Winner of ❝Coffee Shop Conundrum❞ contest

by emluminate

The city had changed with time, but I never did. Or maybe the city hadn't changed at all, but my city did. The city I knew for the short while I lived there.

I hadn't been back to Seattle since I left as a child. I hadn't been back to any place since I left it. Not Annapolis, not Juneau, not San Francisco, not Kyoto, not Honolulu, not Havana, not Boston. Seattle would be the first, and it certainly would not be the last.

Growing up, my family never stayed in a certain place for more than a few years. My parents enjoyed the spontaneous lifestyle, the thrill of traveling and exploring new places. Even after I graduated college and moved away to start my own life, they never stopped pursuing new places.

I never saw our lives the same way they did.

Every time I felt the eased tension of the adjustment to a new place, the suitcases were strewn about the living room floor when I returned from school that day. The red one for dad, the yellow one for mom, and the pink one for me. Every time I felt I had made an impact on my community, made a close friendship, my plane ticket was waiting for me on the kitchen counter.

I memorized the airport codes of most major cities around the world so that all I needed to do was sneak a glance at the ticket and I could know where we were going next. A mere acknowledgement of the change before I continue on with my day, counting down the hours until the inevitable early morning wake-up to leave.

It was like I was a ghost, drifting, haunting every city I glided through. Lingering long enough where people felt my presence but gone quickly enough that people surely questioned if I was ever there at all. It was not too hard to make friends, but it was that way for everyone else, too. It made for a lonely and frustrating childhood that my parents did not try or want to understand.

Seattle was the first city I left, so it's the first city to which I return.

Kindergarten, soccer games at the local park, the farmers market every Sunday morning after church, first grade, picking apples from the orchard, perusing the orchids at the local garden store, the swing-set in the backyard, my first cup of coffee.

Then, we were at the airport; code SEA. I had never been on an airplane before, and I felt the pit of fear grow within me as the plane sped along the runway. My mother squeezed my right hand, my father my left. They told me to imagine that I was just swinging on the swing-set in our backyard. When I lurched forward from the ascent, I laughed. It felt the same as the rush of momentum on the swing, just like they said it would.

The first thing I did when I walked through my gate and re-entered the airport for the first time in twenty years was open my Yelp app to find the best coffee shop in town. Not call an Uber to leave, not send a text to my fiancée so he was aware that I was alive and safe — though he knew by then that I was an expert traveler. No, I needed to find where I'd buy my coffee.

Over time, I discovered that while every city was vastly different from one another, they always had one thing to offer that was the same: coffee shops. The specialty beverages, the roasts, and prices differed, but I could always get the reassuring shake of an iced coffee cup and the satisfying swirl of the plastic or paper straw anywhere my parents took me.

My coffee journey began here, the Starbucks at Pike Place Market, its very first store. I was only the tender age of six. I thought it was fitting that my coffee habits began at the very first coffee shop of the largest coffee shop chain in the world, as if my own exposure to coffee would evolve in a similar way until it spanned oceans and mountains and city skylines. This time around, however, I vowed to try something different. My parents would be proud of me if they were watching from above, hopefully at peace in the final stop of a life of endless travels.

I arrived at Caffe Ladro on Union Street. The coffee shop had gotten great reviews and was a short walk from my hotel, so it would be the first place I stopped. The sky was a blue-grey, peppered with puffy rainclouds. The buildings I passed on the ride looked the same on the outside as I remembered, various shades of white and green and brick, but I didn't recognize anything written on them from my trips to the market as a child.

Little rain droplets condensed on the car window, trickling down the side until it disappeared from my view. My umbrella was deep within my suitcase, but I didn't mind rain at all. Living in many different places accustomed me to all kinds of weather. A little rain could not hurt anyone like I knew other occurrences of nature could.

Many people of the city felt the same way, I saw. They sat casually on the benches and picnic tables lining the streets, eating their local meals and conversing with their families and friends. Their bodies were free for the rain to latch onto. And here I came, alone.

