‘You should ask him out.’
‘Have you asked him out, yet?’
‘He’s cute — I bet he’d go out with you.’
The other associates in my firm knew about my crush. I guess they’d seen the way I looked at him, or the way that I’d “do a run down to the corner” several times a day when he was working.
The last time I was in he looked at me and said, ‘Soy vanilla latte, right?’ and smiled. I thought he might wink, but he didn’t. ‘And for you, madam?’ This to my coworker who was struggling to simultaneously place her order, elbow me in the ribs, and stuff bills in his tip jar.
I explained to them all that It — STOP PRESS YUPPIE HAS CRUSH ON BARISTA — is such a cliché, one based entirely on power differentials: he is someone who tries to please one on a daily basis precisely because he’s young and poor and desperate for tips, and one is someone with more money than social life. Their jaws drop when I tell them I make a point of never tipping him.
But, then, they’d be just as shocked if they saw how he behaves when I come into the shop alone. His eyes flick up, register that it’s me, and then flick back down to the work at hand. He makes me what he wants to make. He tries out new blends on me. Usually it’s just espresso or else a macchiato, but it’s never something I would order. I lose myself in his focus, in his concentration. I ache with awe at his art. He hands over the cup without looking at me. I put money on the counter. He makes change. And then, one last time, he looks at me. I gasp for breath as he smiles at the next customer and says, ‘Decaf cappucino, right?’
I endure the ribbing, the suggestions, the patronizing remarks. Because when I’m alone in my office, drinking what he has given me, I come for him.
One of my customers is a basket case. He works for some big company around here, one with dress codes involving button-up shirts and special badges to use the elevators. Advertising maybe? Marketing? At the same time every day, he walks into our store like a fleeing criminal trying to blend into a public a place to avoid the cops. Once the fuzz is gone, he then slightly offended he has to be here with the male barista he finds attractive. How dare I. He always looks like he wants to say something personal to me, especially when his co-workers are hissing in his ear; instead his cheeks flush and his eyes dart for the exit. I often feel if he did, the coward would just demand I apologize for my existence.
His denial over his crush on me must be exhausting for him. He won’t allow himself to say ‘hello’, or ‘thank you’, or even discuss the weather. He comes in here at least once – sometimes up to three times a day – and stares down the menu he long ago memorized, standing there with hands jammed in his pockets with a vacant, pithed expression on his face. He orders those obnoxious soy vanilla lattes, nearly has an orgasm when he drinks it, but never tips. No, can’t tip, the world will end if he’s considerate.
When I memorized his drink, he stopped ordering at the counter and just wait for me to make it, languishing behind the mugs like a zebra hiding in the reeds. He’ll emerge only to pay for it, acting in the fashion of an irritated child surrendering Boardwalk in Monopoly. To fuck with him, I began to make incorrect drinks on purpose and the idiot still paid for and drank them without a complaint. I think it arouses him to deny himself his love for me. It’s becoming a game, to see how much I can push him. I’ll flirt a little, touch his hand during the transactions and smile nice n wide. Second a new customer comes in, I’ll dismiss him like yesterday’s newspaper. Psychonalayze that, yuppie pawn.
Even more annoying is that he’s actually quite handsome. Dashing, even. Well dressed, great posture. Manicured nails. His father’s wristwatch. There is a personality in there somewhere. I’ve been waiting a long time for him to ask me out, but he seems to mistakenly our time here is as a continuum, one he can step in and out at will.
In four more weeks, I’m transferring to another store on the other side of the city when I start university in the fall. Good-bye community college. He has no idea. One day he’ll come here, and I’ll be gone. The shock will ruin his day. I could warn him; I could mention it casually in conversation, but no. He did this to himself and its his blame to bear. Let him daydream about our unrealized dates and fictional mindblowing sex for the rest of his life.
I gaze through the store-front glass at the sidewalk full of bustling pedestrians. Too early. He’ll be in after an hour, for sure. My co-worker Margaret is cleaning the steaming wand and glances up at me, “You think today’s the day he’ll ask you out?”
“Nah. Tomorrow maybe, after he has a near death experience..” She just shakes her head, chuckling at my response as she wipes speckles off the machine’s plated face. She inquires about this every day and I keep inventing new answers. “What a basket case,” she notes. I nod, then check to make sure we have an open soy milk ready for his latte.
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Hope you don’t mind I wrote the other perspective, bzork, your writing was too tempting!