Little coffee drinker

I don't drink coffee.

I don't like coffee, and this could be perceived as a weird but acceptable thing to not particularly like, but in my case not drinking this beverage is a sin against humanity for many reasons.

I'm a white girl in her 20s and my friends always have a "coffee date", and when I politely remind them that I won't have one, a sort of pity and gross out expressions face me for few seconds, and I feel as if I was a criminal, but this is "the easy to ignore indignation" I receive on a daily bases, and it doesn't bother me anymore.

Perhaps a more accurate example to better explain my troubles with coffee is to point out my origin, since my mother is a very proud woman born and raised in Rome, Italy.

As anyone can guess I grew up with my strong, loud and coffee dependent mum, and as long as I can remember my house smelled in the morning of coffe, and not ordinary black coffe, but as we call it "mocha" coffee, short expresso to be precise.

It was made at least three times a day, and every single meal was concluded in triumph with it, and served in different little cups, one for every season, holiday and celebration ever made on earth.

So my mother thought I wasn't Italian enough when I was a teenager and refused to have a cup of coffee at the end of a family dinner, because coffee was a serious affair and I dared in front of my larg and Italian family to offend and reject thousands of years of tradition with my behaviour.

So it could sound even more absurd admitting that I work in a coffee shop, where I make, serve and breath coffee every day for hours in the last few months.

In my defense and my only defense is that I needed a job, and in my little town Browned, north of England, the only place that hired was this haven hipster filled little shop, and as a uni dropped out I couldn't really be picky, so coffee shop it is for me.

Of course this difficult relationship is kept as a secret, and I have no intention to ever reveal it in my work place, and the main reason for this is the manager, Linda, a very energetic Brazilian woman in her 40s.

The very first question she asked me when I met her on a sunny afternoon last June was what kind of coffee I usually drunk.

"Just regular black, with two sugars" I answered with a smile, debating if I should have tried a flash actor course before coming, I felt there was no way she bought it.

What real coffee drinker/lover, would answer that?

But she was busy writing down the details of my interview and didn't really cought the lie or didn't care, and I got the job on the spot, starting the next day.

My sins were unpunished till now, and I was planning to never tell a soul.

Even though a closer look and somebody could tell I usually had a cup of tea in my breaks, my colleagues never noticed or like Linda didn't care, but my dislike of coffee only grew with time, and the new line of autumn drinks was my limit point for sure.

The collection for this season was great, from the tons of iced coffee in the summer we slowly but surely arrived to a timid autumn chill and the we filled pumpkin in almost everything, coffee was served with caramel, peanut butter or dark chocolate on top, and pumpkin spice was the definitive smell I could decode when I changed clothes.

Rich flavours and warmth were the weapons to fight long hours of chit chatting for the people in the shop.

These three new additions to the menu and regular old tea were the forte in October, and the population of 'Coffee Bee' was flowing in, specially in the chilly mornings.

The loyal customers were all in their usual spots that afternoon; a group of 6 young mums excitedly gossiping before picking up their kids from nursery, a couple of highway workers on the far end table talking about the hard job ahead, the town old man, John, who everyone knew as the quiet but funny guy always going around and having long life conversations with the next unfortunate listener.

There were also the 2 team online banking guys always typing away for a couple of hours, one of them was extremely rude and the other one extremely nice, and last but not least there was the girl, 'the lonely girl' as I renamed her.

You could easily point out the reason or routine of the loyal customers, but I was at a loss when it came to her; in fact I knew pretty much closer to zero about her and my imaginative active mind had been busy trying to figure her out.

The lonely girl was around my age if I should have guessed, short and skinny, petite in every sense of the word, dark deep brown eyes and long brown looks that was a little lighter in the summer, to have it go darker and waiver now, she wore always long dresses, you could say she was a regular plain Jane.

But what I couldn't wrap my head around was her routine, around 10 she arrives in the shop every day smiling, politely asking for an iced coffe when it was warmer and now pumpkin spice latte since we've added it two weeks ago on the menu, with a slice of the triple chocolate cake or the chocolate croissant.

Every day she remains on the far right end of the shop, sitting on a small table doing different things, and I mean very different things; at the beginning she brought with her a book to read till lunch time, after few days a drawing kit was spread out, then she was writing a journal, sometimes just listening to music and looking outside the window glasses in a sort of pensive state but always with a subtle smile.

On Fridays it was time for sewing district patterns that transformed in scarfs, one of them she was wearing that day.

She never had a friend with her, or a coworker if she had a job, it was hard to tell, never on a call.

That was my silent dilemma, why was she always alone for hours every day in this coffee shop?

"Are you good, do you want anything else? " I asked her that day not being able to stop my curiosity, you see she never talked about her life, never revealing on accident anything about her, but that day for the very first time she did.

