Latte Mocha

     They said I was made for a latte in one hand and a bagel in the other. One day I would do that, with the help of a credit card. 

     And so I was sitting having a man gawk at me as I looked about, pretending not to notice. My price would never get me a buyer, for buying the next to worthless is pointless to the customer. The hot-shot one-hundreds thought they were all that and an iced latte, but they too, like me, sat there, people gawking at them, but then being blinded by their price tag. They went on to other things.

     I didn’t mind being shelved for display in life. They said it would have its fun parts. The pleasure of it after being bought. But this part of life, too had its fun parts, to make friends and socialize, but you learned the hard way not to make friends with the mid-priced ranges, fifteen to fifty was meant to be avoided. They were bought up like Pumpkin Spice Lattes. But my price, rare, was never taken up like a Pumpkin Spice Latte, more like a chocolate smoothie. 

     I sat around with my friends for most of the time and we watched the world go by and by in bliss, but when my older friends started reaching a certain age they were put out on display then bought and taken away. They each had a tag on them, marking their worth. Everyone knew everyone else’s. Fifty. One hundred. 

     I knew mine. Five.

      One day, I was put out in front of everybody else for display. I looked around in the crowd. No one looked at me, and if anything, people turned their faces when they saw me. But, that afternoon, a man walked up to me, plucked me off the display and purchased me, taking me out of my home. I turned to see my friends. They were wiping their eyes and waving to me. I waved back then turned forward, my face into the wind, looking at the bright sunlight for a time of opportunity.

      And yes, if you were wondering, I was being sold–as a gift card.

     The man put me in a comfortable-sized white envelope but did not seal it, and set me on a cold, granite counter, letting me sit there as he moved around his house.

     A woman came into the room. “Oh, thanks for getting me the gift card honey,” his wife I presumed.

      “Mhm,” the man said from the other end of the house.

      The woman picked me up from the counter and put me in her warm pocket. We bounced and jostled up and down to her car then got in. Her car purred along, warm unlike the man’s car and the soft sound of music that floated from her speakers lulled me to sleep. 

     I opened my eyes a crack when we stopped and she turned off the car. We got up into the cold air that snapped me awake. As she walked along, the air took a sudden change, and I was sweltering in her pocket. I heard her say a few muffled words then sit down, carrying on a conversation for about thirty minutes, still inscrutable by her pocket.

     She reached her hand in and grasped for me, picking up the envelope and me, setting us down on a table then sliding us across it. 

     “Here,” she said to another person across the table. “Take it. For what you’re going through… and an early Christmas gift. Buy yourself a latte or something.”

      The other woman took me in her hand and opened the envelope, pulling me out and examining me, eyeing me and my five dollars with disappointment.

     “It’s a Starbucks gift card,” the woman said.

     The other woman put me back in the envelope and into her pocket; her’s wasn’t nearly as warm as the woman’s pocket, still my favorite pocket to this day. 

     “Thank you Esther,” the other woman said, leaning across the table to embrace Esther. I felt her warmth for the last time as the other woman held me with her hand in her pocket as she walked out into the cold. We got into her car, as cold as the air outside and drove until we got out of her car into the same cold. She unlocked a door and we went inside a building, warmer than the car I happily noted. She threw me on a dark counter and I slid out of the envelope. 

     The house was dark and cool as I shivered on the granite countertop but for one light across the room with the woman sitting and laying under it. Her cries continued all night until I heard a car pull up the driveway. The woman became a mouse, tip-toeing down the dark hallway and shutting a door behind her. A man came into the house a moment later and walked down the hallway, into the same room as the woman, shutting the door behind him.

     I sat on the counter for weeks, the man and the other woman passing by and by; the woman’s face looking more tired and more depressed as the man came home later. And one day the woman was sitting at the counter I was sitting on, looking at her phone, her face night. A ding went off on her phone. Her face became the mid-afternoon sun. 

     She looked around with bright eyes. “Yes,” she said to herself, “thank you, thank you,” she said looking up to the sky. She read over the text again. “She says she wants to meet at Starbucks, now if possible to talk… I wonder how much that’ll cost.” 

     I jumped up and down, for I was going to get spent. The ultimate pleasure, they said. I longed to smell the aroma of coffee beans being cooked or bagels being warmed or the chilly air of ice cubes. 

     The woman looked around the room I sat in. She grabbed her purse, whipping me up from the counter and stuck me back into the darkness of the envelope, tossing me into her purse. I jostled all the way to her car until she got in. She started the car and drove for a short time. She got out with me, her credit card and a big wad of cash. She tramped through snow into a building and walked up to a man, speaking into a loudspeaker that said, “Available at window two.”

     The woman spoke to the man. “I would like to deposit some money into my bank account.”

