Starbucks!
Winter urged her failing car to the Starbucks parking lot. Before she shut off the rumbling heap of junk that had haphazardly brought her there, she leaned forward on the shredded steering wheel and groaned. The day did not start off well...
Earlier that morning she awoke to a light yellow sticky-note on the pillow beside her, upon careful reading she deciphered her boyfriend's... ex-boyfriend's incredibly sloppy hand writing. By the time she figured out what he had written, he was long gone, on his way to California with his beat up, blue, Toyota and his grandfather's guitar to make it big. She crumpled the offending note and tossed it into the garbage can, right along with all the memories of their two month fling. Winter had seen it coming of course, he wasn't the commitment kind. She fixed a large bowl of dry frosted flakes with quickly wilting strawberries, grabbed her notebook and sat on the centuries old couch.
"Tawny... kitty kitty" she clicked her pen against the notebook and called to her cat. Moments later her black and brown Persian was on the couch beside her purring for attention. Tawny unsheathed a single claw and scraped at the pad of paper as soon as Winter opened it. He succeeded in ripping a tiny claw mark through the first sheet of crisp, new paper. Winter pushed him down. "Stupid cat..." she mumbled.
She absently flipped a few pages in her notebook to the one she was searching for. In large curling letters she had written "The List" at the top of the page, all down the left side she had tiny circles. She stared in distaste at all the empty bubbles, reminders of how far she had yet to go to achieve her goals. Only three had been check marked off- "Get out of High school" "Get an apartment" "Buy a car". She followed the page down to the very bottom and quickly made a neat bubble. Next to it she penned "Find Mr. Perfect, and marry him" when she had finished she underlined "marry him" so hard it broke through the page. So she drew another bubble, beside this one "Get new notebook" That, she decided, would be the short-term goal.
Winter flipped the notebook closed and tucked it inside her brown messenger bag. She checked the time on the watch that was laying on her counter. 7:02.
"Eek, I shouldn't be up this early." She finished her cereal and got dressed for work. She planned to save a big chunk of time before her first shift. This would be put to good use in writing a page or two in the hit novel she was writing in her spare time "Finding Mr. Perfect". Just to be safe she checked her watch again. 7:02. "Oh my word." Her eyes got huge as she flung open the curtains in her second story apartment to reveal that it was almost noon. She catapulted off the window sill and hurriedly tossed her laptop into her messenger bag. Grabbing her keys, she made a break for the hallway. She locked the door behind her, proud of herself for remembering to do so. She started down the steps to her car but felt an unfamiliar breeze on the crown of her head, she had left her cap inside. After a moment's pause she continued down the stairwell. Forget it, I'll grab a hairnet she thought.
She was already over forty-five minutes late for her shift when she flung open the rusting black door to her car. The air conditioner hadn't worked since she bought the car at a junk heap. All but two of the seat belts had been bitten through by various dogs, and the rear left light was no where to be found. But at least it was better then the bus. She adjusted her mirrors, all safely pointed away from her (the last thing she needed today was to find that the enormous pimple on her forehead had grown a friend) and after three failed attempts at started the car, it roaring into life, or rather, sputtering into a state in which it could rattle along just under the speed limit.
Winter scarcely had time to shut of the engine when a six foot tall, dish-water blond teenager came tapping on her window. He had almost strait teeth, and almost enchantingly blue eyes, and had almost trimmed every inch of fat, and was almost tanned to perfection. Almost. Although he did look rather good next to Winter. Her hair was golden blond, with a red tinge, her teeth were white, eyes were... almost deep green, weight, something to be put on The List. She always insisted she enjoyed having "curves" (and most people believed she did enjoy it).
The boy wore a black shirt, jeans and a green Starbucks apron, along with matching green hat. His name tag said "Winter". Winter was dressed almost the same, minus the hat, but her name tag read "Nick"
The boy tapped on her window and motioned for her to get out. "Good morning Nick, so tell me the good news, I'm not late right? Daylight savings time?" She slammed the car door shut, it bounced back knocking into Nick. He caught it with a dramatized huff and shut it, gently though.
"Oh yeah, good old Franklin came through!" He laughed sarcastically "let me guess, Tawny got loose again?"
Winter rolled her eyes "Try again"
"Aw Mr. Perfect got loose... again?"
