I leaned against the counter after wiping it clean with a rag that had certainly seen better days. The same could be said about me, really. It had been a year ever since I came back to New York, a year which I spent trying to make ends meet without cutting corners.

The coffee shop I used to work at was squeezed between a convenience store and a dry cleaner. Not the most elegant of joints, I know, but it paid the bills.

Wooden panels contoured the emerald green walls of the venue. Old posters, some dated as far back as the seventies, still hung from the walls behind protective frames. Their beauty had sadly wilted and their meaning was lost to the rapid and rabid passing of time; still, I found them to be quite charming. The atmosphere was homely and the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans will forever linger in my nostrils, oftentimes sending me barreling down memory lane. Alas, time always moves forward. I recall those days with a mixture of fondness and loathing, for wildly different reasons that somehow ended up clashing together in a most beautiful disaster.

 

After getting a masters in Business Administration, I found myself staring down the crossroads that was supposed to shape my future. It turned out to be rather unimpressive, if not downright disheartening. In retrospect, the choices before me were simple: I could have found a job myself, or tucked my tail between my legs to give in to my father’s endless job offers.

Working for his company would have made sense, and I’m sure many in my place wouldn’t have refused such an offer. Not me. I was certainly qualified, but the stigma of being daddy’s girl would be damn near impossible to wash off. People wouldn’t buy it, and honestly, neither would I.

I wanted to start from the bottom and work my way up. Alas, carrying the Reynolds name quickly proved itself to be both a boon and a curse: people’s expectations of me were high, but plummeted once they realized I was not going to meet them. My father’s friends thought I would end up taking the reins of the company once my father retired, yet even as that fateful day kept drawing closer, I kept my distance.

Instead of throwing myself into the gaping maw of the corporate machine — that I studied the innermost workings of, mind you — I decided to start from what I had: nothing.

My resume was more than fine on the academics side, but my lack of experience was akin to a death sentence. The only person willing to give me a chance was one such fellow named Brian Shaw. His family emigrated to the States right after the war ended, back when Irish folks weren’t treated exactly like royalty. Though his future didn’t look bright he still stuck it out and eventually opened a business - and no, it wasn’t a pub.

Shaw’s coffee shop had been through a lot. Employees came and went throughout the year, but he was the only constant. Always there, always smiling even in the face of adversity. I admired that about him, but envied it also. 

“You okay there?” Shaw’s voice rang behind me. I jumped, startled, and all of those thoughts were instantly jettisoned away from my mind.

All I could see when I turned around was his head, poking from the door of his “office”. It barely qualified as such — furnished with a cheap IKEA desk and an equally inexpensive chair. Shaw spent most of his day there, keeping himself busy doing God knows what on a dusty, decade old computer. 

“Yes, yes, I…” That was all I could manage on such short notice. I often tended to drift off and daydream during slow hours, and that day the shop had been a ghost town.

“Let’s call it a day, eh?” He posed it as a question, but his authoritative voice betrayed his intentions. 

I nodded before glancing at my watch. Almost eight o’clock, no patrons in sight. Again. Things hadn’t been stellar lately, and I could tell it was beginning to worry him. Hell, it was worrying me too.

That job was my only source of income, and my bills wouldn’t pay themselves. Living in New York is expensive no matter where one might reside, and while my apartment didn’t cost millions, things would be damn near impossible to manage on my own.

I didn’t live alone, thankfully. I met my housemate Brianna after scouring through a multitude of creepy Craigslist ads. Wannabe serial killers, people who would give up rooms for free in exchange for favors… I scrolled past all of those and just as I was about to lose hope, I found her ad buried under all the others.

Living together with a complete stranger still felt alien to me, but Brianna and I became fast friends. We both had our fair share of issues to deal with and take care of, but it was nice to come home at the end of a long day and have someone to vent to. It kept both of us sane, and we bonded over sharing out frustrations. I couldn’t find a job, and she hated hers.

Shaw’s coffee shop had been my salvation. I still remember the look of disbelief he gave me once he was done reading my resume, probably wondering why someone with a damn Master’s degree in Business Administration would want to work there.

I just wanted to make it on my own. Sure, my family still paid for my studies and I’m grateful for that, but after college I swore I wouldn’t live in their shadows — or pockets, for that matter. 

Night fell rather quietly. The closing process had been seared into my brain. I could go through every item on the checklist without even thinking about, it and it often caused me to get lost in my thoughts and worries. I would eventually snap out of it right at the end, after piling the last chair on its assigned table. That night felt different, perhaps due to the barely concealed look of worry on Shaw’s face.

