Work Text:
The Tuesday after Labor Day, Pippa Schuyler is the first to arrive at work. The coworker who typically helps her open the coffee shop is out “sick” after what Pippa assumes was another late night at a club. Normally she wouldn’t mind the extra work, since it means she gets a half hour of solitude and silence before they open at seven, but she slept badly the night before. It’s becoming an unfortunate trend. She pulls her apron on slowly, slowly, and once it’s on her it sits heavy, like the lead bibs the dentist used to make her wear before an X-ray. She’s just begun to fumble with the ties at the back when a series of rapid thuds on the glass door gets her attention.
Alexander Hamilton, the little shit, is wide awake. When he’s this pumped he looks like a terrier, a comparison that seems even more apt when he’s begging Pippa to let him inside.
“We don’t open till seven,” Pippa says as she opens the door, and Hamilton shoots in.
“Yeah, but I can help you set up.” He looks around. “Is it just you this morning?”
“The other baristas went out to a club last night. I don’t expect them to get here for a while,” she grumbles.
“Not into clubs?”
“I dunno, it’s not like they ever invite me.” Before Hamilton can respond, she waves a hand to dismiss the subject. “Why’re you in this early? I thought you didn’t start work until nine.”
“Everyone else starts at nine, Pip. I’m on my own schedule.”
She rolls her eyes. “Right. So you came by here first because…?”
“Because you promised me you’d watch the series finale of Mad Men over the long weekend and the weekend happened and now it’s Tuesday and I want to discuss it with you!” he says in one breath.
Oh, right. That. She’s only known Hamilton for a month or so, but he’s already foisted three different TV shows and countless movies on her, bombarding her with links to websites where she can watch them and insisting they debate and review them during his coffee breaks. Fortunately he has good taste, if a bit mainstream, and Pippa has an embarrassing amount of free time. Still, it’s like he’s made a personal goal to consume every piece of quality, respected media on the planet, and he’s dragging her down with him.
“Some people say the storylines get wrapped up a little too neatly, but I think—” he starts, before Pippa cuts him off.
“I didn’t get a chance to see it yet. Don’t give me that look!” she adds in response to his exaggerated expression of shock and horror.
“C’mon, you promised!” he whines.
“Did I? I think I said ‘if I’m not too busy I’ll try.’ Anyway, my sisters and my parents and I went up to Connecticut and we ended up rewatching a bunch of old kid’s movies on VHS. Sorry.”
“Connecticut?”
“We’ve…got a country house there.”
“Oh my god.”
“I’ll definitely find the time tonight, I don’t think I have anything going on.”
Hamilton looks like he’s about to complain some more, but instead he shuts his mouth into a tight line and looks Pippa over. “You seem tired,” he says suddenly.
“Uh, it’s 6:30 AM. Of course I do.”
“No, but you don’t look sleepy, you look tired,” Hamilton says, and walks over to the counter before Pippa can stop him. “Can I make you some coffee?”
“You just want an excuse to hang out behind the counter,” she says, sinking into a chair.
“That’s a ‘yes,’ then.”
“Why not. As long as you don’t tell my boss.”
Hamilton putters around behind the counter, thankfully only touching the coffee grounds and the brewer (he steers well clear of the rather intimidating espresso machine). “You know you’re the only barista here who gets the coffee just right?”
“Is that a line?” Pippa smirks.
“It’s the truth. I’m very picky about my coffee.”
He returns to the little table with two mugs of black coffee and a handful of sugar packets. Pippa wrinkles her nose as he pours one, two, then three packets into his mug.
“Like you can taste your coffee with that much crap in it,” she says.
They sit in silence for a minute or two, sipping their coffee and looking out the window at other early risers shuffling to work. Pippa hasn’t gotten a chance to take the upside-down chairs off the tables; the legs surround them like a forest, and she feels oddly protected. Which is good, because there’s something that’s been on her mind, something that she’d like to talk about with someone. She’d almost brought it up with Angelica and Eliza over the weekend, but thought better of it. It’s not that her sisters don’t care, or that they’d be weird about it, it’s just that she’d rather not confide in family right now. Not about this.
Sometimes it’s more comfortable talking to a stranger about this sort of thing, she thinks to herself. But Hamilton isn’t really a stranger, he’s…a friend. A new friend, someone she doesn’t want to chase away. A new friend, someone who seems extremely open but who never seems to talk about himself. For all their little chats, Pippa doesn’t know much about him. He’s looking at her now, she realizes. He’s about to say something.
