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Toby’s already opened up when Eric pulls up; he’s fighting his daily battle with the padlocks on the bins, and he grimaces when Eric trudges past him on his way to the staff entrance.
“I swear Serge does something funny to these fucking locks,” he mutters, half to Eric. Eric’s halfway in the door, so he doesn’t bother replying that he doesn’t think Serge really believes in taking the bins out, and even if he did, he probably doesn’t think the dumpsters should have padlocks on them.
It’s still pitch black outside, but Toby’s switched the lights on inside the café, and it looks like Tanguy actually bothered wiping the tables down before clocking off the night before – everything’s gleaming and neat, the chairs tucked exactly where they should be, the aggressively Christmassy three-sided leaflets advertising You Can Taste Freedom In Our Beans and Give The Gift Of Coffee This Christmas and They’re Back! Festive Flavours To Deck Your Halls all facing in the same direction, the baskets of keep cups (Save 15p Every Time You Use Me!) full, but not too full, in front of the counter.
Eric glances at his watch as he’s doing up his apron: twenty minutes to go. He busies himself dragging multipacks of yoghurts and smoothies from the storage fridge and restocking the display cabinet, which is still humming after the engineer came last week. There’s no one in the café, and no one’s come through the drive through yet, so he takes his time, making sure all the labels are straight, so that he can spend the rest of his shift seething quietly when the customers nudge them out of alignment. Toby is pottering around behind the counter, working his way through a couple of past-the-display-date biscotti while he bitches about how Serge and Tanguy never top up the lids.
Luckily, Toby likes complaining about the late shift more than he likes doing drive through, especially in the depths of winter when you get an icy blast of weather in the face every time you open the window, so it’s no difficulty for Eric to be the one by the speaker at 05:12 when the first customer arrives. Eric watches the little black Nissan Micra swing carefully round the building on the CCTV, and clears his throat before saying, as optimistically as 05:12 will allow, “what can I get for you?”
*
It’s pathetic, really, and Eric knows it. It’s been going on for over a month now, the giddy stab of excitement when he sees the car on the monitor, the brief breathless dread if he’s ever a little late, the way his voice sometimes cracks, and he has to try again.
This morning, it comes out okay first time, and he hears back, “alright mate, can I get a couple of medium lattes, one with hazelnut, and then just a double espresso?” just like he does every morning, and just like he does every morning, Eric says, “any pastries to go with that?” and, when the answer’s no, as always, he says, “I’ll get those drinks started for you right now, do you want to pull round?” and he has thirty seconds or so to tamp a couple of pucks and slot the portafilters into place, and scrub a hand through his hair, before he hears the Micra pull up outside his window.
It’s pathetic. He doesn’t even get a good view. From his perch by the drive through window, the most he can see is the guy’s arm resting on the open window, his fingers looped loosely around the steering wheel. Three weeks ago, when it was unseasonably warm, the guy was wearing short sleeves, and Eric spent so long staring at the web of tattoos on the slim forearm that another customer had time to pull up behind the Micra and start revving irritably.
What Eric’s really waiting for is the five, six seconds when Dele – Eric cribbed the name from the debit card receipt the second day he showed up, and he’s not proud of it – ducks down momentarily so he can lean out of the window and grab the coffees, neatly snuggled in their cardboard tray. Eric’s pretty chuffed with himself that he hasn’t dropped them yet. It’s early, but Dele still always gives him a blinding grin before he retreats and drives off – he has these eyebrows, and they arch in this way that leaves Eric taking the next five orders pretty much on autopilot and inevitably forgetting a syrup, or adding too much syrup, or just ending up staring mutely at the steamer for a full minute like he’s never seen one before.
And then he’s got another six and a half hours to get through, juggling oat milk refills and an endless stream of travel cups with lids that seem designed to trick him, with only his stupid, creepy thoughts, which mainly revolve around wondering whether Dele’s is the latte, the hazelnut latte, or the double espresso, and whether he gets foam caught on his top lip ever, to sustain him.
