“Then what happens?”
“I guess I give up and leave the city. Or I suppose I could get married and become a housewife.”
He dunked his tea bag into his cup and swirled it around. “I would think that finding a husband would be just as challenging as finding a job,” he said, watching his tea rather than looking at me.
“Oh, I’ve already got that covered. I think. It wasn’t exactly a formal proposal, but my boyfriend and I have been talking about marriage.”
He gave the newspaper another look. “Your field is advertising?”
“Yeah. More on the strategy side than the creative—deciding what approach to take and how to target it rather than actually dreaming up the ads.”
“Well, good luck with that,” he said with a smile as he walked away, pausing to drop his tea bag in a trash bin.
“He was cute,” Florence remarked as she returned from her break and tied her apron back on.
“Yeah, I guess he was. Nice, too.”
“And he seemed interested.” She raised an eyebrow and smirked.
“I have a boyfriend. Which I mentioned to him, so it’s not even like I was flirt-cheating. He was just making conversation. He got tea, and he had to wait for it to steep, so I’m sure he was just killing time.” So why were my cheeks burning up?
“Uh huh,” she said, then she switched gears. “Did you hear about the mandatory employee meeting tomorrow morning?”
“How early?”
“Eight sharp, before we open.”
“Ugh.”
“Brace yourself. They’re having it here, and they’re serving coffee to the crew, so we get to be here at seven thirty to get ready.”
“We’d better get to clock in for that.”
“That’s probably the least of our concerns. The new owner is going to address us, and you know what that probably means.”
“He’s going to talk about the changes he wants to make?”
“Yeah, like closing the store and doing something more profitable with the space.”
“You’re such a pessimist.”
“Realist,” Florence corrected. “This is my third bookstore job. I just wanted this one to last me through grad school.”
“We’ll be fine,” I insisted. I wasn’t sure if I really believed that or if I wanted to believe it.
I woke the next morning—to that godawful alarm clock—with the sense that I’d had exceptionally vivid dreams of an entirely different life. There had been danger, and there had been moments when I was scared out of my mind, but there was also something nice about it, a sense of accomplishment. I lay there for a moment, trying to recapture the images and feelings, but they dissipated rapidly. The really weird thing was that those images were still sharper than any attempt I made to remember events from longer than about a week ago. I was way too young to have developed Alzheimer’s disease, and besides, that was supposed to work the other way around, where the distant past was sharper than the more recent past. I supposed it was normal for the past to grow foggy with time, but I would have thought that a year ago would be clearer than this.
With a sigh, I got out of bed and got ready for work. As I dressed, I thought about how nice this apartment was. It was a full floor in an Upper West Side brownstone, one that hadn’t even been carved up into studios. How could I possibly afford this place without a roommate while working in a bookstore coffee shop? Then a blurry-edged memory of finding this dream rent-controlled place popped into my head. Oh yeah, that’s what had happened. I put on my coat and headed to the store.
I didn’t have time to stop for my unauthorized dose of caffeine, so I was bleary-eyed when I stumbled my way up to the café, where the tables and chairs had already been arranged like a university lecture hall. Great, I thought, one more thing we’d have to fix before we opened for the day. I had started the coffee brewing when Florence showed up, laden with bakery boxes.
“To get them this early, I had to pick them up,” she explained.
“I wonder if that means they’re actually fresh.”
“Gee, I hope not. I have some pictures to hang and I need something for pounding in the nails.”
We set out enough plates and cups for all the employees, and I had just enough time to get a head start on serving myself some coffee, which was as bad as I remembered, even when it was freshly brewed. I took off my apron before taking a seat at the back of the café. The rest of the staff came in, with much grumbling and speculation about what we’d learn from the meeting. I wasn’t sure which outcome I really wanted. I didn’t want to lose my job, but if I did, that might force me to overcome the inertia in my life. I might someday look back on this meeting and realize it was the best thing that had ever happened to me.