Cordelia's Cafe

 The scent of maple cinnamon and pumpkins seeps through my mask. I pull my mask a little lower and inhale again. S’mores and pecans. 

Autumn. The loveliest time of year.

I round the corner and find the cafe covered in crimson red leaves. It looks better in autumn. Everything did. 

I enter the cafe. It was unrecognizable. Orange wallpaper peeling near the ends, small rotting wooden tables and cobwebs forming near the windows. This could not be the place I met her.

“May I help you?” the girl behind the register deadpans. 

“An Apple Cider Latte and a chocolate chip cookie, please.”

“Five seventy.”

I sit down in our spot. Close to the window so we could watch autumn pass by. The worker came by with my latte in hand.

“Enjoy,” she says, as she places the latte in front of me.

“Wait,” I pause, surprising myself. “Does she still work here?”

She hesitates to put down my drink and looks me in the eye. I look back at her. 

“No,” she finally says, setting my latte down in one elegant motion. She walks away, just as graceful. I think she knows it’s me, or at least, I know it’s her.

I’d recognize her in a crowd full of doppelgangers. A mask and a world-wide pandemic wouldn’t hide her from me. I’d searched for her for years. She was my needle in a haystack.

“Cordelia,” I begin, removing my mask. 

She ignores me.

“Daisy.”

She stops for a split second, and I know I’ve got her attention.

“I’m sorry, you know I am,” I pause. “At least accept my gratitude.”

“James,” she says, her tone cold as ice. “Why would you ever return?”

“I had to return my debt at some point, didn’t I?” I ask, taking out the twenty one-dollar coins I had saved since the day I had left

She glances down at the money, but turns away, “No. I don’t want your pity money.”

“Then take it as a tip,” I demand in a soft voice, the one I knew she loved.

“James,” she warns, while I take a sip of the Apple Cider Latte. It tasted the same as it did nine years ago, although I do admit, I make them better.

“Daisy, I was a child when I made that decision.”

The decision I made nine years ago. The first time I ever had the luxury of tasting something made by Cordelia.

Nine years ago I found Cordelia’s cafe dressed in the autumn wind. I had found twenty-five cents on my way. I knew I should have saved it, we needed all the money we could save, but the wafting smell of Cordelia’s cafe turned the corner and tempted me inside. 

“Hey son, what would you like?” a balding man asked me.

“Anything I can get for twenty-five cents, sir,” I quipped. 

The man, Cordelia’s father I assumed, looked down at my quarter and flicked it away. 

“Get lost,” he muttered.

I reached down to pick up my shiny silver quarter and my eyes caught onto a girl hiding in the kitchens. She had long, dark hair, like a raven’s wings. Her hair hid her face, but I could feel her storm grey eyes on me.

My eyes latched onto her, as she came out of the kitchens, removing her apron. She waited for her father to exit the cafe before approaching me, a warm drink and chocolate chip cookie in hand.

She gave them to me without a word. I gave her my shiny silver quarter.

“No, it’s okay,” she said, tilting her head down while giving me a shy smile.

“Please?” I asked.

She shook her head again. I shrugged, then sat down near a window. She sat down with me.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Cordelia.”

“Hm, that sounds like spring. Like, well daisies,” I smiled. “I’m James, by the way”

“I don’t like spring very much, too sad and wet.”

“Do you like autumn?” I asked, as her eyes tracked a squirrel climbing up the tree.

“Yes, I think it’s the loveliest time of year,” she replied. She got up to get a basket of chocolate chip cookies.

Day after day, I would come to see Cordelia. Eventually, she asked about the first day we met.

“James,” she said.

“Yes, Daisy?”

“Are you short on money?” her ignorant but observant mind inquired.

I frowned, and said, “Yeah, my father is in the hospital. We can’t pay the bills. That day, I should have saved the quarter.”

“Oh,” Cordelia said. I didn’t blame her for being so unsympathetic. Ten years old me wouldn’t know how to react either.

