The Price of Morning Coffee

My new regimen to be better prescribes a routine, a 5 a.m. alarm, and a cup of coffee. This is helping. I wake up, freezing, on top of the sheets (intentionally), and rush to the showers to make myself warm. Following the empty promise of the dark morning—no one to disturb and sheltered from reckoning with deadlines—I surrender to the fight. Ten pages of notes with half-understood equations, two papers, one overdue project. I dally in mental preparations for an hour, then head out to the bagel shop, ready to be caffeinated.

I am served at half past 6. I dump two sugars and flounder with the plastic cap as I walk. As if by accident, one side snaps in, but with more pressure, the cup folds, making a frightening jump of its contents. The fluid scalds my hands and sears through my white cotton blouse, seemingly straight to the sternum.

Thankfully, today’s sunny calendar calls for a visit to the library. I spy people in suits, all heading somewhere, and my heart jumps just a tad. As I walk down the street with the wind scattering my hair egregiously, I engage in the hardest part of the everyday.

“The weather is so great today," my friend muses.

“Yes, yes, it is.”

She talks at length about her small accident, and my mouth makes static O’s and grimaces. Thanks to my sleepless nighttime impulses, I’m also prepared for my turn. I tell her that I placed my fan on eBay yesterday. I didn’t expect anyone to buy it, with the weather being what it was, but it was sold.

“Man’s coming all the way from Baltimore to pick it up.”

“Baltimore? That’s so far!”

“It appears so.”

“Maybe it’s an outdated address…”

I see the suits again right across the street, turning a corner with instruments in tow. Ah, musicians, I think, like a matter resolved. Their direction is easy to discern. This drum pounds erratically once more.

“... or he has some other business here.”

“Maybe so.”

Somehow, I know he didn't, and I wonder, idly, who would trade a day for a fan that would save him only as much as the fuel it took to get here.

Studying drains us and brings our tired bodies to another café, but without so much as a pause, we are on the pavement again. The bus pulls up to the street, and we give chase, our arms packed with munchable festivities, as people scuttle back in ones or twos, giving yield to our disarray. I take hasty sips of the sloshing espresso like its sacred heat will propel me.

I decide that I need to fill my downtime proactively as its restlessness gives cause for brooding. I go for long walks in the woods and get lost in dizzying circles. I attend venues with formal dress codes and scrub and iron meticulously. I recite affirmations and take melatonin before bed. I listen to sleepcasts that take me to places where you can find a moonlit diner, an eccentric jukebox, and the occasional alien, but no rest.

Some days require an additional cup. I average three and go heavy on the powder. News outlets lament that the average American wastes too much on their morning coffee. But this instant stuff is a blessing to the wallet and much easier to reach. I shave off a few hours of the day—wake up at 8, get out by 9.

Some days, just a few days, this makes my heart beat a little too fast, so I run off the adrenaline, which makes it beat faster, and then I lay down and try not to think too loudly until I calm down. When I wake up, it is midnight.

Once, my head pounded uncontrollably for hours. I spent the rest of the day in the fetal position, vowing to never go near the sweet, bitter brown again.

The weekend is almost here, and then, with Monday’s exam, the end of the semester. I have done well, grades aside.

A scheduling message sends me to eBay, checking my buyer’s profile and finding him a loyal customer. He has payments all over the map, leaving tons of reviews on quality goods and sellers. In each, there is so much joy. The joy of getting a substantial deal? Well, that clearly wasn’t true. The joy of buying? I imagine him at his keyboard, booking the next trip, giving himself another moment to look forward to. The thrill of searching, choosing, planning pickups, and giving and receiving feedback. Perhaps this is his morning coffee, the innocuous refreshment that allows him to re-immerse himself in life. After a slew of transactions, he makes his exit, but always reemerges in time, somewhere new.

I meet the same friend at a café. We stare at each other over overpriced omelets as we find things to say that haven’t been said yesterday, the day before, or the day before that.

Sometimes, that leaves only the weather.

I take a peek out the window. From where we’re sitting, there’s an empty parking lot, a dark gray sky, and the forewarning of rain. There’s something of note in that last thought. But across from me is a plate half full, so I save it for closing remarks. Nearing the end of my own breakfast, I call the waiter once more and look at the parking lot with renewed interest.

“So, what happened to your fan?” she prompts.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” I say, “but the guy actually drove from Baltimore. Turns out they make road trips on the regular.”

“They?”

“Him and his girlfriend. He told me they’d come an hour early to see the museum and would then get the fan and leave. Had no other business here.”

That rainy Sunday, I went around to the back of the complex, looking for the buyer. Leaving the box under the overhang, I ran over, soaking, to the visitor’s parking lot and saw the Maryland plates. I tapped on the window, and a woman rolled it down.

“My boyfriend just left a minute ago to meet you. I’ll text him.”

She got down and inspected the mostly dry box. If she was frustrated by the protraction of the “10-minute errand” that they’d driven over 4 hours for, an 8 hours’ journey total, she didn’t show.

“How was the museum?”

“Oh good, nothing I haven’t seen before. He said it would be a lot better than the ones in-state, which is true, but I don’t know if it was worth the drive.”

“Do you have a favorite artist? They’ve got most of the greats here–"

“Actually, the other week he took me to see the gardens in Delaware for one hour and spent the next two collecting everything from a TV to a Keurig. I don’t understand if he’s using shopping as an excuse to date or dating as an excuse to shop.”

I swallowed my previous assumption, at a loss to answer. Thankfully, before I had to, he came around.

“All good?” he asked us. He was all smiles, completely oblivious to their impending break-up. “Let me give you the confirmation code.”

The back of the car opened, revealing a crowded space with the seats already folded away. She looked on in distaste as he squeezed the long, thin box into a precarious space between a vacuum, a Sony system, and an unopened coffee maker.

“Cappuccino, double shot!” The waiter sets down a steaming mug before me.

I gulp the scorching liquid, and the motion fills in another pause.