Same as Usual
I'm waiting outside the door when she comes to unlock it for me. It's mid-December, nearing on Christmas, and I'm waiting outside a coffee shop before the sun comes up. She smiles the way she always does, a shake to her head this time under her knit hat.
"Morning, Daniel." She turns the key and walked in with the door.
I smile at her back. I never can find it in me to smile at her front without feeling like an idiot. "Morning, Michelle."
She's a student. I've seen her in the courtyards, talking with friends or her nose clear up the spine of a book. She's not one of mine, though. She's not a science girl. She likes Hemmingway and Shakespeare; more of the latter, if the books she's carrying are any sign. She told me once she'd end up living in a box on the Thames if she didn't get her act together. I tried to tell her that I liked her act just fine the way it was, but it came out like nonsense. Stupid, stupid...
I shake myself out of my scarves and coats, letting them lie over the worn-in sofa I make mine every morning. Friction up and down the arms of my sweater--always so academic, without even meaning to be, light brown and braided with a lined blue collar, loose enough to let me breathe.
The lights blink on, and I squint through to find her behind the counter, shaking the snow out of her curly red hair. Like a volcano mid-eruption. She's got eyes like coffee.
"Same as usual, Dan?" She doesn't have that tight Oxford-scholar accent to her voice. Northern, nearly Scottish.
Same as usual. I stumble in one day out of the cold, icicles on my eyelashes and teeth projecting morse code, and there she is. I was the only one in the shop then, and I'm the only one in here now. It gets crowded at lunch time, when the academics pull up a chair and play philosophizer to anyone bored enough to listen in. She asked me what I wanted when I chattered up to the counter, and when I didn't answer, she just smiled the way she does. Like she's the sun coming out to melt the snow away. She slipped a mug into my hand, and it tastes like heaven. Ambrosia, that's what the Greeks called it. Mana from the Gods. I've never had anything else. Maybe some day, I'll ask her what it is, or, even better, shake things up a bit. Maybe I'll order something, something new. A change in the routine.
Cold goes up my back, and I only shake my head. "Same as usual."
She doesn't flinch, just bobs and smiles and makes me my coffee.
"How 'bout that weather, yeah?" Michelle asks, her eyes on the machine as she punches in my order. "Crazy, isn't it?"
"Crazy." I sound like a parrot, and I try not to plant my face in my palm. "Yeah, it's something, all right. Looks like we'll have a white Christmas."
Her eyes light up, and she reminds me of Christmas. Lights inside the frosted windows, snug and warm and close. "I get off starting Thursday. Going back home for holiday."
I try not to look like someone threw a brick at my glass window of reality. Tiny little pieces of me ping as they hit the ground around me. I still can't smile, not for real. Students go on holiday, go back home.
"Sounds like fun," I manage.
It mustn't have sounded like fun coming from me. She doesn't say anything as she finishes up my coffee. She slides it across the counter at me, and it somehow doesn't spill over. She smiles again. Why does she make it look so easy?
"Usual for you, Dan." The snowflakes are melted in her hair.
"Thanks, Michelle." I try. I really do try to smile. It twitches and pulls back awkward and slow. I try harder, despite rubbing nervously at my eye, and I smile.
It must've worked. She's smiling back. I turn away quick, before I can do anything crazy--like ask her what her last name is, how old she is, where she grew up and if she has any siblings. Play it safe, Daniel Faraday.
I find my dent in the old sofa, settle in and pull out the papers I need to mark-up. When I drink, it's ambrosia. Comfort drink, soft and warm like Christmas. I won't be going home. Home is somewhere over an ocean, too far for two weeks holiday.
She's still there until noon, and I stick around like a dog. I know I won't ask her. I never find the nerve. I pretend that I'm worried about the snow outside, that it's keeping me from packing up and leaving. I never leave before noon. I get another cup of ambrosia--it's never been anything else to me, and I wouldn't know what to call it even if she told me. I know she doesn't believe me when I talk about fighting through the snow. She knows I love the snow. She's got that Christmas glint in her eye again, like she knows there's something up--and it's not just Faraday twitching off into another world again.
I'm sure she's heard the stories, even if she's not one of mine. They all tell stories. I've learned not to mind. But I almost don't want her to hear them. Not Michelle. She doesn't know that Daniel. She knows the Daniel that shows up before she does, always orders the same cup of coffee, that can't quite find a smile but means more by it than he thinks he does. That Daniel. Not Professor Faraday. She's never called me Professor Faraday.
It'll come someday, just like I keep waiting to ask her.
Maybe someday I'll order something else. When I don't shake at the knees when she walks by and smiles that smile.
She passes by when she throws on her coat to leave her shift to her coworker. He's one of mine, his glasses all fogged over when he steps in from the cold. She stops just past my sofa, then turns with a resigned little step.
"Daniel?"
I look up, and her coffee eyes are right on me. No words form right, so I just nod.
"You should try the caramel latte tomorrow. I'll make it if you ask for it. Yeah?"
I must look like a fish. I nearly crack my jaw bringing it clamped shut, but she just smiles. I nod again, nearly spilling the papers everywhere as I try to find something to busy my fingers with. Knees shaking again, I take a swallow and find her eyes.
"Yeah." I sound shaky, and I try to cover it up my clearing my throat. I pass a hand over my face. "Yeah, okay. Latte."
She smiles and bobs and she's out the door before I can make any more of an idiot out of myself.
When tomorrow comes, I slide a copy of Much Ado About Nothing across the counter. She looks up, still shaking snowflakes from her hair. She smiles that smile, and she says: "Same as usual, Daniel?"
I find a way to clear my throat. "Caramel latte, please, Michelle."
AN: Hey there! I'm back! I got a pretty good response on my other Dan fic, so I pulled this one out of nowhere (waiting for History class to start, all snowy/rainy/icy/crappy here, it helped set the mood). It seems that I can't write Dan in any other way but first-person-present. I hope I've managed to keep Dan ... Dan-ish. Let me know! Leave me some love, tell me what you think, and maybe look forward to more later if you liked this. Thanks for reading, and stay awesome!