Smart vs. Pretty (13 page)

Frank replaced the volume. She wanted to run and never stop. The Meathouse Man was Piper Zorn. That oozing pustule of a book was a product of his twisted mind. At least now she knew why he had it in for her. A bad review in
Bookmaker’s Monthly
wasn’t the kiss of death, but it could hurt, especially to a writer’s self-esteem. Had all the evil forces in the world conspired in the last two weeks to get her? Would her pathetic life never turn around? Frank had to get out of there. She darted toward the elevator. Once out on the street, she bolted for the subway. Zorn would be a dangerous enemy—all the more reason to avoid him. Frank prayed no one would tell him that one of his Borgia sisters had sat at his desk for nearly half an hour and had answered his phone.

Frank made it to the subway in seconds. She had to get out of Manhattan and back to the safety and sanity of Brooklyn. She would have run up and down the track had the train not come immediately. She would have run up and down the train car had it not been crowded. Not knowing where to go, or what to do with her nervous energy, Frank got a bright idea. When the train stopped at Fourteenth Street, Union Square, she got off, loped up the steps, and proceeded to race east across town. Frank turned south a few blocks down Broadway, and then jogged east for a few more.

She was out of breath. The urge for speed had run itself out around First Avenue. Porto Rico, a coffee and tea import retail store, wasn’t open yet. Frank banged on the door until Brant appeared on the other side. He squinted through his round John Lennon glasses at her. Brant had long hair tied up in the back with a scrap of leather. He had lots of crocheted bracelets on his wrist. His clothes might date back to the late sixties, but Frank suspected he carefully and painstakingly shopped for new stuff that just looked authentic. He was from Seattle, the national home of gourmet coffee. A decade earlier, Brant had tried to open a café to compete with Peet’s and Starbucks. It was a dismal failure. He closed his doors and decided to come to New York, where the locals would do or buy anything that was considered cool. He’d lost all his money in the Seattle flop, so Brant got a job at Porto Rico with the hope of one day opening his own coffee bar.

Never happened. Not that Brant was bitter. He seemed content sitting in a small store, buying gourmet beans from all over the world, and selling them to people who had knowledge and taste. Brant let Frank in and locked the door behind her.

He said, “Coffee emergency?”

As always, Frank was bowled over by the aroma of the tiny shop. Dozens of twenty-pound burlap bags of coffee cluttered the floor. It was nearly impossible to walk between them, they were so tightly arranged. Her nostrils drank in the smell, and all her anxiety vaporized. Coffee was Frank’s opiate; Porto Rico was her opium den. She stuck out her tongue to taste the scent, rolling it around her mouth.

“I needed that,” she said. “What’s steeping?”

He smiled. “Ahh, something that might stump even you, Francesca.” He poured her a cup from the French press by the register.

She inhaled. The aroma was so delicious, tears nearly came to her eyes. Lovingly she sipped. Heavy on the tongue, smooth down the throat, sharp aftertaste. “Costa Rica,” she said, inhaling again. “Tazzura region.” She sipped. “Estate of Tres Rios.”

Brant shook his head, but admiringly. He said, “So close.”

Frank couldn’t be wrong. She said, “Dota?” Another Tazzura estate.

“Precisely.”

“Fresh?”

“Couldn’t be fresher.”

“I’ll take five pounds.” Brant found the appropriate burlap bag on the floor (Frank had always wondered why he stored his beans in nonairtight bags—they were plastic-lined, but hardly sealed—since coffee goes stale so quickly) and he scooped the order. While he measured, Frank said, “If I can stump you, oh coffee master, how’s about you give me the Costa Rican for a discount.”

He said, “If you can stump me, you can have it for free.”

“You’re full of cock.”

He laughed. “Whatever you’ve heard—it’s all true.”

She took the purple Vietnamese beans out of her pocket. Brant sealed up the five-pound bag of Costa Rican before examining Frank’s stash. “A raw seed?” he asked. “If this was smuggled in illegally, I’ll have to report you to customs.” He was kidding. The customs officials at Kennedy were no friends of his. Brant picked up one of the beans. He smelled it. “May I?” he asked. She nodded. He popped it into his mouth.

