Through the Grinder (8 page)

“Fascinating…” He smiled, his gaze ever so subtly moving over me. “So how exactly do you get the different tastes?”

“A lot of ways. To get that more pungent, rougher version, you’d roast your beans darker—and you’d start with beans that have rich, acidy elements like a Kenyan AA or a Sidamo. For the Milan taste you’d want softer profile Arabica beans—something like a Brazilian Santos. And you’d be careful not to add any beans to the blend with acidy elements. You might even add an Indian grown washed Robusta for sweetness—though typically Robustas are an inferior, foul little low growing bean, the sort you’d find in pre-ground tinned coffee, and you’d want to steer clear of them. The best beans are Arabicas, and they’re grown at high altitudes—a good rule of thumb is the higher the altitude, the higher the acidity, and the better the coffee.”

Bruce’s eyebrows rose. “Wait. You
want
an acidy taste in your coffee?”

Give the man points for actually listening.
“Acidity is an industry term. In coffee-speak it doesn’t mean bitter or sour. It means a brightness, a pleasant sharpness. Basically, when you create a blend you want to pay attention to three major elements: acidity, aroma, and body. The beans that provide acidity are the high notes, the ones that provide body are the low notes. In the middle, you want beans that provide aroma, which can range from fruity to herby.”

“Just like a musical chord. That’s a nice way of explaining it, Clare.”

His smile was genuine and I liked the way he said my name. “Thanks. That’s nice of you to say.”

“So give me an example of one of your blends.”

“I’ll give you a basic one: Kenya AA for acidity, Sulwese for aroma, and Colombian for body. But it’s not just the coffee types that are important. For the perfect cup, what’s also key is getting the highest quality beans possible, roasting and brewing them expertly, and enjoying them while they’re still fresh.”

“I’m getting it…and I can see there’s a lot that goes into your business.”

I shrugged. “We roast green beans right here in the basement. It’s a century-old family business and every year it can change, depending on the worldwide coffee crops—not to mention the tastes of our customers. So you’d better love it and stay on top of it, or leave it, you know? And I do love it.”

“Yeah, I love my business for the same reason—the constant challenge and the creativity.”

I glanced at his workboots. “So what do you do?”

“I started out in construction, then became an architect to specialize in historical restoration—and I’ve done nothing but expand my business since I moved East. I’ve been in the tri-state region about ten years now, and I just moved down here from Westchester about two months ago. I’m divorced. No kids.”

“What are you working on?”

Bruce laughed a little at my question. “I’ve got crews all over the city. Dozens of projects—interiors and exteriors. For myself personally, I’m jazzed about restoring the interior of a Federal townhouse over on Leroy. The exterior is more archetypal than your building here, even has a horse walk. Yours is a beauty, and its got a high level of integrity, but I can see there’ve been some liberties taken with alternations—I assume to make it workable for your business. The first floor’s line of French doors and front windows for starters.”

“Those were put in decades ago, sometime between 1910 and 1920, when the Blend shifted from being purely a wholesale roaster to a roaster and a café. I take it you’re renovating the Leroy property for a residential owner then?”

“For myself. I bought it outright the second I saw it.”

My eyes widened. This guy was a multi-millionaire. No question.

“How about you? What’s Clare’s story—in five minutes or less.”

He smiled warmly again, and I tried to ignore the ridiculous pulsing of blood through my stupid veins. So this guy was drop-dead gorgeous, a self-made millionaire, charming as hell, and genuinely turned on by the perfect cup of coffee. So what? Underneath, he was probably as smarmy as Brooks Newman, looking to dangle a pretty package long enough to bait as many women as possible. Shop-and-drop. Grind ’em up. Spit em out…

Still
…there was no reason
not
to be civil.

“Let’s see,” I began. “Well, I’d originally managed the Blend between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine. Then I got divorced, left this life for the hinterlands of New Jersey, and spent the next decade raising my daughter, fighting crabgrass, and launching a part-time career writing for trade magazines.”

“Which?”

“
Cupping, In Stock,
and other magazines published specifically for the coffee and restaurant trade. Once in a blue moon, I come across a topic I pitch to a bigger publication. I had a Sunday
New York Times Magazine
piece run not too long ago about coffee-drinking trends.”

“Impressive.”

“That’s nice of you to say, but my priority now is this place. Just a few months ago, my daughter moved to Manhattan to attend culinary school, so when Madame, the owner of the Blend, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, I came back to managing again.”

