12. Sawyer
I hadcoffee sitting at my fingertips at any hour of the day, but there’s something about coffee made by someone who wasn’t trying to give people a heart attack before eight in the morning.
Mel can mix up a cocktail better than anyone I know, even better than Jet—and that’s saying something considering he taught her how to bartend. But her coffee-making skills are where the mixology expertise stops.
I think she’s too immune to her caffeine intake that having a potency any lower than lethal is considered water for her. For that reason alone, I was willing to walk ten minutes down the road for a sane person’s cup of coffee.
Jitters, the quaint coffee house at the end of the main road, had mahogany plank countertops with mismatched chairs and tables. A couple of chess boards lived at the tables in the back, and stacks of books were scattered around on mismatched shelves throughout. If there was an open seat, you sat down and would strike up a conversation with whoever was near. Jitters wasn’t necessarily a grab-and-go type of place. It was a place where you’d grab your coffee and want to stay awhile. It was a community here.
There was more of an eclectic look to it than the coffee shops I was used to going to growing up. I was familiar with all white and marble surfaces with menus that had four things listed as options. And you better hope you liked it as is because there was no way they tolerated any substitutions. The workers were as stone-cold as their cemented flooring, leaving you feeling judged no matter if you ordered whole or almond milk.
“Hey, Sawyer,” the barista on the shorter side and a Florence and the Machine button on their apron sang as I walked through the front door.
I walked up to the counter, “Hey, how’s it going, Kai? I’ll have my usual.”
“I don’t think a straight, black coffee can be classified as someone’s usual, but okay.”
“Isn’t that what I usually get?” I tease, they nod. “Exactly, so pour me my caffeine. You don’t want to piss off an un-caffeinated customer, do you?”
They throw loose sugar packets at me with a laugh. “You’re a pain in my ass.”
“Hey, I think you should be nicer to the person who is possibly conjuring up some business for you. A new girl in town. Well, semi-new. She’s here and she is looking to sell one of the Hillside Cottages.”
They look up at the ceiling, “That doesn’t make any sense. Because the only people that live over there would be?—”
“Lucy Collins,” I completed their sentence as I grabbed my drink.
“Man, she is not new whatsoever, you idiot. She and my siblings were in the same grade in high school.”
I shrugged my shoulders, “Okay, whatever. She’s new to me.”
Kai let out a snort and rolled their eyes. “I appreciate it, nonetheless. But I wonder why she is selling. Pretty sure the Collins family has had that cottage since the eighteenth century.” They walked away to tend to a new order.
The shop was on the slower end for a summer morning. A group of teenagers were huddled in a corner couch, pelting each other with crumpled-up straw wrappers. At the table opposite them, people were typing away on their laptops, having hushed phone calls, or reading books thicker than sandwiches I’d eaten before.
“Sorry I had to miss your opening a couple of weeks ago, I was swamped,” Kai admitted.
“I just hope to see you down at the lake sometime this summer. Get you on one of the pedal boats.”
“Not for a million bucks will you see me on one of those again,” they said with a straight face.
“How about two million?”
“Oh, he’s got jokes now?”
Kai has never been one to enjoy large group settings.
On one of our last summers, before we all went off to college, Kai was kicked back, idling in the middle of the lake. After my cousins and I snuck a few too many beers, more than what our parents allowed under their supervision, we thought it was a good idea to practice interpretive dances on the side of the speed boats. Granted, none of us danced a lick in our life. But that didn’t matter once the Budweiser hit our adolescent bloodstreams.
We were speeding by Kai, already annoying them with the waves we were creating. We upped the ante when my cousin Holland backflipped mid-pirouette off the edge. What we thought was harmless fun, Kai classifies as trauma.
For the rest of that summer, Kai sat on the dock or in the lawn chairs between our family’s houses with a glare in their eyes and a book in their hands. I felt bad for a while after, but now it’s something to reminisce on.
Kai always followed the rules and called people out when they were complete tools. Sometimes, I was the said tool. Back then, I hated how it killed the vibe. They had always been that way, though. Quiet, stand-offish. I was surprised we even became friends.
It wasn’t until I realized we weren’t too different after all. I was quick to learn that they just might be the only other person that I could keep an intellectual conversation with. Anyone I went to school with was either too uptight, with their righteous stick up their ass preparing to be the future president, or they were off partaking in extracurriculars that weren’t really my scene and started snorting blow in the bathrooms. Neither of those crowds appealed to me.
I never had to wonder about Kai, though. I knew they’d never fall down the path of stuffy ties and pressed slacks. Maybe the fact that they lived here in Rider full-time with their mom kept them grounded deeper than the rest of us.
“Look, I gotta get going. Don’t work too hard,” I yelled as I walked away from the coffee bar while new customers flocked to order at once.
Even beneath a worn-in baseball cap that had the Hillside High logo on it and behind towering college students home for the summer, I was still able to spot Lucy in a room of crowded people. She’s the type of person you could feel in a room if you were blind. The space felt brighter, warmer.
Her head was hung low, her face covered.
“Well, I can tell you right now that Gus isn’t here, so who are we looking for this time?” I lowered my head near her ear. Her body rattled with shock, though she kept her eyes on her feet.
“Hi, Sawyer,” she whispered into the ground.
“You knew it was me just by the sound of my voice, how sweet.”
She lifted her head and looked at me out of the corner of her eyes, then shifted her whole body to face me.
“You haven’t seen anyone come from upstairs, have you?”
“No?” I questioned her, peering over the slew of people.
Her voice was lower than before. She bobbed her head around the teen boy rivaling the height of a giraffe in front of us, swaying back and forth as she scanned the long line in front of her. “Wow. Super long line today. I don’t need coffee that bad. Are you heading out? Yeah, okay, I’ll head out with you.”
With a perfect imitation of a roadrunner, she turned on her heels and sped out the front door. I am positive she left track marks on the small pooch hiding under the legs of its owner. Once we crossed the street and reached the sidewalk, she took her cap off and slicked down the stray hairs.
“Lucy, what’s up? Are you okay?” I looked back over my shoulder and then back down at her. I noticed that the color had returned to her face.
“Yup. Fine,” she said sharply. “Sorry. I’ve just been busy the last couple of weeks. Ran out of coffee and haven’t made it to the store to get said coffee, so I thought I’d stop in here, but on second thought, I think I’ll drink some tea today. Too crowded in there.”
“Okay…”
“So, how have you been? I’ve been busy. Oh, I already said that. Sorry… So, yeah. How are you?” her voice got higher and higher with each sentence, her lips moving almost as fast as her feet. I was struggling to keep up with her.
“I’m going to ask you again… Are you good?”
She let out an exasperated breath, stopping in her tracks. Perching her hands on her hips, “Yeah. God, I haven’t had a moment to breathe in days. I wouldn’t have known it was Tuesday unless my friend hadn’t called me and said something. I have been nonstop cleaning and yet I feel like I haven’t even made a dent.”
“Is there anything I could help you with?”
She looks around and lets out another large breath, this time a little more relaxed. “You know what? Yes. I would love some help.”
Wow. And I didn’t even need to insult her crown molding.
“But first, we are going to get you that coffee. We can stop at The Hideout on the way. I have a feeling you might like the way Mel makes her coffee.”
Her eyes widened and a smile filled her face. She twirled around, her workout skirt spun around against her body, and she started ahead of me.
I have seen Lucy smile before, but I’d do anything for her to smile that way again. There was something special about it, an ease in her mind I had yet to see. And it was brought on by something as simple as coffee. Whatever the reason, knowing that I played even a small part was enough for me.