Twenty-six

After thanking Dante for covering part of Esther’s shift, wishing Mike a good day at work, and waving at Nancy (who couldn’t resist flirting with Tony Tanaka), we climbed into our Uber.

During our short ride, Esther kept her eyes on her phone while I wondered what surprises we might find at Scrib’s apartment. Unfortunately, my first surprise (more of a shock, really) came while I was still in the car’s back seat.

We detoured for another rideshare customer and were stopped at a traffic light when I spotted my ex-husband loitering in front of a trendy bistro and wine bar. Twice he glanced at his watch, as if he was waiting for someone.

His hair and beard were freshly trimmed, and his slick attire (pressed chinos, black turtleneck, and a brushed cashmere blazer with a matching scarf, no less) had me reaching an obvious conclusion.

Less than twenty-four hours after crash-landing from a transatlantic trip, Matt was already diving into the dating pool—though, when it came to my ex, jumping into a hot tub would be more accurate.

Curious about his latest swipe-to-meet hookup, I continued spying with amused attention, expecting to tease him later about my Matt-in-the-Wild sighting. Then his “date” arrived, and I was no longer laughing. In fact, the sight of the tanned blond shaking Matt’s hand felt like a gut punch.

All my life I’ve tried to treat everyone fairly, to always provide service with a smile, and to constantly strive to improve my game. These virtues, first instilled in me by my hardworking grandmother, who ran a small Italian grocery store in a little Pennsylvania town, were even more important if your work involved serving the public every day. My credo has always been to welcome everyone to my table.

However—

If I had one enemy in this world, it was the blue-eyed Adonis with the golden locks now shaking my business partner’s hand: Cody “Drifter” Wood, former champion surfer, current CEO of Driftwood Coffee, and the Village Blend’s chief cheating, scheming competitor.

All style and zero substance, Cody Wood and his national chain of Driftwood coffee stores served subpar beans with gimmicky commercials along with drinks filled with corn syrup and imitation flavorings. The only constant they appeared to strive for was to cheapen their products and expand their bank account.

Okay, maybe I was being overly judgmental, but I wasn’t imagining the way Driftwood not only continually “borrowed” ideas that we worked hard to develop for our customers, but also fully trashed them.

Take last year’s Village Blend Valentine’s Day specials, praised by New York foodies, written up in the local press, and subsequently stolen by Driftwood. It started with our Vanilla-Cinnamon Caress, our award-winning latte flavored with beautifully infused milk using Grade A Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans and fresh Ceylon cinnamon sticks. Shortly after we began serving ours, Driftwood’s national chain introduced their “Creamy Orgasm,” a monstrosity of artificial vanilla, cheap cinnamon syrup, and more grams of sugar than any human should ingest in a day, let alone in one drink.

Our popular Cherry Kiss, a whimsical mix of espresso, artisan dark chocolate, and natural fruit syrup, designed to mimic a chocolate-covered cherry, was reverse engineered by “Drifter” Cody, who swapped in junk ingredients, and renamed it “The Cherry Hooter.”

He even degraded our Lavender Chocolate Truffle recipe, a drink praised by New York magazine for the way we infused artisan white chocolate with real lavender and colored the drink naturally with ube powder. After that write-up, the Driftwood chain stores were suddenly dumping violet food coloring into a standard vanilla latte and calling it “The Purple Haze.”

Their actions were as insufferable as they were unethical. My baristas and I had worked hard on our specialty drinks, only to have them filched, debased, and peddled with marketing techniques better suited for a marijuana dispensary.

And then there were the personal attacks. More than once, Cody Wood had publicly insulted the Village Blend’s baristas, our coffee, even our beloved owner. He referred to me (an accomplished master roaster) as a “coffee bimbo ex-wife,” and his attack on Matt was quite literally below the belt.

So why was I now watching my business partner greet Cody Wood, the so-called Blond Adonis of Caffeine, as some kind of lunch buddy? What possible reason could Matt Allegro have to meet with the jerk that called him a fading playboy who should be sourcing Viagra instead of coffee?

What was going on here?

Was Matt that worried about our financial future? Was he contemplating a—heaven forbid—merger? Was he sniffing around for investment money? Or was it even worse than that?

A nightmarish vision of our historic Village Blend with a DRIFTWOOD sign above its French doors exploded in my head, a name that was the antithesis of the sterling reputation of excellence, integrity, and service that Matt and I had strived to uphold in our constant quest to make a consistently perfect cup.

Speechless, I continued watching as the two men turned toward the bistro’s entrance. Smiling, Cody Wood opened the door for Matt as if they were a couple of buds meeting for brunch.

I reached for the car door handle just as the driver hit the gas. Trapped and frustrated, I finally found my voice—

“Esther, did you see that? Did you see what I saw?”

“Sorry, I was texting.” She looked up from her phone. “What did I miss?”

By then it was too late to see anything. The men were inside, and the car had turned the corner.

“Never mind,” I replied, deciding to spare Esther the pain.

Why torture her with the horror of what I’d witnessed, or the ugly implications swirling in my mind? Until I spoke with Matt and heard a satisfying explanation for this inexplicable development, I decided to keep what I saw to myself.

While I stewed silently, Esther went back to her thumb dance, and the car drove on.