Death and coffee

Letitcia stared at the coffe cup in her hands. The harsh dryness rose to her nostrils and pierced the chill inside her. Nice. She made the obligatory ‘hmmmn’ noise and sat back. There was something about coffeeshops that made one feel sophisticated and chic. Three minutes in the Lucy Browns and she had already forgotten her unremarkable two bedroom apartment, her unremarkable job…her unremarkable life.

She cupped her hands around the cup. Lifted. Sipped. Nice.

She had come before the afternoon rush. Somehow she’d done the impossible, slipped out from behind her cubicle at nine-thirty, grabbed her purse and sprinted to the elevator. Her co-workers had watched her wide-eyed and she’d felt a sense of pride as she did so. She was ‘good girl’ Leticia. Not today. She’d probably miss the one-thirty meeting too. Boy, she was living dangerously.

But she’d only got as far as LucyBrowns. It had taken her all of two minutes to stop in front of its frosted doors and push her way inside. Again, she’d paused at the trendy motif-swirls of black lines and white moons. Tres chic. Then she’d made her way to the booth at the back, shifted forward till she was at the edge of her seat. In a few minutes, her thoughts would wander to another city. Another time. When life was supposed to be simpler.

“You want something to go with that, sweetie?”

Leticia looked up . The hostess at LucyBrowns was a thin woman with silver, ear-length hair who always stood rigid over tables, a menu in the crook of her arm. Her smile always seemed wider and scarier up close.

Leticia leaned back from her cup. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Really? It’s just you’ve been here a long time.”

“I’m-“

“All alone at the back. I wouldn’t want you to feel you weren’t being attended to.” She whipped out the menu from the crook of her arm and slid it across the table. Centered it with an index finger in front of Leticia. “There you go. Our specials.”

Biting back hate was something Leticia had learned to do rather early in life. Holding your tongue had been the smart thing to do in their old neighborhood. That had been home. Had been home before Dddy got the good job and moved his wife and remaining two daughters to Atlanta. You held your breath. You counted to ten. You rose above it.

Leticia shifted uncomfortably in her seat and thumbed the menu. The small print and the accompanying prices stared back. “Mint tea,” she said quickly, twisting the menu back to the hostess.

The hostess’ smile didn’t even dip. “Oh. Is that all?”

“No, thank you.”

“The muffins are on special today.”

“I’ll have a muffin. Two. ”

“Excellent,” the hostess purred, snapped the menu off the table and walked back the way she came. The confident walk of someone who’s used to getting her way. Leticia’s mother had the same walk. So did her older sister, Hannah. Trick had liked Hannah first.

What was wrong with her? This was supposed to be a good day. This was ‘bad girl’ Leticia day. So she leaned back. Sipped. Stared round the room.

Lucy Browns started filling up, the spaced-out Bistro tables soon surrounded hip youngsters, clutching their hands-free and chattering non-stop. A while later, the slightly older crowd shuffled in. Some headed for booths while others huddled around the chrome espresso machines. A couple’s laughter rang out as they shared a joke beside the windows.

Leticia took a gulpful of coffee this time, the steam warming her face. All these people slurping their coffee, deep in discussion, some people sitting idly by themselves: even the clichéd wanna-be writer sitting, tapping at his laptop. She felt a sudden kinship with all of them. For this was what needed to survive life in Metropolis: World of Tomorrow. A squat, piece of heaven hunkering under towering skyscrapers and a framed square of grey sky.

“Hello…Could I sit here? Do you mind?”

Leticia looked up, startled.

A man smiled down at her. A tall man with big, black spectacles. A bag slung across his blue plaid shirt. “I’m sorry. I hope you don’t mind.”

Don’t mind? Leticia stared at the rapidly filling seats and groaned. Now, she had to finish the rest of her coffee opposite a complete stranger. Watching her slurps, holding back burps, avoiding eye-contact. Whoopee.

She shrugged and tried to ignore the man’s beam of a smile as he slid into the seat opposite. She hoped he wouldn’t talk either or even make an attempt at any kind of conversation. Hooking up with random guys in coffee shops always seemed ‘desperate’ in her book. Her mother had met her latest beau at the grocery store and had immediately called up her daughters and eagerly paced out every detail. Condiments and romance don’t mix, ma. She’d told her mother that. There had been that inevitable sigh. If you had a man, you wouldn’t need to make up slogans.