“Phew,” he said while chewing. “Not a quality bean by any standard. Definitely robusta or liberica. Peaberry. High acidity. Hardly any aroma, but that just means it’s stale.” Frank could see his tongue moving in his mouth. “That color. I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen just about everything.” He looked at her strangely. “Where did you get this?”

“No clues.”

“This is not my official guess, but I have to assume this seed comes from a hybrid plant and was harvested in a controlled environment.” He swallowed.

Frank shook her head. “Mountain-grown. I think.”

He smacked his lips, taking in the aftertaste. “Regardless of where it was grown, the tree was not cultivated to produce a tasty bean. The bean is far, far from tasty.”

“What other reason is there?” Frank asked. Flavor was everything to her.

“Coffee beans are a wonderful, natural source of caffeine. And this bean has some kick.” He picked up another one of the purple seeds. “I’m not stumped yet. But you’re sure this wasn’t harvested in a greenhouse?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” she said. “Except that it’s imported.” Smuggled, whatever.

Brant replaced the bean in the napkin. She folded it up and put it in her pocket. The bag of Costa Rican sat by the register, unclaimed. Frank reached for it. “Not so fast, Francesca,” he said. “I haven’t guessed yet.”

“No rush.”

“This is a toughie. But by a process of elimination based on its flavor and color, and the fact that it’s a hybrid, I’m going to have to guess…”

She tapped her foot. “I’m waiting.”

“Vietnam,” he said finally.

Frank’s eyes must have bugged. Brant laughed and said, “From your expression, I’ll assume I can ring up this purchase?” She nodded numbly. He went behind his butcher block table/counter and punched some buttons. “I’ll give you ten percent off if you tell me how the hell you got those beans,” he prompted.

“I’ll take five percent if you tell me how you guessed.”

Brant smiled smugly. “Like I said, a process of elimination. They are like no beans I’ve ever seen, and I’ve never seen a Vietnamese bean.”

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing.”

“Whole new experiment in coffee,” he said. “South Vietnam has the climate and a high enough elevation for robusta trees. Some industrious Vietnamese decided to force a crop in the foothills of the Buon Mathot region. I read an article about it in
Bean Counters
.” A trade newsletter for wholesalers. “I figured that the beans weren’t worth importing—I don’t deal in robusta beans and it takes at least a few dozen years to make a good crop. The Vietnamese produce around sixty-five thousand tons of beans a year—hardly anything. And hardly any of it is exported.”

Clearly Chick’s caffeine overdose was the result of popping these raw beans. Hadn’t Matt said he ate them one after the other? Frank didn’t think one would hurt Brant. She hoped it wouldn’t.

“How’d you get those beans?” he asked again. Frank shook her head. She must have seemed nervous. He said, “It’s a secret. I won’t ask again. But just tell me this: Does it have anything to do with all this coffee-killer nonsense in the
Post
?”

“Can the short answer be ‘not really’?” she asked. Frank didn’t want to get into it. She was still overwhelmed by the events of the past few days. She needed to sit down and sort it all out. That was when it occurred to her for the first time that figuring all this out might be the only way to save the store and herself. That this mess was a test of her worthiness—for happiness or security or something.

Brant said, “If there’s anything I can do, even if you just need someone to talk to…”

She said, “The truth is, Brant, I’m not really sure what I’d have to say. I know that I’m in pretty bad shape. But I feel overwhelmed by threats and information. I don’t know what to do, or whom to trust. This sounds paranoid, I realize. But I’ve been so scattered lately, jerked from one emotional moment to the next. I feel like…well, I suppose I feel the way Amanda does normally.” Frank had to admit, a frenzied emotional life was exhausting.

“You know, Francesca, I’ve just assumed that everything printed in that newspaper is bullshit,” said Brant. “In fact, I think that every article in every newspaper is bullshit. Consider the sources. Who’s feeding the journalists their stories? Publicists? Politicians? The authorities?” He made quote marks in the air when he said
authorities
. “As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t a single sentence published in the media that hasn’t been tainted by someone’s bias, either the journalist’s, the paper’s, or the source’s. And, if it means anything, I’m telling the same thing to everyone who comes in here and asks about you.” Brant smiled. He said, “Take the coffee. On the house.”

“Thank you, Brant.” Frank was embarrassed by her own gratitude.

“You’re welcome.” He handed over the bag. “And next time you have a coffee emergency, wait until business hours.”

