Chapter Text
Fuck Starbucks.
The thought crosses Camilo’s mind, not for the first time, as the third hour of his shift comes to a close. Three long, boring, customer-less hours.
To be fair, even before the new Starbucks had opened across the street, Café Madrigal had never been the kind of place to attract a crowd. With its unassuming external façade and humble wooden sign, it easily eludes the eye of anyone who isn’t actively looking for it.
Camilo suspects that it’s not an accident: ruthless when it comes to the art of brewing coffee and making arepas, Señora Madrigal has never been one for loud marketing tactics.
"We serve good food, good drinks, and we do it with a smile," she often says in a decisive tone. "In the end, that is what people remember."
Camilo doesn’t argue with her because she’s a single grandmother who raised a family on a shoestring budget while starting her own business, and he’s just a part-time barista struggling not to fail college. (Also, she scares him a little.) But when he looks at the crowd piling up in front of Starbucks’ door, and then back at the undisturbed motes of dust floating in the empty air of Café Madrigal, he feels a ball of frustration like a closed fist in the pit of his gut.
It just doesn’t make a lick of sense to him. The shop may not look like much from the outside, but on the inside - on the inside, the walls glow in soft shades of yellow, pink, and green, complemented by pastel-coloured plush armchairs; windows and tables are adorned with fresh arrangements of carnations and roses that Señora Madrigal waters dutifully every morning; every nook and cranny is decorated with intricately woven molas, werregue baskets and other handmade trinkets; and the mixed smells of coffee and pastries fill the air with an aroma that is nothing short of heavenly.
In the evenings, lazy sunbeams give way to milky moonlight and everything seems a little softer then, a little more mysterious. The flower petals look translucent and wispy, and the silver necks of the coffee pots gleam strangely in a way that makes him wonder if the shop is - not haunted, but perhaps a little… enchanted.
…Okay, so maybe Camilo gets carried away sometimes. Regardless, he knows Café Madrigal is special. It deserves more than a handful of regulars and the odd tourist once in a blue moon.
The afternoon drags on, so he takes out his phone and embarks on his weekly ritual of hate-scrolling through dozens of Yelp reviews about the "uniquely cozy atmosphere" of the new Starbucks. What "atmosphere"? he wonders incredulously. It’s a Starbucks; it has the same damn atmosphere as any other of the gazillion Starbucks in town.
The sound of a bell ringing above the opening door makes him perk up. "Welcome to Café Madrigal, how can I… oh," he slumps when he recognizes the customer. "It’s just you."
Mirabel beams back at him, unbothered. "You need to work on your customer service," she says with her usual cheeriness.
"More like customers need to work on their "being here" service," Camilo grumbles as he starts preparing her order. "Iced caramel latte to go, almond milk and cinnamon on top?"
"You know it, Cami," she nods, giving him a dorky wink. "Am I your first customer today?"
"Yep. I know the place is busier in the morning, but I’m never here then; Señora Madrigal leaves at noon and Julieta just comes by to drop off the pastries, so I barely get to talk to another human being."
"Maybe they just don’t want to see you," Mirabel teases, before immediately apologizing like she always does after the slightest approximation of meanness. "Sorry. I’m sure things will turn around. Luisa and Mariano still come, right? Pepa still comes, and Isabela - if you count her as a human being, and not a perfect magical fairy princess."
"You’re the one who brought her here in the first place, remember? You can do it again, Mira; bring your friends/enemies here, give us customers. You’re our lucky charm, Señora Madrigal said so."
Another man - a better man - would’ve felt ashamed of using Mirabel as customer bait, but Camilo’s bored and desperate. Besides, what else are best friends for?
"I’ll try to lure more victims with me when I come back,” she promises as she pays for her drink. "But I gotta run now. In the meantime, I kindly give you all my good vibes in hopes that they’ll bring some customers your way."
"Could you bring the customers now and give me the vibes later instead?" Camilo calls out after her, but she’s already gone. The girl moves fast; sometimes he thinks she gets around on invisible roller skates.
Mirabel’s vibes must not be as useless as he believed, though, because she’s only been gone for a few minutes before the bell rings again, and the door of Café Madrigal opens for the second time that afternoon.
The guy who walks in is short and scruffy-looking, with a mop of black hair and an oddly nervous expression on his face; it reminds Camilo of someone who knows they’ve done something wrong and is waiting to be punished. Judging by his clothes - ratty boots and a heavily wrinkled shirt under a baggy, dark green coat - he’s either a college professor or a homeless person. Store policy says that Camilo’s supposed to turn him away in the latter case, but screw that; there are always plenty of leftovers at the end of the day, and he’s seen Señora Madrigal herself hand them out to beggars on more than one occasion.