“An offer you couldn’t refuse? Let me guess…equity?”

“I’m impressed. Equity
and
the rent-free use of the duplex upstairs. You read tea leaves, too?”

“Not tea leaves—coffee grounds.”

“You’re kidding.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “My grandmother taught me tasseography when I was just a little kid.”

“Mine, too.”

“No way,” he said, skeptical.

“Way.”

We both smiled that disbelieving smile two people smile when they share something special—something so few people share that it seems to bond you together, at least for the moment.

Bing!

Nan’s kitchen timer.

Damn,
I thought.
Damn. Damn. Damn.

It was the first time in this entire evening I hadn’t wanted the thing to bing.

“Wrap it up, everyone!” called Nan. “Say your goodbyes.”

I shrugged. “Our playgroup leader has spoken.”

“Playgroup,” he repeated with a laugh. I liked his laugh. It was deep and genuine and reflected its bright energy in his eyes. “Yeah, you know, you’re right. This whole thing is sort of one big sandbox, isn’t it?”

“That or a Hopper painting,” I quipped.

He glanced around. “Yeah, I can see it. The crowded yet lonely scene of couples
not
connecting in the stark light and shadows of the hearth’s dying fireplace.”

“An urban study in oil on canvas,” I added. “Very
Room in New York.
”

“Or
Excursion into Philosophy,
” he said with a raised eyebrow.

Excursion
was an odd choice, I thought, remembering Hopper’s desolate couple: the man sitting fully clothed on a narrow bed, indifferent to the beautiful, half-clothed woman stretched out behind him, facing the wall, her red hair on the white pillow, her naked round bottom sunwashed, looking like ripe fruit ready to be enjoyed. Beside her, the man’s face remains in shadow, full of angst. He ignores the fruit within his reach, staring instead at the floor, lost inside himself, possibly contemplating the book laying open next to him.

Did it represent the isolation of modern life? The depressive folly of the intellectual, brooding instead of living? Was Hopper laughing as he painted it? I used to wonder.

“I always saw that painting as the
end
of the road,” I said. “No longer being able to connect. You know, years after the marriage vows. When disillusion sets in.”

“Not for me,” said Bruce. “I see it as the morning after the one-night stand, waking up with the wrong woman. He’s tasted the fruit, and he’s suddenly dejected, maybe even feeling a little fleeced, because she’s not what she seemed. And he’s no longer interested.”

“You’ve seen the Whitney collection, I take it?”

“Maybe twenty times.”

“You won’t believe this, but my duplex includes two framed original charcoal Hopper sketches. They were done right here, too. It’s amazing—one of the perks of living upstairs.”

“I can’t imagine a better one.”

We smiled that disbelieving smile again—like we’d both found a three carat diamond in a Cracker Jack box.

“All right, gentlemen, and that means all of you!” Nan called in our general direction. “
Please
move along to your next Ms. Right. The clock will soon be ticking down!”

“Run, runner,” I murmured.

Bruce laughed. “I hope I’m not ready for ‘
Carousel
’ yet.”

My god,
I thought.
He actually got my
Logan’s Run
joke.

As a Goth twenty-something with black lipstick and a tattoo approached us, Bruce rose from the chair. I held my breath as he extended his hand.

“Would you like to go to dinner with me tomorrow, Clare?” he asked.

OH, YES.

“Uh…tomorrow…yeah, sure. That would be nice.”

I placed my small hand in his large one. To my unending delight, he didn’t just shake and release—he held on.

“Bowman. That’s my last name.”

“And mine’s Cosi. Clare Cosi.”

“You have a nice smile, Clare Cosi,” he said quietly.

“Thanks. So do you.”

“Tomorrow then.”

“M
OM
!
I cannot believe these notes of yours. They are, like, so out there.”

As Joy flipped through my notepad’s pages, I hung a blue Village Blend apron around my neck, brought the long strings to the front of my waist, and jerked them into a tight bow.

After the Cappuccino Connection had officially ended and most of the customers had departed, I had tried to “casually” discuss the evening’s McMeetings with my daughter, but truthfully all I could think about was Bruce Bowman.

Bruce Bowman. Bruce Bowman. Bruce Bowman.

After shaking his warm, strong, slightly callused hand, I’d been on what felt like a super caffeine high, reciting his name like a New Age chant—until it hit me that every woman sitting on the Blend’s second floor tonight was tracking Bruce’s movements around the Cappuccino Connection circle.