M
eanwhile, back on Montague Street, Amanda faced off with the girl barista. “What the hell are you doing?” asked the coffee teen, a smirk on her lipsticked mouth.

Amanda said, “This has nothing to do with you.”

“I’m calling the cops.”

Amanda loved the way the girl said it. It sounded more like a dare than a threat. Amanda gazed into her fresh face with its freckles and pimples. The still-emerging cheekbones. She was so spirited, like a spunky little lamb. Amanda would have liked to sit her down and tell her all about men and dating and college. Instead Amanda said, “Go ahead. Kiss my ass while you’re at it.”

The phrase had never passed between Amanda’s lips before, despite her Brooklyn upbringing. Her fluttering fingers flew to cover her mouth, as if to corral any additional rudeness. She had no idea what had come over her. Amanda wondered if the stress of the last few days was to blame. But a part of her—somewhere low, around the ninth chakra—had relished the crass epithet. It had tasted like cream over her tongue.

Amanda had never been satisfied by one taste of anything. “What’s more,” she added, “screw you.”

“Screw you right back,” said the teenager. The girl mugged royally and then huffed down the street to, Amanda assumed, call the police. That wouldn’t do her much good, since they’d only just left.

Although Amanda was a student of the ever-changing flow of cosmic energy, fluctuations of her own psyche rattled her. Should she now expect to insult strangers regularly?
Not good
. Amanda saw herself as someone who radiated sunshine and light, not emitted harmful negativity. Had she picked this up from Frank? Were the yang forces in her soul screaming to get out? Amanda searched for the answer in her heart. She closed her eyes (she looked a bit odd standing there at the curb in her pea coat, meditating), and concentrated on her most vital organ, listening carefully for it to beat out a message to her in code. After a few minutes of
thud-thud, thud-thud,
she felt sleepy and decided her intuitive powers would be more precise after a nap.

Instead of going to Romancing the Bean, Amanda went upstairs to her apartment and flopped onto her fluffy bed. She’d gotten only a few hours of sleep the night before, and the day’s events had already worn her out. She closed her eyes and began to drift.

Ring
. Phone.
Ring
. One more and the machine in the kitchen would get it. She half listened to the clicks and the sound of rewinding tape. Then the machine started to play the new messages. It had to be Frank checking in. Amanda kicked her bedroom door closed. She didn’t want to hear who’d called. Sleep was more important. More pressing. Nothing else mattered. Not breathing. In or out. Or waves. Crashing. On…the…beach.

A broom handle banged on the floor beneath her. Matt must have seen her sneak upstairs. He shouldn’t be expected to run the store alone, Amanda thought guiltily. Slowly she got up, acknowledging that it wasn’t her destiny to rest right now. She redressed in clean jeans, a soft red mohair sweater, and brown loafers (screw the uniform, she thought). Twisting her auburn hair into a loose ponytail, Amanda pulled out some tendrils to swirl (as if by happy accident) down her back. She slapped on some makeup and spritzed on some perfume. She decided that she looked decent, considering how little sleep she’d had. Making change with her foggy brain could be a problem, but at least she’d be pleasant to look at.

When she got downstairs, Romancing the Bean was exploding with customers. It was eightish. She watched a couple of people try the door at Moonburst, find it locked, and then shoehorn themselves into Romancing the Bean. Amanda elbowed her way through the throng of people, pushing aside impatient men and women who were waving dollar bills and demanding their morning caffeine. From behind the counter, Matt was screaming above the crowd, “No cappuccinos or espressos!”

Amanda yelled, “Matt! I’m here.” Poor Matt. He looked crazed, pouring with one hand, making change with the other. Trying to keep fresh pots brewing. Dozens of people were calling out their orders at once. It was chaos. Matt wasn’t even ringing up charges on the register. He was just taking the money and throwing it in the till. Dollar bills and quarters spotted the floor at his feet.

Immediately jumping in and filling orders, Amanda felt her adrenaline kick in. She became a whirling coffee dervish, pouring, grinding, brewing. If she was too far from the till, she dropped the money on the floor behind the counter and stooped to make change (the best exercise she’d had in months). Matt and Amanda chugged at full steam like this for two solid hours. Once the massive influx slowed, they started scooping coins off the floor in great shiny handfuls. Amanda counted over four hundred singles and at least another hundred in quarters—the most lucrative morning ever. So much for bad publicity (closing Moonburst hadn’t hurt either). Amanda wondered if anything could or would keep Americans from their 450 million cups of fresh-brewed coffee a day.

