Cappuccino Cutie

Some beginnings write themselves

Eliza sat at her favorite spot in the Three Mountain Café, stared out the window at the shoppers passing by, and willed herself to find the right words.

“Heaving?” No. “Throbbing?” Definitely not.

She cursed her friend Melissa for convincing her to enroll in a fiction-writing class.

“It will be fun,” Melissa had vowed, assuring her that it would reignite creative cells long dormant. “There’s more to life than work and gym and Netflix,”.

While it was true that Eliza’s post-college life had narrowed to those three basic pursuits, what Melissa called a rut, Eliza called a routine. And a comforting one at that. Too many dates gone south had led to a moratorium on seeking out the opposite sex. No more men! At least for a while. Her last two relationships had ended painfully. She needed time to regroup and focus on her career and cultivating existing relationships with the people she loved. In the end, that was why she’d relented to Melissa, one of her closest friends.

What her Bestie had failed to mention was that the fiction writing class was, in fact, focused on romance fiction. 

“Write what you know,” the teacher had stressed. “Take relationships from your own life and use them as a jumping off point.” Uh-huh. Most of her relationships were with massive data sets and customer sales funnels. It was hard to find romance in that.

So now here she sat, twirling her blond hair around and around anxious fingers as she struggled to find a word that would inspire an entire story. Once she had that word, she felt sure it would lead to a beginning, and then she could stumble her way to a middle and then an end. At least, that was the plan.

“Beefy?” “Hunky?” “Ripped?” No, No, and God no.

She had little experience with beginnings, especially beginnings of relationships. There had been a few flings in college, mostly Jägermeister-fueled hook-ups. There’d been a more or less happy semester dating Sean, an intense poet who wrote exquisitely but he failed at face-to-face communication. Upon reflection, the most honest and straightforward of all her relationships had been with Jack, years earlier. He’d initiated their courtship with a carefully penciled note on ruled paper asking: “Do you like me?” with a check box for YES or NO, followed by a request to play together at recess—which he’d spelled reeses. She’d happily checked the YES box and off they ran to the swing set. Thus would have begun the adventure with the love of her life, but for the fact that they were both seven-years-old and, as she soon discovered, the boy ate paste. A deal-breaker even then.

“More coffee?” The man who’d taken her order at the counter was standing beside her with a full pot. She nodded yes, surprised by his offer. She’d been coming to the cozy Three Mountain Cafe for a long time and didn’t recall ever being offered a free refill. And she certainly didn’t recall this dreamy fellow. But here he was, managing to pour while at the same time smiling at her. She blushed. His rolled-up flannel shirt revealed a tan and muscled forearm sporting an old-school analog watch with a worn, brown leather strap.

“I like your watch,” Eliza blurted, and then did a mental face palm at her awkwardness. If Melissa were here, she’d know exactly what to say. She’d have some witty remark that would make the man laugh and look at her twice. And then she’d laugh and toss her hair back in a way that telegraphed there were laughs and more to be had. But Eliza had no such game. 

“Thanks,” he said. “It was my dad’s.” He finished pouring and paused, as though waiting for Eliza to say something. When she remained mute, he turned to make his way back to the counter. Even though the coffee pot was still mostly full, she noticed he didn’t offer refills to anyone else.

Eliza watched him go. He was new here, she was sure of that. He seemed to be about her age—mid-to-late twenties. Tall and trim and tan, he looked more like he belonged behind the wheel of a tractor than wearing an apron and wielding a coffee pot.

Her reverie was short-lived as her phone began to ping with Slack messages from work. She sighed, took a few more sips of coffee, and then headed back to the office.

She returned the next day, cutting out of work for an early lunch hour. Happy to see her favorite table free, she set her notebook down and draped her sweater across the chair to reserve it before going to the counter to place her order. Her heart did a little lift to see the Full Vermontey egg sandwich as the special of the day.  As a bonus to the morning, the rear view of the man Melissa had dubbed “Cappuccino Cutie” on their call the night before was on full display. She took in his tall build, and the way his wide shoulders filled out his t-shirt and tapered to a trim waist. Much as she hoped he’d be the one to take her order, he was clearly busy with the machine. A young woman with a cheery smile wished her good morning and promised to have the breakfast sandwich out to her shortly. 

Settled in her chair, Eliza opened her writing notebook and despaired at all the hopeful scribbles and aggressive cross-outs. She stared out the window and once again cursed Melissa for roping her into taking this class and cursed herself even more for caving. This was an adult education class, for God’s sake. There would be no grades, no certificate of completion. But, as a perpetually good student, Eliza couldn’t fathom not completing an assignment, and as she pondered, she realized she needed to write the story simply to prove to herself that she could. Seriously, how hard could it be? Nobody said it needed to be a good story, just something—anything at this point—with a beginning, middle, and end. But she had nothing. Melissa, on the other hand, was long finished. She’d done a dramatic reading over a late-night phone call, blurting out steamy sentences between howls of laughter and shots of tequila.