I thanked my driver with a wave and a small nod. He drove off, expertly navigating through the crowds of people walking around the area with their brown, paper bags of wares from the market. With my pink suitcase in tow, I strolled into the coffee shop. I could feel strands of my hair sticking to myself from the rain along the way, curling my straight hair into intricate swirls along the sides of my face and darkening its color from a brunette to a near-black color.

Light flooded my eyes when I opened the door. A fierce orange tint filled the place, coming from the orb lights above my head. It complimented the russet wooden tables along the sides quite nicely. Abstract, geometric art in the hues of citrus adorned the walls. The ambience of the coffee shop made me feel something inside, as all coffee shops always did. At Caffe Ladro I felt —

Warm.

Welcomed.

I felt as though the coffee shop knew I had been gone and was actively expecting my return. Like it remembered I existed here once, in this city, a long time ago. The kindly people sitting in the booths were my people, there to see my grand entrance. There was no line, the path to the counter carved out for my feet to walk.

Here I am, I wanted to say aloud, but the semblance of confidence I had was gone as quickly as it came.

I walked up to the barista and was at once hit by the disorienting feeling of vague recognition. The roundness of the woman's face, the brown eyes, the tawny skin, the freckles along her cheekbones, the scar across her left eyebrow. She gave me a soft smile and clasped her hands on top of the counter in front of her.

"How can I help you?"

At the sweetness of her voice, I finally knew: Emilia.

Emilia, who I shared snacks with every day at lunchtime underneath the attendance table so that no one unwanted could join in on our exchanges. Emilia, who fell off of my swing-set in the backyard once and squealed with laughter, instead of cried. Emilia, the first person in my life that I considered a friend, the only one who picked me first instead of the other way around.

Emilia, my best friend from kindergarten.

The words written on the chalkboard behind her were blurry, my mind consumed with the burning question of whether or not I should say something about our earlier friendship. A few uncomfortable seconds passed between us. Emilia did not press for an answer, but instead waited patiently for my order. I could not tell if she knew me, and most of me did not want to know. I figured I'd be disappointed, but not surprised, with her answer. I smoothed out the damp hair still stuck to my temples and tucked the strands behind my ears.

"Just make me your favorite," I said, stumbling through the words. I had given up on the notion of reading anything concrete on the menu. If Emilia noticed my unease, she did not speak on it.

Emilia nodded, and her grin widened. "You'll love it."

She pressed a few buttons on her tablet before turning her gaze back to me. "That'll be $5.50. I hope that's not too much money."

I gave her a ten dollar bill and told her to keep the change without giving it much thought. She glanced at me with wide eyes and pouted her lips slightly.

"Thank you so much," she said appreciatively.

If I couldn't muster the courage to tell her I knew her name, I could at least show my acknowledgement this way, anonymously. I threw a sheepish smile her way before walking to the pickup counter on the right. I vaguely watched Emilia methodically make my coffee without any straggling. She knew what she wanted me to have from the moment I told her she could make whatever she liked to drink from the shop.

I had only begun my journey today, and I was already surprising myself with impulsive decision-making. I chose a different coffee shop. I chose a different drink. I chose to leave a massive tip for the barista I secretly knew.

When my parents died last year, both of heart attacks only days apart, I was stunned at the news. I foresaw them dying in a crazy, unexpected way, not like how most elderly people did. Despite this, I found their deaths touching, somehow. Everywhere they went, they went together, with me or without me. And when one left this earth, the other couldn't bear to travel alone. Did not want to experience life on this planet without the other person being in their orbit.

Much like how they never understood me, I never understood them, too. I felt more confused than anything at their funeral, which consisted of very few — me and a few friends of theirs. I never knew or met any other family. It was always the three of us, and then it was only one, though it had felt like only one already for a while before they died.

I was doing what they could not: traveling to every city I ever lived in growing up, all by myself, trying to see the world the way they admired it so deeply. I longed to recognize why they brought a child into this solitary life. What did they want me to see? What did they want me to learn?

