Work Text:
Angie wiped down the counter absently, doing it more out of habit than necessity. The coffee shop had been relatively empty this morning, consisting of only a handful of small families, chatting amongst themselves and ordering whatever peppermint-flavoured drinks were available. The sight of them only made Angie wish that she could have been spending Christmas Day with her family -- but there had been no one else willing to take a shift, and Angie had been forced to accept the task.
She made the best of it, though. Angie smiled at the younger children who hid behind their mother’s legs while their family ordered, made small talk with the grandparents, handed over a couple extra candy canes for the families quite a few children. By the time it was 11 AM, she had settled into a routine for dealing with the families who came into the shop to celebrate the holiday.
She didn’t have a routine for women who came into the shop alone, ordered a plain cup of coffee, and retreated to the far corner.
The shop had emptied of most of the larger families, and the lull in activity left Angie with nothing to do but wait for some form of excitement, cleaning the coffee machines and equipment without much thought. She darted a couple looks at the woman in the corner, who had pulled a laptop out of her bag and seemed to be working.
Angie had no idea why anyone would voluntarily choose to spend Christmas alone, and had no choice but to assume that this person had nobody to spend the holiday with. Her heart going out to the woman, she debated whether it would be worth it to interrupt her work by trying to talk to her.
Unable to come to a decision, she found herself unintentionally staring at her. She was beautiful in a classic way, with her hair in neat waves, falling down to her shoulders, and her dark red lipstick. Catching herself, Angie looked away, mentally scolding herself. Sooner or later, if Angie wasn’t careful, the woman was going to notice her staring, and Angie really didn’t want it to come to that.
Instead, she decided to distract herself.
“Hey,” she called, “Is it alright if I put on some different music? I’m a little sick of the playlist that they always make us play.”
The woman looked surprised to be addressed, but she answered, “I don’t mind.”
Relieved, Angie paused the music that had been playing, and the shop was plunged into silence, broken only by a soft hum from the dishwasher. Angie managed to hook her own phone up to the speaker system, and put it on shuffle. She wasn’t too fond of the indie playlist that her employers insisted that she play (they thought that it added to the atmosphere of a coffee shop), and the sound of her own music was a relief.
She was quick to realize, though, that hearing her own favourite songs brought a bigger temptation to sing along. Not wanting to disturb the other woman too much, she hummed under her breath as she worked the machines, pulling out a cup from the supply so that she could make herself a drink. After second thought, she grabbed another cup.
Somehow, without meaning it, Angie had begun to sing along under her breath. She didn’t notice that now, instead of her looking at the solitary woman, it was the other way around. From across the room, she was studying Angie with a small smile.
Once the drinks were ready, and Angie had added a sufficient amount of whipped cream, she left the counter and made her way over to the sole person remaining in the shop.
“Hey!” she said, sliding the mug onto the table. “Thought I’d give you this. No charge. I can promise, it’s going to taste a lot better than a regular coffee.”
“Thank you, Angie,” she said, her eyes quickly darting to Angie’s name tag and then back to meet Angie’s. “I assume I look a little pitiful, all by myself?”
“Not really.” Angie lied.
The woman smiled. “I’m Peggy.” She reached for the cup that Angie had placed before her, and, once she had taken a sip, her eyes widened. “This is amazing. What kind is it?”
Angie beamed. “It’s my own creation, actually.”
Peggy raised her eyebrows. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to keep you around.”
Abandoning all pretenses of professionalism and leaving the customer alone, Angie took a seat. Her boss would have murdered her, if he had known, but Peggy didn’t seem to mind. “Well, it’d be a lot less trouble if I just told you how to make it.”
“Ah, but then I’d miss your singing.”
Angie laughed. “Oh. You heard that?”
“You have a lovely voice.”
“Well, you have a lovely… face. And accent.” Angie flushed, stopping herself before she began listing every little intrinsic detail that she had already noticed about Peggy. Instead, she asked, “Are you British?”
Peggy nodded. “I was born in England. All my family is still back there, so I don’t get the spend the holiday with them.”
“That’s terrible!” Angie, who had never spent a Christmas without seeing her family at least a little bit, couldn’t begin to imagine what that would be like. Suddenly, her mind alighted on an idea. “Hey, you could always come to my family’s meeting tonight.”
Peggy looked up, disbelieving, but Angie was completely serious. She was quick to appraise people, and she didn’t want to go home thinking about how her new acquaintance, spending the evening alone.
“Angie, I couldn’t…”
“You could!” Angie reached out to clutch Peggy’s hand. “Honestly, you’d be doing us a favour. My mother won’t start complaining about my career as an actress if we have company over. You don’t have any other plans, do you?”
“Well, I was going to spend the day here and then go home.”
Angie pointed at her. “That’s not a plan. It’s settled. You’re coming to our Christmas.”
“We barely know each other!”
“Well, if you were planning to spend the whole day here anyways,” Angie said, “That gives us until the end of my shift to get to know one another. That good enough for you?”
Peggy seemed to be considering the matter, and Angie shot her a beseeching look. Finally, she gave in. “Alright. You said you’re an actress?”
Angie grinned at her.
The day passed much quicker than Angie would have anticipated, after that. Angie only had to serve customers a handful of times, but between those instances, she spend the time laughing and teasing Peggy, who seemed to be opening up more with every passing hour. By the time that Angie’s shift ended, the two of them could not imagine any other way that they would have liked to spend the day. It was a Christmas of their own creation, sure, and maybe it wasn’t as conventional as some, but it was a thousand times better than how they had imagined their days would go.
And when Angie’s mother raised her eyebrows as she opened the door to find her daughter on the doorstep, standing too close to an unfamiliar woman and looking as happy as humanly possible, she didn’t say anything. She opened the door and let the two in, gathering, from the expressions on both of their faces, that this was the beginnings of something wonderful.