It was going to be a long day — made longer by the first chime of the morning.

Mr. Arrit arrived earlier than expected.

Five minutes early, which in his routine was almost an event. I heard the bell and looked up from the counter.

"Mr. Arrit! Mr. Arrit!" I called out, as if seeing an archangel. "Good morning! Good morning!" His coffee, I thought, looking toward the kitchen. "Mayo—" I indicated, only to discover she was no longer lying across the counter.

She had moved ahead, as if she actually enjoyed working.

"Good afternoon, old man," she greeted him, almost with a bow. "Take a seat wherever you like — I’ll take your cane if it’s bothering you." The smile she threw me was one of victory, though I don’t think he understood it as such.

Mr. Arrit stopped for a moment, looking at Mayo with that puzzled expression, chin wrinkling. Then he looked toward the counter, searching for me with his eyes again.

I made a small gesture — pressing my palm downward, signaling that everything was fine.

He nodded and walked to his table. The second one by the window, the usual one. He hung his hat on the back of the chair with that precise gesture that had been identical to itself for years.

"Oh, no, no," said Mayo, taking his hat. "You’ll see it better on the table."

Mr. Arrit sighed. "Alright, young lady."

She pushed the menu into his face, nearly throwing it into his arms. "What can I get you?" she asked, pulling out a notepad we never used.

"A coffee," he said, in that measured voice. "Black, no sugar, strong, in a ceramic cup."

"Crystal clear," Mayo noted — though I was fairly certain she hadn’t written anything legible. "I’ll have it right with you in a jiffy."

She began running toward the kitchen with a speed entirely unnecessary given the eleven steps between them.

The kitchen door swung open.

Nolan came out with the coffee cup in hand — the way he did every day, the way he always had, the way he had for the two years before I arrived — and Mayo arrived at exactly the same moment.

The collision was clean. The cup tilted its contents with that catastrophic precision that coffee only has when it finds a white shirt.

"Ouch!" said Mayo. "Watch where you’re going. Can’t you see I was running?"

"Damn," said Nolan, looking at his shirt. "I forgot how hot the coffee was."

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry," Mayo crouched down, touching his stained chest. "Does it hurt much?"

"No, I’m fine," he replied, looking at the cup on the floor. He was going to pick it up — but at the same moment Mayo’s hand intercepted his with the same intention, finding him, touching HIS HAND.

He pulled away. He looked toward where I was standing.

I was frozen, watching them. But I know my responsibilities as Ryne Moore. "Are you both alright?" I said, walking toward them.

But before I could reach them, Mayo lost her balance — or appeared to — tripping on just a few drops of coffee, falling forward, and Nolan’s arms received her by instinct. For a second her body was completely pressed against his, with the familiarity of someone who knows exactly how they fit in that space.

I stood still in front of the two of them.

Mayo looked up at me from Nolan’s arms.

She was smiling. Just a little. Just enough for me to see it and no one else.

"Sorry — I forgot how hard it was to work," she said, pulling away calmly. "I’m so sorry, little Nolan."

"Don’t worry about it," he replied, looking at his shirt, then at Mr. Arrit who was watching them from the second table with his usual patience. "Excuse me, Mr. Arrit — I’m going to have to go home and change." He looked for me with his eyes. "Ryne, can you manage?"

"Of c-course," I barely said.

"I’ll be back in twenty minutes."

He grabbed his backpack from the hook.

The bell rang.

He left me behind.

Mayo picked the cup up from the floor and placed it on the counter with a calm that didn’t belong to someone who had just spilled coffee on their boss.

"Mr. Arrit," I said, walking to his table. "Black coffee, no sugar, strong."

"Same as always, dear," he replied, with that quiet expression of his that judged nothing but registered everything. "Same as always."

The afternoon moved at its usual pace — though that pace wasn’t mine.

Mrs. Prats arrived at four with her fabric bag and her usual orange scarf, taking her place on the third stool at the counter.

"Ryne, sweetheart," she said. "You look wonderful today."

"You always say the same thing, Mrs. Prats," I smiled.

"Because it’s always true." But then Mayo appeared from the kitchen. "And who is this young lady?"

"The beautiful and incomparable Mayo," she introduced herself, extending her hand with energy. "I’m working here this week. Lovely to meet me."

"How delightful!" Mrs. Prats took her hand with both of hers. "And are you Ryne’s friend?"

"Her best friend," Mayo declared, sitting on the stool beside her without anyone inviting her. "Though she says we’re just acquaintances when she’s embarrassed."

"How terrible!" Mrs. Prats lowered her gaze.

"That’s not true!" I protested.

"You see?" Mayo told her, with a complicity that had no right to exist yet. "Super uptight — doesn’t give an inch."