*
It’s a slow morning, and even Toby has his limits when it comes to padding out the time with pointless jobs. Once Eric’s finished a stock take of the beans – not the worst job in the world; he’s been working here three years now, and he’s still not sick of the smell of coffee – and mopped up the defrosted ice at the back of the yoghurt fridge – close to the worst job, he thinks, his fingers tingling with cold – Toby lets him tuck himself into a booth with his laptop and his battered old copy of Class in Britain so he can eke out another few hundred words of his dissertation.
It's slow going – the cockney DJ on the radio is talking a mile a minute between a steady rotation of Slade, Wizzard, and the censored version of the Pogues, and Toby keeps wandering over to ask him whether he’s solved economic inequality yet, and he keeps having to stop to google difference between epistemology and ontology – but the café’s warm, and the out of date biscotti aren’t too bad, if you dunk them in your coffee long enough,
This isn’t really how Eric envisaged being a graduate student. He thought there’d be a lot more lounging around on leather chairs wearing turtlenecks and debating Baudrillard with other attractive graduate students who were also wearing turtlenecks. He doesn’t often get to see the student crowd, anyway – they come in much later, and whenever he crosses paths with Serge, Serge goes off on a rant about how they colonise all the plug sockets and sit there for hours nursing a stale cappuccino and scrolling through Instagram instead of doing any work.
Maybe this way’s best – by hook or by crook, his dissertation’s most of the way done now, and his loan repayments aren’t horrendous, and some of the regulars know him well enough to drop by his booth to ask him how it’s going and give him advice on how to use a semi-colon.
“He turn up this morning then?” Toby asks, on his way past with the spray bottle and the j-cloth.
“Who turn up?”
“Your man – you know – Nissan Micra, double espresso.”
Eric scowls. “He’s not –” Toby’s a good shift manager, and he doles out the tips evenly at the end of each week, and for the most part he keeps his nose out of Eric’s business, but for some reason he’s latched onto Eric’s ill-advised drive through fixation and he doesn’t seem to be letting go any time soon. Eric figures it’s payback – Toby very gallantly didn’t say a word when Jan got head-hunted by corporate and swanned off merrily into the sunset without the faintest idea of Eric’s debilitating crush on him.
“– he’s not my man,” Eric finishes lamely, pretending to fiddle with a footnote. The DJ’s still chirruping on incessantly and his co-host’s laughing along; Eric doesn’t see what there is to be so cheerful about at this time of the morning.
*
Ben turns up for the start of his shift at eight, just in time for the commuter rush. Eric’s back on the drive through by then, and he can hear Ben’s voice cutting across the hubbub, encouraging people to move down to the next till.
“No, I’m not trying to steal your identity,” Ben is saying patiently, “I just need a name for the cup so I don’t get it confused with another customer’s, see?”
Eric grins to himself, and resumes stuffing piping hot paninis into a paper bag for the people carrier waiting at the window.
The morning gets busier, and time passes more quickly, and pretty soon Eric’s too rushed off his feet to daydream either about Dele’s tattoos or about the influence of E P Thompson on Marxist historiography. Toby has a tension headache, they’ve run out of pineapple and mango smoothies, and it’s a foul day outside so the doorway needs mopping twice an hour.
“Honestly,” Ben says over his shoulder as he steams some milk, “it’s not like I invented the sizes – you’d think I was trying to personally inconvenience people, the way they go on – just say ‘medium’, mate, I’ll still get what you’re on about.”
If Jan were here, he’d give them a lecture about the etymological origins of their contrived size indicators, and would probably also tell them that a strong and memorable brand identity is key in a crowded market, but he’s not, so Eric settles for agreeing with Ben and starts pouring a perfect little Christmas tree into the foam of the mocha he’s just made.
“Alright, mate, what can I get for you?”
