Storytime with Amber

In the sea of customers, it was one man and his wife who stood out as just a bit brighter than the others.

“Hello!” I greeted. “What can I get for you?”

“I’ll have a cinnamon latte, and a croissant for my wife.”

He smiled at the end of the request and the woman next to him, who I assumed to be his wife, waved shyly. I smiled in return.

“Coming right up! Do you have a rewards number?”

“No, no, we’re new to town. Never been in before.”

“Well, if you’d like, every 10th coffee is free. You just use your phone number to sign up.”

The man glanced at his wife, who smiled at him encouragingly, before continuing.

“That would be great, actually. We just moved into the yellow house down the street. You’ll probably see us a lot! I’m Eric, by the way.”

They didn’t seem like they should stand out. There was a kaleidoscope of people coming in for different reasons, ordering different things, all at different times of the day. Regulars came and went. There was a college student who lived in the loft above the bakery who would show up, bags under her eyes, as soon as I turned on the oven. The café wasn’t even open when she came down, but I always took a few minutes to prepare coffee and something to eat for her. She saw me at least twice a week until she graduated and moved out. 

The bell rang again, and I looked up to see Eric and his wife. Not surprising—they had come in every weekend like clockwork for the past few months. I stopped clearing the table I was working on.

“I’ll be with you in just a moment!” I said. The woman didn’t even turn her head in my direction, but Eric nodded at me. She hadn’t said a single word in the entire time that I had known her. 

I walked around to the back to wash my hands and as I did, I noticed their hands moving rapidly. With embarrassment, I realized that she must be deaf! The customer counter was so high that I hadn’t been able to see their hands until now. She hadn’t been ignoring me, it was just that she couldn’t communicate in the same way that I could. I’d need to change that.

There was the woman who first came in, sniffing the air as if being led by her nose, and ordered an éclair with a side of pickles. After a few months she came in pushing a stroller, and a few years after that she came in and ordered an apple juice for little Johnny and more pastries and pickles for herself. Now she only came in once or twice a year for a quick to-go order, saying that she had soccer practice, or that her husband would be working late again tonight so she had to rush back home.

But it was the man and his wife who I most looked forward to seeing, who I couldn’t let go of.

“Hello! Can I please get—”

“A cinnamon latte!” I interrupted as I handed him the cup. I held out the bag with the croissant in it to his wife, and as she took it, I signed enjoy the croissant. I had been practicing for months. Her face lit up and she began signing at me faster than I could decipher. I must have looked confused, because she stopped, slowed down, and signed My name is J-E-N. I smiled and followed up with one of the few phrases I had memorized. Nice to meet you! My name is C-H-E-L… forgetting the sign for S, I pointed to the name card that I wore on my uniform. Jen smiled and waved again, and the couple walked away.

The interactions with them showed me how much I needed to learn in order to provide a more inclusive space for my kaleidoscope. It sparked an interest in ASL classes and opened opportunities and friendships to me that are still important. That couple changed my life for the better.

Jen walked in and signed I’ll have a croissant and my husband will have a cinnamon latte. It had become a fun quirk, that here she would order for him when so often he had ordered for her. Eric kept silent and let us do all of the talking. I practiced and got good enough to hold entire conversations with her before they went to sit at their table. Eventually, I began to think of Jen as more than just a regular customer and more of a friend. I kept wanting to ask her if she wanted to see each other outside of work, but I always pushed it off until the next time they came in. 

It was noticeable then when the interaction that had become so familiar suddenly changed. She didn’t come in with him, and he looked like he was having a very bad day.

“I’ll have a cinnamon latte,” he said, before taking a deep breath. “And a croissant to go.”

“No Jen today?” I asked casually.

Eric didn’t respond, just looked at the floor while he took out his card to pay. I wanted to ask if he was alright, if she was alright, but we weren’t close enough. 

Although he didn’t put his number in for rewards, I gave him a free coffee anyway. He was probably at 10. Everybody can use a free latte on a bad day.

The bad days continued for a month. He came in and ordered a cinnamon latte, with the croissant to go. Each day he looked less like himself. I wanted to ask him about how she was doing but wasn’t sure how to broach the topic. He and I hadn’t spoken, except for taking his order; we were not close. The last day he came in was the worst, and if I would have known it was the last I would have probably handled it differently.

His clothes were rumpled, his eyes shot with red, as he trudged into the bakery that morning.

“A cinnamon latte,” he ordered, his voice cracking.

I rang him up for his latte and croissant. He paid. I handed him the latte, and then held out the bag with the croissant in it, packaged and ready to go, just as I had for the last month. He looked at the bag and froze, something in him shattering, before he dropped the coffee. It landed on the floor and splashed everywhere, including on his pants, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He just turned around and walked out.

“That was rude,” Amy, the new hire, said after the door shut behind him.

“Just clean this up,” I snapped, before heading into the back room to grab more chocolate cookies.

Months went by and I kept expecting him to return, to order his latte, but every time the chime on the door rang, it was a different piece of glass in the waves of customers that walked in.

“Did you see somebody finally moved into the yellow house down the road?” Amy asked.

My head shot up. “It’s empty?”

“Yeah, for like 6 months. Apparently it was hard to sell, I don’t know.”

She went back to putting pastries in the display case, completely oblivious to how her words changed me; to how they changed the café itself.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I missed them, so I logged in to our computer system and looked up the rewards number. His cellphone number. It rang, and rang, until finally someone picked up.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice.

“Is Eric there?”

“Umm, no, I think you have the wrong number.”

He never came into the café again. Neither of them did. I still wonder what happened to their bright lights, and I worry that I always will.