8/25/2014
Jacques moved back to France, they say. He left so quickly that the papers he refused to sign were still hovering in the air. His employees bewildered, his taxes unpaid; nothing but his fingerprints pressed into perfect pastries glistening on the display table. The people around here still talk about him over a coffee, or a beer, or a pair of chopsticks. Their eyes dilate when they discover a set of ears that haven’t heard his tale. I’m not so sure why the locals are so dismayed by the idea of a man running away from his responsibilities, but I suspect it has something to do with jealousy.
9/1/2014
It’s raining here for the fifth day in a row. The passing cars sound like an ocean that I’m too far away from, and my eyelids are heavy with sleep. Yesterday I was pouring coffee into an Airpot when a woman said to me, you look so much like my mother. I said, thank you, but only because I didn’t know how to respond.
9/4/2014
We keep cups, lids, and other coffee shop necessities in an attic just above the walk-in refrigerator. The staircase maintains its original oak, someone said to me during my training, but I’m confident that isn’t something to be shared or bragged about. About a week ago, I was organizing the cardboard boxes when I found a strange set of markings on the bricks behind the shelf. I haven’t told anyone because I don’t want to see their shark eyes turn black with speculations of Jacques and his disappearing act. I moved the boxes back to the corner and I think I might go and look at it again tomorrow.
9/5/2014
I smile and maintain eye contact so naturally, all customers think I want to sleep with them. A gentleman asked me if he could buy me a drink after my shift today and I told him I was doing the Whole30 diet so he said he could wait a month and I said I would be dead and he said, what did you say, and I said, sounds great!
9/7/2014
I didn’t have any time to peek through the attic today. The rain finally stopped and the cafe was busy with women in dresses and men wearing sandals. 5:30am is the best time in the world. The only other people walking to work are wearing hardhats or carrying gym bags, and not a person says hello or goodbye. Today a man ordered an Americano and when he drank it he said there wasn’t enough milk in it and I said, sir, there isn’t milk in an Americano and he coughed and told me that my shirt was inside out.
9/8/2014
I have this memory of middle school science class. We were in the lab, wearing rubber aprons and goggles, dissecting a mouse heart. I made a joke and my teacher said, you’re weird, to which I answered, I’m not weird I’m regular and he laughed. When I asked him what was so funny he said that to be regular means that a person is on a consistent pooping schedule and the entire class laughed with me or without me, it doesn’t really matter. I think about that instance a lot when certain individuals come into the cafe. I guess I’m a regular now, a man will say because he orders a latte every morning and I snicker quietly at the stability of his bowel movements while I slice a piece of banana bread.
9/12/2014
I finally rummaged around in the attic again. It started to storm, and for a brief wondrous hour the entire block lost power and we had to lock the doors while the generator was being repaired. I moved the boxes away from the wall and grabbed a flashlight to examine the writings. They were written in French, and I didn’t have a chance to write the exact phrase down but my three years of high school lessons translated, when the rain comes I will go to it. I haven’t checked my schedule yet but next time I work I’ll take a picture of the wall.
9/16/2014
When the rain comes I will go along with it, and it will be okay again.
I have reason to believe that Jacques was living up in the attic, for quite some time at that. I found a sock while I was restocking the plastic straws and more lonesome poetry etched into the bricks. Some of it is okay. Maybe I’ll try to spend a night up there.
Non Epiphany 