Over the hiss of steam and the gurgle of the percolator, the customer starts replying, and Eric looks up at the sound of the guy’s voice. It’s this short young guy with a boyish face full of freckles – decent-looking, but what really stands out is how he’s reeling off this drinks order at breakneck speed without taking breath – and how familiar his voice is. Eric pauses for a couple of seconds, trying to place it, and then when he looks down again the Christmas tree is ruined and the foam’s overflowed and is pooling in the saucer.
Eric swears under his breath and hands the coffee over anyway, apologising.
It’s as Ben’s taking the guy’s payment, and the guy’s telling Ben how he’s left his stamp card at home, but he’ll bring it next time, that it hits Eric: it’s the same voice he hears over the radio every morning, 6 to 10, you’re listening to Breakfast with Sonny and Winksy and here’s the latest from Dua Lipa. The queue’s died down a bit, so Eric peers over the counter at the guy, who’s probably Winksy, and is much younger and cooler than he sounds on the radio.
He must stare a bit too long, because Winksy looks up, puzzled, and says “y’alright mate?”
“Yeah – yeah, sorry, bro,” Eric says. “Just – we listen to your show every morning. Took me a bit to work it out but –” he gestures at his ear. “—got there in the end.”
The guy beams, and goes a bit pink as he collects his tray of coffees from Ben. “Oh, sweet,” he says. “Sorry if we’re a bit – y’know, hyper first thing –”
Eric waves a hand, even though he definitely tells Sonny and Winksy and their relentless cheer to shut the hell up at least twice a week, usually when he’s trying to sort out the till take and the two of them are giggling particularly maniacally over the tannoy.
“Na, mate, we’re big fans, aren’t we?” he looks at Ben for reassurance. Ben nods gamely enough, given that Eric knows full well Ben would rather they piped Test Match Special over the sound system 24/7, and turns to see to the next customer.
“Won’t keep you,” Winksy says, still grinning, “—Just popped in with my producer, we’re just doing some programming planning for over Christmas, and the coffee at the station’s shit, and Del said you guys do the best coffee round here, guess he does know what he’s talking about because he comes here every morning on the way into work, god, I tell you if he didn’t me and Sonny’d be half asleep by seven, I’m like a zombie before I get my caffeine –”
He’s still talking, and still not really pausing for breath, but Eric’s not really listening, because he’s still stick on Del and on the hand Winksy waved at the armchairs nearest the door, and the guy sitting there with his spidery legs sprawled everywhere and a pen between his teeth, arching an eyebrow and making Eric’s stomach lurch uncomfortably.
“Forgot to say,” Toby says casually, coming up behind Eric with a box full of Luxury Brandy Mince Pies (GF), “your man’s back. Taller than you’d think, isn’t he?”
Eric turns his back on the café, his heart racing. He chucks the steamer wand and the jug in the sink and pretends to be giving them a deep clean, all the while thinking don’t be pathetic, don’t be pathetic, don’t be pathetic. He’s barely spoken to the guy. All he knows is, he’s polite, and pretty, and he sometimes has a box file of papers on the seat next to him, and he’s usually listening to grime when he pulls up at Eric’s window, and he has an air freshener the shape of the Tottenham Hotspur crest hanging from his rearview mirror, and now he’s sitting on the other side of the café drinking coffee Eric made.
Eric contemplates developing a sudden illness so he can go home and nurse his own humiliation in peace. Toby’s not an idiot though, and the lunch rush is about to come in, and Eric’s not one to leave his colleagues in the lurch just because of some guy’s frosted tips, so he takes a deep breath, drains, the sink, and grabs his till fob ready to ring up the next customer.
*
“Will you just go and talk to him?” Toby hisses an hour later, when the lunch rush has subsided again and he’s finished ranting about how Serge and Tanguy have squashed the croissants again.
“I’ve got –” Eric glares at the deserted queue “—customers.”
“Sure, bro,” Toby says. “Listen, why don’t you go and collect their empties? Table probably needs wiping. Wouldn’t want all those important documents getting coffee stains on them.”