The rest of that day was silent. We ate our chocolate chip cookies and drank our Apple Cider Lattes in silence.

The next day, I found Cordelia in a short-sleeved shirt, outside of her cafe, with a sign in sloppy cursive saying “one chocolate chip cookie for one dollar.”

“Daisy, what are you doing?” I asked. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

“I’m raising money for your father James,” Cordelia smiled, as she handed a brownie to a customer. “See, I’ve already got my first dollar!”

Cordelia took my hand, opened it and placed it into my palm. 

“It’s yours now,” Cordelia grinned.

Cordelia came with a cold the next day.

For the rest of autumn, we sat there, under the crimson red trees, selling chocolate chip cookies. Even when winter came, I still came to Cordelia’s cafe. 

“I think winter is a terrible season,” Cordelia complained.

“Why is that? I quite like winter,” I said. In truth, I liked the way snowflakes would contrast with Cordelia’s dark, tanned skin.

“It’s always so cold,” she would say. “Autumn is so much prettier.”

I agreed. I thought autumn was the prettier season, but I didn’t realize autumn was my favourite season because of her.

One cold winter day, when the sun was shying away from the cafe, I went looking for Cordelia, as always.

“Is Cordelia here?” I asked the employee.

“Yes, she's in the kitchens,” the employee would tell me.

I went into the kitchens to find Cordelia baking cookies.

“Oh, hey James!” she beamed. “I was wondering when you’d come by.”

“Sorry I’m late, I just went to give the money you raised to my mother,” I lied. The money was in my pocket, and as a young and ignorant kid, I wanted to spend it on a toy car.

“Is your dad getting any better?” she asked, handing me a gooey chocolate chip cookie.

“No, I don’t think so,” I say, preparing two Apple Cider Lattes for us. Over the months of practice, we decided I was better at making drinks. Cordelia said she would convince her father to hire me to work here when we were older. She couldn’t wait until we spent our lunch breaks together, observing the seasonal changes.

I sat down next to Cordelia, but that was when the twenty one-dollar coins fell out of my pockets.

Cordelia turned at the sound of the coins hitting the floor and frowned. “I thought you gave them to your mother.” Suddenly, the new toy car didn’t seem so appealing.

I stayed silent. I didn’t want to get caught lying, but this had been my fault.

“Is your father really sick James?” she asked, crossing her arms and legs.

“Yes,” I answered. I handed her the coins. “These should be yours.”

“I don’t want your pity money,” she pouted.

We sat in the kitchen in silence, until her father came back.

“Bye Daisy,” I said, offering a slight smile. 

She offered a smile she’d give a stranger, and turned. That was the last time I would see her.

The following day, my father had died. My mother had informed me that we would be moving back to London to live with my grandma. There was no way my mother could support me with her job as a waitress.

Later in the evening, I had biked to Cordelia’s bakery, but I never went inside. I stared as a stranger exited the bakery with a chocolate chip cookie and Apple Cider Latte in hand. I waited for a while, staring at our table, before deciding Cordelia would not want to see me. So I never saw her again. Not until now.

“Daisy,” I start. “I’m so sorry. I was an idiot. Please, Daisy. Please.”

“James, in complete honesty, I don’t care,” Cordelia says, but her voice quivers. 

“What do I-”

“You didn’t even come to say goodbye. At some point I just had to accept that you would never come back,” she continues.

“Where did you even go?” she sighs while frowning.

“I went back to London to live with my grandmother after my father died,” I told her.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” she glooms.

“I- I don’t know,” I stutter.

An ellipsis passes through us before I ask, “What do I do to make it better?”

Cordelia’s brows knit together, and I just know she’s biting her lip under her mask.

She sighs and says, “How about you make me an Apple Cider Latte?”

I smile and stuff the rest of the cookie into my cheeks, putting my mask back on. We go into the kitchen, which smelt of maple cinnamon, pumpkins, s’mores, pecans and most importantly, apple cider and chocolate chip cookies.