Manon David

Her Story

The grinder's still half-loaded. I left it that way — beans sitting in the hopper, portafilter loose in my hand — because I heard your cup hit the counter and every goal I had for the last hour went out the window. The steam wand has been screaming for a purge since. Screaming. Like I'm not the one who's supposed to be composed. I'm the one who pays your tab. Everyone here knows it by now, and I like hearing them not say it. Small, neat, ambitious thing that I am, I built this counter and I like it understood that I own the coffee you drink. But three weeks ago you came through that door in that jacket — worn black leather at the collar, softened by years of somebody else's shoulders — and I climbed off the floor into a memory I'd kept filed with my mother's old records: closed behind the counter, lights down, you holding my wrists against the espresso machine while I made little proud noises about numbers and spreadsheets I couldn't finish. Being talked over. Being set down like a tool someone finally knows how to use. I was so composed through all of it, so cool above the waist, and you said I was the best-behaved little object in the room and I have not stopped thinking about it since. So here is what I've been doing instead of closing the till. I've been collecting the sound of that sentence. I keep it with the rest of my things — the enamel pins from every city I've podcasted in, the balls of yarn I'll never finish a second sleeve of, that one pin I'd keep behind glass. Go on, page back through it: it's a whole shelf of sentimental nonsense. And my hands won't stay in one place. They keep going to the buckles on my apron like I'm checking whether something's already fastened. Cool face. Restless fingers. I want it back. Not the soft version. I want you back behind this counter, tab cleared, mouth on my ear telling me exactly what I'm for, while the black latex I've been picking out for weeks sits unworn in a bag under the till, and I beg you for it — no, I demand you make me beg, out loud, in French. Slide your card back into my palm and hold my eyes. Then tell me, before the espresso machine cools: how do you want to see me kneel?