On What Grounds (Coffeehouse Mysteries, No. 1) (A Coffeehouse Mystery) by Cleo Coyle Page A
Authors: Cleo Coyle
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nothing as trivial as a cup of coffee. Yet every time Joy, or Madame, or I placed a hot paper cup into the hands of an exhausted volunteer, I understood why Madame wanted to take urn after urn down there.
What cheered and warmed these weary people for a few minutes wasn’t the liquid extraction of a handful of beans, but the idea that someone had made it for them. Someone had cared. Someone had loved—an essential reminder for anyone who must daily face the gray, twisted evidence of someone else’s hate.
“The coffee almanac said it best,” Madame liked to remind us at the end of those long days. And then she’d quote words written at the beginning of the last century:
“Coffee makes a sad man cheerful, a languorous man active, a cold man warm, a warm man glowing. It awakens mental powers thought to be dead, and when left in a sick room, it fills the room with a fragrance…. The very smell of coffee terrorizes death.”
To Madame, a cup of morning coffee was more than a pick-me-up, it was fortification against whatever the world was about to throw at you, be it the best or the worst.
Which brings me back to my fears for Anabelle. After my silent moment at St. Vincent’s rain-streaked wall, I entered the hospital and found its elevator bank.
The ascent took the usual four months with orderlies, nurses, and visitors entering and exiting on their appointed floors. During one of these brief stops, the elevator doors opened and I caught a glimpse of a familiar face down one of the hospital corridors—
Madame was sitting in a wheelchair and chatting with a gray-templed white-coated doctor. Before I could step out, the doors closed again.
“Excuse me, what floor was that?” I asked the tall Filipino orderly, who was standing beside me with an empty wheelchair.
“Cancer treatment,” he said.
My stomach dropped.
Cancer treatment. My god.
Madame had indeed seemed more tired lately. And the contracts she’d tricked me and Matt into signing. My god, I thought again, it all made sense now: She was ill. That’s why she wanted the legacy of the Blend in our hands. That’s why she’d had the nerve to give us both permission to live in the duplex—she wanted to see us get back together before she…before she…
My god.
My mind was still processing this awful revelation when the elevator door opened on the floor for the intensive care unit. While I was still reeling from this news about Madame, I knew Anabelle was in even more serious trouble, so, like a triage nurse, I did my best to put my worries about Madame on hold and refocus my attention on Anabelle.
Venturing into the ICU waiting area, I noticed a young woman with a mass of frizzy dark hair and baggy clothes standing at a large observation window, staring at a ward full of beds. It was Anabelle’s roommate, Esther Best (shortened from Bestovasky by her grandfather, she’d told me when we first met).
Anabelle’s bed wasn’t far from the observation window. She appeared to still be unconscious, plugged into an array of daunting-looking medical machines. A nurse sat near the foot of the bed, watching the monitors. Next to the bed, a slender blond woman stood, her back to us.
Through her trendy black-rimmed rectangular glasses, Esther glanced over at me. Like the mother I was, I found myself thinking how lovely the girl’s features were, how beautiful her skin, and yet they were hidden by that too-long mass of frizzy, unconditioned hair and those clunky black glasses.
The truth was, I actually had a soft spot for Esther Best because I’d been just like her in my teen years (albeit a might less hostile). Eventually I grew out of it. I lost weight, made an effort with my appearance, dealt with my anger, and accepted the things I could not change, as the saying goes.
The biggest issue for Esther, as it had been with me, was her attitude. The giant chip on her shoulder usually fell on anyone within earshot, especially members of the opposite sex,
What cheered and warmed these weary people for a few minutes wasn’t the liquid extraction of a handful of beans, but the idea that someone had made it for them. Someone had cared. Someone had loved—an essential reminder for anyone who must daily face the gray, twisted evidence of someone else’s hate.
“The coffee almanac said it best,” Madame liked to remind us at the end of those long days. And then she’d quote words written at the beginning of the last century:
“Coffee makes a sad man cheerful, a languorous man active, a cold man warm, a warm man glowing. It awakens mental powers thought to be dead, and when left in a sick room, it fills the room with a fragrance…. The very smell of coffee terrorizes death.”
To Madame, a cup of morning coffee was more than a pick-me-up, it was fortification against whatever the world was about to throw at you, be it the best or the worst.
Which brings me back to my fears for Anabelle. After my silent moment at St. Vincent’s rain-streaked wall, I entered the hospital and found its elevator bank.
The ascent took the usual four months with orderlies, nurses, and visitors entering and exiting on their appointed floors. During one of these brief stops, the elevator doors opened and I caught a glimpse of a familiar face down one of the hospital corridors—
Madame was sitting in a wheelchair and chatting with a gray-templed white-coated doctor. Before I could step out, the doors closed again.
“Excuse me, what floor was that?” I asked the tall Filipino orderly, who was standing beside me with an empty wheelchair.
“Cancer treatment,” he said.
My stomach dropped.
Cancer treatment. My god.
Madame had indeed seemed more tired lately. And the contracts she’d tricked me and Matt into signing. My god, I thought again, it all made sense now: She was ill. That’s why she wanted the legacy of the Blend in our hands. That’s why she’d had the nerve to give us both permission to live in the duplex—she wanted to see us get back together before she…before she…
My god.
My mind was still processing this awful revelation when the elevator door opened on the floor for the intensive care unit. While I was still reeling from this news about Madame, I knew Anabelle was in even more serious trouble, so, like a triage nurse, I did my best to put my worries about Madame on hold and refocus my attention on Anabelle.
Venturing into the ICU waiting area, I noticed a young woman with a mass of frizzy dark hair and baggy clothes standing at a large observation window, staring at a ward full of beds. It was Anabelle’s roommate, Esther Best (shortened from Bestovasky by her grandfather, she’d told me when we first met).
Anabelle’s bed wasn’t far from the observation window. She appeared to still be unconscious, plugged into an array of daunting-looking medical machines. A nurse sat near the foot of the bed, watching the monitors. Next to the bed, a slender blond woman stood, her back to us.
Through her trendy black-rimmed rectangular glasses, Esther glanced over at me. Like the mother I was, I found myself thinking how lovely the girl’s features were, how beautiful her skin, and yet they were hidden by that too-long mass of frizzy, unconditioned hair and those clunky black glasses.
The truth was, I actually had a soft spot for Esther Best because I’d been just like her in my teen years (albeit a might less hostile). Eventually I grew out of it. I lost weight, made an effort with my appearance, dealt with my anger, and accepted the things I could not change, as the saying goes.
The biggest issue for Esther, as it had been with me, was her attitude. The giant chip on her shoulder usually fell on anyone within earshot, especially members of the opposite sex,
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