MAYBE TOMORROW ... gilmore girls

chapter four

September 2000

Deja Brew

16:35

THE DOOR above the bell tinkles. It's dull, having been used far too often and nobody cares to clean the rust off. I take a quick glance around, but nobody I know comes here. They go to coffee shops with sterile white walls, abstract paintings they don't understand but refuse to ask anybody about, coffee made from expensive coffee beans that don't taste any better. This is the kind of coffee shop with burnt wood counters, with cinnamon clinging to the air, with early 90s indie music playing over the crackling speakers. I've been coming here for years and nothing has changed, not even the baristas behind the counter who get older and older but refuse to leave this place behind.

It's the sort of place my mother would hate.

I order a cinnamon latte. The barista smiles knowingly and adds a cookie to my order, winking when I realise she hasn't charged me for it. Does my face really say it all? I wait at the end of the burnt-oak counter, where all the coffee machines whir and spit out caffeine, my little cookie on my little plate held tightly between my fingers. It's busy in here. Students from the local community college. Readers curled up on the armchairs by the fireplace. Moms rocking their babies in their strollers to sleep. This place is always busy, and I think that's why I like it. Nobody really looks at me. I'm just another teacher sitting here for hours, and hours, and hours, until I run out of coursework to prepare for and homework to mark. It's easier to sit here, to drink cup after cup of cinnamon coffee, to listen to music I've never liked, than it is to go home. To sit there with one light on and pretend I'm not lonely.

I really need to see about getting that cat.

"A cinnamon latte and a peppermint tea!"

Our hands reach for the same cup. The back of his hand is dusted in scattered dark hair and our fingers graze against the takeaway cup. He's wearing a silver watch. My head snaps towards him, eyes narrowing at the silver-rimmed glasses perched on the ridge of his nose. There's only one cup on the counter. But whose is it? Who gets the crowning glory?

Who gets the joy?

"Oh, sorry," interrupts the barista, before they push forward another white takeaway cup. "This is the peppermint tea. That's the cinnamon latte."

Jethro smiles without embarrassment as he steps out of my way. He makes a joke about getting too ahead of himself and takes the second cup from the barista, awarding her with his too-bright smile. How can he still be this happy after almost ten hours of being at work? My mood has considerably worsened throughout the day. It's a good thing I got that cookie.

I take my coffee with a mumbled thank you and head over to one of the comfy armchairs by the long row of windows at the front of the shop. It's where I always sit. It's almost like home by now.

When did a random coffee shop in the middle of Hartford feel more like home than my own house?

I take a sip. It's too hot and it burns my tongue. Harrison would have made me wait until it had cooled, but now he's no longer here to keep me in check and keep my tongue from being numbed, so I sit by the window and let the hot liquid tingle my tastebuds. Outside, the rain drizzles gently against the glass, just soft spatterings to break through the humidity of early Autumn when the summer has yet to disappear fully. We're nearing the best time of the year, every week getting closer and closer to bundling up under scarves and hats and thick wool coats that block out the snow. The time of swinging fairy lights and nostalgic music and a faux tree that I always made sure to look perfect because that's how my mother liked it. The red baubles, then the green, then the white, then the gold. No two baubles of the same colour beside each other. No tinsel because it's tacky. No lights because they take away from the baubles.