Chapter 8
Harsk
Guatemala this week.
The burlap is on the floor at my left foot.
I scoop the green by the kilo into the loader, ten pounds today because Friday is the bigger batch, six small sacks for the route tonight, the weekend trade on top of that.
The beans tip into the drum, the drum turns, and the burner cycles down as the cool mass hits the steel.
The grandmother voice arrives without being called. Boy. I do not answer her.
I pull the trier at minute four. The beans are pale at the seam where they should be. At minute eleven the green tumbles into the cooling bowl as brown and the nose comes up chocolate at the front and dried fig at the back, the kind of cup a weekend wants.
I bag the roast into six small brown paper sacks and letter each one in pencil, the small letters leaning forward like they always do.
GUATEMALA. OCT.
The six bags go in two rows of three on the bench by the back door. The route runs in the same order it has run for fifteen years: Garza first, then the brewery, the florist, Voshen, the four storefronts up the block, and the Bell House last.
I bring the small burlap of the same Guatemala up from the cabinet under the desk, grind nine ounces, brew the carafe, and cap it to its shelf.
The apron on the back hook beside mine is canvas the color of brown paper, and it has hung there since yesterday afternoon. The strap is twisted at the top, and I leave it twisted. The third apron, Bex’s, is on the hook past hers. Three aprons where for fifteen years the hook held one.
I count what is on the desk. The inventory sheet is under the lamp where she left it, the pencil set in the crease, and partway down there is a new line in her cursive: almond milk, two cartons, MR. I do not amend the line. I put the pencil back where it was.
I go through to the front of the house. The espresso machine is awake before I am, which is the order I prefer.
“Morning, you,” I say, and run a blank shot to clean the line, twenty-five seconds, crema the color of brown butter, and I dump it.
The chalkboard on the easel reads what I wrote. TODAY: GUATEMALA POUR-OVER. CHOCOLATE AND DRIED FIG. ALSO PIE. Block letters too tall for the board. I priced the cup in pencil last night.
Presso is on the back counter, asleep.
I take a small cup from the rack, the rinsed one from yesterday, and I set it on the back bar where her station is. Black, one sugar, stirred twice. The spoon goes on the linen beside it.
The marine layer at the front window has gone the gray that means the sun is up somewhere behind it. The chain across Main Street is dark plywood at this hour, and I do not look at it long.
I wipe the steam wand.
Her step will come down the sidewalk in four minutes, and I will be at the grinder when it does.
The step on the sidewalk comes like it has come for fourteen mornings, and then the bell.
She is in the doorway with the coat half off, and the ring on her right hand is the pewter one I have not seen before. Friday, then.
“Morning,” I say.
“You’re early.”
She takes the apron off the hook with the twist at the strap still in it, and she does not fix the twist. She ties at the second knot and her hand finds the cup at her elbow without looking, the black coffee with one sugar, the spoon on the linen where I set it, and she drinks the first inch standing up.
Her eye goes to the chalkboard, to the ALSO PIE at the bottom, and the corner of her mouth reads the line but does not quite land it.
“Bex’s mother sends one on Fridays,” I say.
“Apple?”
“Yes.”
Garza comes through the back before six with the cruller box on his shoulder and the pie tin balanced flat on top of it, and Maggie has the bell jar off the counter and the stand wiped before he sets the tin down.
She counts the crullers by twos, eighteen, and the pie goes under the bell jar. Garza nods and goes out the back door.
The bell rings.
Korren is in the forestry coat with the paper folded under his arm.
Maggie is at the espresso group with the milk pitcher.
She turns. She does not cross to me, and she does not reach for the carafe under my hand.
She crosses to the drip station instead, pulls a cup down off the rack, and pours, a double pour, drip black.
The cup is on the wood before Korren is at the counter.
“Korren,” she says.
He nods at her and sets the five down on the wood, folded once down the center, and takes the paper to the window bar. He drinks half, then turns the page. He drinks the rest. The paper folds closed. He nods on his way out.
“Korren,” I say.
Maggie watches him to the door. Then she picks the five up off the wood and drops it in the tip jar, and goes back to the milk pitcher without a word, and I keep my eyes on the grouphead.
Bex comes in after the rush has thinned, already in the canvas apron. “Hey,” she says. “Bex,” I say. She ties the strap without looking at the knot.