Obviously, Bruce was the big Kahuna, the catch of the night, and Nan Tulley, the evil witch, had insisted all of us make three connections, at least. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me when Bruce left the Blend with another “connection” on his arm. A tall, beautifully dressed redheaded woman.

I could have strangled her.

And him.

Of course, the fleeting flare of emotion quickly passed, and I coolly regained my composure, maturely resolving to forget about him forever.

Easy, right?

Wrong.

It was an hour later, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Stupid, silly me just could not shake the feeling that we’d connected on some significant level, and I began to obsess about whether he’d actually keep his date with me tomorrow—and where exactly I ranked on his list of dates. Was it just under the redheaded amazon? Or was I farther down? Who else in the room had made “Cappuccino Connections” with him?

This was the state I’d been in when Joy rushed over to me to begin discussing the evening’s men (and I couldn’t remember any of them clearly but Bruce). Anxious to make sure my girl didn’t end up with a loon, I’d resorted to reading over my notes.

Joy put up with my flipping back and forth through the pages for about two minutes before she’d snatched the Hello Kitty pad right out of my hand. “Let me see that,” she’d cried.

Now she was leaning on the Blend’s blue marble front counter, flipping through the pink pages, her eyes incredulous saucers.

“Tucker, you are not going to believe this. My mother asked these guys about their personal drug use, their arrest record, and the reason for their last breakup. Then she
labeled
every guy she met. Like they were coffee blends or something!”

“Joy, not so loud,” I cautioned from behind the counter. It was almost midnight and most of the customers had drifted out, but a few couples still lingered quietly at the far end of the main floor, near the first floor fireplace. Reluctant to throw them out, I decided to give them one last hour of romantic firelight—while Tucker and I cleaned and restocked.

“Coffee is not exactly a bad analogy,” Tucker told Joy. “I mean, if you think about it, men can be like coffee blends. A very subtle blending of elements can form the most interesting tastes. Some are bolder, some rougher, some sweeter…”

“Some have whiney overtones,” I quipped.

My assistant manager frowned at my caustic remark. Pausing in his cup-stacking duties, he wiped his hands on his apron and said, “Let me see that notepad.”

Joy handed it over and he flipped through its pages.

With a concerned sigh, he began to read aloud, “Mr. Slick, Mr. Jock, Mr. Type A, Mr. Freeloader, Mr. Superficial Artsy, Mr. Far Too Old, Mr. FunnyBook Boy, Mr. Cabby/Musician, Mr. Mama’s Boy, Mr. Moviefone…” Tucker looked up and wrinkled his nose. “Mr. Moviefone?”

I shrugged. “He had that voice.”

“You mean the guy
sounded
like Mr. Moviefone?” asked Tucker.

“Yes, and I found it very distracting.”

“I remember him!” said Joy. “He had a mustache and his cologne smelled like Gummy Bears. Did you know Kira left with him?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, they looked pretty chummy, too.”

I nodded, remembering the man. “He did mention crosswords were his passion. Maybe I should have labeled him Mr. Crossword Puzzle Man.”

“Clare, you know, I’m really surprised at you,” said Tucker, shaking a finger. “Such catty, cynical evaluations are usually beneath you.”

“It’s not catty. It’s practical.”

“Practical? All right, this I gotta hear,” said Tucker.

“If you’ve only got a first impression to go on, the most practical thing you can do is reduce the guy down to his basics. It’s no different than my grandmother’s method of putting up preserves. Very sensible. Boil the substance down and label it.”

“I see,” said Tucker. “So for you the only discernable difference between canning and courting is straining the guy in question and coating him with a thin layer of wax?”

“Technically yes,” I said. “Even though I got the impression that some of these guys were just weird enough to consider being strained and waxed a vaguely kinky form of foreplay.”

“Mom!”

“Sorry, honey. Forget you heard your Mommy say
foreplay
. But don’t forget what I’m about to tell you. There are a few guys in my little notepad that under no circumstances you are to go out with should they call you, starting with a man named Brooks Newman.”

Joy rolled her eyes. “Brooks Newman, what a character. I think he took the number of almost every woman he sat down with. Isn’t he the guy who gave you those other on-line dating sites for me to try? The ones you said are more ‘appropriate’ for me than SinglesNYC?”

