Coffeehouse Angel (6 page)

When business was conducted at the counter, and book groups and knitting clubs met on set days of the week.

I didn't want to see Anna's close down. That would be like losing my family all over again.

We finished our evening chores. I opened the door that led to our upstairs apartment.

Ratcatcher waddled down the stairs. She wasn't allowed in the coffeehouse during the day. I crouched and scratched her head. She pawed at my jean pocket, the one holding the coffee bean. I had forgotten all about it.

"Grandma, if you could have what you most desired, what would it be?"

"I'm not sure."

"Someone told me that fortune is the most common thing people ask for."

"Well, money sure would help."

"Is that what you most desire?"

She looked at me, the creases in her face relaxing.

"What I most desire is for you to have a long and happy life, sweetheart."

Irmgaard collected her coat and purse.

"Why don't you stay and have dinner with us?" Grandma Anna asked, as she always did. "There's no reason to eat alone." Irmgaard shook her head, as she always did, and left to catch the bus, a Tupperware container of extra soup tucked under her arm.

Our apartment sat above the coffeehouse. It would have been nice to have a yard and a garage. I had both when I was three, the year my parents were killed in a car crash.

But those memories were just vapors--the sound of a lawn mower, a bowl of Cheerios, a woman's scarf, soft and red.

Grandma Anna went to bed earlier than usual, upset by Mr. Darling's visit. I slipped out of my clothes and stood in front of my bedroom mirror. The first thing I always noticed when I looked in the mirror was my height. Five foot eight seemed crazy tall to me. What was good about being so tall? Supermodel tall, maybe. Basketball player tall, totally. God help me, but if I grew another inch I'd become an honorary member of the Masai tribe.

Pajamas on, homework spread across my bed, the phone rang. "Hey, I saw you standing on the sidewalk with that guy. What did he want?" It was Vincent. He was eating something crunchy.

"He just wanted to thank me for giving him some coffee. How was the meet?"

"Okay." Genuine modesty was one of the things I really liked about Vincent.

"How did you do?"

"First in the fifty backstroke."

"How did Heidi do?"

"Heidi?" The crunching stopped. "Why are you asking about Heidi?"

"No reason."

Because I saw you hanging out with her and now I'm thinking the worst. Because at
some point you're going to get a girlfriend, aren't you? Of course you are. You're
amazing. And then I'll have to scoot over so she can sit next to you at the movies. And
what if she wants butter on the popcorn, after you and I agreed that movie theater
butter tastes rancid? That could be a real problem.

"It's just that Heidi's dad was here today and he wants to give us money to vacate so he can expand Java Heaven. He's such a jerk. He was really mean to Grandma. I wish the Darlings would just move away."

"Mr. Darling's a jerk, that's for sure. But Heidi's not so bad. She can't help the way her dad is. You know she does a lot of good stuff for the community. She volunteers at the food bank and I was thinking about helping her a few times. Anyway, don't worry.

Her dad can't force you to leave."

Oh God! How could he say that Heidi wasn't so bad? Why was he defending her?

I lay back against the pillows. "Mr. Darling said that he didn't like being disappointed.

I think that was a threat."

"Just keep boycotting Java Heaven. What more can you do? You know I'll never buy their coffee. Hey, you sure that guy with the skirt wasn't bothering you?"

"He's gone."

"Good. Okay. I'll come by in the morning." I stared at the ceiling for a long time.

What was bugging me more--the idea of Vincent going out with Heidi, or the idea of him going out with anyone? Would I be so worried if he started dating someone else?

I'd be fine with it, wouldn't I?

He can't force you to leave.
I thought about that as I opened my World Mythology textbook. It seemed like Mr. Darling could do whatever he wanted. He had gotten the space next door, even after Grandma had begged the landlord not to rent to him. I wrapped my bathrobe tighter and stuck my feet under the quilt. Our apartment felt colder than usual. The furnace was probably on the fritz again.

The next story in the good deed chapter was "Jack and the Beanstalk." I yawned. Did I even need to read it? Everyone knows that story.