“I don’t like my name,” Pippa cuts in.
He seems taken aback. “Oh.”
“Like…you know it’s not my birth name, right? I only started using it a year ago, it’s…well, it’s a nickname for Philipa, which is a variation of Philip, which is what my parents named me,” she says, very quickly. Before he can respond, she adds, “and I think it feels like a stopgap, y’know? Like if I’m just using this cute nickname maybe my parents will think I’ll eventually change my mind and start using Philip again, and I’m not going to.”
Hamilton pauses a moment to think. He runs his finger along the rim of his mug, not making eye contact. “So we’re friends like that? We talk about this sort of thing?”
A swell of hot panic rises in Pippa’s chest. “I-I mean…I didn’t—”
“Because I want to be,” Hamilton jumps in. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…I didn’t mean it like that, I want to be that kind of friend.”
The moment of uncertainty has set Pippa’s hands fluttering, but she wraps them around the coffee mug and smiles at Hamilton. “Me too.”
“So what name were you thinking of instead?” he asks quickly, glossing over the awkwardness.
“I don’t really have any in mind. I was hoping you could brainstorm some with me.”
He scratches his head. “I mean, if it were me I’d go with someone I really admired. Like a historical figure.”
“That’s an idea,” she agrees. “I’d prefer it if it’s not a white lady, but yeah. Historical women.”
“Cleopatra,” he says immediately.
“That’s a joke, right?”
“Cleo for short!”
“No.”
“Harriet, as in Tubman.”
“Makes me think of Harriet the Spy.”
“…Angela Davis?” he tries.
“My sister’s name is Angelica. I thought I told you that.”
“Sacagawea. Tirgatao. Sheba, as in Queen of.”
“Oh my god, forget it,” she says, throwing her hands up.
“You’re shooting all my suggestions down!”
“How about media, instead? Characters from TV and movies and books and shit.”
“Hermione.”
“Literally, I hope you never have children.”
“These are good names.”
Pippa ignores that. She sighs, and tugs on her braids absently. “I can’t even think of any female characters I relate to. They all feel…so similar to one another. Like, even the best ones are cut from the same cloth, y’know?”
“Really?”
She kicks back her chair and eyes Hamilton. “You never noticed? You make consuming media into a competitive sport.”
“Could you explain it to me like I’m an idiot?”
“Well, there’s a lot to it, but for me it’s like…even the women who’re supposed to be social outcasts, they still look a certain way, they still act and dress a certain way. We’re all supposed to pretend that they’re these awkward misfits, but pretty much all of them would do fine in the real world.”
“And that’s not you?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure where I fit in anymore. Like…” she trails off, then musters a bit of courage and says, “like boys have started to notice me, y’know? Straight boys. And I don’t want that at all. And most women ignore me. I don’t just mean in a romantic sense, I’m not even looking for that right now. It’s like people don’t know which category to place me in, and I know I shouldn’t care about what they think, I know it doesn’t matter but…”
“But it does. Yeah.” Hamilton sits and looks at Pippa, saying nothing else for a long while. She sips her coffee to distract herself from his steady gaze, and finally he looks away.
“Do you really like Mad Men, or are you kinda humoring me?” he says, addressing the window.
“I…what?” Pippa screws up her face in confusion. “Yeah, I like it. I sat through seven seasons. No offense, but your hurt feelings aren’t worth seven seasons of a show.”
He smiles, and holds up his hands in surrender. “I know I suck at this, and you might hate my suggestion, but—”
“Peggy,” she says suddenly.
He blinks at her. “Uh, yeah. Peggy.”
“Peggy.” She rolls the name over her tongue.
“It’s a little old fashioned, and I know it’s just a nickname for Margaret…”
“No, I like it,” she says definitively. “I really do. What made you think of it?”
He looks away again and oh good god, he’s actually blushing. “Well, she’s this inspiring kind of woman, she’s tough and bold and…and creative. But she’s got that, y’know, that insecurity that she has to overcome. She has to make herself a place in a world that doesn’t really have a category for her yet. Does that…that makes sense, right?”
It makes perfect sense. It makes sense like “Angelica Schuyler” and “Eliza Schuyler” do. She feels like a leaky faucet at the back of her mind has finally stopped dripping.
Peggy takes his hand on the table and squeezes it. “You got it.”
“I did?” he says, perking up.
“Yup.”