mostly baked goods and a few sandwiches and soup but many people stopped by to eat and read a magazine or two, taking refuge from the heat and the overcrowded, and overpriced, restaurants in town.

Janie worked her tail off for a few hours, under the watchful and annoying, eye of Jeff. She didn’t normally work the lunch crowd by herself, most days Nickie worked with her, but that day she had to take her son to the doctor or something like that. Nickie was a single mother; her husband had taken off with the babysitter. Her son was 4 and pretty bratty in Janie’s opinion. Nickie brought him into the store once in a while and he usually wreaked havoc on the place in under five minutes.

In the middle of the afternoon David came in to help her behind the counter. He was another one of Bob and Dottie’s sons. He was 16 and had just finished up his sophomore year of high school. He was a good kid, not nearly as annoying as his brother. And unlike Jeff, he could actually work a latte machine and knew the difference between mocha java and hot chocolate. Cute in a slightly nerdy sort of way with his round glasses and slightly out of control brown curls, his crush on Janie wasn’t well concealed. She indulged him but didn’t lead him on in any way. They worked well together, didn’t trip over each other behind the counter and had an understanding that they would share all the tips, not that serving coffee generated a large amount of tips. On any given day, if they walked off with 5 extra bucks in their pockets, it was a good day.

“I’m going outside for a minute,” Janie announced an hour after David arrived as she tossed the rag she’d been using into the sink.

“Don’t smoke,” David teased.

“I told you I quit,” Janie shot back.

“Yeah, yeah, heard that one before,” David smirked. Truth was Janie had quit more than once. She was two weeks into her latest attempt and things seemed to be going well. Her main motivation for quitting should have been the cancer scare her aunt had had earlier in the year but it wasn’t, the high cost of the cigarettes was cutting into her “fun” money.

Janie sat on the bench outside the store for a few minutes, until the heat and the humidity got to her. She smoothed her hair down and pulled it back up using the scrunchie from around her wrist. “Back to the land of caffeine and books,” she muttered to herself as she pulled the door open with a bit more force than was truly needed.

Glancing at the front registers she saw a long line. That would probably keep Jeff busy for a while. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced she’d done something wrong in a previous life to deserve the boss from hell. She’d actually gone to school with Jeff; he was a few years ahead of her, in the same class as Ted. Jeff had been a decent football player in high school even got a scholarship to play for Rutgers, but too much partying got him kicked out after the end of his freshman year. His parents thought he needed to grow up so they gave him a fairly important job at the bookstore, one he did with just enough enthusiasm to keep his father from kicking him out onto the street. He lacked any kind of customer service skills and was forever screwing up things up. Hopeless on the computer, Janie was frequently called away from the café to fix something a fourth grader from the local elementary school could fix in ten minutes. She helped cover his ass at least twice a day and was getting quite tired of it.

“Back so soon,” Jeff called as he looked up from the customer he was attempting to ring up.

“Bite me,” Janie muttered under her breath as she dragged her feet up the four steps to the café.

The rest of the day was sent mixing up drinks for the hot, tired masses that huddled in the bookstore, seeking out some relief from the oppressive heat and humidity. Just as Janie was about to call the day a total bust, in terms of interesting things happening or interesting people showing up, one of her favorites came in the front door.

Marty Ward waved as he walked across the store. He was, as usual, impeccably dressed, even in the ninety degree heat. One of those people who never seemed to wilt in the heat his white dress shirt was as crisp at four in the afternoon as it was when he’d put it on that morning. The only thing slightly messy was the fact that his tie was loosened a little and he’d unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. The khakis he wore still seemed pressed and his brown loafers perfectly polished. A college English professor by trade, his passion was writing and his favorite place to write was the back corner of the café.