Mrs. Prats burst out laughing.

I made her chamomile tea with honey, with her butter cookie on the plate even though she hadn’t asked. But before I could set it on the counter, Mayo picked up the cup.

"I’ll take it," she said, placing it in front of Mrs. Prats with an exaggerated bow. "For you, your majesty."

"Oh, how funny!" said Mrs. Prats, taking the cup with that wide smile of hers.

I wiped the counter from left to right.

Mayo leaned on the counter beside me, watching the café with her arms crossed. "Hey," she said quietly. "Let’s take a break."

"I have to clean," I replied, moving the cloth to the left—

"You’ve already cleaned that part twice," she interrupted.

"There are customers."

"They’re drinking their coffee — they won’t die if you leave them alone for five minutes." She pulled my arm. "Maybe they’ll start a war. Nothing serious in five minutes."

"Mayo."

"Fine, four," she insisted. "Come on — you’re not going to grow moss."

"But that’s unbecoming of an employee of the month—"

"You’re the only one working, Ryne — you do the work of five people alone," she repeated, with the same conclusion as before. "Come on, sit down."

"Only three minutes," I clarified.

She smiled. She took my arm and pulled me toward a table. "You may be seated, young lady," she indicated, with a half bow. "Here is the menu — you may order whatever you like."

I looked at her — not because anything about it was unfamiliar, just going along with it. "A foamy lemon tea," I said, pointing with the hand she was holding the ribbon with.

"Somewhat pretentious taste," said Mayo, noting it in her pad. "Coming right up."

She went behind the counter. I heard her use three utensils and unnecessary machines — perhaps five or six attempts, failures that delayed it thirty more minutes than necessary until she produced something decent.

It was carelessness. She always has those.

"Here you are, Magmuasel," she said, handing me a beaten tea with a spoon and bits of lemon still in the water.

"Since when do you speak French?" I asked, taking a sip. "Not many people master that language in Vancouver."

She pulled out a chair and sat down. "A year ago I met some good people in France," she said. "I remember them well." She smiled. "A very young cook with your same taste for tea, and her older brother — a young artist who refused to paint me undressed."

"Of course not," I agreed. "That would be indecent."

"Ha. I think you’re right," said Mayo, looking at her hands. "You would have liked him — he was just as uptight as you. Though his sister was freer, but an emotional ice queen."

"Do you remember their names?"

"Yes — I had wanted to see her before her flight," she said. "But her uncle, a taxi driver around here, said her flight left yesterday." She sighed. "Her name was Dilein Ross."

"I know her," I said. "A good friend of Nolan’s."

Mayo was startled. "Surprising that you speak so well of her."

"Why?"

"She was a total troublemaker," she said. "Not the type to sleep with a different man every day — that I’ll give her — but the type who would string along admirers until they went away."

"I... I didn’t know that," I lied, looking at the tea, remembering that moment at the window. "And Michael — I don’t know him."

"Me neither, honestly," she settled in. "I saw him a couple of times in the month I was there. Every time he saw me with Dilein he’d go to his room and start painting." A smile formed on her face. "Once I walked into his room undressed and offered to let him paint me with a happy ending — he shouted at me to get out. There I was, running half-naked through his house trying to make sure nobody saw me." She sighed. "He’s one of those who wants to wait until marriage." She smiled. "I would have liked to possess him too."

"What?"

"There’s nothing better than being with a virgin," she smiled. "Yes, they’re clumsy and sometimes don’t know how to move their tongue. But it’s lovely to see the energy they put in."

I looked at her, she looked at me, we stayed quiet for a moment until she let it go.

"Do you know what I like most about this place?" she said, more quietly.

I didn’t respond.

"The order and the peace it creates," she continued, touching the counter with a finger. "Every cup, every chair, every mark on the floor. It’s as if someone decided that here the world has order." She glanced at me sideways. "Not many places are like that."

"I work at it," I said, lowering my head.

"This kind of peace only comes with a good person," she commented. "I only felt it with Michael for two weeks, before I walked into his room properly."

"Completely understandable," I agreed.

"Sometimes I want to not be me," she began. "To be a little more like you."

"What do you mean?"

"Don’t play like you don’t know, gir—" she sighed. "Someone shaped differently." She looked at her shoes — my shoes — tapping them as the tap tap sounded. "That’s why I wanted these," she admitted. "I wanted to mold myself a little more like you, by having what you have."

"And do you like being like me?"

"Well, the shoes are tight," she replied with a laugh. "But that doesn’t make them any less beautiful."

Something in her words didn’t make me smile, despite the beauty of the moment.

I looked at the clock — it was a quarter to seven. No customers, just the two of us up front and Nolan in the kitchen.

She smiled at me. "Can we close yet?"