Best not to make assumptions, though. Camilo finishes wiping a table and makes his way to the counter, trying not to look too excited to see an actual, flesh-and-blood customer.
"Good afternoon, welcome to Café Madrigal," he drawls, flashing his best customer service smile. "What can I getcha?"
The man jolts at the words like he’s just received an electric shock. His eyes dart from the menu to Camilo, then immediately to the floor - then back up at Camilo for a second, and back to the floor again.
"Uh, hi, yes, um," he says, his fingers reaching up to twiddle at the strap of his messenger bag. "I’ll have a coffee, please."
"Sure," Camilo gestures towards the menu. "We have cappuccinos, mochas, caramel lattes…"
"Just a black coffee, please," the man says. His eyes stay glued to the floor, occasionally darting this way and that in a manner that’s not necessarily suspicious, but not exactly normal either. He looks like he’s waiting for something to sneak up on him from the very edges of his field of vision.
Camilo notices then that he’s not just fidgeting with the strap of his bag: he’s digging in his nails, ragged and uneven, deep enough to leave white scratches in the leather.
This man is clearly deeply uncomfortable and not in the mood to have a prolonged social interaction with a stranger. For his sake, Camilo resolves to stick to the bare minimum of social niceties. "That’ll be a dollar twenty, please," he tells him. "Would you like it here or to go?"
The man’s shoulders visibly deflate a little before he answers, a defeated note in his voice. "For here, please."
Odd choice for someone who looks like they’re about to bolt before even getting their order, Camilo thinks. The customer barely looks up from his feet as he fumbles through his wallet, paying for the coffee with a rather sizable tip. Camilo’s not sure he even saw how much money he gave him, but hey, he’s not about to complain.
"Your order’s coming right up, take a seat anywhere you like," he tells him, and the man immediately makes a beeline for the closest chair.
But instead of relaxing even the tiniest bit, he sits ramrod straight, perched on the very edge of his seat. It’s strange to see someone so frumpy and disheveled with such stiff posture - he’d make Señora Madrigal proud. The messenger bag resting in his lap makes him look like a nervous kid on the first day of school, even though the man is clearly at least in his late thirties.
He doesn’t look at Camilo when he brings him his coffee - doesn’t really look at anything, in fact, except a crack in the table that seems to focus all of his attention.
Then, horrifically, he grabs the piping hot cup of coffee with both hands and starts drinking like a man on a mission.
For a few seconds, Camilo can’t bring himself to look away, torn between being impressed and alarmed. That coffee must be practically boiling. He forces himself to stop staring but keeps sneaking glances at the customer, feeling a bit crestfallen. He likes to think he’s pretty good at his job, and his job is to make people feel welcome at Café Madrigal - not to make them feel like hostages.
Man, if you’re this miserable, just leave, he thinks, watching the man in the green coat gulp down another mouthful of burning coffee as if he’s being held at gunpoint.
He eventually winces at the excruciating heat and stops to take a breath, eyes big and wild like he’s just finished a sprint. He still hasn’t looked up from the table, not even to admire the flowers or the molas on the wall. Camilo wishes he would; maybe he’d start to relax a bit once he realized he’d stumbled upon something out of a fairy tale.
But relaxation is clearly not in the cards today: the guy looks so stiff that the air around him seems to stand still, as if the shop itself is holding its breath. Camilo’s almost relieved when he finishes his cup, jolts upright like someone lit a firecracker under his ass, and immediately runs for the door.
Right before he opens it, his eyes meet Camilo’s for a fleeting moment: they’re green, round and impossibly soft-looking, despite the dark bags underneath them. "Thanks for the coffee," he says, voice a little raspy - probably from a burnt throat. "Bye!"
The bell rings above the door, and he’s gone.
Camilo blinks. From the moment the man came in to the moment he stepped out, ten minutes at the most have gone by. It’s definitely the shortest time any customer has spent at Café Madrigal without taking their order to go. Why had he even sat down in the first place, if it was just to inhale the equivalent of caffeinated lava while looking miserable as sin?
Oh well, he shrugs after a while. The guy probably had his reasons; and weird or not, he was a good tipper. He probably wouldn’t come back, considering how uncomfortable he’d looked. But, Camilo decides, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if he did.