The man lifted the duffel over his shoulders, unzipped it, reached in and brought out a thermos, a spiral-bound notebook, a couple of pens, a name tag. The words, DAILY PLANET, were stamped on its laminated surface.

Leticia shifted in her seat, deciding to focus on spiral images on her coffee cup. It wasn’t polite to stare.

The man reached for the sugar packets on the table. Then he unscrewed the thermos, then he poured the contents into the steaming thermos while reaching for the notebook with his other hand.

Yipes.

He flipped through the pages, took a gulp of coffee, yanked a cell phone from his still open duffel bag, flipped through his notebook again-

“Hi, I’m Leticia Dale,” she said, shooting a hand across the table.

The man stopped mid-coffee-gulp. “Hello…” he sputtered.

Okay. She had to say something so she wouldn’t seem like some kind of nut job. But she had to stop him, before she grabbed that notebook and threw it at the hostess. Ha. “I just always felt the need to introduce myself to random strangers in coffeehouses.” Humor. That should work.

Luckily, the man’s frazzled look eased into an easy grin. He took her hand in a warm and friendly grip. “I’m sorry. I’m a chaotic mess wherever I go.”

“That’s okay,” she said, pulling her hands back slowly. “You’re with the Daily Planet. ”

“Yes. Just started a few months ago.”

“How has it been?”

He pushed his glasses up his nose and his smile widened. Large, brown eyes. Pearly-whites straight from a TV commercial.. Neatly trimmed black hair…

Leticia suddenly had an intense longing for chocolate chip, the ones rolled in cookie dough. Balled up package in the corner of her cupboard in her unremarkable kitchen.

“That bad, right?” she managed to say.

“Well,” he said, leaning forward. “Let’s just say being an intern is more intense than I thought it would be. A lot’s expected. Hence, the chaos.”

“I’m sure you’re handling it a lot better than you think.”

“Well…Metropolis is new. One needs to get used to it, I guess. Nothing like home.”

“ I’m new to Metropolis too. Been here two years. It gets easier.”

“Oh boy, I hope so.”

“Where’s home?”

He gave her a strange look, brown eyes blinking through thick lenses. For one crazy moment she thought he was going to leave. Not that she would blame him. Starting up a conversation with some guy you met wasn’t good girl Leticia behavior. That was for girls that didn’t wear sensible work clothes or wrapped their hair in neat buns. She could hear her mother’s sigh. That’s Leticia all over. Solid colors, never any bright patterns.

“Home’s Smallville,” he said finally.

“Never heard of it.”

“Kansas.”

“Now I know I’ve heard of it.”

There it was again. That smooth easy laughter that made her forget grey cubicles and the long commute home. All that remained was this warmth that shot through her. But… it could have been the coffee.

That was probably why when she first heard the commotion, she had thought nothing of it. People occasionally argued in coffeehouses: a group of students trying on some political argument for size, some wise ass that just had to talk on his cell phone several decibels over the legal limit, or the line at the register just got too long to make sense.

But all that changed with the gunshot.

It rang out loud, ear-splittingly loud. In a panic, Letiticia whirled round, just in time to see regular coffee guzzlers screaming and running for the door. Too frightened to move, Leticia sat frozen, watching, the frenzy becoming a blur. She was going to faint.

The second gunshot woke her up and sharpened her gaze. Instead of the flowing mess, she noticed a man in the center of the fray. He had a gun in his right hand and was shouting something she couldn’t hear. He was long-limbed and had a goatee. The writer.

What the-?

Another gun shot rang out. Pieces of plaster spattered down on the gunman, but he didn’t care. Instead he turned round in a tight circle. Shot at the doors. The frosted glass shattered and the crowd moving toward the door scattered in different directions. Some dove under tables, others over the counters. Like puppets being controlled by some crazed pupeeter, who had decided to see how many times people could be slapped around till parts of them snap off.

“GET BACK,” the gunman yelled. Then he walked to the door and turned to face the crowd. “NOBODY GOES ANYWHERE. STAY DOWN…STAY DOWN!”

There were more whimpers, the chairs screeched as more people dropped to the floor. The gunman took a few steps forward, shoes crunching on broken glass. He kicked at fallen over chairs and tables. He squinted around him, much like how he’d been squinting at his laptop screen just minutes before.

Leticia felt a frantic tug on her fingers. Get down, somebody whispered. Under the table.

She didn’t move.