One Cup of You

Part 2

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This is a raw, unedited version of this book. You may see some grammar, spelling and continuity mistakes. One day, I might turn this into a paperback, but for now I just need to share my story !

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Piper came to the cafe after dark wearing dark sunglasses and sweatpants. She was the girl who looked like she hopped straight out of an Instagram Influencer post, even when she was clearly very hungover.

"I want it hot and I want it now," she said, throwing her body over my counter, looking up at me over the top of her glasses.

"Jeez dude, take it down a notch, will you?" I said.

"I can't. I live for the dramatics. Make coffee, my coffee queen"

I rolled my eyes and put on a pot, leaning against the counter as she slouched at her favourite table.

She shifted her weight around in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position in her seat that didn't encourage more nausea or headache.

Extroverts have a way of scoping out introverts and luring them out to bush parties or football games, and in my best friend Piper's case- the bars downtown. The day I met her I was in 10th grade, she in 11th, and we were taking the same 11th grade creative writing class. I wasn't so bad at making friends that I was a total loner, but being in an 11th grade class while in the 10th grade added a minor hurdle; everyone there already knew each other from going to school together for 11 years, and I had no idea how to make introductions.

Piper Russo, however, was the queen of introductions. As I was leaving class for lunch break, she ran up behind me and pinched my butt, telling me she really liked the way I looked in my jeans. At first I thought she was hitting on me, which overwhelmed me with a whole new realm of strange and confusing emotions, but as I stood there in stunned silence, a tall boy with a shaved head and a beard put his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek.

"Why, thank you, and you are?" I said, realizing she probably wasn't flirting with me.

"Piper Russo", she said, adjusting her pony tail of thick raven-black hair. "We're getting tacos for lunch downtown. Do you have five bucks?" I wasn't sure if she was asking me because she needed five bucks, or because tacos would cost me five bucks. I went with her anyway, and it turned out to be the latter.

She was a simple person to get to know, because she was an open book. She had no secrets and wasn't afraid to tell it like it was. These qualities were the best and the worst of her, but I knew I could count on her for an honest opinion or to get behind me if I needed a good defense.

I hadn't really had a best friend before Piper. There were girls I spent more time with than others through the years, but no one I liked and trusted as much as her. She never really gave me a choice and claimed me as her best friend shortly after the first time we had tacos.

She dated the tall bald guy, named Joe, for only a few weeks and then was on to the next boyfriend. It was always a boyfriend with her, and not just a fling. She wanted the commitment and the romance, but quickly got bored and found a petty reason to break up with whomever she was with and claim singledom for a brief period before moving on to her next paramour. I dated the same guy on and off from ninth grade to twelfth. I told him I loved him, but I'm not entirely sure that I ever did. When I found out he had been cheating on me, I felt more relieved than heartbroken, and once we broke up for that last time, I never heard from him again. I hadn't had a boyfriend since then, but I still had needs. I wanted it, and I wanted it bad. It was very temping to follow Piper's lead and hop into bed with every guy who was nice to me and good looking, but the woman had confidence of steel and I was wildly unsure of myself. Still, I found people to have sex with, but hadn't managed to get the relationship to stick. I became the most unavailable bachelorette in my town.

"Did you know that librarians have to get master's degrees in order to practice librariansim?" I said, unprompted as I watched Piper stir 4 sugar packets into her coffee.

"Ok, nerd? Go be a librarian then." She said into the hood of her sweater. Hungover Piper was perhaps not the person to chat about potential dream jobs with. I was still trying to figure out what my next step was, and Piper was useless. She didn't care about books as much as I did, to say the least.

"Where did you end up last night?" I asked, not terribly interested in her answer. Piper spent most of her weekends at the bars on the strip. She held a good 9-5 and had the luxury of taking every weekend off. My main concern was making sure she wasn't getting into bed with some creepy stranger, or worse, someone dangerous. Usually, she kept her head about her, but a hangover of this caliber always made me worried.

"I hopped around a bit," she smiled, "But ultimately spent most of my money at McMurphy's. Oh my God! You should have been there. At the end of the night, shit totally hit the fan. Did you hear what happened? It's all over socials. It hasn't even been a full twelve hours, and it's viral on Instagram."

Her story immediately intrigued me. We lived in a town that was not so small that everyone knew everyone and everything, but small enough that if something interesting happened, people knew about it.

"What? No, I've just been working." I said, pulling out my phone.

"Here," she said, grabbing it. She opened my Instagram app and found the video she was looking for.

It was Jamie Collins- a local celebrity musician who played the pub scene - and his girlfriend Amber on stage at McMurphy's, singing a soft acoustic love song together. Jamie was staring at the floor singing, while Vanessa passionately belted out the words. Her voice was deep, smooth, and rich. With her blonde waves tousled around her head, her round face, and floral dress with leather combat boots, she could've passed for Stevie Nicks. My mom actually named me after Stevie Nicks, because she was a huge Fleetwood Mac Fan, and it oddly annoyed me that she resembled my namesake. Ironically, I looked the exact opposite of her: I was curvy-or if you don't like that euphemism, "plump" works too, anything but fat. I'm not fat. And unlike her, I had dark hair & dark eyes and olive skin. I'd love to pull off the retro look, but my thick-rimmed glasses, winged eyeliner, and tattoos gave me a sort of soft-grunge hipster vibe. Either way, if she was Stevie Nicks, I was Joan Jett.

In the video, Jamie fumbled over a chord and looked like he was choking. He picked up his guitar and walked offstage, waving his hand above his head as he left, saying, "I can't do this. I can't pretend. It's done, it's over. We're not playing together anymore". Then the camera panned back to Amber, who looked like a deer in the headlights before the video cut out.

"Oh boy," I said, feeling my heart sink a little for Jamie. He'd be coming into my shop every Sunday for years, grabbing two black coffees and making small talk with me if the store was quiet. He'd even done a few gigs at the shop when we'd hosted events, and he was a genuinely friendly fellow. I tucked my phone away and tried to shake off some of the awkwardness.

"I know, right? They were total couple goals," sighed Piper.

I cocked my head at that statement and felt a pang of jealousy in my chest. They were a beautiful couple. They were like a hippie rock star dream couple with voices of angels and a pretty solid fan base in our town. My peers were busy becoming rock stars and falling in love and I was just there to serve them coffee.

"Yeah, really, eh? It's too bad they broke up before they made it big."

"Oh, I know, right? Too bad. They're both super cute though, they'll find other people real fast."

"I wonder if he's still going to perform," I wondered out loud. "He might need to get a job. Like a proper job."

My instincts were always to want to help, even when situations were completely out of my control. I've never liked to think of myself as meddlesome, but I just couldn't turn off the need to fix everyone I knew. Piper had gotten used to it well before we graduated high school and had no problem telling me to mind my business. I couldn't help myself, it was in my nature. However, sometimes even the innocent intention of helping someone can get tangled and there is a fine line between getting involved -and interfering with the natural order of things. Despite all the evidence from my life before me, I made up my mind to offer him a job.