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“Enthusiastically roasted.”
“What about the tea?”
“It’s actually pretty good, but it’s in bags so you have to brew it yourself. We don’t brew tea here. You can see the kinds there in the rack.”
“Then I’ll have a tea.”
While I filled a cup with hot water, he leaned against the counter and said, “I thought books and tea went together, and you know, I can’t think of a bookstore that sells real tea in their café. It’s just tea bags.”
I handed him the cup and he selected a tea bag while I rang him up. “If we upgraded the tea, we’d have to upgrade the scones, and where would that leave us?” I quipped, then realized a second later that I was probably speaking out of turn. I shouldn’t be criticizing the merchandise I was selling.
“The scones aren’t good?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s not that they’re bad. They’re just, well, probably better for keeping the tables level than for eating. I suspect the bakery sends us their day-old stuff and figures we won’t notice.”
“Then I think I’ll skip the scone today,” he said as he paid for his tea. He nodded toward my newspaper, with several jobs circled in red. “Are you trying to flee the bad coffee and scones?”
“It’s not that. It’s just that this was supposed to be a temporary job while I looked for a real job in my field. That’s taken a bit longer than I planned.” I squinted at the newspaper as I had the sudden feeling that there was something odd there. Was the newspaper classified section really the best way to find a professional job?
“How much longer?”
I snapped back to the present, blinking. “Nearly a year. I gave myself a year, and I have three weeks left.”
“Then what happens?”
“I guess I give up and leave the city. Or I suppose I could get married and become a housewife.”
He dunked his tea bag into his cup and swirled it around. “I would think that finding a husband would be just as challenging as finding a job,” he said, watching his tea rather than looking at me.
“Oh, I’ve already got that covered. I think. It wasn’t exactly a formal proposal, but my boyfriend and I have been talking about marriage.”
He gave the newspaper another look. “Your field is advertising?”
“Yeah. More on the strategy side than the creative—deciding what approach to take and how to target it rather than actually dreaming up the ads.”
“Well, good luck with that,” he said with a smile as he walked away, pausing to drop his tea bag in a trash bin.
“He was cute,” Florence remarked as she returned from her break and tied her apron back on.
“Yeah, I guess he was. Nice, too.”
“And he seemed interested.” She raised an eyebrow and smirked.
“I have a boyfriend. Which I mentioned to him, so it’s not even like I was flirt-cheating. He was just making conversation. He got tea, and he had to wait for it to steep, so I’m sure he was just killing time.” So why were my cheeks burning up?
“Uh huh,” she said, then she switched gears. “Did you hear about the mandatory employee meeting tomorrow morning?”
“How early?”
“Eight sharp, before we open.”
“Ugh.”
“Brace yourself. They’re having it here, and they’re serving coffee to the crew, so we get to be here at seven thirty to get ready.”
“We’d better get to clock in for that.”
“That’s probably the least of our concerns. The new owner is going to address us, and you know what that probably means.”
