boys & flowers

blue rose (mystery) (part 2)

My balcony plants were thriving. A handful of people sat outside, watching bumble bees hover the magnolia. A man who comes nearly everyday on his motorcycle, drinks a black coffee and reads the Bible for an hour, raised his cup to me as I walked by.
“Thought you quit, son.”
“I’m on hiatus. I’ll be back in the fall.”
He nodded and went back to scripture.
It looked like they finished a rush when I walked in. The last group walked out with a drink in each hand. Bubbles of dried syrup were all over the counter, espresso beans on the floor, cream cheese knife gunked with cream cheese and poppy seeds.
Abbie, one of the youngest baristas, came running up and grabbed onto my arms, making my laptop bag slide off.
“Kyle, Kyle, look at me. Look at my eyes. Tears. Do you see my eyes? Literal tears.”
Her boyfriend, Tyler, who I may or may not have constantly scheduled with Abbie last year because I shipped them, appeared behind her, hands on his hips, eyes wide under his baseball cap.
“What happened?” I asked them.
“Tears,” repeated Abbie.
“Yes, I understand that, but what the hell just happened?”
Tyler piped up, “Tweek left for TWENTY MINUTES and everyone decided to pull up at the same time, which is FINE, I guess, except for this one bitch-”
“-Tyler made her a drink and he asked her if she wanted it hot, iced, or frozen and this lady deadass said ‘hot,’ WE BOTH HEARD IT. And when he gave her the drink she was like, ‘I wanted this iced’.”
“And I said,” Tyler had his hat turned backward now. It was getting serious. “I was like, ‘ayo, you said hot’. And she said ‘iced’. We just went back and forth, iced, hot, iced, hot.”
Abbie finally released my arms, “And I just wanted her out so I remade the drink while they were bickering. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“When was this?”
“JUST NOW,” they chorused.
The back door opened and Tweek appeared, a jug of milk in each hand.  “What the hell happened?”
“Oh my god,” said Abbie. “Tears.”

I took an iced coffee and sat down with my laptop. It wasn’t long until Tweek was sitting across from me.
“I like the stickers on your computer.”
“Oh, thank you.” My busted-ass laptop was covered in Portal stickers.
“Are you doing homework?”
“I wish. I’m buying my books for this semester. I wanted to do it in a place where I make money so that it doesn’t hurt as much.”
“Smart.”
“I try to be sometimes. Did you get your books yet?”
“Unfortunately.”
We watched the patrons outside all get up, one after another, and waddle to their cars.
“When are you coming back?” he asked.
“The end of August.”
“Ugh, that’s so far away.”
Tyler’s head popped up from behind the massive espresso machine, “Uh ayo, dawgs, we’ve got an issue with the… what’s it called, the coffee brewer? The coffee is cold.”
“Is the black switch off in the back? The boiler may have been turned off by accident.”
He disappeared, then reappeared two seconds later with a thumbs up.
“Just give her a few minutes to warm up,” I said.
“Her?” I could hear Abbie laughing. “We’re giving pronouns to the brewers now.”
“They’re crazy…” Tweek mumbled.
“They’re happy, Tweek. You’re doing a good job. Honestly, you’d be okay if I never came back at all.”
“Don’t say stuff like that. I’ll go into actual fucking cardiac arrest.”
A customer walked in, a new regular I guessed, since Abbie began steaming milk right away.
“Everything seems fine here. You’ve got a handle on it.”
“I’m pretending to know what I’m doing.”
“That's what everyone does,” I said. “But truly, I trust you. You’ve been here two years, if anyone is going to run this place, there’s no one better than you.”
Tweek smiled, then rose. “I’m still questioning your judgement, but thank you. I guess I’ll let you get back to it.”
He left me, floating off behind the counter, and I turned my attention to my new school schedule:

BROFLOVSKI, KYLE
FALL 2019
MAJOR: Environmental Science
MINOR: Chemistry
MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY
8 AM - 10 AM:
Modern Inorganic Chemistry
12 PM - 2 PM:
Advanced Writing in Environmental Studies
4 PM - 6 PM:
Energy Policy and Society
TUESDAY
6 PM - 8:55 PM
Intro to Photography