Morning Coffee

It’s Monday, it’s another day and another round of vague recognition from people’s faces when I walk through downtown to work. Downtown’s pretty active and there are tourists again so I’m back to getting a little more of the “don’t I know you from somewhere?” glances. And thanks to the Internet and a mid-level streaming service, anyone can now watch my fifty-two performances as ‘Geri the Flatulent Cheerleader’ done fifteen years ago on the game show Brain Trust Smackdown. I did a few other characters on that show too but nobody really remembers much about them, myself included. That I did a few of those shows pretty wasted doesn’t help with that. Let’s just say that 2007 and 2008 were not the best years of my life. Anyone I get to know personally at any level asks me why I did it and what I tell them is that it was a job and it got me on TV, and for a couple of years it was one that got me a few other jobs, mainly commercials, but a couple of other TV shows too. Nothing that stuck though and before long, the work dried up. I needed to get an actual job, and having a regular job didn’t leave much time for acting, and I wanted to put Geri behind me. I needed to put Geri behind me. I didn’t mind laying low for a while and I went through a lot of jobs, mostly office work, but a couple of retail gigs too. I got fired from two talent agency jobs when my bosses at both of them found out I’d advised clients to turn down roles. It was so obvious that they were roles they’d be regretting later on. No one should be billed as “Second slut on the right”. I have no regrets about either one even though those incidents have effectively gotten me blackballed from working for any other talent agencies around here.

           After the third vague look of recognition on the street, I went into Red Bird Roastery, the coffee house on the ground floor of the five story building where I work as an assistant to the manager and co-owner of a literary agency. I am one in a department of two, the other being a younger guy named Todd who can be OK, but at least a couple of times a day he bugs the crap out of me, and we read the manuscripts that come in and go into the slush pile. It is mostly a virtual slush pile, but we still get a few printed submissions every week. Todd spends way too much time on his phone and social media and somewhere along the way he found the show and though my name flashes by very quickly in the closing credits, if you’re paying close attention or pausing it in the right place, you’ll see that Geri was portrayed, by yours truly, Aimee Nesbitt. Todd jokingly, or maybe not so jokingly says that he’s going to out me to everyone, and I can’t properly express just how irritating that is. There are ten of us in the office and two others have also figured it out, but thankfully they are both much cooler about it than Todd. Someday he just might earn himself a swift kick to the nuts.

The manuscripts and queries we get are mostly fiction or narrative nonfiction that is mostly focused on natural healing and personal success. Most of that kind of nonfiction doesn’t do much for me because I think a lot of it gets boring or it simply feels derivative of other work, but here they think that makes me be a more objective reader for them. I get to read some fiction too, but the short of it is because I don’t like natural healing and personal success books very much, that got me stuck with the bulk of them. Thankfully, a lot of them do not require me to read through the entire manuscript. Overall, I like my job just fine. I don’t love it, but it’s good for now and I need the money. The monthly residual checks for $53.78 for being Geri don’t exactly pay the rent.

At the coffee house on the ground floor I order my usual, a large black coffee with no room for cream, which comes right after someone’s painfully detailed chai latte order. The guy working the counter is still new and he looks like he’s about twenty. He’s about as tall as I am, which is five foot nine, and he’s skinny, with glasses and looks pretty nerdy, which I don’t mean as a negative. I’ve gotten a strange feeling from him though. He’s upbeat, but with the way he talks I’m not sure if he’s being sarcastic or not. He’s been there for about four weeks and I notice that he no longer has the trainee name tag, he’s now got himself a big boy name tag showing that his name is Jonathan. They need to make a new batch of coffee so it’s going to take a couple of minutes so he needs to take my name. I very clearly tell him that my name is Aimee and while most people will spell it Amy, I really don’t care about that.

“Thank you, Geri,” he replies, with some kind of shit-eating grin that I want to slap right off of his face, but this is where I’ve become accustomed to taking a deep breath and restraining myself.

“That was a long time ago, that is not who I am. My name is Aimee,” I repeat as calmly as I can.

He says that he’s sorry and changes what he’s punched into the system though that stupid grin hasn’t left his face.

I step aside to wait for the coffee and check my phone for any messages, see that there are a couple I read through quickly and make a mental note to reply to a little later and I slip it back into my knockoff handbag. I look up see Jonathan filling the cup and when he’s done the little shit turns and holds it up.

“Black coffee for Geri. Geri, your black coffee is up.”

We make eye contact and I glare at him, but I know I can’t make a scene. It’s the morning rush, there are a lot of people there, and somebody will have their phone out and be ready to shoot a video if I go off on him the way I really want to. It is yet another moment when I hate social media more than most people will ever understand.

As I approach him, I think about how I would love to throw it in his face or dump it on his clean white tennis shoes, but I know I have to keep it together. I don’t want another viral moment or to be yet another meme. Instead, I just hold out my hand and he hands me the coffee. As I take it from him, I slowly whisper the words “This is not over” to him, moving my lips in an exaggerated way so it is as clear to him as possible what I am saying and I turn and head to the exit. I head toward the elevator to my office thinking about where else I can go for my morning coffee.