Annie and Tom come drip black and drip black with room, and Bex pours both. The marina kids come through and clear out by mid-morning. The carafe at the window bar empties soon after, and Maggie refills it without asking which carafe.
The geometry holds.
At 2:14 Maggie goes to the chalkboard and wipes the Friday line, writing the new line in pencil first like I do.
TOMORROW: COSTA RICA POUR-OVER. SMALL BLACK ONE SUGAR AVAILABLE.
Block letters too tall for the board, the same as mine, except her letters lean back the four degrees mine lean forward.
She glances at me before she goes over the pencil in chalk, and I nod once, and there are two scripts on the board.
She takes the six bags from the bench by the back door and loads them into the canvas tote on the wood. She holds the tote open and I count them in.
“Tonight?” she says.
“Five.”
She nods, and she does not ask the route, because the route is mine.
I do not say come tonight. The tote goes back on the bench.
Bex is out at four, and Maggie the apron off the hook and folded once onto the shelf, the twist at the strap unfixed across the whole day.
“Tomorrow,” she says.
“Saturday.”
The bell.
The till is in the deposit bag, the six bags are at the back door, the carafe is on the shelf, and Presso is on the back counter. The chalkboard out front has the Costa Rica line in her chalk over my pencil, and the hook holds three aprons.
I stand in the doorway between the back room and the front. The construction crew across the street is loud at this hour. I load the six bags into the canvas tote on the wood, fold the handles once, turn the front lock, and go out through the alley.
The chain across Main is dark plywood from this side. Four seconds past it and gone.
Garza is at the bakery door with his apron half off and a cigarette he has not lit. I hand the small Guatemala sack across the wood, and he nods.
“Friday,” he says.
“Mm.”
He looks past me to the chain side. “Foreman was over today. Awning permit. Two inches into the curb.”
“They’ll get the variance.”
“They will.” He picks up the sack. “Tell Maggie the pie was good.”
“Yes.”
The bakery back door closes behind him.
Up the block to the corner, where the brewery sign is the modest kind, Thressen Brew Co. in flat black letters on a board sanded smooth twice over.
Veshar is in the doorway with his sleeves to the elbow, and the smell of warm grain comes through the door behind him, wet wheat and the faint copper of the kettle.
I put the small sack across his hand, and his hand stays on it after I let go, like a man’s does when the day has been his and he has not seen another face across a counter since morning.
“Veshar,” I say.
“Harsk. Brought the order.”
“Autumn brew on?”
“Saturday.” His eyes hold on my face longer than the exchange asks for. “First pint off the line at four.”
“Save me one.”
“I will.”
The sack goes into the crook of his elbow, and I turn for the door. He says it to my back, even register, no weight on it.
“Bring her.”
The door is half open under my hand. “Alright.”
Delia is at the florist counter with the day’s last cloth in her hand, the Earl Grey steaming on the side. The shop smells of cold stems and the lemon she uses on the steel.
A small wrapped bunch is on the counter, late-season dahlias gone burgundy at the petal tip and going to gold at the heart, the brown paper twisted at the stems with twine. She does not pick them up. She slides them across the wood with one finger and stops them at the edge nearest me.
“Harsk Olenden,” she says.
“Delia. Pleasure.”
“For the front counter.”
The paper is dry between my fingers, and the blooms are heavy at the head, the stems cut short on purpose so the bunch will sit low in a jar.
“Tea,” I say.
“Always.” She lifts the cup off the saucer. “Coffee is still an assault on the digestive system.”
“I know.”
“I know you know.” She drinks. “Go.”
Up the side street to Pine, where the teahouse sits on the corner with the brass kettle in the window and the steam coming off the spout.
Voshen is at the brass tray, gray hair in the knot that is not a bun, the blue apron the indeterminate blue it has always been. She does not turn when the door opens, because she has heard the boards. I set the small Guatemala sack onto the wood beside the tray.
“Auntie,” I say.
“Boy. You’re late.”
She comes around the tray and stands on her toes, her forehead at the brow ridge, lavender salve coming off her sleeve. Then she steps back and lifts the sack and weighs it once in her palm, like she has for fifteen years.
“Korren came in,” she says.
“Mm.”
“Two pots. He read the paper for forty minutes.” She turns to the samovar. “He asked after the cat.”
“She’s fine.”
“I told him.” She takes a small clay cup off the shelf and pours from the dark pot, the steam coming up between us. “Sit if you want.”