The bell on the café door sounded and two women entered and  turned in unison to see if the coveted table by the window was free. Eliza felt the women’s eyes on her and repositioned her chair with her back to the room.  She’d promised herself that she would not leave until she had something on paper, a beginning at least, preferably with some vague outlines of what would come next. She was not giving up her spot.

“Here you go, one extra-oozy breakfast sandwich special.” Eliza startled at the deep voice at her side. Her eyes took in the worn watch and tracked up the chiseled forearm to kind green eyes looking directly into hers. 

“Thanks so much,” was all Eliza could manage, even as she willed herself to come up with some comment, any comment witty or otherwise, to keep him by her side a few beats longer. 

“Ummm, thanks” was the best she could come up with before he took matters into his own hands.

“Are you a writer?” he asked, nodding at her notebook.

“Ha. Not quite.” Eliza opened the journal and showed him all the cross-outs. 

He leaned forward, taking it in. “This is a good one,” he said, pointing to “Irresistible” partially scratched out. “I vote to keep that one.”

Eliza nodded and said a silent prayer. Witty comeback, witty comeback now, please. But still none came. She gave up and spoke to him like a normal person, not the green-eyed Adonis he didn’t seem to realize he was. “OK, I’m giving you one life raft and that’s the word you choose to save?”

Cappuccino Cutie smiled at her and damn if her heart didn’t start to race. Was it possible the man was flirting with her?

“Yes, that’s my word. I expect to see it there once you finish.”

“Finish? At this point, I’d be happy to start.”

“Maybe once you start eating your breakfast inspiration will come? I’ll check back in on
you in a bit.”

Heeding his advice, Eliza bit into the world’s best breakfast sandwich and savored the explosion of flavors that lit up every pleasure sensor in her brain. Clothbound cheddar topped a poached egg and oozed into the crevices of the homemade sourdough muffin. Thick, crisp bacon from the farm just down the road provided a hit of salt and fat. Heaven.

“Excuse me, but will you need this table much longer?” 

Eliza was slow to turn her head. She knew without having to look that it was the two ladies. Eyes on the prize, she told herself. There was no leaving the table until she had a beginning to her story.

“Another couple of hours, at least,” she said curtly, hoping that would put an end to things. It did not.

“It’s just that my friend and I are reunited after years apart,” the woman continued. “I know it must seem silly, but this is the table where we always sat. It would be so nice for us to be able to sit there again, just like old times.” 

“Well, since you and your friend are newly reunited, why not sit at a new table to commemorate that?” Finally, Eliza came up with an acceptable comeback. But of course she couldn’t utter it. The woman actually seemed nice, with a warm smile and sparkly eyes. She looked like a woman who laughed a lot. 

“Of course,” Eliza said with a sigh. “Give me just a minute to finish my sandwich.”

She lingered over the last bites, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and then gathered her pen and notebook. As she stood, she came close to crashing into Cappuccino Cutie, just inches away.

“Holy hell,” he blurted as he worked to steady the mug he was carrying. “That was close.”

“I’m so sorry,” Eliza said. “I was just switching tables with these ladies. I didn’t know you were there. Did you get burned?” Cappuccino foam dripped down his hands and it took every ounce of her good manners not to lean forward and lick it off.

“No worries. All good,” he said. “Hazard of the trade. I’ll just go and whip up a new one.”

Eliza settled herself at a table in the middle of the restaurant and was surprisingly pleased with the new vantage point. True, there was no view out the window, but she had a direct line of sight to the coffee station and more specifically, Cappuccino Cutie. She watched, entranced, as he took cold milk and slowly upped the heat, carefully circling the pitcher around and around the hard, steel wand of the frother, creating heat and bubbles in the milk that grew and grew and grew . . . 

 Oh good Lord! Eliza pulled her eyes away and willed herself to focus on her notebook, quickly adding more words. “Steamy?” Possibly. “Titillated?” Oh yes.

She slammed the book shut as Cappuccino Cutie approached.

“I thought you might need a pick-me-up,” he said. “I hear coffee is good for creativity.” He winked, set down an oversize mug atop a ceramic saucer, and departed before Eliza could offer thanks. He’d crafted a smiley face in the foam, and she grinned at it like a kid who’d just been given a lollipop. The kindness and simplicity of the gesture touched her deeply. It was enough to make her start to believe in love again. Reaching for the mug, she realized that cappuccino was exactly what she needed at the moment. She raised the mug to her lips, exposing a scrap of paper on the saucer.  “Intrigued,” he’d written, followed by his name and phone number.

She looked toward the kitchen, caught his eye, and smiled. 

She had her beginning.