I suppressed a snort, but the customer at the counter must have overheard, given that he paid in cash and left a generous tip, those soulful eyes lingering on Malin’s breasts for a beat too long as he exited the shop.
“Better watch out,” I said. “He knows you have the inside scoop.”
“Oh, I’ll give him the inside scoop, all right,” Malin gloated with a bold little twist of her hips.
The shadows outside grew longer. The rimey haze shifted from blue to pink to lavender, punctuated by gusts of cold air, rosy cheeks, the hiss of espresso, and bells announcing customer after customer. Malin and I swapped stories with the usual cast: the wired would-be screenwriter reimagining another fairy tale as a post-apocalyptic film noir. The befuddled tourist demanding directions to Fenway Park in broken English. And, inevitably, the green-haired young slave, as much punk rock as servile, balancing a teetering tray for the office workers he toiled for. A future Milagros, maybe, dreaming of the stars.
Meanwhile, I kept juggling orders, chasing that equilibrium, squinting at my biochem notes splayed on the counter, snatching glances at the complex pathways of glycolysis and Krebs cycles between tamping grounds and steaming milk.
An hour later, despite the growing queue of orders on the screen, Malin sidled up beside me. I knew that look.
“Undercover royalty alert.”
“Oh yeah?” I quirked an eyebrow, never breaking my rhythm. “I’m sure this one is absolutely,one hundred percenton a top-secret mission to marry a good-hearted commoner who loves him for who he really is.” I managed to shift my attention once more back to my notes, blinking hard, trying to refocus and become the marvel of multitasking I knew I could be.
Just then, however, my phone vibrated from the pocket of my apron. Tempted to ignore it, I fished it out anyway, curiosity nagging at the back of my brain.
Daddy
Loulou, call me when you get off work. Everything’s fine. Love you.
It was rare to get a message like this from him. Our regular Sunday calls were chatty but not particularly enlightening: the weather, his golf game, the dismal state of the real estate market, and whatever business tome or espionage thriller he’d just read. I still wasn’t great at feigning interest in any of it, but still, I treasured these calls, having never expected to be in a good enough place with my father to even have them. He knew and approved of my job at Café Jennet and had only commented, when I’d confessed to volunteering at the slave clinic, that it would be “tremendously valuable career experience.”
Idly, I wondered whether the message meant the house had finally sold, sending a little jolt of anxiety through me. I felt unmoored already at the thought of losing my home of ten years. Then again, I’d recently reevaluated my concept of “home” quite a bit.
If it weren’t so busy right now, I might have just called. But a familiar grumbling emanated from the customers bunched near the pickup counter, so I just tapped out a quick reply?—
K love you
—and dropped the phone back in my apron pocket. Turning to the next order, I grabbed a cup.Focus.Only three hours to go. Then:
“His Highness happens to be a total thirst trap, in case you’re curious.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are we seriouslystilltalking about this dude?”
“Tall, expensive clothes, regal presence, looks like he’s packing some serious heat.”
“What, a gun?”
“Yeah, maybe that, too.” Malin poked her tongue out lasciviously.
“Look, Malin, I’m so happy for you that you’re finally experiencing life with its rich tapestry of dicks, but I have to actually finish making this drink, pass this class, and avoid being shipped back home in disgrace. Wherever home may be by then,” I added warily, sliding the drink I had been working on across the counter.
Instead of grabbing it, Malin leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Wait. I haven’t told you about his accent yet.”
I cocked my head. “What kind of accent?”
Malin tapped a finger against her chin. “Imagine if a Frenchman and a German woman moved to California and had a baby. And that baby swallowed a frog.”
I laughed. “All right. So maybe this guy is a wandering princeling.” I snapped the portafilter into place carefully. “Or maybe—hear me out—he’s just some Eurotrash nepo baby who thinks he’s saving humanity by paying an extra dollar for a latte that wasn’t made by a slave.” But for some reason—even as I spoke—I risked another peek around the side of the machine. And, once again, saw nothing unusual, just some wannabe radical with a lip piercing tapping on a ridiculously expensive phone and a business-suited woman as thin as her penciled-in eyebrows, who eyed the slaves in front of her resentfully, apparently not keen that here, everyone was entitled to use the same line.
I shook my head, scolding myself. What, precisely, was I expecting to see? This was just another one of Malin’s sex-crazed delusions. Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders as I glanced at the next order, reaching for an oversized handmade cappuccino cup from the shelf.
“And then of course there’s his name.”
For the third time, her voice cut through my concentration.Ignore it.
“It’s awfully unusual. Exotic, even.”