“I’m on the route.”
“I know you’re on the route. Sit anyway.”
I take the cup standing. The tea is rooibos and clove and the small bitter root she will not name, and I drink half before the cup goes down beside the brass tray.
She is looking at me, the look I have known since I was fifteen, and her eye lands once on the brown paper at the heads of the dahlias under my arm.
“Voshen,” I say.
“Go, boy.”
The bell at her door has a deeper tone than the one at Finley’s, and it rings true once as I leave.
I am out on the side street with three sacks left in the tote and the dahlias under my arm.
The clock above Delia’s window across the way reads 6:22.
Pine runs uphill to my right on the same grade I have walked for fifteen years, the marine layer moving against the hill above the harbor, the gravel turning to cracked sidewalk under my boots where Pine gives up on being paved.
The Bell House is half a block up, cream and green, the porch light already on.
The first stop on this stretch is the side door at the hardware store. I knock once. The owner’s son opens the door, and I put the sack across his hand. “Friday.” “Mm.” The door shuts.
The next stop is the bookshop two doors below the Bell House, where the bell over the door is muffled because the door is propped open and the bell is wedged. The kid at the counter has the sack out of my hand before I have set the tote down.
“Saturday?” he says.
“Costa Rica.”
“Good.”
I am out the door in ten seconds, and the cream and green of the Bell House comes up through the dusk at the top of the hill, wraparound porch, white railings. The flowerboxes have gone past peak, the geraniums leggy, the boxes not yet cut back. Olmar will get to them.
The gate is unlatched. I lift the latch and let it down soft on the catch.
The kitchen window over the sink is lit yellow against the dusk, and Olmar is at the window with the garlic and lemon on the cutting board and the rosemary on the steel, a marinade in process.
He sees me at the gate before I see him at the glass.
I nod once. He nods back through the window, knife still in his hand, and lifts his chin toward the porch.
The porch swing is at the south end. Hattie is on it, bare feet on the boards, a paperback open on her thigh, the canvas jacket across her knees, the brown sweater she has worn since May.
The chain on the swing has not moved since I came through the gate.
I nod, and she nods back, the small dry tip of the chin that does not show teeth.
The second nod is the new one, four Fridays in.
The kitchen door opens, and Olmar comes out wiping his hands on a towel, the boards under his feet sounding their age, 1889. I come up the three steps, pull the last small Guatemala sack out of the tote, and hand it across.
“Olmar.”
“Harsk. Tea’s hot.”
His hand is on the brown paper, and he weighs it once. Then he looks at the heads of the dahlias under my arm, the brown paper at the stems, the twine, and his eye holds there a breath before it comes back to my face.
“The new one,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Alright.”
The sack goes into the crook of his left arm, the towel still in his right hand, the kitchen door behind him open three inches with the smell of garlic and lemon and rosemary coming through.
He does not say bring her. He gives me the nod he gives me at the gate.
I go.
Pine runs downhill, and the light is going. The fog has come in further while I was on the porch. The Light beam comes around on its nine and finds nothing to land on but more fog.
Past Voshen’s, the brass kettle in the window with the steam off the spout, and I do not stop.
Past Delia’s, the shop closed now, the lemon she uses on the steel still in the air on the sidewalk under the door.
Past the brewery, where Veshar’s light is on in the upstairs window where he lives above the wet grain.
Across Main, where the chain is dark plywood, and I give it nothing.
Finley’s is at the far corner with CLOSED hanging in the window, and the chalkboard on the sidewalk has Maggie’s chalk over my pencil. TOMORROW: COSTA RICA POUR-OVER. SMALL BLACK ONE SUGAR AVAILABLE. The chalk has not been touched since she wrote it, and I keep walking.
Down the alley, the key in the right hand, the bracing thumb on the frame, up the back stairs, the boards remembering me at the fourth and the seventh.
I set the empty tote on its hook beside the door, and the dahlias go on the small table by the window facing the harbor. The brown paper at the stems is dry. They will go down to the front counter tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
I take Naskha’s brown sweater out of the bottom drawer and hold it to my face. Wool, lavender, and the wood stove in 1981. I fold it back into the drawer.
The kettle goes on the burner. The match strikes, and the flame catches.
Naskha says, Good, boy.
I do not answer her.
The kettle ticks once. I sit at the table.