“Hey,” I said. “I didn’t know you work here.”
“Just started.” He moved in front of me.
“Oh.”
“Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah, ditto. What happened to digital media?”
He shrugged. “I dropped it.”
“That’s kind of late in the semester for that,” I said.
He shrugged again. “What can I get you?”
“Um.” I squinted at the menu on the wall behind his head, wishing they’d made the font larger. “I’ll have a black coffee.”
“What size?”
“Um . . . medium, I guess.”
“Okay.” He tapped the buttons on the cash register. “Anything else?”
I squinted at the menu again, unsure of what to get Jonah. “What’s good here?”
“Everything.”
“Seriously.”
“I am serious.”
“Be more serious.”
“Well, my personal favorite is the vanilla latte.”
“I guess I’ll take that, then.”
“Medium?”
“Sure.”
He tapped some more. “Seven even.”
I sighed as I dug in my jeans’ pocket for money. I knew I had some leftover from yesterday, but I couldn’t remember if it was a five or a ten.
It was a ten. And then I found three pennies, along with a safety pin and some lint. I dropped the pennies in the tip jar and handed Marcus the ten.
“Wow, thanks,” he said sarcastically.
“No problem.”
“Now I can finally pay off my student loans.”
I laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can get a whole three-four hundredths of a coffee.”
Marcus laughed, handed me my change, and set to work on the drinks. I watched him as he worked.
“Are you tan?” I said. Marcus is half-Colombian, so he’s kind of tan already, but he looked even darker than usual.
He grinned at me over his shoulder, his teeth startlingly white. “Yeah,” he said.
“That’s fake, right? It’s, like, ten degrees outside.”
“It’s the real thing. I went to Colombia over winter break.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Not even a little bit.” He came over and handed me a coffee in a recycled paper cup. I sniffed at it. It was black, so I sipped it.
“I hate you,” I said.
He chuckled. “Seriously.”
I sipped my coffee while he finished Jonah’s. “How was it?”
“What?”
“Colombia.”
“It was nice. I got to see my cousins.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.” He came over to give me Jonah’s coffee. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
I picked out a table against the wall, underneath a large watercolor of a woman holding a flower bouquet. I put the coffees down and went back to the bar for some napkins.
“Hey,” I said to Marcus. “You changed your major again, didn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged.”
I shook my head and went back to my table. Marcus winked at me and went into the back kitchen.
Labels: january brings few faces