Ben, who doesn’t care much about work gossip, but does care about keeping their hygiene rating, nods behind Toby’s back. “You can fill up the napkins while you’re about it,” he says.
“See? Plenty of excuses,” Toby says, like he’s doing Eric a favour.
Eric grabs the j-cloth and an empty tray, and pretends not to be smoothing down his apron as he weaves around a pram to get to the window table.
“Everything alright?” he says – his voice cracks a bit, so he busies himself collecting empties and pretending he hasn’t noticed Dele was drinking the americano-with-an-extra-shot, so they won’t see him going pink.
“Oh, this is the guy,” Winksy says – it’s still weird, hearing the familiar radio voice attached to a human body, and one that’s doing fairly normal things like trying to scoop the rest of the hot chocolate sludge out of the bottom of the mug with a wooden stirrer. “Del, he recognised me just from my voice, cool, innit?”
Dele looks up – close up, he’s even prettier, which isn’t really fair, considering he’s been on the go since at least five in the morning, and considering producing a breakfast radio show – especially one fronted by Sonny and Winksy, whose default mode seems to be high-octane – is bound to be knackering.
“It’s you,” Dele says. “Eric, right?”
“Uh,” Eric says, profoundly, and nearly drops the tray full of mugs. “Uh – yeah?”
“Says on the receipt,” Dele says without a trace of guile. “Your server today was Eric. Dunno who’s been calling their kids Eric any time after 1842, but I guess now I know.”
Eric looks at him blankly, his brain ricocheting between why is he saving drive through coffee receipts and is this guy actually a twat.
“Your coffee’s alright,” Dele says, and turns to Winksy. “This is the guy who makes us coffee every morning. Usually he’s up in his little booth, you know. Highlight of my day, that.”
Eric presses his lips firmly together so he won’t say anything stupid like mine too.
“Cheers,” Winksy says as Eric gathers the last saucer. “Thirsty work, this.”
*
The next morning’s the same as usual. The yoghurt fridge is misbehaving, and Tanguy’s forgotten to refill the beans. Toby’s irritable, and 05:12 comes and goes and there’s no sight of the Nissan Micra. Eric swivels on his stool and straightens the sugar packets to give his nervous hands something to do.
The next four minutes drag by, and Eric goes through at least seven cycles of he’s not coming – you scared him off – no he’s just late – no he took one look at you and decided to go to Costa – don’t be an idiot he barely registered your existence before the video display lights up and he sees Dele’s car pull into the drive through.
He swallows hard and clears his throat.
“Hi,” he says, and promptly forgets the rest of the script he’s been parroting for the last two years.
“Hey, Eric,” he hears back, while he’s still flailing around for a better opener. His stomach leaps.
“Hey, Dele,” he says carefully, and he realises it’s the first time he’s said it out loud. It feels good in his mouth. “You having the usual?”
“You know my usual? Bit creepy.”
Eric pauses, his heart in his mouth, and then the speaker crackles again as Dele laughs, a hyena squeal of a laugh, and says, “I’m kidding, that’s top notch customer service, that is.”
“I try my best,” Eric says, supremely glad Dele can’t see him blushing.
“Bet you say that to all the guys,” Dele’s voice comes back, and behind Eric, Toby tuts sanctimoniously.
“Jan’s going to be so sad when I tell him you’ve moved on,” Toby says smugly as Dele pulls round to the window. There’s not enough time for Eric to do more than stick a finger up at him, but he promises himself he’s going to tell Tanguy to leave the grounds in all the filters on his next shift, just to annoy him.
“Hey, man,” Dele says, as his window rolls down, and Eric thinks cheekbones, which isn’t particularly articulate, but at least gets to the heart of the matter. “Long time no see.”
Eric laughs – he’s aiming for light and tinkling but it comes out as the usual seal bark. “Tell Winksy to keep it mellow today, can’t be doing with all the squealing.”
