Page 4 of Living La Vida Mocha
He simply nodded.
“I’ll take one of these.” I pointed to a thick, dark donut with white glaze, chocolate whipped cream decorated with shards and shavings of colourful candies. Gazing up at the menu board written in chalk, I scanned the drinks. “How about a Caramel Macchiato?”
He focused on the screen in front of him. “What size would you like?”
“What are my options?”
“We have tall, grande, venti, and lofty.”
“Ooh, lofty sized? Sounds exactly like what I need.” I laughed and slipped off my bag to rummage through for my phone. “I’ll take one of those too please.”
“In which mug?”
I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. “I’m sorry?”
“Pick your mug from the Mug Wall. Anything on the bottom shelf.” With a bit of a dramatic flare, he pointed it out to me.
What I had thought was simply a huge painting, was, in fact, a recessed wall with a variety of mugs in every shape, size, and colour.
Spotting aMandalorianmug, I selected that one.
“Excellent. I’ll bring it out to you. Take a seat anywhere you’d like.”
“Where’s your bathroom?” I was starting to feel like my eyeballs were floating.
“Around the corner.”
I did my business and sauntered back into the main part of the café. The place was mostly deserted, aside from a couple in the darkened corner, and another couple sitting by the door I’d missed when I entered. There was a vacant table by the window, so I beelined for it, not that I needed to. Who was I competing against?
Laughing at the absurdity, I shrugged off my coat and hung it on the back of the other chair, loosening my scarf as I sat and stared. The view was fantastic, even if the falling snow was heavy enough to obscure from seeing too far down the street.
As the saying goes, wherever I was, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
Resting my elbows on the table and steadying myself against the tiny wobble, I grabbed my phone and took a couple of pictures of both the inside of the Coffee Loft and the view outside.
Unable to stand the small tipping on the table, I rooted through my purse and found a tiny wedge, kicking it under the table leg to stop the wiggle. Secure with the stability, I nodded at the barista walking in my direction.
The young man set my devilishly delightful donut down along with my lofty-sized coffee. “If you need anything else, just let me know.”
“Thank you.”
I scrolled through my personal social media accounts wondering if I should post about my daily predicament. Rather than vague-booking, which I despised with every fiber of my being, I decided against telling my 188 personal friends, wait, 187, of what had transpired today. Wondering why the change in numbers, I flipped through my friend list and slumped when I noticed Gerry was missing. That didn’t take long, and two can play that game.
Rolling my eyes, I went and deleted the two photos of us together; both at a Baker-Bloom work function. Just like that, he was gone. Wow.
As I went to flip my phone down, a text buzzed in from Amanda, my best friend.
Short, simple, and always to the point.What’s going on?
I texted back.Having a bad day. I’ll tell you about it later. Promise.
I’ll come hang with you. Where are you?
No idea, but I just want to be alone. For now.
You don’t know where you are?
I took a picture of the donut and the macchiato in the Baby Yoda mug with the street slightly fuzzy in the background – the falling snow helped more than the camera setting – and sent it to Amanda.