Janie poured him a large iced coffee as he gave her a big smile. Nickie didn’t see what Janie saw in Marty, as he was gray haired and probably pushing 60. Everyone over fifty was old in Nickie’s book. While Janie thought he was nice looking enough, for someone older than her father, it wasn’t Marty’s looks that she found fascinating; it was his life in general. Marty was well traveled, having lived all over the country and even in a few foreign countries. He was a widower, his wife died about four years earlier of a sudden heart attack. They didn’t have kids so he was pretty much on his own. He spent a lot of time in the bookstore, writing, drinking coffee and people watching, his three favorite things to do.

“Well, good afternoon Miss Janie,” he said as he handed her two dollar bills, like everything else about Marty, they were crisp and pressed too. “Surviving the heat?” he asked as he stepped aside to put some sugar in his coffee.

“Trying to. Big writing plans today?” Janie asked as she motioned towards Marty’s backpack. At first glance, the well worn backpack didn’t quite go with Marty’s fresh pressed image, a smart leather briefcase would probably fit better but the backpack worked for him. He carried it everywhere; it wasn’t so much an accessory as much as it was an extension of him. Just what he carried in there, nobody really knew, other than the expected notebooks, textbooks and pens. Although he had a fancy, state of the art laptop at home, he rarely brought it to the café with him. He preferred to write things out long hand on legal pads, using a fountain pen. It made for a pile of crumpled paper by the time he was done and, as he was left handed, a smear of ink on his left pinky but it was the way he worked.

“Just grading some papers from my class this afternoon. Hopefully they’ll be better than the last batch,” Marty replied as he hitched his backpack up a little higher on his shoulder and headed for his little corner of the café. He sat down, dropping the backpack by his feet. Propping his feet up on the chair opposite his, he glanced out at the rest of the store while he enjoyed the first few sips of his drink. He carefully rolled up his sleeves, put on his reading glasses, pulled out a stack of papers and with his red pen in his hand, began to read.

Janie watched Marty for a few minutes, until David tossed a rag at her to get her attention. “Sorry,” she muttered under her breath as she helped him serve the group of customers that suddenly made their way back to the café.

At four o’clock Janie handed her rag to David, shoved her vest into her backpack and pulled the elastic out of her hair. She ran her hands through her red curls, cursing the humidity. “I’m leaving,” she called to David who had stepped into the store room.

“Bye,” David hollered back.

“Leaving so soon?” Marty asked as she stepped out from behind the counter, eager to leave behind the coffee grounds which stuck to everything and the overly sweet smell of the baked goods.

“Been here since before nine,” she replied. “More or less,” she added, remembering she didn’t quite make it in on time, again. “Go easy on those papers,” Janie teased. “Stopping by tomorrow?”

“Don’t I always?” Marty smirked. “Take care, kid,” he added with a wink.

“Bye,” Janie said with a smile as she practically skipped down the steps to the main level of the store. Marty was one of the very few people who could get away with calling her “kid”. Her grandfather could do it, and a few of the older men at church could call her that, but only the ones who had known her practically since birth. Once in a while she let her father get away with it, but not very often.

Janie gave a wave in Jeff’s direction as he silently pleaded with her to stop and help him check out some customers before she left. His line was backed and he’d probably screwed up the computer but Janie didn’t care all that much. She had seventeen hours to herself before she had to be back and she wasn’t going to waste a minute of it.

As Janie pushed open the front door the smell of roast beef was almost intoxicating. Her father had remembered to turn on the oven after all. The door to his home office was closed and there was a strange car in the driveway, leading Janie to assume he still had a patient in his office. James Branson was a child psychiatrist with a thriving practice run out of what used to be the family garage.

Kicking off her shoes and dropping her backpack on the bench in the foyer, Janie continued to the kitchen, past the pictures on the wall. They were pictures of happier times, of her with both her parents, before her mother had decided that she didn’t want to lead the life of a wife and mother. She currently lived in New York City, working odd jobs in the hopes of fulfilling her lifelong dream of singing and dancing her way into a big Broadway production. Last Janie had heard she was playing the Wicked Step-Mother in a strange, off-off Broadway production of Cinderella where all the characters spoke in iambic pentameter. It had been two years since Janie had seen her mother and five years since her mother had walked out on her husband and child.

