Double Shot

by Kathleen

In Transit: Added on November 18, 2006

William hurt. He walked in impeccably dressed, but with a sadness about him I recognized as a long night spent drinking or not drinking, and wanting to. Or maybe he was having a tedious morning on the phone but not really talking to anyone. No one had asked him what he'd dreamt about, or remarked how everything tastes better with pineapple. Maybe the day was simply slipping away from him before he had his morning coffee. "Double shot, please."

Cornflower blue. Hate to say it, but that's exactly what I think when he looks at me. I don't know what cornflowers look like, so I think "cornflower" but I picture chicories. The image arises from childhood walks amongst blooms dusted purple-blue, standing like serenading soldiers all along the road to Urshall's farm. My mom wrote the only poem I've ever known her to write about chicory flowers. She was my age then.

"For here or..." but I know the answer before finishing, because he was sad but sane, and only the happily insane order shots of espresso to go. I think of making small talk, of saying something in an attempt to cheer him up. We'd had so few customers that first week that I chatted with everyone who came in, because I could. But when I look at him, he looks down. Good to know shoe-gazing doesn't end in your twenties. I grab the portafilter from the group head, wipe it dry, and load it up with Portland's finest, (if oil is Texas Tea, what would Portland Coffee be?).

I wondered where he was going at a leisurely nine a.m. Board meeting? Not quite. Classroom? Closer. Law office? I just couldn't picture him in an office, so no. I give up, give him his doppio, take his dollar eighty and thank him for stopping in.

"Do you know who came in today?" asks my boss, a friend of mine from high school, the following morning. He tells me, and I quickly realize why I couldn't picture yesterday's double shot working in an office or a classroom. Apparently the filming is taking place just a few minutes up the road. I'm impressed with how unfamous he had seemed, and figure it's a survival skill honed over years of being one of Hollywood's most prolific actors.

"Omigod, he is a babe," exclaims my fifty-something friend when I tell her the news. I haven't heard the term "babe" in quite some time, but it works. She titters, "Oh honey, I am sorry. I am so, so very sorry, but he's mine." She goes on to describe his sensual, sensitive character in a film from the early eighties. "Have you seen it? Wait, you were just a kid. Were you born yet? Oh honey, I am sorry..."

My five a.m. alarm introduces me to the next day with NPR's account of the casualties in Baghdad resulting from a double suicide bombing. Then of course there was Bush's response, which didn't even make it in one ear to go out the other. In Portland, there had been a small earthquake the night before. The epicenter was five blocks from my apartment, and although it was only a 2.7, I had felt it. And the rain, day three of an inch-a-day rain was taking its toll on the Sandy River as well as the homes and Doug Firs along its banks.

Convinced I should sit this one out, I push snooze no fewer than eight times before crying a little, praying a little, and pulling on my rain gear -- survival skills honed over years of living alone in Puddletown.

I have yet to find a device which sufficiently shields your face from the rain. Biking through the wet streets of Southeast is less of an exhilaration and more of a bother today. At the stoplight at SE Madison and Grand, I wait flamingo-like with the rest of the bike commuters in our skinny center lane. I'm at first surprised at the number of us braving the cold rain this dark morning. But then again, it's Portland. The line of red blinkies in front of me starts creating some sort of discordant symphony in my head. I smile out loud, and pedal across the intersection with my fat nubby tires as every road-slick cyclist whirs past me like trumpet solos. I must be a tuba.

Blame it on the symphony, the endorphins, or the lucidity of being enveloped inside a quintessencial Portland morning, but my mood lightens. Once on the Hawthorne, I begin narrating in my mind remarkable and unremarkable sights alike. The family of beavers by OMSI. The spot downriver where my crew buddies and I capsized on the second day of practice. The geese along Waterfront Park. I am guiding a two-person bike tour, and my fellow sightseer is an imaginary friend in the form of an actor far from home. Heading South along the path, the hammer and sickle tram tower looms overhead, only adding to Portland's classification as the ultimate Fisher-Price town, (the bridge goes up, the boat sails through, the streetcar speeds up the hill, and soon the tram will, too!). We pass balletic willow trees and an amazing salmon-pink outline of Hood. Lastly we come upon the marina where a dozen boats and one seaplane peacefully coexist and unfortunately place the song firmly in my head: one of these things is not like the other.

I arrive at the shop and lock my bike to a "No Parking" sign. I no longer feel like the only person in Portland to wake up alone in dire need of caffeine. Thank God, or I'd be out of a job.

Inside, Kimisan is listening to soft electronica, taking care not to wake the neighbors upstairs. She is baking some form of gluten-free gluttony that smells so intoxicating I have to pause to breathe it in before frantically starting two airpots of coffee. "Do you think he'll come in today?" I ask.

"Well, he usually comes in around nine, so we've got a little while," and she pinches my elbow with a giggle.

Sure enough, right around nine I look up from the counter to see double shot looking up at me. Sheepishly he says, "I only have two dollars."

Confused, I point to a plate with toothpicks and a quartered piece of coffeecake. "We have free samples," I announce over my shoulder while making my way to the espresso machine, where I begin to set up his drink.

But something happens. I can feel his eyes on me as I flick the grounds into the basket, insanely insecure in my barista abilities as if I'd spent the last ten years of my life beekeeping. I only have between twenty-three and twenty-seven seconds to pull it together, man. I can't decide which cup to use, or which saucer goes with it, and for the love of God, where are our espresso spoons?

I pull it reasonably together and walk back to the counter. Before I hand him his drink, he shoots me a look that can only be described as, well, "babeolicious." Only one other person had ever looked at me like that, so I'm instantly transported back to that moment ten years ago in a coffee shop where Luca's eyes -- more glacier blue than cornflower or chicory -- met mine. We fell in love and were allowed the luxury of acting on it. He moved back to Europe and eventually married the woman he had dated before me. They are raising their two small sons in the Italian Alps, where the wildflowers on Mont Blanc are too beautiful, he tells me during the only conversation we've had in years, and follows with "I don't know why we make the choices we make."

Well. Apparently the choice I make is to look back at double shot in utter fear, then down at my shoes, which as it turns out just aren't that interesting. He hands me his two dollars while I mumble "one eighty" to myself since I need to prove I at least know the price. He asks, "What did you say?" and I answer, "I'm just talking to myself," like a crazy person who drinks her espresso out of a short paper cup.

Again I try to pull it together and ask him if he wants a punch card. "I'm leaving in a few days," he says, as I put a card on the counter and continue to not look anywhere near him.

"Well, I'm going to give you two punches, because I remember you from last time." He smiles faintly at this, or at least I imagine him to because I'm still not looking anywhere near him. "You ordered a double and I really like pulling those..."

"...well I really like drinking those," he says rather sweetly, then pauses awkwardly or maybe that's just me filling the moment up with the awkwardness I feel. He asks about our tempeh salads, which Kimisan assures me we have, so I say yes, yes we have tempeh salads and he says he'll be back. I say ok, look at my shoes just one last time, then ask the next person in line, "What can I get for you?"

I haven't seen him since. My co-worker Joe and I closed last Friday, and he said if I mention double shot one more time, he's going to "seriously lose it." I tell him in my defense I didn't mean to develop a crush on a famous person, though the famous are far easier to Google. I just wanted to better understand the well-dressed man with good taste in coffee, and a sadness I knew to be my own. Then I counter with a threat to play my Captain and Tenille album. This shuts Joe up, but not before he grabs a broom and mutters, "Seriously, who refers to himself as 'The Captain'?"