If You Don't Know Me By Now. A. Michael L.

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      Imogen frowned. ‘You do realise that’s, like, eighty percent of our customers?’

      ‘Skinny hot chocolate extra cream.’

      Imogen’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh, that bitch!’

      ‘Haha!’ he pointed at her. ‘See, fun! And I can tell you from experience, it’s better than being that guy who stands with the cardboard signs pointing towards places. It’s better than being a roofer when you’re afraid of heights. It’s better than trying to sell PPI schemes and the only people you get answering the phone are little old ladies and you don’t want to screw them over. Plus, free coffee.’

      Imogen shrugged, wiping down the tabletop, checking around for any customers. ‘Yeah, I guess. But it’s not what I came here to do. I came to write.’

      ‘So write,’ Declan shrugged. ‘Seems pretty simple.’

      ‘Yeah, it does until you have to do it. Until you’re exhausted and angry and stressed all the time, and you’ve got no time to be creative because you’re so emotionally spent.’ She shook herself in frustration. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

      Declan raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. ‘Oh really, Salinger? Why not?’

      He wasn’t as pretty when he was looking at her like she’d managed to disappoint him. She winced. ‘I’m sorry, that was a really shitty thing to say. Precious writer girl bullshit. I just meant it’s easy to tell someone to create, but it’s difficult to actually do it.’

      ‘True enough,’ he shrugged, walking off, and Imogen felt a rustle of irritation at herself. She’d offended him, obviously, and things had been going so well … not that she wanted anything … but it was nice to have a friend …

      Declan reappeared, clutching a small black notebook. He slid it across the counter to her. ‘You’ve heard of the saying “write what you know”?’

      She opened the moleskine notebook, and saw not words, but sketches, cartoons and caricatures. The more pages she flipped through, the more people she recognised. There was the little old priest holding his bottles, but instead of joking, the words above his head said ‘Someday they’ll want me. I’ll be important.’ There was the mocha bitch who’d screamed at Imogen only three days before. Her eyes were bulging out of her head as the speech bubble yelled ‘Don’t touch my whipped cream!’ And there was Emanuel, with Cupid’s arrow stuck in his back, gazing lovingly at a coffee cup wearing a knitted hat and with ‘chai’ written across the bottom.

      ‘Dec, these are fantastic.’ She didn’t look up from the book, flipping through more. ‘Are you doing anything with them?’

      When she looked up she saw he’d gone from rugged and confident to unsure, his shoulders curved in on himself. ‘They’re not exactly gallery material. They’re therapy, mainly. I do a couple of those, and then I’m ready to work on a bigger piece, or take some photos, or do something else.’

      Imogen blinked slowly. ‘I don’t know, I just didn’t expect this from you.’

      He chuckled. ‘Cheers, what did you expect? Football games and pints of lager and action movies?’

      ‘No …’ She considered, not exactly sure what she’d been expecting. ‘Kind of thought you’d be a drummer in a band, or you’d be into UFC fighting. Something … dominant.’

      His face brightened at that, blue eyes cheerful. ‘Nice! And I’m the bassist, thank you. Still very important. Less … dominant.’ His voice dipped in a way that made her stomach throb pleasingly.

      ‘You just seem really cool with who you are. Few people are so easy in their own skin.’ She tried to shrug it off, like she hadn’t been watching. Like she hadn’t been a little jealous of one more person who seemed to know how to be happy, how to fit in and be okay without wanting something more.

      ‘Oh, love. That’s an act, all an act. We’re all fucked up in one way or another. The only important thing is to know how, so we can fight against it tooth and nail.’

      Imogen took a deep breath and looked around for customers. How had they even managed to have a conversation this long? It was unheard of.

      ‘That’s pretty true,’ she nodded, thinking it was truer than she’d like to admit.

      ‘But that’s a lesson for another day,’ he said softly, leaning into her space. ‘The question is, Imogen Cypriani, are you going to write something real today?’

       Chapter Five

       Cafe Disaster

       What the people who make your coffee really think about you.

       Welcome to the first instalment of the Twisted Barista Tales. I’ll be your coffee monkey for the evening. Join us on a mystical journey, from macchiatos to hot chocolate, from frapshakes to insanity. I’ll be identifying every fucking ridiculous thing you awful people do, so if you recognise yourself in these stories, it’s my obligation to let you know … you’re a dick.

       Let’s begin.

       There are many things that, as a barista, I am responsible for: your drink, my attitude, your experience, the constant sense of pointlessness. But things I am not responsible for include your bladder (it’s not my fault there’s someone in the bathroom), the weather (it’s not my fault you wanted a frapshake and now it’s raining outside) and our opening times.

       I have had multiple responses when I say we’re closing. They’re usually indignant, sometimes they’re incredulous. Mostly, they can’t seem to fathom that I and my fellow baristas are, in fact, human beings with lives. It’s a bit like when you’re a kid, and it’s easier to believe that teachers go into a storage cupboard and plug in for the night, rather than accept that they have families and aspirations and sex lives. We only exist when they see us there. We only exist when we’re serving coffee. We don’t have homes to go to, or lives outside the coffee shop.

       Example:

       Customer: What time do you close?

       Me: Six-thirty.

       Customer: But that’s in five minutes!

       Me: Yes, that’s why we told you we’re only doing takeaway cups.

       Customer: That’s outrageous, I want to speak to the manager!

       Me: Why?

       Customer: Because you shouldn’t close at six-thirty, I have nowhere else to go now!

       Firstly, your lack of a life is another one of those things that is not my problem. Secondly, the reason you have nowhere else to go is because every other coffee shop closes at the same time. So go bug them about it.

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