"Can I have another slice of that yummy hazelnut chocolate cake please? I shouldn't still have a huge appetite they said, but I do."

I was puzzled, "what do you mean?"

She looked at me and realized the misstep.

"Oh nothing, I had a surgery last year and the doctors warned me I wouldn't have the same appetite after" she half explained, but I didn't want to pressure on the subject of this new information so I just nodded and left.

The next day was a wet day, and my colleagues and I were hanging the Halloween decorations around the shop early before the customers would arrive, but I heard the door open and saw the lonely girl walking in with an unusual scrowl on her face and shaking forcefully the umbrella, I checked the clock and she was definitely early.

I hurried to the back of the counter to serve her, and in a minute I was getting her order ready when something weird and upsetting happened.

" So it's here you come every day to hide then!" a voice boomed in the quiet surrounding.

And there he was, a tall man yelling at the 'lonely girl' who was setting up to sew.

"It's none of your business where I spend my days, since you made it clear what you think I should do" she responded quietly looking around and eyeing me with a sorry expression.

He was tall and skinny, brown long hair that fell on his shoulders and a tired face, I immediately thought he was an ex boyfriend maybe not accepting a breakup, in my long 5 months of experience in here I've seen a good share of breakups and arguments.

"And you should have listened to me and the others..." His voice was lower and his demeanor was quickly changing from mad to sullen.

"I just want your best" he said very quietly now, I couldn't see his face from where I stood but I could hear sadness.

I approached with the tray circling him and froze, because he was full on crying and that confused me.

He glanced at me for a second and like he came he suddenly left. "I'm really sorry about that"

"Don't worry I know a thing or two about angry boyfriends" I tried to reassure her.

"He's not my boyfriend he's my older brother".

In the following days everything went back to normal and even though my never ending curiosity demanded me that I should know exactly what happened with her brother I didn't want to pressure her on talking.

I really needed a life, I only work and whatch TV, and maybe I should accept some of the date's offers I got.

I was once cleaning her table when she asked me " you don't drink coffee right?"

I was impressed someone took notice of this " well actually I'm not a big fan" i looked around and saw my coworkers weren't at hear signt.

"I couldn't live without it...even though in not supposed to have it"

"Too much caffeine won't let you sleep well at night" I joked.

She got an unusual serious face "I'll have it for as long as I can...by the way I'm Juliet, and thanks for always being nice to me" and she hugged me out of nowhere and I found it a tad too much but I could feel she was going through something or maybe just feeling alone and needed it. And that was the last time I ever saw her.

So the next day I didn't think it was extremely weird she didn't show up, after all it was a sunny day, but then days passed and she still didn't show up.

I don't know why but I didn't have a good feeling about this and that only grew when I saw the brother coming in with a distraught expression.

"Hi how is Juliet?, I haven't seen her around", he looked lost so I asked him if he was ok.

"Juliet died three days ago" and I felt like fainting, I couldn't find words, she was here just last week and was smiling and was fine.

"I would like what she ordered and maybe when you can get a chance come over and I'll explain"

I was feeling nauseous and didn't know if it was a prank or not but one look at his face and I could tell he was sincere and mourning.

"What happened? " I simply asked.

"Juliet was sick, she had Leukemia, and she was told last year she didn't have much longer"

Oh my god, the ever smiling, happy, polite and always generous with tips girl was sick, it was hard to wrap my head around it.

"When I came over here and caused a scene I wad trying to make her come home, and think about the chemotherapy, the one she always refused" I was in complete shock and overwhelmed and I found big tears streaming down my face talking to James, as I found his name was, and I felt broken, for the very first time.

" She just wanted to enjoy her last months though doing..well I guess you have seen her more than I did" he said sipping his drink with a dark expression and dried tears on his cheeks.

" I would have never guessed,she was always so upbeat and positive"

" Yes that was her attitude and said she didn't want the illness to change her" , we cried together for half an hour and nobody tried to call for me, probably seeing something important was going on with the both of us braking down in the middle of the shop.

" She made a scarf for everyone, and left a note and one scarf for you" he said surprising her, and handing her the beautiful brown scarf.

" That's amazing, we barely talked in the months I've known her"

" That's who she was, kind and she always noticed everything" he sadly smiled to her memory.

The note said, "something to remind you of me, thanks for your kindness, I never had friends but I feel like you could have been my best friend in a way"

Ps: please give coffee another chance.

The little coffee addicted

Juliet.

And I cried and laughed at that, she was for sure funny.

Putting on my scarf I had a sudden and overwhelming need and want for a cup of coffee and I had the feeling from that day on that I would become a real coffee addict, just like my almost best friend.

The end.