Читать книгу Godblog - Laurie Channer - Страница 14

“It’s just another month,” the girl barista was saying to the other one, a guy, while ignoring Rhoswen, who was waiting to order. “You have to stay through the Whistler Film Festival. The film types can’t do without their designer coffee. Tips really pick up that week.”

The guy didn’t look convinced, and Rhoswen was on a mission anyway, so she didn’t mind interrupting them. Also, being the customer in this scenario pretty much made her the one who had to be listened to, so she butted right in.

“Um, Heather?” she said, pointedly looking at the woman’s name tag. “Could you stop giving that young man a hard time and please tell me what’s the most difficult drink to make in here, because that’s what I want.”

Heather rolled her eyes at Rhoswen, then turned and squinted at the board. “That’s the Coco-moko-chococaramelotto-brownie-hotto,” she said.

Rhoswen laughed. “You’re making that name up.”

Heather shook her head and pointed to the picture on the wall. “I wish. They pay very serious money to someone up in Marketing to come up with these names. I make ten times less, and I have to say them. Anyway, it’s got, like, a twelve-step map of directions and every ingredient in the place. You can put the whole thing together, and at the last second, if you don’t drizzle the caramel syrup over the whipped cream with exact geometric precision before the whipped cream melts, so that it looks just like the picture, you have to start all over. It’s also about a thousand calories. And it costs five-fifty. It only comes in large.”

“I’m in,” Rhoswen said, plunking a ten down on the counter. “Is he up for this?” She turned to the tall, blond barista behind the coffee bar, making the drinks. “You up for this, big guy?”

“Heathen only hates this one because she can’t do it,” he said.

“Heathen?” Rhoswen said. “Not Heather?”

“Heathen,” he said. “Anyway, in the hands of a master, it’s a piece of cake.”

“Brownie,” the girl said. “And don’t skimp on them.” She moved leaned forward to check out his name tag. “Dag. Is that a typo? Are they so cheap here, they won’t re-do a nametag or is someone just dyslexic?”

“It’s old Norse,” he said.

“It’s unfortunate,” she said. “Why didn’t you go with your middle name?”

“It’s worse,” Dag said. He looked her up and down. Rhoswen let him get an eyeful. Young. Long, curly red hair. Willowy-slim, and nearly as tall as him. Freckles. “I usually only get this much attitude from ten-year-olds,” he said, pouring milk into the steamer. “What’s your name?”

“Dag!” Heathen warned. “Don’t tell him, miss, he’s just going to make fun of it. Dag, don’t mock the customers.”

“I’ve got the corner on worse,” Rhoswen said. “How about Rhoswen?”

Dag had to stop measuring chocolate syrup to laugh. “No shit?”

“No shit. It’s Welsh.”

“What the hell does it mean?”

“Fuck if I know.”

Dag opened a container. “We’re out of brownie chunks,” he said. “This is going to take a few minutes while I cut some more. Have a seat if you want. I’ll bring it over.”

She shrugged. “’Kay.”

From the table she sat down at, it did look like a fiddly damn drink to make. And it backed up the line, even without the banter. Heathen was racking and stacking coffee orders while Dag added and stirred, sprayed and sprinkled, occasionally checking a laminated card posted over the sink.

Rhoswen juggled sugar packets while she waited. A kid in a stroller at the next table gurgled in delight.

Finally, on the way to her table, Dag swooshed the drink past Heathen, clearly showing off. “Piece of cake,” Rhoswen heard him say.

“About time,” Rhoswen said, catching the last sugar as he arrived.

Dag nearly dropped the drink. “You juggle!” he said.

“We all have our talents. I picked this up this summer as a kids’ camp counsellor. I also know the words to every Hannah Montana song and can name all the Yu-Gi-Oh characters and their powers.”

“Truly marketable skills,” Dag said.

“One of yours, I presume, is making refreshing and intricate beverages.” She raised her spoon, ready to leap in.

“Wait!” he said, putting it down in front of her. “Don’t go poking a spoon in it until you’ve completely appreciated the aesthetics. The precision of the drizzle. The perfectly mounded whipped cream. The profusion of brownie. Someone at head office, clearly only looking for ways to torture the front line, thought up a drink that involves coating the inside of the cup with chocolate before filling it with anything else, adding two kinds of syrup, coffee, brownie, whipped cream and caramel drizzles and still getting it to the table drinkably hot. And yet, I am up to the challenge.”

