Liberty Coffee Avatrice

Chapter 4

Beatrice stared at the cardboard cup sitting on her kitchen counter, she had carefully washed it and dried it, and it had been haunting her ever since.

***

Ava spent the entire weekend staring at her phone, waiting for Beatrice to text or perhaps even call. She tried to listen to what Shannon had said and not panic. It had been fairly easy to do on Saturday because the Firefly had been incredibly busy all day and Ava barely had the time to steal a glance toward her lock screen.

But Sunday had been a different story, the Firefly was closed so Ava was left to her own devices, and she was spiraling. Why wasn't Beatrice texting her, had she misread their friendship ?

Had Beatrice thought she was flirting, like Shannon had, because Ava had not meant to be flirting at all. Perhaps Beatrice hadn't seen the number, of course she hadn't, Ava had had the stupid idea of writing it on the bottom of the cup instead of on the side.

Meanwhile Beatrice spent the weekend in a similar manner' staring at her phone and debating whether to text or call and what to say if she did. Everything she could come up with either sounded too formal or too lame, were they even friends, what was the etiquette here ? She obsessed over it all weekend, until she realized on Sunday night that she still had a massive stack of papers to grade. Beatrice hated how distracted this Ava person was making her, it was truly terrifying.

The next morning was rough, Beatrice had stayed up grading until ungodly hours so she desperately needed coffee, what she absolutely did not need though was more distraction.

So she made coffee at home and went straight to work, avoiding the Firefly, just for this morning she told herself.
Thankfully the day started with her favorite class : senior creative writing. As a professor she wasn't supposed to have favorites but she couldn't help it, the kids in this class were bright and engaged and overly creative, she loved it. She used to teach the same class in Boston but it had been very different due to the school's constant censorship and conservatism.

Beatrice wasn't quite there yet but she could already feel it, one day SunnyBay would truly be her home, she was becoming happy here, and now at least she remembered why she had started teaching in the first place.

***

Ava was buzzing, her eyes darting to the door whenever someone entered, hoping it would be Beatrice. She hadn't seen the British woman on Monday, but Beatrice only came by two or three mornings a week so there was still time - however as days went by it became inherently clear that she was not coming, not today nor tomorrow.

Ava tried not to feel sad about it, maybe Beatrice was busy, or cutting down caffeine, whatever it was it wasn't personal. Or so Ava told herself, her and Beatrice weren't really friends, it wasn't against her, she couldn't help but feel like it was though.
On Friday she gave in and called Mary to ask her if she'd seen Beatrice, perhaps she had been sick.

Much to Ava's dismay Mary debunked all of her theories, Beatrice was okay' she was good even, they often had lunch with Lilith and she was slowly opening up and settling in. Which was all good and great, Ava was happy for her, but it also reminded her that they weren't friends, Mary and Lilith were friends with Beatrice - but Ava - she was just the barista.

Mary, tired of Ava's sulking and somewhat mad at Beatrice's behavior decided to take a page out of Camila's book and conveniently forgot to mention that Beatrice was also invited to dinner, to ensure that they would have no choice but to face each other.