Dele grins. “That’s not Winksy – the squealing’s all Sonny. You’ll have to come down the station, I’ll introduce you. You’d like him.”
Eric’s brain goes how do you know who I’d like, and then I’d like anyone you like, and finally come down the station, before he gets his act together long enough to snap the lids onto the lattes. He writes HZL on the one with syrup, and then adds a little smiley face for good measure.
“Maybe you could come after your shift,” Dele says, and it’s so nonchalant and smooth that Eric barely registers what he’s said, too busy punching MED + LAT + SYRUP + CUP into the till.
“I –” he says, and Dele’s eyes flash a little; there’s a bit of hurt there, and it makes Eric’s throat go tight. He’s seized with the wild idea that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to keep that look out of Dele’s eyes.
“I’m going – I’ve got – I’ve got a seminar this afternoon,” he scrambles hastily. “But – but I – are you serious? Because I’d be – if you’re serious, I’d be up for it – for seeing the station, I mean. And meeting Sonny,” he adds lamely, to compound his own embarrassment.
“A seminar? Are you a massive nerd, Eric?”
Eric’s mouth twitches. Part of him’s incredulous that he’s speaking to Dele at all, and the rest of him’s reeling at the fact that Dele, after a month of painstakingly gathering clues, is a little shit who seems to take supreme delight in needling Eric.
“I’m not a massive nerd,” he says, hand on his hip. “I’m just – I’m doing my masters. So I’ve got to –”
Dele arches his eyebrow. “Yeah. You’re a massive nerd. What you doing?”
Eric shrugs. “Oh, it’s just. Sociology, I guess. I’m nearly done. Just got my diss to finish.”
Dele leans his forearms on the open window and peers up at Eric. He’s got this flinty, wry look in his eyes. Eric’s worked in hospitality for over two years now, and he knows what’s standard customer banter, and what isn’t. Dele’s coffees have been ready for minutes. It’s getting light outside.
“What’s it about?”
Eric can vaguely sense that Toby’s lurking by the drive through booth, emanating impatience.
“It’s – well –” Eric can feel himself going pink, and hopes Dele will chalk it up to the brisk winter morning. “It’s – the title’s Time Discipline and Alienation in the UK Hospitality Sector.”
Dele grins. “Sounds shit,” he says breezily, and it bizarrely does nothing to quell Eric’s mounting urge to dive through the drive through window and stick his tongue down Dele’s throat. “You got any seminars tomorrow afternoon?”
Eric buys a few seconds making sure all the cups are properly settled in the holder, in case it's obvious on his face what he wants to do to Dele. “No,” he says into his apron. “Free tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you tell me about time reassignment and aliens after your shift, then?” Dele asks, and he still looks like he’s half laughing at Eric. It's infuriating how sexy it is.
“Time Discipline and Alienation,” Eric says patiently.
“Whatever,” Dele says, reaching out for the coffees. As Eric hands them over, Dele quite deliberately brushes their hands together. Eric thinks he might evaporate on the spot.
“You up for it, then?”
Eric chews his lip and pretends to think. The side of his thumb is still tingling. There’s a car just pulling into the drive through. He’s got seconds left.
“Get Winksy to play Underneath the Tree this morning, and I’ll think about it.”
“Underneath the Tree?” Dele laughs again, and nearly drops the tray of coffees.
Eric shrugs defiantly. “My favourite Christmas song, innit.”
Dele settles the coffees on the seat next to him, balanced precariously on a battered old box file. He looks back at Eric and raises his eyebrows again; he’s not smiling any more. Instead, he’s looking at Eric like he can’t tear himself away.
“Mine too,” Dele says softly - a little too earnestly - and it makes Eric shiver. “See you tomorrow, Eric.” He winds up the window and pulls away, and Eric watches him peel off into the early morning traffic, the brake lights livid in the weakening dark, until Toby nudges him in the back and tells him not to be so pathetic.