“What’s up?” I asked, nodding my head towards him.

He looked at me as if I had caught him by surprise, like a deer in headlights. A thin, lanky deer with patches of ginger fur coating its head and cheeks. A lifetime of hard work had taken its toll on him, but I never saw him relent.

“Nothing, lass, nothing. Am just tired is all.” His reply came quick, in his signature gravelly voice induced by years of heavy smoking. 

I was just about to try and dig deeper before I caught myself. There was no point in trying to pry information out of that man, so I simply nodded as I let out a soft sigh.

 

An unforeseen stroke of luck allowed me to catch an early bus, and I arrived home shortly thereafter.

Brianna laid on the couch, face buried in her phone. She gave me a high pitched groan, which I interpreted as some sort of primitive form of greeting, to which I replied with a much more phonetically advanced “Nice to see you too Bree.”

“How was work?” She lazily asked, slurring her words as if she had just woken from a deep slumber.

I shook my head and plopped down on the couch next to her. “Ghost town. What else is new?” 

Brianna’s gaze shifted on me, and the concerned expression on my face probably gave away the fact that I was rapidly losing hope. Times had been hard for Shaw’s coffee shop, we kept  hemorrhaging patrons and nothing seemed to work.

My dear housemate sat up, making the kind of noises one would expect from someone thrice as old as her. “Gonna jump ship?” 

Good question. I couldn’t deny having thought about it, but at the same time I knew myself better than to be a quitter. That ship was definitely sinking, and I had a sneaking suspicion the situation was far worse than I originally thought. Shaw wouldn’t let any information transpire, naturally, but I secretly hoped he’d have some sort of ace up his sleeve to save the shop. 

I knew better than that, however. Even without looking at the actual numbers, Shaw’s presented all the telltale signs of a failing business. I still needed to dig myself out of that hole though, one way or another.

I sighed and threw my head back, resting it against the soft headboard of the couch we sat on. Our apartment — well, Brianna’s, technically — desperately needed to be cleaned.

A thin layer of dust coated our furniture, most of which we found there when we first moved in. Cheap stuff that looked decent enough and made the apartment look genuinely homely, at least as far as I was concerned. 

The couch stood in front of a black television stand that also acted as a makeshift media center. Our stereo sat in an alcove that seemed to have been made exactly for it, and the rest of the space was taken up by a weird mixture of books and old DVDs I couldn’t remember ever watching.

Our living room was small, as was the rest of the apartment. A tiny excuse of a kitchen, two bedrooms — mine being the only one that didn’t look like a war zone — and a bathroom that by the grace of God had a bathtub. I loved taking long baths at the end of a particularly tedious day, but lately even those didn’t succeed in calming me down.

My father was supposed to come visit in a couple days, and the last thing I wanted to hear was his never ending list of complaints. I knew he meant well, but his methods were definitely lackluster.

I jumped up and headed towards the small supply closet.  Swinging the door open I stared down the not so vast selection of cleaning products we had, arms resting on my hips as I pondered what to start with.

“Whatcha doin’?” Brianna asked, unknowingly earning herself a nomination for an Oscar in the “Most Useless Questions” category.

“Cleaning, duh. And give me a hand while you’re at it, come on.” I know I sounded mildly annoyed, but that day hadn’t been all too pleasurable.

“Lucille Gertrude Reynolds,” She began, waving a finger up in the air. “Do you not know of a thing called relax? Looks like you need some of that.”

“That’s not my name, dummy,” I laughed, rolling my ayes at her stupid yet strangely successful attempt  at making me feel slightly better. “My dad’s coming over in two days, remember? I want this place to be spotless!”

“Alright, alright. Do you really need a hand though?” Brianna gave up quickly enough, realizing I just needed to concentrate on something that didn’t make me worry about my future.

“I got it, don’t worry,” I replied, groaning as I dislodged a broom from the intricate mess that was our supply closet.   

I found cleaning to be therapeutic, possibly due to the fact that it required me to focus on it and leave out all the thoughts that were causing my stress levels to skyrocket.

It took me around three hours, after which I was totally and utterly devoid of energy. The peace of mind that came with it was worth it, and besides, the apartment had to be cleaned.

Far be it from me to try and leave such a succulent argument bait for my father to take, no sir. I knew his shtick through and through, or at least I thought I did. There always seemed to be something new he’d use to try and convince me to come work for him, even after being repeatedly told it just wouldn’t happen.

I had nothing against my family or the company itself, obviously. I just wanted to leave my own mark rather than take a chisel to a finished statue.

Being stubborn runs in the family, I guess.