Matt was lying on his back behind the cookie display with his hands over his face. He was moaning softly. Amanda said, “Matt, you were wonderful. I’m so proud of the work we did. I’d love to take you to lunch later. Not like a date. But I thought it’d be nice to hang out.” She smiled broadly. “But if you’re too tired, I understand.”

Matt slowly climbed to his feet. “Tired? I’m way past tired. I think I’m in a walking coma. But,” he said, “even in my weakened state, I could get in to hanging out with you.”

Amanda grinned from tendril to tendril. “That’s great, Matt!” She hugged him. “Just a few things before we go. The cookies and muffins need to be restocked. The garbage has to be emptied. The napkins and milk containers have to be refilled. The counters and tables have to be wiped off, and the floor needs to be mopped.” Amanda gave him a big, platonic kiss on the lips. “You’re really just the best.”

Shaking his head from side to side, Matt said, “I’m not some drooling kid with a hard-on. I’m fully aware that you’re asking me to do all this work in exchange for some of your full attention.”

“And?” Amanda asked.

“And…” He paused. “And I’ll get right to it.” He grumbled and picked up the mop.

Amanda, the energized, successful café owner, busied herself counting the money, cleaning the coffee machines, brewing fresh pots, and singing in her crackling, tuneless voice.

The old woman, Lucy, their loyal customer, showed up for her 10:00
A.M
. mug. Amanda was glad to see that she wasn’t too angry to come in again after Frank had taunted her the other day. Lucy arranged herself at a freshly cleaned table and removed a legal pad and a few pens from her massive shoulder bag. Amanda walked over with a cup of Brazilian and a bran muffin. Lucy barely glanced at her. Wanting to be hostesslike, Amanda joined the crone at her table. She said, “What happened to your PowerBook?”

She said, “Broke it over someone’s head.”

Lucy was such a kidder. “What are you writing about today?” Amanda asked.

Lucy’s faded eyes flitted over the pretty proprietress. She must have decided Amanda wasn’t making fun of her. Lucy answered, “Same as usual. Decay of values in American society, in particular the breakdown of the family. Working mothers, absent fathers.”

“Have any of your letters to the editor been published?” Amanda asked politely.

“You think I would spend hours and hours writing them if no one ever read them? You think I’m some kind of lunatic old lady?” was Lucy’s retort.

“So you’ve had some success.”

“You’ve got your father’s brains.” Amanda and Frank’s father was the emotional, if not intellectual, center of their family.

“Where, if you don’t mind my asking, have you been published?” Amanda asked.

Lucy seemed puzzled by the question. Amanda wondered how often anyone gave her a second glance, or asked her to do anything besides get out of the way. Lucy reached in her shoulder duffel and took out a small photo album. She dropped it splat on the table. Amanda opened it up. On each page she’d pasted a reduced Xerox of a newspaper or magazine letters page. Each miniature sheet fit perfectly in the photo album, but it was impossible to read any of the text. Amanda squinted and held the album a couple inches from her face. Somewhere on each page, she could make out a tiny byline with the first name Lucy. The last name was a long blur. Looked like it started with a
P
.

Amanda said, “
The Iowa Register
.
Plains News
.
The Podunkian
.
Jacksonville Monitor
. Impressive.” Lucy must have reached dozens, Amanda thought.

Lucy snatched the album out of her hands. “Impressive, huh? I hear the mocking tone in your voice. I don’t come in here to be insulted by a harlot like you. You’ve turned this place into a brothel, with these vulgar pink walls.”

“That’s not vulgar pink. It’s strawberry chiffon,” Amanda said.

Lucy said, “Call it what you want; I know what it is.”

Amanda felt a few choice words filling the inside of her cheek. But she kept her mouth closed. Rudeness to teens was one thing. But Amanda could never flagrantly insult an old woman like Lucy. That would be cruel. Amanda left Lucy to her notepad and coffee. Matt was nearly finished with his mopping.

Frank came in, bringing a gust of cold air with her. Amanda watched as she unzipped her puffy Michelin Man jacket and sat down with a harrumph at the table in the window. Things hadn’t gone well with Zorn, thought Amanda. She fixed a cup of Oaxoxoa for her sister and brought it over.

