2. Jules
Jules
O n any given day, the Daily Brew is filled with all types of people.
There’s the post-gym rush; those are the ones I don’t understand.
How does anyone do anything before having coffee?
There’s the business crew that rolls through in a mad dash.
There are the stay-at-home moms who stop by after school drop-off.
Then there are the other regulars we have.
Those who don’t work a regular day-job schedule and just pop in.
The crew of blue-haired ladies who come once a week for tea and cards.
The work-from-home crew that will set up station and stay for hours on end.
Today, there’s a crew of firemen huddled around a table.
I may or may not have watched the one guy, Cal, a second too long as he strode out the door, even though the conversation at the table announced that he’s a total player. With that jaw, those shoulders, and that ass, I can see why.
His face is familiar, but they all are. Newman is large enough that you can see people every day and still not know who they are .
Nothing like nearby Senoma. A small, main-street kind of place where I’m starting my life over.
I glance out the front windows to the courthouse at the center of the court square. The busy sidewalk teems with people on the move, and the majority stop in for a to-go cup as they pass. With any luck, my new shop will host this same level of activity.
My watch pings with an incoming email notification as I deliver tea service to two of our regulars.
“Here’s your Earl Grey,” I say, quickly setting the service on a two-topper café-style arrangement.
The email could just be random spam, or it could be a shipping update. But it could also be the message I’ve been waiting on.
A scan over the other patrons confirms that everyone is happy and taken care of. At the moment, everything is calm, and I have possibly five minutes to myself.
I stride behind the counter to check my phone because that red box notification didn’t give me nearly enough information.
“Good crowd today.” Lissette, the Daily Brew owner and my good friend, is crouched at the front display case, taking advantage of the lull by organizing bottles of juice and water.
“Sure is,” I mutter, scrolling to the app that will hopefully deliver good news for me.
“Did you hear from the contractor?”
My shoulders inch a notch higher. Pretty soon, they’ll be attached to my earlobes.
A few more weeks. I can handle this stress for a few more weeks, and then hopefully, it’ll turn into a new kind of stress. The kind that means my own coffee shop, a sister store to the Daily Brew, is finally opening.
“Not yet.”
Lissette frowns. “What about the building department?”
I waggle my phone at her. “That’s what I’m checking now. I got an email notification, like, two minutes ago. It’s driving me crazy waiting to hear back from them.”
She mutters something incoherent, but I ignore her because she’s always muttering to herself while she works. Half the time, I can’t tell if she’s talking to me or to herself. If I didn’t love her to pieces, she’d drive me insane.
Lissette bought and opened this quaint little coffee shop five years ago from some fly-by-night out-of-towners who didn’t get a read on our community before they opened. Since then, she’s revamped it, restructured, and made it a success.
It doesn’t hurt that she made an outstanding show of compassion a couple years back by delivering pastries and coffee to the community after a tornado ripped through town.
People remember those acts of kindness. They’ve repaid her efforts a dozen fold at this point.
And now she’s letting me ride the coattails of her success by opening a sister shop in nearby Senoma. It’s a testament to the friendship we’ve built, and it scares the shit out of me that I’m going to fail her.
I scan through my emails, disheartened because what I hoped might be the building inspection department was merely a town newsletter mentioning the upcoming festival. I exit the app with a sigh.
“It’s all going to work out, Jules,” she calls from inside the cooler. “But I do remember how stressful it was when I took over this place.”
“Yeah, but you just bought the business. You didn’t have to deal with contractors finishing the space or building code compliance issues.
Not even zoning permits.” Not bothered by my panicked argument, she backs out of the cooler and resumes scribbling on her clipboard.
I flap a hand in frustration. “You swapped keys, signed some paperwork, and bam, instant coffee-shop owner.”
My best friend hasn’t had the same experience I’ve had. She’s never left a loveless, horrible marriage and had to start her life over. Never lost a job involuntarily. Never had to pick herself up by her bootstraps and claw her way back.
Lissette stops what she’s doing and stares.
“What?” I huff.
Her mouth opens and shuts.
When she speaks, there’s a hint of approval glinting in her eye. “Julianne Lancaster, you’re grumpy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be grumpy.”
