He would wake up by 5am, still in complete darkness unless in deepest summer, and would lay awake, already tired from months of sleep deprivation before the day even began, begrudgingly accepting his fate, nervous at the impending encounter. Minutes before 7am, with gloomy light peeking through venetian blinds hazily illuminating his room, he would knock down his alarm clock, eager to avoid its annoying ring. It had been weeks since he’d actually heard the ring, and its faint memory was symbolic of a different time, before his life was turned over, filling him with both intolerable pain, and a new grasp of life, a new reason to wake up in the morning, a feeling he rationally understood to be destructive, but which he would have never given up.
He would stumble his way to the bathroom, seeing his own reflection in the mirror, looking haggard with blue imprints under reddish eyes, his hair frazzled, and his body refusing to succumb to the herculean state he aspired to in his resolve for self improvement, for her sake. As he would brush his teeth, in summer moving toward the bedroom’s air-conditioning, in winter shifting his feet from the cold tiles of the bathroom to the warmer wooden floors of the living room, he would pop open the TV to ESPN’s sports center, absent mindedly watching the baseball highlights (or basketball in winter), the brainless drone and picture perfect images the only thing he could faintly concentrate on, taking his mind off her and her ever consuming presence in his mind, eating away any other emotion, constantly driving his thoughts as he held entire imaginary conversations with her on the most mundane subjects, acting out how she would react to his most minute actions, often feeling ashamed when he hadn’t stood up to her perceived high standards.
He would dress with care, examining the crease in his pants, smoothing out his shirt, hastily wiping off even the most minor inkling of dirt on his shoes, and would head out into the world, his anxiety growing by the minute. He would step down to the subway station, enter the train as if in a trance, in the summer his palm already sweating as he grasped the slimy pole, in the winter his chest turning moist from an over-heated body under his heavy coat and scarf, his concern over any faint odor he may emit making him even more sweaty with frustration, until he would finally leave the train to the street, cars rushing by, pedestrians ignoring him and the growing aura of panic around him. Within a few blocks, he would be outside the Starbucks, its green shield cheerfully inviting him in to the one moment of the day he both cherished and dreaded the most, the swinging of the heavy door completing the journey. He would dredge his way toward the cashier with heavy feet, keeping his stare down toward the floor, only remotely peeking, prolonging the moment until he finally saw her, standing behind the massive espresso machine, her eyes twinkling, her face frowning with concentration as she adeptly and gracefully fluttered around the coffee, pouring skim milk and shaking whipped cream into steaming paper cups, gloriously red during the holidays, pure white the rest of the year, the outline of her breasts discretely showing through the black shirt and green apron, and on the most lucky of all days, her round buttocks appearing as she bent into the refrigerator to pick out a new canister of milk.
However, the most glorious of all mornings would be when she would look up at him when he entered, smile and ask: “Grande mocha?”. She remembered! His heart would go through such great leaps of emotion that he would barely be able to answer even the most perfunctory “yes”, and within a few months even that wouldn’t be necessary, as she interpreted his silence as his own form of acknowledgement, almost their own private joke, made all the more dear to him. After paying, he would trudge along to the drinks counter, trying not to be too obvious in watching her work, hoping that there would be a long line of fellow guests waiting for their coffee, but almost always, she would begin preparing his coffee before he even reached the cashier, and on the worst days, she would have it ready for him by the time he paid, robbing him of the pleasure of waiting in her exalted presence. The very best days were when he was quick enough to reach for his coffee just as she laid it on the counter, and on the rarest of occasions, their fingers would brush as she pulled her hand away, her delicate skin leaving a wave of warmth rushing through his body. The worst days were when she would smile at another male customer, and to his dismay, he reached even worse depths when she smiled at attractive female customers, striking a paranoid fear in his heart: could she be a closet lesbian, eliminating any hope he ever had of happiness with her? All is forgiven and forgotten once his lips succumb to the heavenly coffee, handcrafted by her for his pleasure, flowing down to the depths of his stomach.
Then, one random fall day, he entered the vaunted Starbucks, raised his eyes, searched frantically along counters, chairs, cashiers and the revered espresso machine, and she wasn’t there. He held out hope that she would reveal herself by the time he paid, but his heart was sinking fast by the time he accepted a drink from a previously unnoticed barista, and as he stepped out into the grey street, all life extinguished from him, he sipped the stale, tasteless coffee in its flimsy paper cup.
