One
The first timehe came to the coffee shop was on a Tuesday at exactly 8:17 a.m.
Audrey knew the precise time he walked through the door because their resident Karen (whose name was actually Patricia) had just gotten done berating her for the fifth time in as many shifts, and she always came in at 8:10 a.m. on her way to work—and because after dealing with Patricia, Audrey always had exactly thirteen minutes before she could go on break.
It was the same thing, the same routine, with the same regulars nearly every day she’d worked at Déjà Brew. She’d gotten a job at the little industrial-chic coffeehouse about five years ago, when she first set foot in New York City for college, and she learned pretty quickly that the clientele was definitely local. And they were definitely set in their ways.
But this guy was new. They didn’t often get new customers, being so far off the beaten tourist path, and besides, she knew she’d never seen him before because she definitely would have remembered him if he’d ever come in during one of her shifts.
Audrey never forgot a face, after all.
Butthisman’s face was almost completely hidden from her.
He was both enormously tall and wide, which would have made him plenty distinctive already, but he also wore a black KN95 maskover his mouth and nose. Not that it was terribly uncommon in New York, especially with the approaching fall and winter flu season, but still.
He stood out.
The new guy stepped up to the register, the hood of his black sweatshirt pulled over an equally black baseball cap tucked low over his eyes. A curtain of thick, dark hair covered the right one, hiding it from view, and the other peered down at Audrey, dark and wide and seemingly nervous—inasmuch as she could tell, anyway. So much of his face was covered, but she’d gotten fairly good at reading the nuances of eye crinkles over the last few years.
“Hi! Welcome to Déjà Brew. What can I get started for you?” she asked brightly, plastering on what she hoped was a dazzling smile.
Tips. She needed tips this month if she wanted to spread her loans further than they usually went.
Why were groceries so expensive?
The pile of debt she had to contend with didn’t help either.
“Um…” His eye darted up to the menu and back down to her face before dodging away again. “One…l-large Americano.” His voice was deep, but he said it so quietly, Audrey almost didn’t catch it. She leaned over the counter slightly, a brow raised and her head tilted to hear him better.
“A large Americano?” He nodded. “For here or to go?”
“To go.” He said it a little more loudly this time, though only barely.
Audrey grabbed a paper cup and scribbled the order on the side. “Room for cream?” He shook his head. “Name?”
“Theo.”
She wrote that on the cup too and was just about to pass it off to Josh to make when Theo held up a hand to stop her, his single visible eye wide and worried. His hand trembled slightly.
“Wait! Uh…c-can I get that extra hot, please?”
“Of course you can.” Audrey noted it and smiled softly at him, a real one this time. She’d never seen someone so obviously terrified to order a plain black coffee before, but how hard he was trying was endearing. When she rang him up, he silently passed her a twenty-dollar bill—and then promptly dropped all of his nearly sixteen dollars of change into their tip jar, immediately shoving his hand back into his pocket as soon as the coins clinked on the glass bottom.
“Whoa.” It was Audrey’s turn for her eyes to widen. “Wow. Thank you, sir! That’s—”
But before she could finish, he turned his back and retreated to an empty table in the corner. Josh called out his name, and Theo practically sprinted over to grab his coffee before hiding again, drawing his cap lower over his face as he sat and hunching his shoulders as though he were trying to make himself smaller. A futile attempt, to be sure, but she commended him for the effort.
Audrey took her break. When she came back, he was still sitting there, his mask still concealing his mouth, writing diligently in a little black leather notebook and not making eye contact with anyone.
He left at exactly 9:00 a.m.
He never took a single sip of coffee.
The new guydidn’t come back until the following Tuesday.
Audrey didn’t know why, but for the rest of that week, every time someone walked in wearing a black hoodie, she searched their face to see if it was him. But she was disappointed every time—not a mask in sight. Perhaps he hadn’t liked their café or their coffee after all. Perhaps he was just visiting.
Was it because of how nervous he’d seemed? He’d barely been able to order from her. And then he’d left such a large tip.
