Every week he asks my name and every week I say it, spell it out for him, the letters strange and rounded on my tongue.
Cigan.
Cigan.
Cigan.
Ah, he says. The gypsy.
I nod. You’re not really supposed to say that word anymore, but there’s no way around it. When he first asked me what my name meant I hesitated. Well, I said. It’s kind of made up. He paused. Wanted more. But in some Eastern European languages it means gypsy, I said.
He lit up at that. Customers like these sorts of things, tall barista with a weird name, weird barista with a tall name. It makes their regularity more interesting. I have so many people ask me how tall I am and if I played basketball. The other half ask about my name.
I give him his coffee. See you next time!
He meanders off. Next time, he offers me some of his fireweed jelly. I politely decline.
Another customer remembers me from when we talked about my poetry class at Amherst. The second time he came in he addressed me as “Norton Anthology.” I had to nod, as if this were my real name. He didn’t tip. He’s a regular.
Carlos from El Salvador is clearly very wealthy. He wasn’t always, though. He tells me he started working at age 11. He’s in something corporate, he must be, and brings his dog when he comes. I have the urge to call the dog, a tame golden retriever, Carlos Jr. Carlos Sr. gives me conservative vibes, but he also gave me a recommendation for a great salsa club in Mexico City. I went with my boyfriend on a Wednesday night. Mexicans know how to dance. They also know how to drink, party, eat, and play some killer music. If not everyone at the club was beautiful, then they were at least all vibrant. I wish I could dance like that. It was mesmerizing. They seemed to anticipate their partners’ moves seconds before they made them, and then this swirly back and forth would emerge, sensual and rhythmic. Some day I will live in Mexico City and try to become half as cool as those tattooed, motorcycle-riding salsa dancers.
Hey Carlos, I say. I went to your club. He beams. We exchange a few words in Spanish.
In Spanish my name isn’t see-gehn. It’s see-gahn, with the second syllable accented. It’s dramatic and I always feel a little silly hearing it and saying it. But when I say it the American way when I’m speaking Spanish, I feel like a valley girl. Nasally.
Leslie gets a double machiatto every day, sometimes twice a day. She takes it in a little mug, not a to-go cup, and does the crossword while she sips. She watches you like a hawk while you make it. If you try to steam foam with whole milk, she’ll tell you 2% milk makes better foam. She’s wrong. Her respect is hard to earn — she’s stern with the newbies, bordering on rude. But once you earn it (which I did, one random day) she’s a gem. She’s got a bit of a mustache, but she gives the vibes that she was very cool in the 60s/70s. Probably partied, wore crazy outfits, and was a revolutionary. Leslie, if you’re not that old, I’m sorry.
There are some creeps. This one guy gave me $5 because he liked my smile. Another woman told me I should model, because I had the perfect “half-half” look (I’m mixed). One guy got banned because he kept sexually harassing me. He was a real weirdo.
Sometimes when I’m feeling extroverted I’ll make conversation with the oldies, the ones who definitely went to Berkeley in the 60s, and who tell me snippets about their lives. One woman told me about drinking compost coffee in South Africa. I didn’t know what compost coffee was, but she told me they just dumped the grounds into a pitcher, poured water over it, and drank it as is. Another woman tells me about living in Berkeley for 60 years, and all the changes she witnessed. Sasha is Ukrainian, older, with grey hair dyed blue. During our rush hour he spoke to me for ten minutes, while I struggled to put together the long queue of drinks. He’s a sweet heart, but could not read the vibes in the room. I was sweatin’. I think Sasha thinks I can’t swim. I can’t remember how we got on the topic of swimming, but we ended up talking about when he lived in Rio. His accent is a little difficult to puzzle out, but the shop is loud and sometimes I think I’m hard of hearing. Aren’t Sashas all Alexanders? I’ve known a lot of Russians and co. in my life.
One guy complained to me that we no longer hire a “tea-expert,” an employee whose only job is to travel to far countries and taste their teas, then bring them back to stores and give people samples. Dude, this is a chain company. We have 100+ stores.
Overall, though, I have so many interesting conversations on a daily basis. I wish I would have written them all down, but some have escaped me. My coworkers are a mix of people. We’re all exceptionally different, from different background and cities. They’re also some of the coolest people I’ve met, and smart. All of us (I hope) love working there.
Dani is my favorite coworker. I think she’s cool. She’s 33, cute, and smokes yellow American Spirits on all her breaks (Dani smokes yellow American Spirits, so I now smoke yellow American Spirits). She used to be a chef in Tel Aviv. I know very little about her. We bonded over the fact that she grew up in Williamstown, where Williams College is. She’s familiar with the landscape of Western Mass. It was a shock when I found out that she knew about all the towns in my silly little world, the strip-mall and farmland towns that often seem as alien from California as if they were part of a different country. When I found this out about her, it felt like she already knew a part of me.
Dani sometimes tells me about the meals she cooks, which all sound delicious. When things are slow, she’ll say let’s do shots, the shots being her signature drink, the undertow. A layer of vanilla, a layer of cold milk, and a layer of espresso, thrown back in one go like a shot. I have a (tiny) crush. I want her to like me.
Although she can be a little type-a, and I am a notorious bull-in-a-china-shop, she told me she’d miss me when I left. I miss her too.
Regulars:
- Eddie likes his frappe without whip
- John likes his latte extra hot
- The mailman takes three cups of ice, and the other mailman likes vanilla syrup in his mocha, with whole milk
- Nancy (difficult) has so many specifications that I’m bound to mess at least one of them up
- One guy comes in every day and tells me exactly what he wants and how he wants. Kicker is that it’s the easiest order. Small black coffee, no room, no lid. Cup of water, no ice. God bless him.
- Noah comes in at 5:30 am. He works for Noah’s bagels, but isn’t the Noah as far as I know. We give them drinks, he gives us bagels. A win-win
- There is this one guy who orders a special drink and then neglects everything that’s in the drink. I just charge him for a latte. After I’ve made his no-foam, no-syrup, no-cinnamon, extra hot, with-room cappuccino, he always tells me it’s perfect.
I like working at the coffee shop. I used to hate it when all I did was scrub dishes and mop up floors. The cleaning still gets tedious, and there are too many less-than-pleasant customers. My coworkers make up for them.
There’s a satisfaction in making coffee, and, dare I say, a snobbery to it too. I like being efficient, I like when Donna tells me I (still) make the best lattes, I like feeling like the center of the world for just a brief moment. So many people come through that shop, some whom I thought I would never see again (high-school peers, an unfortunate reminder of the worst years of my life), some who I never would have otherwise met. There are so many ways to make coffee, so many places to buy it from, so many countries where it is grown, and has grown into the culture. It’s a cliche, but coffee really does bring people together, whether you take it black, or as espresso, or in a not-really-coffee-anymore form, pumped with sweetener and topped with whipped cream. That’s the joy about it. There’s a little something for everyone.
this is going nowhere 