“Have a seat,” said Frank.

“Was it awful?” asked Amanda, pulling up a chair.

“He never showed.”

“You seem upset.”

“I wasted the morning.”

Amanda knew Frank wasn’t telling her everything. “I saw Benji. He was just about to open up to me when the police came and arrested him.”

That got Frank’s attention. “For what? Is smug obnoxiousness a crime?”

“A witness has accused him of killing Chick,” said Amanda.

Frank crunched her forehead muscles. “Does this help or hurt your healing process?”

Amanda wasn’t sure if Frank asked out of genuine concern or her own smug obnoxiousness. “Neither,” said Amanda. “Now I feel sorry for Benji
and
Chick.” Amanda thought of the way Benji had portrayed himself to his friend in Vietnam, as some honcho in the Moonburst organization. “I don’t believe for a second that Benji could kill a man. He’s really kind of sad, don’t you think?” asked Amanda.

The older sister blew the steam off the top of her Oaxoxoa. “The depth of your compassion is bottomless.”

From across the room Matt yelled, “A little help!” He was standing on a chair, holding five single-pound bags of whole beans in his arms, attempting to get them down from a high shelf.

Amanda chimed, “One second.” She picked up the bag of Costa Rican that Frank had brought back with her. “You went to Porto Rico?” she asked her sister.

“Brant confirmed that the beans are from Vietnam.”

Now Amanda couldn’t deny the facts. “You know what this means,” said Amanda. “Chick lied to me.” In Amanda’s book, a lie, any lie, was a stomp on the neck of love. And so early in their relationship. Practically from the moment they met. The worst part was that the lie seemed to do no service. He said he’d last been in Jamaica, but he’d really been in Vietnam? Who cared? Why would he lie about something as insignificant as that?

From his teeter across the room, Matt yelled, “A little
more
help!”

Frank got up and took the bag of Costa Rican with her. She relieved Matt of his bundles and lined up the fresh bags of whole beans on the counter. Amanda watched as Frank smelled each bag separately to judge its freshness and snap.

Matt jumped down off the chair, wiped his hands on his shirt, and said, “I’d like a lunch break.”

Frank said, “Go.”

Matt smiled. “Amanda, you coming?”

Frank raised her eyebrows at that, which made Amanda feel a twinge of embarrassment. Frank said, “I’ll woman the fort.”

Amanda said to Matt, “Give me ten minutes.” Amanda needed to refresh her makeup. “Meet me out front.”

By the time she finished her application, Matt had been to the supermarket and back. He held a bag of groceries under his arm.

He said, “Follow me.”

The two walked out into the January midmorning. Only a couple passersby recognized her. No one pointed or ran screaming to the other side of the street, to her great relief. They walked straight down Montague Street, all the way to the East River.

“Where are we going?” Amanda was stone cold. Her pea coat wasn’t nearly warm enough for the weather, but it looked cute.

Matt said, “Here we are.”

They stood at the entrance of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade in front of the George Washington/Battle of Long Island memorial plaque. “I thought it’d be nice to eat outside,” Matt said.

“Al fresco?” she asked. “How romantic.”

“Are you making fun of me?” he asked.

Amanda thought she might have really hurt his feelings. “The ships look nice,” she said. A few cargo ships floated down the East River, right under the beautiful crisscrossed steel-cable lattice of the Brooklyn Bridge. The sun was out, bouncing off the water and the fifty-story-high glass and iron buildings across the river on Wall Street. The promenade in winter. No noise. No smelly, overflowing garbage cans. No Apple Tours buses blowing fumes and discharging short-panted German tourists. Just crisp air, a breathtaking view, and peace. Amanda said, “If we sit in the sun, it’ll be okay.”

“We can huddle together for body heat.”

“Don’t even think,” she warned.

“Amanda, why do you assume that any man who wants to spend time with you is plotting to get you naked?” he asked.

“Aren’t you?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Good.” This was the kind of lie Amanda tolerated. It wasn’t like Matt was making up a whole phony history for himself, as Chick had. Amanda watched the sun on the water and reconsidered her debt to Chick. Did she still need to learn more about the man who’d intentionally tried to keep her from knowing him? Should she respect his living wish to be mysterious or continue trying to unbury the truth?