“There were no streetlights, Evelyn! Not a single streetlight! We relied on common sense.” 

Morris Townsend bangs his cane on the floor of the shop, voice trembling with passion. He’s going to spill his coffee all over himself if he keeps this up. Morris is loyal, that’s for sure, but he’s also a human hazard. Also, he can’t hear—not me, and certainly not himself.

“I can’t imagine—”

“There are no words to do it justice,” he shouts over the rattle of the air conditioning unit. It’s installed in one of the front windows, and it leaks. I empty the tray beneath it a hundred times a day at least. “The weather was so much nicer.”

I follow his gaze out the front window. It’s another lovely day in Lakewood. The sun is gentle, second-week-of-June light. Nothing like the harsh heat of August. I don’t know what Morris is seeing when he looks out there.

“You don’t know what you’ve missed, Evelyn.”

“Ellery,” I correct him.

He shuffles toward the door, to-go cup in his hand. Morris never takes a top, even when we have them. He might be eighty-five, but he still walks on the wild side. “Evelyn, I wish you’d speak up. I can’t hear a thing you say.”

“I hear everything you say,” I murmur toward the countertop. He doesn’t hear. I’m not trying to be unkind, but boredom is fraying at my nerves this afternoon. In the corner table where she always sits to write for an hour every afternoon, Susan Liu’s shoulders sag with relief. She looks gorgeous, sitting there in the light. If photography was still my thing, I’d love to take her photo, there at the table with her laptop. Too bad the memory of the camera’s weight in my hands makes me feel vaguely ill.

The door swings shut with a creak. Alone, I take a breath and survey my tiny kingdom. 

I’m brewing a fresh carafe of our signature blend—and yes, I’ll give you three guesses what it’s called. I mopped the floors during the morning lull, and dusted yesterday. The dish sanitizer is humming along, swish swish swish, onto the next batch already. Everything is in order...for the moment. We’re teetering on the edge of the coffee supply with only two bags of roasted beans left and two of espresso. Soon, I’ll make The Call. If the milk truck doesn’t show up...

I can worry about all that later. For now, everything is in place.

Except the t-shirts.

There’s a low shelf of t-shirts underneath the counter where I put the freshly filled carafes. This way customers can fill to-go cups themselves after they pay. I have time to fill cups when we’re not in the tourist season, but starting this weekend, it’s all over.

The shirts are a mess. People—Lou Brewer being one of them—cannot resist looking through them once a week minimum. There are never any new shirts. They look all the same. I’d ask Aunt Lisa about new ones, but I doubt she’d have the time.

The sidewalk outside is empty, and in this moment, so is my brain. I come out from behind the counter and move across the shop. The swish swish swish of the sanitizer gets in my head. It’s like a beat. It’s like the music of the coffee shop. Do I sway my hips in time with it? Yes, I do.

It’s the afternoon lull, which means nobody’s going to be in until Mary shows up at four after one of her yoga classes. It’ll be a different story this weekend, but for today, it’s just me and the shop and a bunch of shirts to rearrange.

Swish, swish, swish. Sway, sway, sway. 

I bend down in front of the shelf and scoop up some of the shirts in my arms. They’re more manageable in a heap on the countertop. Swish, swish, swish. It almost reminds me of a Beyoncé song. In my real career as a photojournalist, that would totally be newsworthy. Sway, sway, sway. I can’t remember the words to the damn song, even with the beat in my head, so I make up my own. I don’t think you’re in here for these t-shirts, I think you want to chat. I don’t think you’re in here for these t-shirts, I think that we all know that. I laugh out loud. When life hands you lemons, dance to the beat of the sanitizer. Someone should cross-stitch that on a pillow.

There are a lot of shirts. Nobody ever buys them. What about a nice little rolled arrangement? What if I roll each one up like so and make a little pyramid? I’ll roll them all first, and then stack them.

Roll, roll, roll. Sway, sway, sway. My own words echo in my head, layering on the sanitizer’s groove. One shirt rolls through my hands, then another. This wouldn’t make a bad song. It’s kind of catchy. It’s kind of...infectious.

I get lost in the song. The swish swish swish gets louder as the sanitizer moves into the meat of this wash cycle. Moments like these, when I can be free in my skin, dreaming, are the reason I haven’t lost it yet. Try running a coffee shop without being secure in the knowledge that you will have coffee. It’s a real stress, let me tell you.

I don’t think you’re here for these t-shirts. What about some kind of backup singers? Add a fan to blow our hair back during the music video, and this could be pretty sexy.

I’m pretty sexy. 

I roll more t-shirts.

Not only am I sexy, I am a good dancer. 

Swish, swish, swish. It’s a powerful beat. Any dancer could make something out of this, but I’m at the top of my game. I’m Beyoncé at the Super Bowl.

I feel it coming over me. It’s a crazy idea. No...not crazy. It’s accurate. It’s within my grasp. I pop my hips from left to right. The sanitizer is reaching its climax, and my song is thrumming in my veins.

I could do it.

I could twerk. 

I roll the final t-shirt and take it in my hands like a glitzy music video prop and drop it low. Am I doing it? Is this twerking? I don’t know, but it feels right. 

The sanitizer grumbles to a stop, the water draining out. I imagine it like it’ll be in the video, Barista Beyoncé waking up from her work-dream about being a superstar to that same sound, going back to reality in her empty coffee shop. Strike a pose. Done.

“Whoa,” says a deep, smooth voice from the doorway. “Am I...interrupting?”