“This isn’t Starbucks, sir,” I said, for what felt like the millionth time this week.
The customer’s face turned incredulous. He scanned the menu above my head as if there were help to be found there to his obviously misguided trip to this little rundown coffee shop in Queens rather than an actual Starbucks. But, of course, no such luck. Because, as I had already told him and the countless customers before him during the morning rush hour and pretty much every day of the week since I’ve been working here for the past few years, that this was not a Starbucks.
“You do sell coffee, don’t you, Miss?” he asked, still staring at the menu.
“Yes, of course we do, sir, it’s a coffee shop.”
“How difficult can it be to make a quad-half-caf-venti-three pump-vanilla-three-pump-hazelnut-soy-extra-hot-no-foam-with-whip-cream-and-cinnamon-sprinkles-latte?”
“Very difficult, sir,” I answered. “Impossible, really, since we don’t make those kinds of coffee drinks here. Sorry, sir.”
I could tell he was getting more upset with each passing second with the way the veins on the side of his neck started to bulge, and his face began to turn a shade of beet red. Geez, people were really serious about their Starbucks coffee. Especially this guy. Finally, he sighed in resignation and gave the menu another quick sweep with his eyes.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll have the Derek Special. Large. To go.”
“Coming right up, sir.”
Turning around, I tried hard to suppress the laughter bubbling in my throat while I made his drink. See, the Derek Special wasn’t all that special at all. It’s just decaffeinated coffee brewed with chai something-or-other tea leaves that Derek came up with after watching one too many episodes of Friends.
Derek was a bit of a character, and just being around him made me feel better. He was a damn good best friend. We had been through a lot since we met in junior high school—crushes, boyfriends, girlfriends, and back to boyfriends. He always had my back, and what I loved most about him was how he could cut through all the bullshit and give it to me straight. He was the only person who knew how much I had secretly hoped to maybe one day go to college. I never dared talk to my grandmother about it since I knew that it would upset her more than she already was about me not pursuing a higher education.
Derek was also the best at looking at the bright side of things. For instance, when my life couldn't possibly get any worse, about seven months ago, I walked in on my now ex-boyfriend, Tony, having sex with one of his neighbors from his apartment building, who he is now having a full-on relationship with.
Did I mention that neighbor was a dude?
Yep, the hits just kept on coming.
I didn't have any issues or hang-ups with homosexuality in the slightest. Derek actually bats for the other team. But I defied anyone, man or woman, to have your significant other leave you for someone of the same sex. It was a little head-trippy to say the least.
Yeah, sure there were signs all along that he was interested in men, but I brushed them aside. Like the time we were watching Neighbors, and Tony asked me to rewind a lot of the Zac Efron partially clothed scenes. I wasn't complaining because Zac Efron needed to be saluted for the wildcat he had turned into. I honestly thought that my ex was doing this for my benefit because he knew how much I had a little thing for Zac. But, in addition to the wildcat issue, he had a very real and very scary obsession with Barbra Streisand. And he kind of knew all the words to “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” by Beyoncé…and he might have learned the entire dance to it too because it was his all-time favorite song.
I know, I know…I was stupid for not seeing what was right under my nose all along.
But Derek, never one to mince words or coddle me, said, “Girl, bye. He likes dick, so what? There are starving children in Africa to worry about instead of his scraggly ass.”
He had a point.
Needless to say, I had been burned so badly by my ex-boyfriend that I had decided to take a break from men altogether. To be honest, it worked out for the best, since I really didn’t have time for any type of relationship to begin with.
“Miss, how much longer will this take?” This came from the Starbucks crazed customer behind me, still waiting on his Derek Special. I sighed quietly to myself as I put the finishing touches on his drink.
“Coming right up, sir,” I said. I turned back around and offered him his cup. “That will be three dollars and fifty cents.”
He huffed and puffed under his breath in outrage at the price while fishing out his wallet from the inside jacket pocket of his top of the line designer suit. I had to contain the urge to roll my eyes and even went so far as to thank him for his measly nickel that he dropped in my tip jar before he turned on his heel and left the store in a rush.
“Another day, another dollar,” I mumbled as the bell over the door rung heralding his exit.
I guess things could be worse.
Who was I kidding?
I was twenty-five-years old, spending most of my time working, jilted by my gay ex-boyfriend, and barely getting any sleep because my other “job” had me staying up even later than I should on most nights.
It wasn't really a job. But it was something for me, something that I wanted to do, so I was doing it, and with Derek's help, of course, because the man had some serious connections all over the city. On the nights I could squeeze it in, I ran a YouTube channel about New York City nightlife. Kind of like a video-blog where I reviewed bars and clubs all over Manhattan and the five boroughs if the place had enough hype. I came up with the idea after seeing some crappy television show hosted by this rich and arrogant guy named Max Allen. It never made any sense to me that some silver-spoon fed, entitled D-list celebrity type asshole could give an every-day-person, like myself, advice on where to go out in the city. His rich blood didn't have the limited budget that most people had. So, I thought, why not try doing the same thing, but from a shoestring budget perspective. It’s been almost a year that I’ve been taping the segments, and I’m so happy to see that my videos kept getting viewed over and over again. The only problem was with Max himself. He kept following me around like a lost puppy dog or something. And he gets all pissed off with me whenever he actually talks to me, as if I stole his thunder or something. Like last week, when I went to this new-ish club in Mid-town that Derek had put in a word with the owner for me to get on the guest list, I almost ran right into Mr. Max-A-Million himself. He was hooking up with some blonde chick in the bathroom. So gross and skeevy. Last time I checked, Max didn’t own the idea of reviewing clubs. That’s what freaking Yelp was. But that was Max for you.
Was he nice to look at?
Oh my God, yes! A million times, yes!
But as soon as he opened his mouth, his douche-ness just poured right out of him. It was like he couldn't help himself. Almost sad really, because being that insanely good looking should count for something. But with Max it was just…I don’t know, a bunch of nothing. It didn’t matter anyway, because I couldn't worry about Max all the time. I had bigger fish to fry. Like trying to figure out how to get the Benny from the Bronx wannabe away from my little brother so he could graduate and go on to art school like we had been planning all along. I’d be damned if anyone or anything was going to get in the way of that happening while I was still living and breathing.
I busied myself for the next several minutes wiping down the already spotless counter and rearranging the recently rearranged rows of recyclable coffee cups. There was a high probability that I wouldn't see another customer for a little while. I decided to take out my planner from my messenger bag so that I could plan out my schedule for the next couple of weeks. I found that planning my life out two weeks ahead of time was the only thing that kept me sane. If I tried to tack on any more days, weeks, and months to that quota, everything seemed to fall apart on me.
The tiny bell over the door rung while I had my head buried within my planner writing down my weekly trip to the grocery store in for the following Thursday afternoon.
“I'll be right with you,” I said to the new customer.
The stranger cleared their throat to get my attention, because God forbid, someone could wait another second or two. Nowadays, it felt like most people expected something immediately. Whatever happened to having patience and being courteous? Oh yeah, silly me, I forgot, they don’t exist anymore. I abandoned my planner and looked up to help the customer. And the stranger staring back at me wasn’t a stranger at all. I could have sworn I did an actual double take because I couldn’t believe who was standing right in front of me.
Max Allen, who I had just been wanting to strangle to death in my head, was on the other side of the counter, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face that did not match the look of shock I know must have been plastered on mine.
“Well, well, well,” he said by way of hello. “You're a very difficult woman to track down. But thank god for both our sake I never give up on a challenge because I'm about to change your life, Ms. Daphne Rodriguez.”