For the first two years, Janie and James sort of floated adrift. Neither knew the finer points of running a household, making sure there was food to eat and clean clothes to wear. But they learned together through many, often comical mistakes. And five years later they were thriving, dinner was on the table at a decent hour, complete with vegetable matter, James’ practice was growing, Janie did well in school, all in all they had a nice life with supportive friends and family to help them along the way.

Janie heard the outside door to her Dad’s office close and his muffled voice as he dictated notes into his handheld tape recorder. That was her cue to start to get dinner on the table. She pulled the roast from the oven, turned it up to 450º to bake the rolls and took the plates out of the cabinet. As she set the table, James wandered down the hall, sniffing appreciatively as he did every night.

“Smells good, honey,” he said as he reached into the fridge for a bottle of water.

“Yeah, someone remembered to turn it on,” Janie teased. “So, cure any kids today?” she asked, as she did every night.

“Cure is such a definitive word,” James said with mock arrogance. “I prefer “helped”,” he added.

“And I would prefer a little help too,” Janie teased as she pointed to the table which was only half set. While she finished getting the food ready, her Dad set the table and carved the meat. They sat at the table and like every night since Janie could remember, they said grace together.

“So how was your day?” James asked as he reached for another roll.

“Same old sh….” Janie stopped short as her Dad glared at her. “Stuff, same old stuff.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” James teased his daughter. He wasn’t an idiot; he knew that outside the house she spoke as most young adults spoke, in language he didn’t want to hear in his house. The smoking hadn’t gone unnoticed either but he didn’t lecture or make a big deal out of it, he went for the more subtle approach, he printed pictures off the internet of black lungs and people who had to breathe through holes in their necks. The pictures miraculously appeared in Janie’s bathroom, her backpack and her car. She didn’t mention finding them but did make an honest effort to quit. “What are you doing tonight?” he asked as he glanced at his watch.

“Not much, maybe watch a movie. You going out?” she asked, unnecessarily as she’d seen him glance at his watch four times in the previous ten minutes. She figured he had a date. “So, hot date with Miranda?” Janie teased.

“What?” James asked, choking a bit on his water. “Yes, I’m going out with Miranda. Some gallery thing she wanted to see. I’m sure it’s nothing I’ll be too excited about; I’d much rather stay home and watch the Mets. But she wants to go and….”

“And she went with you to the golf tournament last weekend,” Janie smirked.

“Something like that. Anyway, I probably won’t be too late. God, I have to get ready,” he muttered as he glanced at his watch. “You ok getting this….” he said as he gestured towards the dirty dishes.

“Yeah, yeah. At least one of us has a date tonight,” Janie teased as she waved him off. James ran up the stairs, pulling his plaid shirt out of his pants as he took the steps two at a time.

Janie was actually glad he was going out on dates. It had taken three years for him to even consider it. He dated a few women over the years, nobody seriously, until about six months earlier. Miranda Harding was a fellow psychiatrist, her specialty was geriatric patients and they had met at a conference in Princeton. Turned out that Miranda only lived about twenty minutes away. She was also divorced, with a grown son who she rarely saw. Miranda was pretty down to earth, unlike many of women James had dated. She wasn’t pushy, demanding and she didn’t take up all James’ time. The three of them could actually spend time together and Janie didn’t feel like she was intruding at all. Many of the previous girlfriends tried too hard to be Janie’s friend, too hard to be a mother-figure in her life. Miranda was more a friend and Janie appreciated that, more than she let on.

“Am I all put together?” James asked as he skidded back into the kitchen as Janie was putting the last of the dishes in the dishwasher.

“Not quite,” Janie replied as she quickly dried her hands on the kitchen towel. She reached to straighten his tie a little and brush the lint off his shoulders. He’d traded his work clothes, plaid shirt and khaki pants, for a navy suit and striped tie. “OK, now you’re fine.”

“Thanks. Uh, I think I should get going,” he mumbled as he glanced at his watch yet again.

