“What’d you get up to today?” I ask.
“Oh, it was fabulous,” Mom says. “Your father got a new polo shirt at the gift shop!”
She stumbles through a story about Dad being too tall for the dressing rooms, and I throw my phone on speaker, freeing up my hands so I can change. I grab sleep shorts and shimmy out of my jeans, adding them to the “not quite clean, not quite dirty” pile draped over the back of my desk chair. My bra gets thrown on the same pile, but I opt not to take off the sweater. It’s cozy and, if I’m being completely honest with myself, still smells a little like Ellie’s grapefruit shampoo. Maybe that’s pathetic, but it makes me feel marginally less alone. I’m back on the bed before Mom gets to the part about Dad getting a discount…or is he planning to go back and ask for a discount tomorrow? It’s a little unclear, so I opt for the only foolproof reply: “That’s crazy.”
“Crazy is an understatement!” Dad is back to shouting, and Mom shushes him again, resetting his inside voice. “What’s really crazy is howcrazygood I look in this shirt!”
Mom laughs, then hiccups, then laughs again. “He really does look crazy good!” Her giggles get louder, and I can pictureDad puffing up his chest and hitting that finger-gun pose he always does when he tries on the clothes Mom gets him for Christmas. Just the mental image has me laughing along with Mom until her giggles subside into a quiet exhaustion. “Boy, I’m telling you, I think we gotta get to bed here, Murph.”
I try to curb my disappointment. “Sure, sure. I won’t keep you up then.”
“We love you!” Mom says.
“And we miss you!” Dad shouts over her.
“I love and miss you too,” I say, but the line goes dead before I can finish the thought. I’m alone again, just me and my eight-year-old self grinning back at me from behind her heart-shaped sunnies. I wonder how she’d feel if she knew this was her future, that over a dozen years later, she’d be stuck in the same bedroom, still dealing with all the same types of drama: school, parents, crushes, and Kat. She’d probably think I was all grown up, and I wouldn’t have the guts to correct her. I wouldn’t want to break her little heart.
sixteen
The view from behind the espresso bar is as chaotic as it is glorious. After ten months of renovations and two months of setup, Sip’s doors reopened this morning to a news van, a camera crew, and a line of customers snaking two blocks down Third Street. We were expecting a solid turnout; what we got was half the county.
Over half a shift later, the line has reportedly not gotten much shorter, which checks out based on the constant crowd packed inside. The Black Friday shoppers stumble in and out between doorbusters, but everyone else sticks around to defrost and check out the details of Sip 2.0. The place is packed with familiar faces and out-of-towners alike, and in the thick of the chaos, my camera and I are capturing it all. Plenty of people mention the write-up in theTribune, but just as many say they’ve been waiting for this all year, and I take shot after Christmas card–worthy shot of anyone willing to smile for the camera. As I set up my angle for a time-lapse video of the crowd, I try todocument the moment in my memory too. The past year—the last two months, especially—have been grueling work, but it was all moving toward this. The Dream House is built, and the Barbie dolls have moved in. The PTO moms, the artsy couples, the theater cliques moving in packs—I’m so happy they’re back, even if it means I barely have time to swap my SD card or catch a breath.
“Murphy, we need backup!” My manager’s voice carries from behind the bar and over the customer chatter. I was supposed to focus only on capturing content today, but since a few of our fastest baristas are out of town, I’ve been ducking behind the bar as needed to lend an extra set of hands. For the first half of my shift, pulling triple duty as the photographer, videographer, and backup barista wasn’t so bad, but around one o’clock, I got hit with the side effects of running solely on adrenaline and four hours of sleep. That part is no one’s fault but mine. I shouldn’t have stayed up till two in the morning scouring the U of I website for proof that Professor Meyers was wrong and I could still transfer next semester. I found nothing except proof of the exact opposite, and now I’m paying for my choices in exhaustion and eye strain.
“Murphy!” my manager calls a second time.
“Coming!” I weave between tables and back toward the bar, but I can’t resist stopping to snap a few shots of a mother-daughter duo, each of them dipping their noses in whipped cream as they sip their hot chocolates. I capture them midlaugh. Perfectly candid. It should probably make me miss my own mom, but instead, my mind wanders back to playing photographer at the bar Wednesday night and my own flop attempt at a candidphoto. My chest tightens a little. I like those stupid pictures of me and Ellie more than I care to admit.
I haven’t spoken to Ellie since I left her house last night—not that I’ve had the time. Between transfer research, sleep, and work, I haven’t had the headspace to even begin processing yesterday’s mess. I’ll need a lot more sleep before I’m really up for the challenge, but before I even started this shift, I promised myself I’d keep up the girlfriend act when Ellie and Carol swing by. If Ellie and Carol swing by. I’m not sure where our argument leaves today’s plans, but I’m still sort of hoping she shows.
“MURPHY!” A third time. My manager is going to kill me.
“Yup, I’m coming!” This time, I actually mean it. It takes another minute to shoulder through the crowd and back up to the bar. The air is thick withScuse meandCan I squeeze past youandHow long are you planning to be at this table?Even with the new addition, the building is packed to the gills. Coffee shop customers are a liquid; they will fill whatever space they’re given. By the time I’m back in my apron, I’ve fallen down a memory of an emptier Sip, when it was just me and Ellie, soaking in the details of the shop and each other. There’s a tingle arching up my feet, but I ignore it for the moment. Right now, I’ve got espresso shots to pull.
“Do we have any more of this?” Brooklyn, our new holiday hire, wraps her neon nails around a half gallon of oat milk and shakes what sounds like a backwash amount left inside.
“There should be more in the basement fridge,” I direct her. “Downstairs, on the right.”
She nods, her braids swaying around her face. Apart from that, no signs of movement.
“Can you, uh…grab it?”
“Oh, right,” she says. “Got it.”
I watch the Gemini sign stick-and-poke tattoo on her shoulder disappear down the stairs much slower than it should. A little hustle would be appreciated, but she’s probably overwhelmed; I would be, too, if this was my first real shift. While Brooklyn is gone, I pick up where she left off, working my way through the growing stack of to-go cups with orders scrawled in Sharpie on the side.
“Still waiting on those cold brews with oat milk!” the manager on register shouts over the clang of the cash drawer slamming shut.
“We’re getting more oat from backstock.”
She gives me a thumbs-up over her shoulder and gets back to the line of customers, leaving me to pull espresso shots in peace. Or something close to peace. The best that today can afford. Each time I snap a lid into place and slide an order onto the bar, I check the green velvet bucket chair where Ellie sat just a day and a half ago, as if she’ll reappear there somehow. So much of Wednesday night feels smudgy, like a dream or a hallucination, but the memory of Ellie in that chair is hauntingly clear.
Brooklyn thuds back up the stairs with oat milk in hand, and I lock the portafilter into place, keeping the espresso assembly line going. I watch as Brooklyn sets the carton down on the counter before carefully lifting each half-filled cold brew cup, verifying the order scrawled on the side before topping them off. Detail oriented. She’s a good hire, if only for the month. She pops the lids on and sets the drinks on the bar, then starts in on the next order in the queue.
“Peppermint oat milk latte with no espresso,” she reads off the side of the cup. “Isn’t that…”
“Hot peppermint milk,” I say. “Probably for a middle schooler.”