"No!" She defended, acting hurt. Nick raised an eyebrow at her. "Ok yes. But that's not why I'm late. Clock stopped"
"So Folexes don't hold up as well as you thought?"
"Haha, I need go inside, I'm gonna be dead" Nick stopped her though
"Well if you're going to die in there, why not give me a hug first?"
"Oh fine, probably the last one" Nick smiled on the outside... Winter smiled on the inside…
…six feet tall, hair of deep brown satin with gold plated strings, admittedly kissable lips, enchanting cobalt and ice blue eyes, remarkable bod, tanned to perfection. Perfect. She thought.
…hair the richest golden blond and warm ginger, teeth sparkling white surrounded by gloriously soft lips, extravagant sea-foam green eyes outlined in black, huggable figure. Perfect. He thought.
____________________________________________________________________
Calico was having a rather pleasant day. Of course, a properly working car, good alarm clock, and annoyingly peppy disposition worked wonders. She started her day with an ice cold green tea. Complete with five Splendi (I will refer to three weeks back- "When you use more then one you call them Splendi instead of Splenda! Just like octopi, in place of octopus" Calico declared to her two co-workers. This is when Winter turned to Nick and whispered "Splend-i don't like morning people!")
Calico checked the wall clock. Oi, Winter's already 15 minutes late... this was the only downside to her day so far. She was just itching to introduce Winter to her personal VIP customer/soon to be boyfriend (he didn't know about it yet). She waited impatiently behind the counter. No customers so far, which was surprising. A few minutes later she realized why there were no customers. This was only because she noticed about five people standing outside. She never could remember to unlock the door. What a silly girl she had been, Sshe rushed to the door, eyes wide. She began apologizing before anyone could here her.
"Oh dear! I'm so sorry! Terribly sorry," The small group crowed in, no one particularly enthusiastic. She hopped behind the counter and put on her best, yet cheesy customer service grin.
"What can I get you this lovely morning kind sir?" She asked the portly bald man who stood on the other side of the counter. He pulled out his wallet and never looked up at her.
"Vente house blend, two Splendas, one creamer." Calico wasn't very found of this man already.
"Vente house, you can add your own SplendI and creamer over there." She jabbed a ringed figure in the direction of the small table filled with sugar, creamer, stirrers, and little brochures.
"That'll be $5.42" He glared at her through bushy eyebrows and handed her a five and a one.
Oh for the love of exact change! She thought.
"Thank you sir, here's your $.58" She halfheartedly held out the two quarters, a nickel and three pennies. The man took the change and dropped one penny into the tip jar, giving a benevolent grin as if he had given her a scholarship.
How exciting sir! You actually gave a whole penny! She thought with bitter sarcasm.
Calico grabbed a specialty paper cup and filled it to the brim with piping hot coffee, knowing that the cup cost more then the contents. She snapped on a white plastic lid and set it on the counter. Her only shred of joy in this job rested on the hope of him burning his mouth.
Five more orders, she kept on the fake smile though it hurt her cheeks. Then, the smile became real as a tall, dark haired man stepped up to the counter. Though it was against the Health Code she took her shiny brown hair out of its imprisoning bun and shook it loose. Leaning over the counter a little she asked
"Good morning sir. Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get you to drink?" But she didn't have to ask. She thought each specification a millisecond before he uttered it. "I'll have a," grande "grande" extra shot "extra shot" hazelnut "hazelnut" latte "latte" extra love... ur... froth "extra froth" He smiled at her when he had finished. She almost sang back his order. "Sure, one grande, extra shot, hazelnut, latte, extra froth on the way."
She absent mindedly stared at him for a moment, he tilted his head in a questioning way as if to say "Aren't you forgetting something?" She quickly decided to stop staring and start making his drink.
A full minute later the latte was on the counter. Calico had a hard time concentrating with her favorite regular standing just on the other side of the counter. She took his money and watched as he sipped his latte. Now would be the perfect time to slip in the question. The hint of that one sentence danced on her tongue and she thought it over and over again, so loud he must've heard her.
Would you like to see a movie later? It was the perfect ploy.
Would you like to see a movie later, with me? She just had to say it,
Would you like to…. Like to….
"See a movie?" She blurted out. Then smacked her head, he had already turned around and was headed out the door. He didn't even hear her…