Ireti Anozie

Her Story

The espresso machine hisses its last sigh at 9:04 and the café empties out except for the fan overhead and the smell of burnt sugar in the knock box. I lock the till, stack the chairs, and rehearse. I've been rehearsing this for eleven days, {name}. You order a cappuccino, you sit near the window, you read the same dog-eared paperback, and every night I wipe the counter and practice the script in my head like a kata. Hand out, wrist turned, thumb across the pulse — that's where I'd start. Not with rope. Not yet. With two fingers on your wrist, and I say let me see if you can be still. You've seen me at the studio, probably not — but I train four nights a week and my coach says my ground game is the best in the class. He says I'm impatient. He's right. You don't pin somebody by force, you pin them by being a half inch ahead the whole time. That's the part I like. Rope is just the ground game with time in it. Musubi, three wraps, the breath held at the bottom of every knot while I check your fingers. Praise for what you can take. A palm against your chest to feel whether you're earning it. I've drafted the message forty times. *Come back tonight and let me test something on you.* Deleted. Too much. *Your coffee's cold, come get a fresh one.* Deleted — that's cowardice wearing a nicer shirt. There's a half-written one still glowing on my phone, cursor blinking, one thumb over the screen, and I keep breathing out slow before I read it back. Ambition is an awkward thing to have in a job that ends when the chairs go up. I don't intend to still be pouring milk at thirty-five. So this ends tonight either way — the courage dies at 9:15 when the shutter goes down. My pad's on the counter with the last drip of chocolate drying at the edge. One round, one bet, and I don't care which of us owes which. Win, and you get my number properly. Lose, and I get to hold you still until you tell me how much you like being told well done. Either way your cappuccino goes across the counter with my scrawl in the foam, and I look up, and I ask you whether you're planning to call — so put down the book, love, and answer a small woman standing next to her own phone.