Page 9 of The Hampton Beach Café
They pottered around the setup for several more minutes, Vincent taking notes and bringing out even more expensive equipment that he didn’t know how to use and so had just ignored.
In fact, there were several total luxuries that she would have considered too much work to have used at home, let alone in a professional café situation. The next hour went remarkably smoothly, with Vincent pulling several espresso shots that were far better than the one he had given to Frances.
They were focused on perfecting the latte swirl when a nasal voice interrupted them.
“I believe your insurance doesn’t cover random members of the public making food products for customers?”
Vincent turned to face the woman as fast as he could, but Frances caught the gray look of dread and annoyance morph into a mask of politeness.
“She’s not making anything for sale, and she’s not a random member of the public. She’s a friend showing me how to do the wiggly line you all like so much on top of your lattes.”
Despite only knowing Vincent an hour or so, Frances felt an odd swelling of pride at hearing him refer to her as a friend––though she was aware that he was probably just covering himself against a litigious local.
She turned as well, feeling that it wouldn’t be right to let Vincent take the brunt of whatever this woman was going to throw at him.
“Absolutely, don’t worry about me. I haven’t actually made anything. Just shown Vince the wrist tricks my old barista showed me once,” she said brightly.
The woman looking back at her couldn’t have been much older than her, but the energy she was giving out added a decade. Though she hadn’t always been so aware of herself, Frances always tried not to be judgmental, especially when it came to other women, but she had never seen someone with such a strong––and unnecessary––resemblance to a bulldog. The woman’s mouth was drawn down into such a strong frown that it formed a genuinely unhappy arch, pushing her cheeks out to frame and enhance the likeness. It seemed to be unnecessary as Frances was sure that the woman would look perfectly fine without the expression. The sheer dislike and barely concealed rage in her eyes solidified the negativity of the expression.
“I will worry about whatever I please. Do not presume to tell me what to do.”
Resisting the urge to apologize, something twenty years in business had taught her never to do without considering all your options first, Frances smiled her friendliest smile and held up her hands in mock surrender.
“I wouldn’t presume to do so. I was only trying to reassure you that there has been no infringement of guidelines here. I’ll leave you to order.”
With that said and no reply save a narrowing of the eyes from the angry woman, Frances moved away to look at one of the paintings on the far wall.
She knew that she couldn’t really afford to buy any artwork, nor did she have the encase fry house to hang it in, but Vincent’s work was lovely. It ranged from the quite abstract candle tree in the window to gentle landscapes that made Frances want to breathe deeply and contemplate something.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of color.
“Listen, I do––” a loud voice almost barked at her, startling out of her reverie…
Frances jumped in surprise, turning to face the new color and sounds––her shoulder connected hard with the hand of the angry woman from the counter.
The hand holding a takeaway coffee cup.
They both exclaimed loudly as they reached to try and catch the falling beverage simultaneously. Despite their valiant attempts, Frances watched haplessly as the cup hit the floor, split open, and spilled a dark black liquid across the blue-gray tiled floor.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?” Frances replied, shocked.
“Were you actually born just to ruin my day? Or was it a calling you found later in life?”
Every snappy, confident, and even cutting remark that Frances wanted to throw back at this caricature of a woman dried up and turned to dust in her throat. Instead of saying, 'what makes you think you can talk to people like that’ or ‘imagine thinking you’re important enough to have a predestined day-ruined?’ She choked. Literally choked on the words and began to cough.
“I’m sorry,” she said instinctively, covering her mouth. “Let me buy you another one.”
Vincent had already made a move to approach the scene but spun on his heel to get busy making the fastest double-shot latte of his life.
“You think you can just buy your way through life? You people with your money. Don’t act like you’re better than everyone else just because you ran away to some fancy Ivy League and paid a hundred thousand dollars for some stuffy old guy to teach you about history you could find on any search result page on the Internet.”
The rage-filled monologue got louder with every poorly stifled cough from Frances. Doubly shocked by the woman’s twin outbursts, she no longer even wanted to say anything witty or cutting. She just wanted to understand what in the world was going on. She stared in silent amazement. The rant was still going on when Vincent arrived with a fresh cup of coffee.
“Here you go, Kennedy,” he said. “Fresh, three sweeteners, oat milk.”