Emilia strode over to where I stood from behind the counter and held out my drink, a hot beverage, for me to take. I worried that I would not like what she chose. I should have told her I preferred iced coffee, but I was still too frazzled by her existence in front of me to speak my mind.

Instead, I grabbed the drink from her palm and gripped the sleeve of the coffee cup tightly. I thanked her and left Caffe Ladro. I left before taking a sip of the drink that was Emilia's favorite, before she could explain what it was to begin with, before I could gingerly ask for something else that contained ice, rather than steam.

I stepped outside and took a deep breath, the wind sobering my face. At least the warmth of Emilia's coffee would shelter me from the slight chill that marked the autumn in Seattle. Cup in hand, I was ready to conquer the day, the entire months-long journey I had set out for myself. I walked a few blocks towards my hotel, the coffee nothing more than eye candy at first, a part of my outward aesthetic of a girl — woman — who knew what she was doing. Rain continued to fall at a light pace, and I clutched my coffee close to my chest to protect it from the weather.

I stopped in front of my hotel and dared to take a sip of the drink Emilia made for me, ten dollars and almost my entire sanity gone.

I dared to take another.

And another.

The drink was sweet and milky, with the faint undertone of espresso. I could feel a thin layer of foam coating my mouth with every sip. A latte. But underneath the richness and the thickness that defines a normal latte, Emilia's drink tasted like something else: vanilla wafers.

A memory bubbled to the surface of my mind. Emilia and I underneath the table in the classroom where the parents signified the arrival and departure of their kids, the contents of our lunchboxes splayed across the carpet. Emilia tired of her parents packing vanilla wafers in hers almost daily, me feeling similarly about pretzels. Two happy girls completing a transaction that only made their bond stronger each time.

Almost at the same time as I thought Emilia must have changed her mind on vanilla wafers to offer me this drink, I glimpsed a black Sharpie mark peeking beneath the sleeve of the cup and my thumb. I moved my finger up towards the lid, revealing the mark to be in the shape of the letter a, but I knew there were more letters to see.

In my mind, I believed Emilia was kind enough to write the name of the drink for my future reference. I took my right hand off of the handle of my suitcase and used it to gently slide the sleeve off of my coffee, eager to read what she wrote.

For Clara.

And there it was, my name, scrawled in a slightly cursive, slightly messy font, on the side of the cup. I put my right hand back on my suitcase handle and gripped the metal tightly, steadying myself in the middle of a busy sidewalk. People walked in both directions on either side of me, paying me little attention.

I didn't tell Emilia a name for my order. I didn't give her a credit card with my name on it to pay for the drink. She knew my name on her own. She remembered me. I made an impact so large on her, she kept me in her mind, housed me within the temple of her memories, for twenty years.

I didn't realize tears were falling from my eyes until I could feel them drip from the bottoms of my cheeks. I sniffled and wiped them away with the bottom of my palm, laughing to myself while smiling from ear to ear. Emilia was also too shy to say anything, but she showed her recognition in her own way, like I did. A silent exchange was made between us, an impromptu lunch twenty years later.

Is this how my parents wanted to live? In a place long enough to experience what it and its people had to offer, to leave a legacy to remember them by, before moving onto the next? Was there a bit of them everywhere they went, large enough that it could be seen by the naked eye, but small enough that someone — the people that mattered — had to know where to look to see it?

I embraced a large gulp of my coffee, and when it was down my throat my heart yearned for another. In seconds, I emptied the cup of every drop.

I stepped through the double doors of the hotel, still holding my empty coffee cup with one hand and clenching the handle of my suitcase with the other. My mind was made up: I'd experience the city, but I'd find the city I knew beneath, following the small crumb trail my parents left behind. They may have been ghosts, but they weren't always. I wasn't a ghost.

I tossed Emilia's coffee that she made with her hands, the same hands that wrote my name, into the nearest trash can, and then walked up to the receptionist at the front desk.

"Hello, name please?" He asked.

"Clara," I said. "My name is Clara, don't you forget it."