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coffee.
    She was halfway home when she
decided that she would take a detour and stop over at the coffee house instead
of making a drink of her own. With any luck, her coworker and friend Mandy
would be there, too. She hadn’t actually seen Mandy since her abrupt
reassignment to the morning shift at the start of July, and this close to closing they were usually about dead, so it would be a good
chance to catch up. By the time she was pulling in to a front parking space she
was already feeling a bit more awake and her smile was easier.
    The soft tinkling of the bells over
the door heralded her arrival, and Veronica found herself oddly comforted by
the sound. After a long evening of required socializing and faking her interest
in what was going on around her the coffee-enriched air of the small building
brought a lightness to her spirit and eased out a bit of the tension in her
muscles. There was something about the smell of coffee that always resonated
with her—it was why she had chosen to apply for a coffee shop in the first
place.
    Her eyes easily scanned the room,
noting the lone customer sitting in a back chair and typing away on their
laptop. She smiled at the familiar sight, realizing she’d almost forgotten the
late-night regulars who claimed a chair until someone politely asked them to
leave. And then her gaze continued on, quickly spotting the messy, light brown
bun attached to slightly hunched, slim shoulders at the back counter. Mandy had
her back turned to the front, undoubtedly trying to use the moment of quiet to
get a little pre-cleaning done, and so hadn’t seen her.
    “I’ll be with you in just a
second!” Mandy called without looking over her shoulder as she scrubbed at
something that seemed to have stained the counter.
    Veronica came up to the register
and leaned her hip against the counter sideways so that she could watch her
friend as she teased, “I don’t know that I can wait that long, M.”
    Mandy paused, lifted her hand and
her head simultaneously, and turned a bit with a curious expression on her
face. The curiosity lasted only a second before it was replaced with a bright
smile and she called back, “Well you’re going to have to; we don’t give special
treatment to the people who fall off the face of the earth after getting their
shifts switched.” She threw in a wink for good measure.
    “Need I remind you that you’re the
one who went and got sick last week?” Veronica returned with a grin before
honestly adding, “How are you feeling, by the way?”
    “That doesn’t count,” Mandy
insisted as she tossed the dirty rag into the back room and turned properly
toward the counter. “And I’m just about all better now, unless you count the
cough that never ends.”
    Veronica shook her head as she
straightened as well, saying, “I don’t. How’s night shift been treating you?”
    “The same,” Mandy assured her. “ Gonna tell me what you want?”
    “No,” Veronica replied. “I’m going
to make you guess.”
    “Coconut caramel it is,” Mandy
declared as she typed. “Usual size, and hot or cold?”
    “Yes, hot,” Veronica ordered with a
laugh. Mandy quoted her the employee-discounted price, Veronica handed over the
cash, and the two moved toward the adjoining preparation counter.
    “I thought Ali’s party would last
longer than this,” Mandy said as she set about preparing Veronica’s drink.
    Releasing a long-suffering sigh,
Veronica easily launched into the story behind her evening; and as she was
talking it occurred to her to mention what had happened that afternoon, but she
hesitated. Did she really want to involve her friends in whatever that was? Did
it even really matter at this point? She had decided to be hopeful that Seth
was right and she wouldn’t be bothered by Gregory Richards, Wilson, or the
other guy whose name she didn’t know, but there was still a part of her that
worried. And there were arguments for both telling someone about it and for