“This seat taken?” Jody asked shyly as she placed the piece of pound cake on the table. The stranger moved over and still didn’t say anything. She sat down across from him as he buried his hands back into his pockets. “I have an extra fork,” Jody tried to entice. She used her fork and took a small bite. “Mmm.”
The man rolled his eyes. “Will you just leave me alone?” he muttered.
Jody placed her fork down on the plate and was slightly taken aback. “Sorry. Just thought you might want to break with the routine and have some... birthday cake.”
“Birthday cake. Great.”
A silence settled over the two of them and the pound cake. Jody decided that since her break was almost up, she had better dig in and leave the stranger to his moping.
“Whose birthday is it?” he moped.
“Excuse me?” Jody asked mid-forkful.
“Birthday. Whose.”
Deciding to go with the few-words tactic, she replied a calm, “Mine.”
He mulled that over for a while. “Why don’t you share your cake with your co-workers?”
Jody shrugged, partially because she was so surprised he actually spoke. “They’re not really friends.” She paused, knowing what was coming next. “And it looked like you could use something to celebrate. So,” she said with a grin as she pushed the extra fork in his direction, “here’s to how one day somehow makes you one year older.”
He looked at the fork as if it was contaminated. “I have to go,” the stranger said almost panicked.
Jody didn’t even have a chance to respond before he got up and bolted through the doors.
“Don’t worry,” she said to herself, “I’ll make sure to have a very happy birthday.”
Jody was smart enough to take the next day off, being that she was over 21 and had a slew of wild friends. So after a slightly hungover day of recovery, Jody was back at work two days after her celebration.
“How’s your headache?” Horace teased and Jody clocked in for the day.
“I don’t want to think about it.”
He smiled. “So I take it you had a good birthday?”
“The best.”
The store opened shortly after that and the morning chaos ensued. While she was mixing a vanilla cream frap, Dana came over to talk to her.
“You know, that guy came in yesterday,” she reported.
“You don’t say,” Jody replied slightly sarcastic, fully knowing that she could be talking about anybody.
“No, that guy with the raspberry chi obsession.”
“Now why would that interest me?”
“Only because when he saw you weren’t here he left.”
Jody let go of the blender out of shock and long enough for it to start to spill over. The two girls began to giggle almost uncontrollably as they attempted to finish the order.
“You two OK back there?”
“Fine!” Jody tried to cover as she poured the mixture into a cup, added whipped cream and put it on the counter. “Here ya go!”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Um... because it’s being cleaned up?”
A few customers chuckled, well aware of the lighthearted spirit being kept in the store.
The morning rush was over quickly after that and Jody and the others cleaned out the containers and other various messes that had been made that morning. Just as she was mopping the floor, Dana tapped her on the shoulder.
“Raspberry chi at 2 o’clock...”
“What are you talking about? He’s out by 2. He’s usually in right about...” Dana physically moved Jody so she was facing the mystery man. “...now.” Dana elbowed Jody slightly as she suddenly disappeared.
Being the only one left behind the counter, Jody was forced to serve the stranger who seemed to try to ruin her birthday.
She looked up at the man behind the counter and cut him off. “Raspberry chi coming right up.” She retreated to go make the drink. Once finished, she placed it on the counter and, as expected, the exact amount of change was waiting for her. Putting the change in the register, she put a straw on the counter and picked up her mop.
He stayed an extra moment as the counter and studied her. She felt his eyes on her, looked up, met his gaze, shrugged, and continued her duties of mopping the floor.
“Thanks, Jody,” he muttered and walked off.
Her head jerked up and she nearly leapt over the counter. However, breaking with his usual routine, the stranger promptly left.
That made Jody’s head spin. Why would he call her by name and then leave? She must have been standing there, leaning on her mop, and staring at the door for a few minutes before Horace came and broke her out of her daydream.
“Where’d your boyfriend go?” he teased.
Jody rolled her eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“That’s why you’re drooling over him and shared your one slice of birthday cake with him and you always get whatever drink he likes ready so he can have it whenever he prances in...”
“Yeah yeah yeah. I’m just being friendly.”
“Someone’s got a crush,” Dana chimed in in a sing-song voice. “Someone likes the cute, manic-depressive boy.”
Jody rolled her eyes again. “Since when did my romantic interests become fodder for the store?”
“Fine, we’ll drop it,” Dana said slyly. “As long as you admit that you’ve got a crush on the little emo boy.”
“Whatever,” Jody muttered.
The rest of her shift was rather uneventful. The regular customers came and went and before long, Jody’s shift was over. Being that it as a Saturday, Jody opted to meander around New York City before heading back home and to the lot of work that waited for her.
Hopping on a subway, Jody soon found herself in Times Square- one of her favorite places. She loved the hustle and bustle of being in the heart of Manhattan. One of her favorite places was Bryant Park. She loved nothing more than stopping by the café style restaurant and sitting at a table in the park with a book and reading while the world passed her by.
The book she brought with her today was one that she absolutely adored- A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. So, sitting down with her book, Jody dove into her bagel and cream cheese.
She was about halfway through the first act of the play when she heard the delightful squeal of a child. Being that Jody loved children, she looked up to see a child being bounced on the lap of lady who didn’t look much older than Jody herself. Jody smiled to herself as she shook her head. She was smiling more at the child, but at the same time she could not even imagine having a child at such a young age. Jody was having trouble keeping her own life in order, let alone being responsible for raising a child.
Around 4:30, and nearly at the end of the play, she decided to get back on the subway and make her way home. As she was waiting for her train, Jody looked around her. The business of the City didn’t stop below ground. There were people of all walks of life underneath New York and it thrilled Jody to no end that she could observe each and every one of them.
The screeching of brakes jolted Jody back into reality. She watched the cars of the subway go by, trying to see if she could make out a face or two of one of the passengers.
What she saw nearly made her fall over. Lo and behold, there was the raspberry chi tea guy from her store. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets and the collar of his dark jacket was turned up to shield his face from the chilly weather outside.
From inside the subway car, the stranger felt eyes on him. He quickly surveyed the car and realized that nobody was watching him from inside the car. He peered up from his warm jacket to see Jody, the Starbucks girl, standing on the platform waiting to get on the train. That freaked him out just a little bit. What was she doing here? Was she following him?
This made him panic. Maybe he shouldn’t have called her by name today. Maybe he shouldn’t go back tomorrow... or maybe he should. He knew he needed to get out more often, but he’d been so upset lately that Starbucks was as far as he had traveled until today. Just the fact that he was on the subway was a huge step. The world had been fine, but as soon as he was living on his own he lost all motivation to do anything besides stare out the window and shudder at how cold the world could be. So, instead of making a productive trip to another part of Manhattan, he decided that he would take the subway all the way downtown and then all the way back to his usual stop in TriBeCa. But now Jody was here and invading his little bubble outside of Starbucks. That scared him.
Knowing when not to mix business and pleasure, Jody opted to take a car that was farther down from the stranger’s car. After all, she didn’t even know his name and for all she knew, he could be a crazy man outside the store.
A crazy man with whom she had shared her one slice of birthday cake.
So with that thought in mind, Jody began her journey home.