This kid named Jack trades a cow for a bean that grows into a beanstalk. Or maybe it's three beans. His mother gets mad at him. Or maybe it's his father. But I knew that they were poor. Something about a golden harp and a man-eating giant. Okay, so maybe I didn't remember the whole story. I glanced at the bottom of the page and read:
"Take this bean," the strange man said. "It will bring you fortune."

Huh? What a weird coincidence.

The phone rang again. It w7as Elizabeth.

"So, did he wait for you after school?"

"Yeah." I pushed the book aside and told her all about the guy and the bean.

"Did you eat it?"

"No."

"You should eat it."

"What? That's crazy. Why would I eat it?"

"Maybe it's crazy, but you never know. I wish someone would give me a magic bean.

I'd wish for Face to notice me.

Crap, I gotta go. My dad's flippin' out because I dented the car. It's just a little dent but he's going ballistic. See ya tomorrow."

My jeans lay on the floor. I slid out of bed and plucked the bean from the pocket. The chocolate had worn away, staining the pocket's lining. I held the little bean in my fingers. Fortune would solve everything, wouldn't it? We could fix up the shop, buy an espresso machine, and hire more employees.

As if. No way was I eating that thing. Alley Guy was a lunatic.

And yet, I didn't throw it away. Why? For the same reason that I make a wish before I blow out my birthday candles, and look into the sky for the first evening star, and pull extra hard on the wishbone. Because, deep inside, like a Scandinavian craving caffeine, I craved change. I had been living a quiet life in the mundane middle, hidden in my two friends' shadows, but that wouldn't work much longer. When they left Nordby to pursue their dreams, I'd become visible, exposed for w7hat I was--nothing much at all.

I set the little bean on top of my dresser.

T
uesday morning came, but you wouldn't know it without a clock. On days like that, the sun became almost mythic. People would say things like: "Remember when it was warm? When was that exactly?" After I had finished my cereal, a rainstorm descended upon Main Street. I peered out the back window. Fat drops rattled the Dumpster's lid. The alley's yellow lightbulb hummed. No one slept on the wet bricks.

Hopefully he had gone home--back to his family and some
medication.

I made the coffee. Just as I was filling the jam pots, Elizabeth, a breathing kaleidoscope of patterns and colors, blazed through the front door. Her artistic expression was not limited to canvas.

"Thought I'd give you a ride. It's like a typhoon or something." She brushed the rain off her striped raincoat. Then she sat on one of the stools and helped herself to a day-old pastry. Cinnamon icing oozed between her fingers.

Elizabeth had a thing for sweets, and I mean
a thing--
daily doses of white flour and glazed icing to the extent that, if stranded on a desert island, she'd go through withdrawal pains that would put a heroin addict to shame. She kept a platter of cookies near her easel and you could always find a candy bar or package of Ding Dongs in her glove box. Her particular favorite, marzipan, she ate straight out of the tube. Total junkie.

Fortunately, Elizabeth was one of those perfectly proportioned plump people, like an hourglass. "Hourglass figures are classic," she often said.

I'm one of those perfectly proportioned skinny people, like a flagpole. Flagpoles are patriotic. That's about the nicest thing I can say about flagpoles.

"So, did you eat it?"

"No."

"Let me eat it. Maybe it will work for me." She wiggled on the stool. "Why let it go to waste? If it works, I'll share the money with you. Come on." There was no use in arguing with her. She wouldn't give up. That's how she had gotten her father to give her a car--two weeks of nonstop whining. Her dad deserved some credit, having lasted two weeks. I tended to fold quickly.

"Come on. Give me the bean. Please? At least let me see it."

"Fine." I went upstairs and collected the little bean from my dresser. Ratcatcher followed, batting at my ankles along the way. The faucet gurgled in the bathroom as my grandmother got ready for the day, her radio blaring down the hall.

"Yuck," Elizabeth said when I showed her the bean. "You said it was covered in chocolate."

"It melted off."

"But it's plain. I can't eat it plain. It'll taste disgusting."

"I didn't say you could eat it."

"Are you going to eat it?"

"No."

We stared at it, as if we'd never seen a coffee bean. As if something about it would be different. "Hey," she said. "Let's grind it up and drink it."

Okay, so I was curious about the bean. Of course nothing would happen because nothing ever happens after the birthday candles go out or after the wishbone snaps.