“Yes, but—” (Okay, so Brooks actually called them “duds,” and it was me who told Joy they were more “appropriate” for a girl her age. But what else could I do? I couldn’t very well tell my daughter she’d be better off on-line dating through two “dud” sites, could I?)

“Mom, I’m not in high school anymore. I can make my own decisions about my personal life. Don’t you trust me?”

I didn’t see any way to answer honestly without causing World War Three, so I didn’t answer. Not directly. “Okay, then, why don’t you just tell me and Tucker who you liked?”

“No. You’ll just shoot them down.”

“I won’t,” I said.

“Promise?” asked Joy.

My reassuring smile felt as though it were wilting into an anxious grimace. “I’ll do my best.”

“Okay, Mom, I’ll tell you who I connected with. But only if you tell me who
you
connected with.”

“I didn’t make any connections. Your turn.”

Joy narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

“Believe me.”

“But Nan said we were supposed to make three. Those were the rules.”

“I know, honey. I just chose not to play by them.”

Joy flipped though the notepad. “What about Mr. Wall Street?”

I closed my eyes, trying to picture that meeting. “Nice kid. Strong head on his shoulders, handsome, pleasant, good sense of humor. Late twenties. I liked him—for
you
.”

“I liked him, too,” said Joy. “And he asked me to lunch.”

I smiled. “See. I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Okay, so we agree on one guy.”

Joy flipped through more notes. “I can’t tell what you thought of this one.” She pointed. “Mr. Weirdly Intense Painter.”

“Mars?”
Oh, god, no.
“Did you know he admitted to being arrested?”

“He
was
sort of intense wasn’t he?”

“Sort of intense? That man would win a stare-off with Charles Manson.”

“Who?”

“Never mind, honey. You didn’t like Mars, did you?” My teeth clenched.

“It wouldn’t matter if I did. He said he’d already made his connection.”

I exhaled with extreme relief. “He told me the same thing.”

“Yeah, but you know the weirdest thing about the guy wasn’t his intensity—I found that sort of a turn-on actually. The weirdest thing was he said he’d
already
made his connection before he even started talking to me.”

“Like I said, Joy, he did that with me, too. Don’t feel bad.”

“No, Mom, you don’t get what I mean. It’s not that I feel bad. It’s that it doesn’t make sense. I mean we all paid forty dollars each to supposedly meet as many people as we could in two hours, right? But I was only the second girl he sat down with.”

“That is odd,” said Tucker. “Who was the first? She really must have been something.”

“The first woman he sat down with was this tall redhead named Sahara McNeil,” said Joy. “She was sitting at the table to the left of mine and Mars just kept staring at her. It was kinda creepy, actually.”

There was only one tall redhead in that room. The one Bruce had left with—and I had wanted to strangle.

“How did you find out her full name?” I asked. “Did you talk to her?”

“No, one of the guys mentioned her name,” said Joy.

“Which one?”

“Let’s just see,” said Joy, smiling mischievously. She snatched my notepad back from Tucker and thumbed through it. “It wasn’t Mr. Slick…or Mr. Cabby/Musician.” Joy paused on that page. “I kinda liked Cabby/Musician. He invited me to see his band at CBGB Wednesday night.”

Tucker snorted.

“What?” asked Joy.

“Sweetie, when you’ve lived in Manhattan a little longer you’ll learn that every third or fourth straight little boy under thirty with a rock star complex gets his sucky band a call-in gig at CBGB. But look on the bright side—you’re sure to meet his colleagues, friends, and family, because that’s pretty much the only way these bands fill those Bowery seats.”

“Now you’re the one being catty,” Joy said.

“Bring earplugs,” Tucker advised.

With a sigh of annoyance, Joy went back to my notepad and kept flipping. “Here’s the guy—the one who told me the redhead’s name? It was this really cool dude named Bruce.”

My heart sank. Completely sank.

“I need an espresso,” I said.

I turned to put the coffee through the grinder. Funny how the hardest beans were no match for these sharp, little blades. When they whirred and spun, every whole little bean was aloofly chopped into unrecognizable bits—which is exactly what I felt was happening to me.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Ohmygod. Look what you wrote here about Bruce.”

“Give me that,” I said reaching. Joy stepped backward.

“Mom…what does this mean?”

“Honey, it’s just a few scribbles. Give it here!” I lunged but the counter stopped me.

“What does it say, Joy?” asked Tucker. “What did she label Bruce?”

“Mr. Right.”