Twenty-nine

TWO days later, I was once again standing behind my shop’s counter. Sunlight streamed through our wall of French doors, its golden rays gleaming on the spotless plank floor. A fire crackled in the hearth, dispelling the chill of the autumn afternoon. The espresso machine perfumed the air with freshly brewed ambrosia.

Too bad there were few customers to enjoy it.

At two o’clock on a hectic Manhattan weekday, my coffeehouse had precisely two patrons.

At the window, a brunette twenty-something in a pleated skirt and pastel tee tapped away on her laptop, a rolling Pullman parked by her side. She chewed her pink lips with intensity—probably a traveling graduate student who hadn’t checked in with the outside world in days.

Sitting by the fireplace, a big guy with a curly red beard nursed a cappuccino and glowered at our neglected front door, obviously waiting for someone who had yet to arrive.

I knew how he felt. I was impatiently waiting, too—and not just for more customers.

By now, detectives would have been assigned to investigate the case of the dead girl in the river. I had plenty to say to them, mostly about Richard Crest, but they had yet to contact me.

Quinn warned me it would take time. The police already had my statement. What they really needed was a ruling by the medical examiner on cause of death. An autopsy report and any forensic evidence collected by the CSU would give them more hard facts than I could.

Even my baristas weren’t able to tell me the girl’s name or where she worked, and only Esther recalled seeing her with Richard Crest. I had yet to hear back from my assistant manager, Tucker Burton, who was out on vacation. But I assumed he received the group text message I sent about “Heart Girl” and would have contacted me if he had any information.

When the bell over the door rang, I looked up expectantly. It was only our mailman. I gritted my teeth. Just two customers in an hour meant I had more staff (and newly arrived bills) than patrons, not the best business model.

The trouble began, as I guessed it would, when the cable news started playing that viral video. Next our local news showed it. Then newspapers picked up the story with glaring headlines:

Espresso Shot of Hot Lead

Gunplay at a Village Café

You’re “App” to Get Shot at This Coffeehouse

Most of the articles were reprints of a single wire service report, which relied on the police blotter for facts. The new Cinder app was a prominent part of the story’s background, since it brought shooter and victim together; and users of the app had rated the Village Blend a favorite hookup hot spot. But the articles failed to inform readers that the “bullets” were blanks until the very last paragraph!

If that weren’t bad enough, Nancy called from her Critter Crawl workout class to tell me the video on Chatter was “even more viral than ever,” now with over one million views.

Nancy thought it was “awesome free publicity.”

It was, but not the good kind.

The public was not intrigued by Gun Girl’s story; they were alarmed and disturbed. Dating app users wanted a safe space to meet, not one that attracted a gun-wielding banshee, and the result was a devastating downturn in customer traffic.

By last night, business went from dire to disastrous. Though we managed to stay open the entire evening (no weaponized tootsie to close us this time), the City Harvest food pantry ended up with more pastries than we’d sold.

With all those leftovers, I didn’t need the end-of-day receipts to know business was in la toilette.

Today was even worse. Both the morning and lunch rush were duds—so bad I cut tomorrow’s bakery order in half, and the dairy order by a third. Another week like this, and I’d be forced to lay people off.

The good news was our coffee brand hadn’t suffered, and probably wouldn’t. We still had an excellent business supplying our beans to select restaurants and hotels.

From Joy’s reports, our store in Washington, DC, was also doing fine. Only this landmark location had been damaged by the bad publicity. While I didn’t expect this boycott to last forever, I feared it would go on long enough to threaten our financial viability. If traffic didn’t return soon, this century-old shop could end up shuttering.

Madame’s heart would certainly be broken, and I couldn’t live with myself after disappointing her. It was almost too horrible to contemplate, but the business had to be saved, even if our flagship store couldn’t be.

Esther was perceptive enough to sense the storm brewing (pun intended), but she glumly chose to catch up on chores in our basement roasting room rather than face this empty room.

Dante was getting a clue, too. With a dearth of NYU co-eds to charm, he doodled a dozen artistic ideas on napkins before sending himself to the pantry to inspect our porcelain cups for chips and cracks.

The part-timers I usually employed for busy afternoons and evenings were already sent home.

Sadly, the only staff member I felt comfortable discussing this problem with was missing in action—and, boy, did I miss him.

Tucker was my rock-steady right hand and the best American barista I had ever known. Personable, capable, and trustworthy, he was also a beloved fixture of our Village shop. His showman’s wit and Southern charm were as embedded in these walls as its exposed red bricks.

For the past week, however, Tuck had taken a well-deserved leave to practice his second career as a thespian. He and I usually arranged his Village Blend hours around his theatrical schedule, but this was something different.

Tuck had landed a speaking role in a feature film now shooting at Astoria Studios in Queens, and his part required him to be on set sixteen hours every day.

I hadn’t heard a word from him since he’d started the gig, so I was shocked when the bell jangled and he walked through the front door. Elated, I raced around the counter and gave him a tight hug. He stiffened unnaturally as I wrapped my arms around his lanky form.

“I was just thinking about you! Did your shoot end early? How have you been?”

Only then did I notice the dark circles under his eyes and deep frown on his usually cheerful, boyish face.

“Tuck, what’s wrong? You look terrible . . .”

Avoiding my gaze, he ran a knobby hand through his floppy brown hair. “The production isn’t over. But I’ve been given a few days off, along with the cast and most of the crew. The shooting schedule is a mess because of the police investigation.”

“What police investigation?!”

“Clare, I came here today to explain—and apologize.”

“For what? What’s this all about?”

As Tucker’s narrow shoulders slumped, his gangly frame seemed to shed inches. “It’s about what happened with Carol Lynn.”

“Carol Lynn Kendall?”

He nodded. “What happened in our upstairs lounge, that whole awful scene? It was my fault.”