“Go, have fun,” Janie urged as she stood on her toes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. She smoothed down the one stray red curl that refused to stay in place and turned him around to face the front door.

“Fun, I think that might be pushing it just a bit,” he smirked as he pulled the door open and stepped out into the muggy evening.

Janie wandered around the house for a few minutes, tossing a load of laundry into the washer, turning on the outside lights and flipping through the mail. She made her way into her father’s office to check out the paperwork situation. While James Branson was a brilliant medical professional, his bookkeeping skills left a lot to be desired. Janie’s mother used to do the books for him. But when she left, Janie took it upon herself to learn how to do it. At first James protested but he quickly realized it was important to his daughter and he let her try. As she was just fourteen at the time, he hadn’t held out any great hope that she would be able to do it. But she did. Possessing the necessary computer skills, something James had been lacking back then, Janie caught on quickly.

For a few years it was sort of a ritual for the two of them. A few times a week, after dinner, James would make tea for them and they would go into his office to work. He would make notes, pull the files for the next day and read his journals. Janie would sit behind his desk, feet tucked under her as she sat on his oversized leather chair. She would work intently, matching payments with bills and generating bills for the patients’ portion.

Over the years they got out of the habit of working together. Janie got older and was involved in more activities; James got some semblance of a social life. Both of them missed their time together, although neither wanted to admit it.

Janie made herself a cup of green tea and padded barefoot towards the office. She paused in the doorway, as she always did, to take a deep breath and inhale the scent of leather furniture, coffee and peppermint Lifesavers. It was the most comforting scent she could think of. She took her usual seat at her father’s desk, tucking her feet under her. She turned on the computer and while she waited for it to boot up she glanced at the photos on the desk. They hadn’t changed in a long time but she still like to look at them. One of her favorites was a picture of herself and James taken during a trip to Washington DC. They were standing by the Reflecting Pool in front of the Capitol. James had his arm thrown around his daughter and they were smiling broadly with their matching red hair and blue eyes, there was no mistaking the relationship between the two. She put the picture back down and reached for the folder she needed to get the work done.

Forty-five minutes later, her work was done and her tea was gone. Janie put the empty mug in the sink and headed up to her room. She took a quick shower to try and get rid of the lingering scent of coffee and baked goods. The smell was nice in the store, not on her clothes and her body after she got home.

Freshly showered, in a pair of plaid boxers and an ancient Rutgers t-shirt she’d “borrowed” from her father, Janie booted up her laptop to read her email. There was nothing much of interest, in fact, nothing much at all. She belonged to more Yahoo groups than she would admit to, but all of them seemed to be slower than usual. “Everybody probably has a life,” she muttered to the empty room as she minimized AOL and opened up the My Documents folder. Unlike many aspects of Janie’s life, including the cluttered room she sat in and the messy car she drove around in, the My Documents folder on her computer was organized. Folders for her short stories, poetry, fan fiction, her attempts at screenwriting and her “Great American Novel” were all there. Some of her things were good and had been published in the school newspaper and literary magazine when she was in high school. But lately it seemed like she just wrote for herself. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but to those who read her work it seemed like a shame.

Janie scrolled through the list of poems until she found the one she was looking for. She did a quick, final edit on it and sent it in to an online poetry contest that someone had told her about. She didn’t expect to win anything, she usually didn’t but it was nice to think that people were out there reading her words. And nameless, faceless people reading her work was fine, family and friends were another story.

With the iTunes library set to shuffle, Janie spent the next few hours working on a few things she was in the middle of. She opened both documents and switched back and forth between the two, a paragraph here, a sentence or two there. It was a strange way to write, but it worked for her. When the words stopped flowing so easily and she was down to one sentence at a time, she closed everything up, took a final glance at her email and turned off the computer. Tired but slightly restless from sitting on the bed for so long she padded downstairs for a snack.

When James gave home a little before 1:00 AM, he found Janie on the couch in the family room having fallen asleep watching the Food Network. He turned off the television and threw an afghan over her before kissing her forehead and heading up to bed.