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Frank’s eyes widened. “Um, just a coffee will be fine. With a little milk.”
Not wanting to push it, Ally nodded and called over to the barista. “One medium Americano with room and hot milk please. In the name of Frank.”
Frank looked at her expectantly, not moving. Ally smiled at him. “If you head over to the collection area at the end of the counter, Brad will make your coffee right up.”
He frowned. “You’re not going to make it for me?” he asked her. “You always make it the way I like it. Just a little milk, and then you sneak the sugar in while Mrs. Megassey isn’t looking.”
The line of people behind him was getting bigger. And they were getting restless. “No, Frank,” she said, trying not to smile too much. “It’s like when somebody orders something big from your store. They pay at the register and you pick it up from around the back.”
“Is everything okay?” Nate asked, walking up beside Frank.
“Ally just said I have to pick my coffee up at the back,” Frank told him. “Isn’t that a strange way of doing things?”
Nate caught her eye, his brow rising up. She bit her lip because the urge to laugh was growing. “I was explaining to Frank that you pay here and go down the counter to pick up your drink,” she told him. “A bit like at the hardware store.”
“Come with me,” Nate said, inclining his head. “I’ll show you where to pick it up.”
“And he’ll show you where we keep our stash of sugar, too,” Ally said, leaning forward to whisper. “Nobody will see, I promise.”
The morning flew past. Even after they’d served the two hundred free drinks, customers kept spilling in. All of them had managed to mess a few orders up, but everybody was in such good spirits it really didn’t seem to matter. Ally couldn’t remember the last time the place had been so full of loud chatter and deep laughter. And she was pleased, she really was, but there was a little bit of her deep inside that felt some sadness, too. No matter how hard she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to keep the café going the way it always had.
And that failure hurt.
We
ll, suck it up, buttercup. Because this was how it was going to be. There was no going back to the old days. And why would she want to? The truth was she was going to be better off all round working as an employee of Déjà Brew than spending all her savings – and all the hours God gave her – trying to keep a failing café afloat.
“Has everybody had their break?” Nate asked her, as the afternoon stretched on. The traffic was still steady, but they were finally able to take a breath between orders.
“Yep. Alex and Brad finish in an hour, so I’ve arranged for Christie to cover us until close.”
“How about you?” Nate asked her. “Have you had your break?”
“Have you had yours?” she countered, grinning. “Anyway, what would I do if I took a break? Sit and read a book?” She widened her eyes to show him just how crazy that thought was. “I’m better off keeping busy in here.”
The door flew open and Riley walked in, stopping dead in the middle of the floor as she looked around. She caught Nate’s eye and pointed to herself. “I’m here as commanded, sir.” Then she took a bow – a real-life, deep one. Ally had to bite her lip not to laugh as the girl did a little flourish with her hands.
“How was school?” Nate asked, lifting an eyebrow at her antics. Ally watched the two of them with interest. Though she’d met them both, it was the first time she’d seen them together. Had people watched her and her dad in the same way back when she’d spent most of her teenage years here? For a moment she could picture them, Ally’s head down as she squinted at her indecipherable math homework, her dad leaning over the counter trying to help her.
She swallowed hard and pushed those memories out of her head.
“It sucked.” Riley put her bag on an empty table and pulled out her books. “A sucky day and now a sucky afternoon. I’m just loving it here in California. I’m so pleased we came.” Her voice oozed with sarcasm. The cherry on the cake was her pretend valley-girl accent.
Nate opened his mouth to reply, but right then the door opened again and a whole load of high school kids entered the shop. They oohed and aahed at the décor, then squealed as they looked at the cakes and cookies nestling in the glass cases.
“Oh god, this is amazing,” one of them said. “So much better than the café. Remember how embarrassingly bad that was? Thank God somebody put it out of its misery.”
“Yeah. I swear they made their hot chocolates out of the dirty dishwater.”
Ally felt herself flush. She looked down at her hands, not wanting to catch their eyes – or Nate’s. She didn’t want them to see her reaction, or the way her eyes had watered at the criticism. She swallowed hard, and grabbed a cloth. “I’ll just go and clean some tables,” she muttered, leaving the other baristas to serve the teenagers.
There really wasn’t much to clean. Most drinks were served in paper cups that the customers disposed of on their way out. Gone was the need to stack up plates with one hand while wiping with the other. Now she sprayed and polished before moving on to the next table. From the corner of her eye she noticed Riley sit down at a table in the far corner, throwing her bag on a seat while Nate went back behind the counter. She scrubbed at the table top harder, trying to ignore the frown on Nate’s face.
“How’s it going?” she asked Riley when she reached her table. The girl had spread out her work and was leaning over it, her hair flopping over her face. It took a minute for Ally to realize she was wearing earphones that meant she couldn’t hear a thing. Still, she must have sensed something because she looked up with a start, pulling one of the buds out.
“Um, did you say something?” Riley asked.
“I was just asking how it’s going,” Ally said, giving her a smile. Yes, she was bolshie as hell, but Ally couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for her, especially now that she knew her mom had died only a few months before. “Would you like a drink?”
