Mal joined the queue, trying and failing to not be overwhelmed by the noise. Between the hiss of the espresso machine,the ebb and swell of about four different conversations, and the ring of the bell over the door as people came and went, they could feel the round, itchy feeling of Overstimulation creeping into their limbs.
To keep it at bay, they drummed their thumbs hyper-fast against their thigh, which jiggled as they bounced on their heels. After what felt like two hours (but was probably more like about six minutes), Mal finally stepped up to the register, careful not to disrupt the stack of mini pumpkins artfully arranged on the counter.
“Black coffee,” they said. And then added, “please.”
The barista, who was in college, by the look of their face and the presence of several nose ringsanda septum piercing, grinned back at them. The name tag on their shirt saidSAM, withTHEY/THEM/THEIRSbelow. Their curly hair was cut into a mullet that somehow managed to look both sloppy and elegant at the same time.
Sam said, “It looks like you could use it. Don’t worry. I got you.”
Whateverthatmeant, Mal didn’t have brain space to care. If this weren’t all so… everything at once, they would have thought Sam seemed like a really cool person. Mal didn’t meet a lot of other folks who used they/them pronouns, so when they did, they liked to study them a bit—to see what other people like them were like outside of the internet. But as they waited anxiously for their coffee, they just didn’t have the space for it. Jiggling their legs, their backpack bouncing against the small of their back, they opened their text from Emerson again.
Since Mal’s last trip here, the Haus seemed to have blossomedinto some sort of multipurpose community space. They didn’t understand the What or the Why, but they could see the How: the rooms of the old house, previously off-limits to patrons, were now open for use. In the room behind them, there were several large sofas in inviting shades of green velvet, along with windows framed by strange houseplants and tables at regular intervals, where folks worked at laptops or ate pastries from the bake case. Through the door to Mal’s right was another room whose defining feature, other than more cozy seating at its center, was walls of large and very well-stocked bookshelves. Mal raised an eyebrow when they saw one patron take a book, read the cover, and then smile to themself as they put it in their tote bag.
“Uh, I think someone just stole a book,” they told Sam when they gave them their coffee.
“Oh, no, it’s cool,” said Sam, waving a hand. “That’s our community Not-So-Little Queer Library. Leave a book, take a book, all that.” They smiled and handed Mal a cardboard cup. “Enjoy your coffee.”
“Thanks,” said Mal, utterly bewildered by the idea. And then: “Actually, I’m looking for—uh.” Their eyes flashed to their text again. “The back room?”
Sam nodded like they knew what Mal meant. “You’re meeting Emerson, right?”
“… Yes,” they said, sounding skeptical. They clutched their coffee cup hard, its thin walls heating their hands, helping to anchor them in the moment.
“Just through this door, hang a slight left, then take a right toward the bathrooms. It’s at the end of the hall.” And with a nod, Sam was off again, hands flitting back to the espresso machine.
Mal replayed the directions in their mind as they walked through the rooms: the Not-So-Little Queer Library led into a larger room that looked like it could be a performance space if it had rows of chairs but was for now mostly a hallway with a stage in one corner. People ambled in and out of the few doors that lead from it, but Mal looked to the bathroom sign that saidALL GENDERSand then, as they’d been told, hung a right.
This room was, thankfully, fairly empty and dimly lit compared to the others. Most of the light was natural, filtering in from two tall windows on the opposite wall, their white curtains drawn wide to bounce light off the white-painted walls and dark wooden floors. The only things in it were an ornate rug in the middle of the room, a giant houseplant in one corner, an out-of-place utility sink on the right-hand wall, and, centered squarely between the two far windows, an ornate old desk made of light wood, one of its corners chipped badly. Sitting at one of two mismatched chairs in front of it was Emerson, wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt (even though it was still really too hot for it) and a broad smile.
“Hey!” She beamed. “You made it.”
Mal still wasn’t sure how, exactly, they had.
“Yeah,” they said anyway, their coffee wobbling in their hand as they walked in and took the other chair at the desk. It wasn’t a desk chair, which felt weird and wrong; it was more like an accent chair, covered in blue fabric printed with birds. But it was comfortable when Mal sank into it—and armless, which was a good thing for fat bodies like theirs—so Mal decided it was all right for now.
They asked, “Why is there a sink in here?”
“This used to be a storeroom,” Emerson said easily, “but it was so far from the bar that they moved it and opened this one up for staff use.”
Mal gulped. “I’m not staff.” Suddenly this room felt like it was Not Allowed. Like being here was breaking a rule—something Mal could not stand to do.
“Eh, don’t worry.” Emerson shrugged. “I am, so we’re okay.”
Mal considered Emerson for a moment. Maybe it was her carefree, toothy grin or the excessively vibrant yellow of her sweatshirt (which was almost exactly the same shade Mal imagined showing up on their brain page), but there was something about her that feltfamiliar, despite the wild differences between the two of them. It didn’t fully alleviate the feeling of trespassing, but they nodded anyway.
“So,” they said. “Should we get to work?”
“Yeah, totally,” Emerson agreed, taking a sip of coffee. Unlike Mal’s to-go cup, Emerson had her own mug: a shiny pink cat head, complete with glittery green eyes and impractical ears triangulating up from the top rim. It smiled cutely, with a face like a Littlest Pet Shop toy. Whatever beverage it contained wasmuchmore complicated than Mal’s black coffee; there was whipped cream residue and—surely they had to be mistaken—sprinklesstuck above the cat’s left ear. “That’s what we’re here to do, right?”
Mal nodded. They were surprised Emerson was ready to dive right in rather than chitchat about her day, like Mal’s coworkers at Dollar City often wanted to do. Mal shrugged out of their backpack, unzipped it, and took out their planner. Opening to the day’s date, they looked at Emerson.
“I…,” Mal started, then trailed off. Suddenly, they were embarrassed by what was on the page: a line with the date, time, and place of their meeting, gone over in black pen several times so it looked almost like a bolded font, with several bullet-pointed notes below forming an agenda of things they wanted to discuss so they wouldn’t forget. Pulling out their planner felt a little bit like showing Emerson part of their brain—the tidier parts, at least, the ones they’d cleaned up for a houseguest—which was a level of familiarity Emerson hadn’t yet earned.
Mal’s mom always teased them about their Little Planner, as she called it. This felt particularly unfair, since Mal used it at least in part to keep her from teasing them aboutotherthings (time management, getting behind, forgetting). Here, on Emerson’s home turf, they felt sure that she would tease them too.
Mal gulped. “I made some notes,” they said. “About what I think we should talk about.”
“Perfect,” said Emerson, nodding enthusiastically as she pushed off from the desk with her feet. Her chair was anactualdesk chair, and this motion sent her wheeling toward the other corner of the desk. Bending, she collected a notebook from her own backpack, along with a fuzzy purple pencil pouch from which she started unpacking various-colored pens. “Is it cool if I take notes while we chat? Writing stuff down always helps me remember.”