“It looks just like the picture,” she said. “Which I saw you cribbing from, Captain Hot Shot.”

He looked sheepish. “It’s the only one I don’t know off by heart.”

“Now can I drink it? I have paid for it.”

He lingered at her table. “If I give you the rest of the brownie chunks I have back there,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “will you teach me how to juggle?”

“See what I can do,” Rhoswen said around a mouthful of whipped cream.

“I’ve got a break in fifteen minutes,” Dag said.

She nodded and waved him off. “Go away now. I think she wants you.” Heathen was waving frantically for him to come back and make up orders.

“See ya.” Dag bolted.

When he joined her at the table on his break, brownie bits attractively plated on a paper doily, the cup was empty. “You finished all that?”

“I’ll finish all these, too,” she said, “but I’ll have to take them to go.” She started wrapping them up in her napkin. “I just noticed the time. I have to catch the eight-thirty Greyhound back to Vancouver.”

“You’re not staying in town? When am I going to learn to juggle?”

She eyed him. “When are you coming to Vancouver next?”

“I’m actually moving there in the next week or two.”

“Yeah?” Rhoswen said through a mouthful of brownie. “Gotta place yet?”

“No, I’m looking. I’ll search on Craigslist.”

Rhoswen paused for a moment, then plunged in. “I need a roommate,” she said. “No smoking, though. It’s a one-bedroom. I get the bedroom, you can have the living room. I’m never in it, anyway, so it’s mostly just like private. But I have one of those IKEA screens if you want to get girly about it. And this is not a boyfriend-thing,” she added. “I’ve already got one of those.”

“Living in?”

She looked him up and down. “No. Your share would be three-fifty. So, you interested?”

“Yeah,” Dag said.

“Cool,” Rhoswen said. “Here’s my number and my gmail.” She took out a pen and wrote it on a napkin. “We can talk details later.

I’m going to miss my bus if I don’t ankle.”

She picked up her bag and scooted out.

• • •

“Got a date, superstar?” Heathen said, nodding at the napkin when he came back to the bar.

“Better,” he said. “I got a place to stay in the city now. And she’s going to teach me how to juggle.”

Heathen sniffed disdainfully. “I guess I don’t have to ask how her marks were in school.”

“Maybe she went to circus school,” Dag said.

“In your dreams, snowboy.”

They started closing up early, at ten thirty, with no one in the store. Heathen locked up, then looked across at Black’s Pub, two hundred yards away. “Happy sounds of drinking people,” she said. “Let’s go have a beer.”

“I got stuff to do at home.”

“You can masturbate later.” She tugged at his arm. “Have a beer with me. I want a witness for when my coach says I was out all night, and I swear I only stayed for one.”

“Is that going to be true, or am I going to be one of those witnesses you bribe with several beers to keep pace with you, and then we both lie about it later?”

Heathen sighed. “I don’t do that any more. Nobody gets that I’ve reformed.”

After she insisted that they check each other for stray BlackArts doofage, they traipsed over to Shredder Steve’s. It was Friday, though, and packed. “Fuck, we’ll never get a spot in here,” Dag said. “Let’s go to Tapley’s.”

“No, look, someone’s got a spot for us.” Heathen waved and dragged him over to where Rhoswen was sitting at a table for four, alone. She waved over to them. Heathen immediately plunked down in a chair. Dag stayed standing. “You got friends coming back for these seats?”

“Nope, just holding them for you guys. You wouldn’t believe the crowds I’ve had to fight off.”

Dag sat, looking puzzled. “What are you doing here?” he said. “You miss your bus?”

“That was a little white lie. I’m actually staying with my spinster auntie.”

“Why’d you lie? And how’d you know to save us seats?”

Rhoswen giggled. “Haven’t you guessed?”

Heathen leaned forward conspiratorially. “Dag can be kind of dumb, but I heard he went for it.”

“Like a shot.” The two women high-fived.

“What the hell—?” Dag said.

“You doofus!” Rhoswen crowed. “You’re totally busted! I’m Grace! Heather’s niece!”

“You can’t be,” he said. “You’re Rhoswen. Grace is supposed to be this brainy bookworm type.”

“You think I wear my straight A’s on my sweater?” Grace said. “Sorry, but they snag something awful.”

“Did you totally not see that coming?” Heathen said to Dag. “God, you’re thick.”