How to Make an Americano

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You walk into a coffee shop. It’s a new coffee shop, but you’ve been here before. It’s a new favourite. 

You ask where the usual barista is. You know she works here six days a week, you asked last time. Her coworker recognises you, and gestures to the table you sat at last time. He’s kind, and his eyes disappear when he smiles. He doesn’t look like he smiles often, yet he still offers one to you. 

It’s eleven in the morning. You thank him, sitting down and pulling out your notebook. You sit in the coffee shop. A window seat with striped pillows. The windows are floor to ceiling, panes framed with the deep green of nostalgia. 

It’s eleven in the morning. There are men with briefcases and collars which look as if they cannot be comfortable. There are women in heels and midi skirts. Some of them pass by with cups of coffee, some of them enter looking for a cup of coffee. 

It’s eleven in the morning. The morning rush is long over, but your barista friend is back and whirrs the coffee grinder to the whims of the last stragglers. A loud sound, grating yet comforting. 

The store empties. 

You step up to the counter. 

“I’d like an Iced Americano again.”

She taps on the screen.

“Come over.”

On her invite, you step behind the counter. You’ve crossed an invisible barrier, thrust in limbo, no longer just a customer yet certainly not an employee.

The coffee grinder whirrs to your whim. 

You don’t quite remember the steps, but she guides you through. 

A tap, a click, a brush. 

Attach it to the coffee machine. Start. You’ve pulled a shot of coffee. 

A plastic cup, a scoop of ice, an arbitrary measurement of still water. 

Pour the coffee over. 

This store uses arabica beans, sourced from Jamaica. Its fragrance lingers on your fingertips. 

You thank her. You return to your seat, gazing through the windows once more. 

You were once part of them. An office worker, busy with a lot of nothing. Too busy for a proper cup of coffee. But not busy enough to stop wondering how it might feel, to sit at a coffee shop and watch the passers-by. 

And for a long, long time, that might have been all you wanted. It might have been, if you ever gave yourself the time to think of what you wanted. 

But you never really did. It was all just deadlines you needed to make, meetings you needed to attend, hands you needed to shake, smiles you needed to force, emails you needed to answer, emails, always emails, so many emails.

You think of the time you were hospitalised for shingles and away from work for a week. The doctors said it was caused by stress. But they said that for the rashes, for the stomach ulcers, for the hair loss. And even through the oxycodone, all you thought about was the horror of an inbox you would be met with once you returned. And how your colleagues were waiting for you because the project due date was coming up. 

But you sorted it out. The company survived for a week without you. And it still stands, permanently without you. There’s always someone to take your place, after all. Always someone to do the next presentation, to proofread the next contract, to answer the emails. 

So now you sit at a coffee shop. And you realise, those sitting at a coffee shop in the morning and those hurrying to clock into work perhaps are all the same, all thinking about each other. All a little envious, all longing for something they can’t quite admit.

Your friend comes and sits across from you. She wears glasses with thick black frames, and her hair curls to softly, gently frame her face. She asks how the coffee is. The second coffee you’ve ever made in a coffee shop. The achievement of a dream you forgot to have. 

She asks how you’ve been, since the first time you met.

You ask how she’s been, since the first time you met. 

You wish to express your gratitude. For the coffee. For the conversation. For the company. 

But the words don’t come, and they likely never will. 

Yet they do, as you ask her about the store’s seasonal drinks. They do, as she recommends you your next hike. They do, as the conversation steeps warmth into you.

She asks if you remembered to bring anything for the café. The walls are filled with a mishmash of posters, stickers. Information blasting from each angle. Souvenirs, collected from strangers.

You’ve brought a postcard to tack onto the corkboard. The pins have plastic coffee beans glued onto the ends. You slip it in, amongst the existing collage. And in the space where nothing quite fits, it fits perfectly. 

And you think:

Perhaps this was all you needed. An Iced Americano at eleven in the morning.