It still surprises me how great people might be standing next to you.
After she was gone, I stopped making coffee at home.
I have a good machine. That wasn’t the point.
I started going to a café close by.
My wife and I used to go together. Now I go solo.
After a few weeks of ordering the same thing, conversation begins.
Names exchanged. Common ground tested.
Baristas have the unfair advantage of knowing your name without being weird.
The rest of us have to earn it.
That’s where he comes in.
Witty. Sharp.
The kind of sarcasm that makes overly sensitive people nervous.
Same name as mine. Different spelling.
European blood. Eastern though. Not everybody gets everything right.
“Acting is my thing,” he said once.
“Great,” I told him.
He talks about craft, not fame.
Books, not branding.
“I’m narcissistic sometimes,” he said.
“No shit,” I replied.
We joke about racism.
About my dark skin.
About how I apparently make a handsome living for a mulato.
Some mornings the conversation drifts too close to something real.
He hesitates. Contained.
Then he smiles like he wasn’t supposed to.
Like a door opened by accident.
You never know if it’s humour or something else.
He never apologises for who he is.
There’s something steady about that.
I take a sip and burn my tongue.
“Too hot,” I say.
“Perfect 70 degrees,” he says.
Of course it is.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Stay away from white people,” he warns.
I nod.
“Bye.”
The coffee’s finished.
He moves on to the next order.
He won’t always be here.
And that’s how it should be.