     “Certainly,” he said. “What account would you like to deposit that in—”

      “Everyone! Hands up! Don’t move!” Someone hollered from behind the woman. The room became quiet except for quiet squeals echoing around the room. I heard the man who hollered shuffling around the room and rummaging through things. 

     I felt the entire purse being picked up and fingers rifling through the compartments. I felt the wad of cash being lifted up and I too had the feeling of being lifted up, being put into a bag with cash and other cold things. No! I was not going to be used. I slid out of my envelope in sorrow and lost it in the jostling of cash as the man made his way around the bank.

      We finally left the bank with the man swinging the bag up and down. We were thrown onto something, which shook and jostled, sliding us around in the bag. This was his car, I thought as he peeled out and fishtailed down the ice on the road. He drove for hours until he pulled off onto a gravel road and parked the car. He got the bags out from the trunk and brought us inside a building, which hadn’t much of a temperature difference between the outside air and the building. 

      He dumped out the bag I was in onto the table, picking through it, sorting the cash. His face was scrunched up and tired, along with a red bandana around his neck, covering a scar that ran along his unshaven face making him look withered and old.

     I must have been staring at him for too long, for his gaze caught mine and he picked me up and put me in his pocket. “For tonight,” he said. 

     Yes! I was going to be used. I could hardly contain myself until that night when he got in a different-sounding car and drove through the cold, dark streets. He parked his car and got out into the night. I could see the lights of a building through his pocket as he walked towards it. He took a deep breath in the cold air and opened the door to go inside.

      The room stunk of beer and fried food. The smell was overwhelming. The man strolled over to a stool and sat down, eating and drinking for hours. 

     As I was falling asleep, disappointed that I wouldn’t be used today, he got up from his seat and swaggered over to someone. He pulled me out of his pocket and handed me over to a woman. She scowled at my price, but didn’t take me, saying to the man in a cold voice, “What is this?”

     “A Christmas present,” the man said sheepishly.

      The woman huffed and took me from the man’s hand, putting me into her pocket and turning away from the man.

     I sat there for another hour fantasizing that she might take me to Starbucks and use me. But then she got up and left in silence, also slugging out of the tavern and into her car. The car started, creaking and sighing in the cold air. She raced out of the parking lot and down the road, taking the curves at speeds faster than either the car or I wanted to go.

     I heard the blaring of horns, a crunch and crash as the woman flew over the dashboard and crashed through the window, sending a spray of glass onto the dashboard and onto my face. 

     I’ll never get to Starbucks.

      I sat there for hours and hours, past sirens and silence, through the cold night which turned into morning and through the next day. 

     At about noon, I was picked up by someone wearing thick, winter gloves. The person held me in their hands. I saw the car I was in last night totaled beyond recognition with no sign of the woman I was with. The person holding me got into a car across the road and set me down on the dashboard.

     “The only thing she probably legally had,” a woman’s voice said, looking at me. “She hates coffee. Her boyfriend probably got it for her.” I wanted to speak up that I was stolen, but I decided that if I wanted to get to Starbucks, I should keep my mouth shut. And that I couldn’t talk anyway. You know, not being a living organism and everything.

“How did we end up so different?” she said. “Aren’t identical twins supposed to be identical?” She paused. “I guess not.” We went along in silence, bumping over potholes and driving over train tracks until we went inside the woman’s house.

      A man greeted her once she was inside. “How was it honey? Did you find anything worth picking up?”

      “Not that wasn’t stolen or not in the will,” she said as she took off her winter jacket, setting me on a counter. “Except for that Starbucks gift card.” She nodded to me. “I’d thought I’d treat myself to a little something today. To help with the shock of… her…”

     The man gave a little chuckle. 

     The woman stared at him. “Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn't laugh.”

     “…And also to celebrate the good news of my friend. She finally found a therapist.”

      “That’s great. How’s she doing?” The man said.

      “She’s super excited and she sounds a lot more happy.”

      “That’s good… Have a good time at Starbucks. Take as much time as you need. I don’t mind.”

     She put me in her pocket and got back in her car. We drove off in the crunching snow. Her car purred like a kitten. Her pocket was warm and knitted, like the first woman’s pocket. We slowed down and a young man said over a speaker to the woman and the wheel, “Hello, welcome to Starbucks, what can I get for you today?”

     “Could I have a medium latte mocha?”

      “Certainly. Anything else?”

      “Nope.”

       “Great. Your total is six dollars and ten cents. Please pull up to the window.”

      “Thank you,” she said, pulling the car forward to a stop. I heard her going through her purse, pulling out her credit card. She rolled down her window and handed it over to someone. “Oh, I have a gift card too.”

     She pulled me out of her pocket and handed me over the car window to a young man. The smell and warmth of the coffee hit me again as it was when I was young. I was used, swiped by the young man then tossed towards the trash can, but he over shot and I landed behind it, content as I lived out the last days of my life. My life has been fulfilled and heated; I’m a cup of hot coffee drunken by a cold world.