The Starbucks Message

Chapter Two

Three months later...

Samantha

When I’m asked how it started… it takes me a second to remember the night before everything spun out of control.

It was a dark night, dreary as rain was falling lightly; the air was so cold it seemed to creep in through the windows. My dad had the heater blasting to fight with the late winter cold… that’s when she came in.

I was cleaning off the counter when the woman stumbled in; her bleach blonde hair was ratty and tangled in ways I didn’t think were possible. Her brown eyes were bloodshot and blurry, her stylish clothes ripped in a way that made look like a rocker chick but from the road rash I guessed she didn’t get those rips on purpose. She was in her thirties and obviously piss drunk.

“Hey… girlie… come here.” She managed to warble as she collapsed into a chair, I was slightly annoyed that she came in when the sign said ‘Closed’ but she was probably too drunk to see what it said anyway. I sat down and looked into her eyes as she started speaking. “You see me don’t you?”

I was confused by the question and tilted my head, I didn’t even respond before she started talking again. “No… no you don’t see me. You see a mess, a horrid, retched mess. You know why? Do you know why I’m this way?” She stopped for a moment to drink the beer in her hand and then continued. “Men, men made me this way. Yes I know that sounds bitter but that’s the truth. They always say that they’re ‘different’ and that they ‘care about you’.” She drank again, her eyes turning blearier.

“Don’t believe any of those serpents… they’re all out to get you love. Every single one of them. Perfect boys only belong in fairy tales. No matter how different they are they will always leave you in the end. That’s been my life…” A tear ran down her cheek as she looked past me and into the distance… into a place my mind couldn’t possibly comprehend. “I used to be like you… a good girl, with a good life. Boys started out nice. They always did, but then the first one would break my heart, the next would promise to hold it forever then dropped it as soon as a problem came along. Men aren’t like they used to be, they don’t care about forever. They’re too caught up in now. They only care about what they can get from you now instead of waiting for the future… because that’s too long for them.”

I was surprised by how intelligently she was talking from how drunk she was, she was already nodding off and I was preparing for a drunken coma… but I couldn’t help but wonder how she could possibly know if I was one of those ‘good girls’. She didn’t even know me; I was just a girl that worked at the Starbucks her dad owned. I was just Samantha Sterling, a girl that wants to find her own way but is stuck in a coffee shop that sat next to a university… under the constant watch of her father. How could this woman possibly know anything about me?

Her weary eyes then looked into mine, “You have a light… don’t lose it. If there really are good men in the world now… then keep your light. Light attracts good men… don’t allow anyone to take that light away. Especially not a bad man, they will just take it and run. Leaving you in the dark.” She then got to her feet, barely keeping from collapsing.

My mouth seemed to work again as she stumbled to the door, “Are you sure that you don’t want any help? Do you want me to call a cab-?”

The woman chuckled darkly, “Love, it’s too late for you to do anything for me… my light was gone a long time ago… but you... you have enough light to change someone. Even someone whose innocence has been stolen from them as well…” She seemed to be lost in thought. “Yes… yes, you will do nicely for what I have planned…” With that she left the store, the bell ringing as she left, it rung with an eerie finality. Like I had just done something I wasn’t aware of, like something had just changed… I immediately banished the thought and instead thought of what the woman had said. She seemed to have a hard life, she was one of those people that had seen too many of life’s hardships.

The thought of someone causing her to be like that disgusted me. Who would utterly destroy someone like that? I’m sure that she had an amazing life until some jerk stomped all over it… I only wished that her life would get better. Guilt overcame me, I just had to help her, I should at least get her a warm drink! It was freezing outside! She only left a couple seconds ago, and being that drunk there’s no way she would have gotten far.

I poked my head outside to see where she was, expecting to see her vomiting inside of a garbage can. The lamppost light was flickering on the empty street of my town, I lived in a part of Stratford that didn’t get many tourists, but it was still strange not to have traffic going through our part of the town. I walked out, looking frantically, looking for the drunken woman but she had seemed to disappear off of the face of the earth. A frown went across my lips as I kept standing out there, determined to find the woman.

The cold bit into me and my teeth started to chatter. When I was about to give in and go inside I noticed a note on the lamppost. I walked over there, rubbing my arms in a vain attempt to warm them. The writing was barely readable but I could read it all the same.

Hey girlie, I’m going to continue my travels. You’re a good girl; make sure you stay that way Samantha. Hard times are coming your way, so no matter what happens make sure you keep that light!

~Blondie

P.S. Watch out for the butterfly.

I guess Blondie was her name; she was at least fine enough to leave me a note… I looked at my apron and noticed that my name tag was gone. I had taken it off in the back room. How in the world had she known my name? What did she mean hard times? And what freaking butterfly?

A chill went through me that wasn’t a result of the cold; I tore the note off of the lamppost and stuffed it in my pocket. I no longer had any motivation to stay out here so I ran into the warmth of the Starbucks.

My dad was sitting behind the counter with his head in his hands, staring down at the bills. Distress was across his features; my heart sank into my stomach. I knew that our store was going down the drain; it seemed that ever since my mum died that everything has gone downhill. The past few years have only been filled with heartbreak yet my dad still managed to keep us looking at the glass half full instead of half empty. He was definitely one of the greatest men I’d ever met… if I got any guy half as good as my dad I would be the luckiest woman in the world.

“Hey dad… did you ever see the woman that was in here?” I asked.

He looked up at me with a surprised look on his face, “There was someone in here? The bell didn’t even go off. In fact, I was looking at the security cameras and it didn’t show anyone in here.”

My eyes widened, “I’ve been talking her for the past five minutes.”

“Hmm… maybe I should run some tests to make sure they’re working then. Can’t leave the shop unprotected.” With that he quickly left the room and went into the back, but somehow I knew everything would be working normally. I collapsed; trying to absorb everything that Blondie had just told me. It all seemed surreal, maybe I had hallucinated all of it? Not that anything like that had ever happened to me before. But as I shifted in my seat I heard the crinkling of paper, which reminded me of the note that she left for me.

I read the words so much that I felt like they were burned into my mind, I didn’t get why I read it so much. She was freaking drunk! Of course it doesn’t make sense, especially the butterfly thing. I mean, why should I be scared of bloody butterflies? It defied everything sane. But I committed it to memory, I just felt as if it was important. And when I retired to my cold and small apartment I set it on the nightstand, where I stared at it. Thoughts I can’t remember now swirled around in my mind, a bunch of theories of what it meant, mostly I feared what hardships were ahead. I already felt like I’d gone through enough. I didn’t need anymore.

Then the familiar oblivion of sleep came over me…. Hiding me from the trials that were thrown at me.