A scoff escapes my throat, and I cover by grabbing a nearby towel and wiping down the already clean counter.
“I’m not grumpy. I’m stressed. I’m worn out from working here and also trying to open the new shop.
I’m terrified that I’m going to fail with the shop and you’re going to hate me, that I’ll lose all of my savings and go back to living with my brother.
Or worse, go back to the corporate world.
” I grit my teeth in a poor try at a smile, making sure she knows I’m serious. “But I am not grumpy.”
She stands gracefully, shoving the stocking crate into its spot on the shelf below the counter, then faces me with her hands on her hips. “You’re grumpy.”
Ugh . “You know what?” I slap the towel down on the counter and slip my apron over my head.
“Fine. I am grumpy. I think I’m permanently tired from living at my brother’s for so long.
It’s not easy being the eighth wheel in a family full of little toddler hellions.
I don’t know how my sister-in-law does it all the time with her squad plus the others she babysits. ”
I make one more useless swipe on the already clean surface, drained now that my rant is over. “Also, maybe I’m just not used to the quiet of my new apartment.”
“That’s understandable. Did you try a dance party?”
Dance parties are exactly what they seem. Loud, happy music and a chance to unwind.
I nod. “Yeah. Blaring ‘Dancing Queen’ did the trick.”
She smiles. “ABBA for the win. I bet your neighbor loved that.”
When I’d first moved in, I’d had a dance party, and my neighbor had banged repeatedly on the wall that separates the two apartments. I’d politely changed the music from ABBA to Earth, Wind, & Fire.
“They must not have been at home. No banging on the walls or shouts to turn that shit off .”
She grins. “What about the prank war? How’s that going? Who’s winning?”
I level my gaze on her and don’t speak a word. Does she even have to ask?
“Of course you are.”
I grin, recalling my latest round. “I sent over a fish plate a few nights ago, with a side order of brussels sprouts.”
She frowns. “Isn’t that going to punish you by proxy? I mean, you’ll have to smell it when you come and go too, right?”
“No. Our apartments share a wall, but the entrances are on opposite sides of the building. We each have our own set of stairs and everything. The only shared space is the balcony, but there’s a lattice wall divider.”
“So, like they just took a big space, slapped a wall in the middle, and made two apartments? ”
“Sort of, although, based on my side of the balcony, my neighbor’s place is much bigger. So, no, no nasty smells on my side.”
She laughs as she gathers a tray and sashays by. “Diabolical.”
Her cackle makes me laugh, and finally, the stress that’s had me in fits releases a smidge, and I relax. “Thanks. Sorry to be such a ball of anxiety today.”
“Don’t worry about it. So, what are you going to do about the contractor? It feels like it’s been weeks since you signed all the paperwork.”
She’s not wrong. It has been weeks. After that jerk cashed my deposit check, he’s blown off all my calls and text messages. We should’ve been weeks into the project, but he’s been MIA.
“I guess I’m going to have to go to that office and see what’s up.”
“Which office?”
“First, I’m going by that contractor’s office.
” I need answers. My future is relying on this coffee shop opening.
The sooner I can get it open… well, I don’t know what.
I guess the sooner I can start making the payments on the business loan I took out to cover what two years of living with my brother and saving every dime possible didn’t cover.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to ask Tom?”
Tom is Lissette’s current fling, who also happens to work somewhere in one of the county departments.
“I’m positive. I don’t want to be the new girl on the block calling in favors already. Plus, any issues would be with the town. I don’t know that Tom could help anyway.”
She shakes her head. “You’re so damn stubborn. But fine. Do it your way. ”
So far, Lissette has let me run with my plans, but I have this fear that, at some point, we are going to butt heads over how my shop will differ from hers. And since we are equally stubborn and have very different ideas about how to manage the two shops, I’m not looking forward to that day.
The front bell jingles, and the start of the lunch rush begins. I make a mad dash through, wiping down tables and refilling the garnishment station. The little blue-hairs are still in the throes of their card game, the firefighters are still here, and the remote workers are still plugging away.
And for the few minutes I have, I let myself imagine that this is what it’ll feel like when my shop is a success.