But maybe something
would
happen. Though it wouldn't. But what if?

"Come on. Let's do it," Elizabeth begged. "Don't worry about those stupid jam pots.

Irmgaard can fill them."

I poured coffee into a mug. Then I washed the bean with soap and hot water, just in case. I dropped the bean into the electric grinder. A short
whirrr
later, a dusting of grounds appeared in the basin. Elizabeth pressed against my shoulder, watching as I pinched the grounds, then sprinkled them into the mug. They floated, shimmering like golden sequins.

"I've never seen coffee grounds shimmer like that," I said.

Elizabeth leaned closer. "Me neither."

We jumped as the front door slammed. Vincent hurried over to the counter, water dripping from his knit hat. "It's dangerous out there. The wind almost knocked me over, twice."

"Watch out, you're getting water on me," Elizabeth complained as Vincent shook his head. "Jeez, what are you? A dog? Where's a towel?"

"In the back room," I told her. She stomped off.

"Can I get some toast?" Vincent asked.

"Yeah." I dropped some bread into the toaster, then got some butter from the refrigerator. Vincent liked his toast dark, with enough butter to lather a sunbather.

"That coffee tastes bad," Vincent said.

Coffee? I had only turned away for a moment. I pointed to the mug of magic coffee.

"Did you drink that?"

"I just took a sip. It's got a weird aftertaste."

Uh-oh. Does E. coli have a weird aftertaste? What about botulism or cholera? Can you taste those diseases, because I'm fairly certain that those are the kinds of diseases that would be hanging out in a London sewer pipe. Or any sewer pipe. Had I poisoned my best friend?

Elizabeth emerged from the back room just as Vincent poured our magic coffee down the sink. She grabbed the empty mug. "Hey, we were going to drink that."

"He took a sip," I told her.

He rubbed his red nose. "Sorry. I just wanted something hot." Elizabeth and I stood side by side, watching for signs of fortune--diamonds raining from the ceiling, gold coins pouring from Vincent's ears, that sort of thing.

"Why are you staring at me?"

We waited for changes--for his wallet to swell, for gold chains to appear around his neck. Nothing. The toast popped. He buttered it and ate it.

"Oh well," Elizabeth said with a sigh. "Better get to school."

Vincent put his bike in the alley, then we piled into Elizabeth's car. Her window wipers squeaked as the blades fought the downpour. Up the hill we went, past the Nordby Veterinary Clinic and the Chevron station. "Sorry about the bad coffee," I told Vincent. I kept asking him how he felt, worried he might turn green or spotted.

"You're not getting a fever, are you? Do you feel like you're going to puke?" Stuff like that. He told me to "quit it already."

Just as we passed the nail salon, the black car in front of us veered right, left, then right again. "What's he doing?" Elizabeth asked, slowing. The car took a sharp left and crossed the opposite lane, right in front of an oncoming truck. The truck veered into our lane.

"Watch out!" I cried, covering my face. I was going to die in a car crash, just like my parents. We were all going to die! Elizabeth slammed on the brakes as the truck swerved and narrowly missed us.

I dropped my hands, watching in silent shock as the black car drove up on the sidewalk, then crashed into a bus bench. Vincent threw open the door and raced across the street. Other people got out of their cars, but Vincent was the first to reach the crashed car. He opened the driver's door and a man tumbled onto the wet sidewalk.

Traffic came to a standstill. My heart thumped wildly as I got out of the car and ran toward Vincent, who was crouching over the driver. A siren wailed in the distance.

Rain bounced off the bus bench.

"Oh my God," Elizabeth said. "That guy looks dead."

T
urned out the driver wasn't dead. Just almost dead.

Vincent knew CPR because he'd worked as a lifeguard at the Nordby Community Center Pool last summer. Elizabeth and I huddled in the rain as he rhythmically pushed against the man's chest. He searched for a pulse in the man's neck, then pushed his chest some more. When the ambulance arrived, the medics shook Vincent's hand.

Officer Larsen drove Vincent to the police station to answer some questions about the accident. Drenched to the skin, Elizabeth and I got into her car and drove to school.