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Andy knew her usuals. There was the older man who always ordered a cup of chamomile tea with honey to nurse it at the table in the corner together with a blueberry cake, who came at ten sharp every day (and for whom Andy made sure to always have a piece of that cake ready, even when it was officially sold out). There was this little girl who visited with her mom on Saturdays or Sundays, ordering hot chocolate with extra whipped cream with this particular cadence that meant she was doing something very important. There was this frantic redhead who always looked like she was being chased by three very angry grizzly bears, most of the time barking something into her phone—and even when not, still forgetting to say thank you or please—though she tipped well and looked funny, so Andy wasn’t too inclined to think badly of her.
There were the non-usuals, too, of course. Such as the woman who just entered the cafe, clad in a long, red fur coat, with heels that clicked on the floor in a way completely unfitting Starbucks, and with short, white hair that made Andy stop breathing. Just for a moment.
“Skim latte, double espresso, no foam,” she said coolly, already extending a perfectly manicured hand with a card in it. Chunky rings gleamed on her fingers, gold and enamel, interesting enough that Andy’s gaze caught on them and refused to move. “Extra hot.”
Andy licked her lips, nodded, took the payment, and then got to work, realising too late that she didn’t say anything besides reading out the price.
The woman returned a week later, looking even colder if that was even possible. This time Andy managed to greet her with a chirped, “Hello,” not paying attention to how choked it sounded. The woman didn’t even spare her a glance, which Andy took with grace—and later, in the break room, with a frustrated scream into her hands, to muffle it at least a bit.
The woman took the cup, somehow managing to not touch Andy despite Andy’s strain for just that, and left without a word, making Andy stupidly wish—fleetingly, she had work to do—that the two of them were soulmates.
What an absurd idea that was, soulmates with such a person. And how rare, to be paired up with someone this old. Andy, despite the suspicions that her soulmate was someone from the upper echelons of society (judging from the explosion of taste that her mouth was graced with every evening, and from the feeling of alcohol coating her tongue on some days, so different from the cheap one she was used to herself), wasn’t delusional enough to believe she also got someone thirty years older. It was, frankly speaking, impossible.
It didn’t stop her from hoping, though.
Cloudbursts in New York didn’t happen too often, but when they did, they were spectacular. Enough so that the woman—Andy still didn’t get her name, despite asking for it so that she could write it on the woman’s cup—was forced to stay inside with the rest of the customers, just as surprised as the rest of them. One moment the sky was slightly grey, the wind chasing the clouds through the firmament like it was playing with them, and then the next the streets were flooded with rivers of rain, the passing cars splashing water on the passersby.
The woman grabbed her cup from Andy’s hand with a sour expression, sat at the table with her back to the wall, looking up at the ceiling with a long exhale as if Starbucks’ lamps were to blame for the weather.
Andy kept her attention on her in the corner of her eye even as she tended to the other customers, wrinkling her nose at the muddy dog someone brought in. Dogs were delightful; wet, muddy dogs that brought dirt onto the just-cleaned floor were—
There; the woman was lifting her cup to her mouth, and sure enough, Andy felt the unmistakable taste of skim latte with just the right amount of bitterness from the espressos spreading across her tongue—without herself drinking anything on her own.
Her heart fluttered traitorously in her chest, and she caught herself half-ready to go to the woman right there and then, itching to beam at her, and to introduce herself—but just how many times in her life had she felt skim latte without drinking it herself? How often, when the woman was not present? The fact that she tasted it now, as the woman drank, could’ve as well been an accidental corelation, and Andy was not the one to make fool of herself, no matter how much her heart ached to go meet her probable-possible-god-hopefully soulmate.
Andy learned the woman’s rhythms. She visited the cafe about once per two weeks, always busy and annoyed and yet somehow more resplendent that anyone else Andy had ever seen. Andy tended to taste the skim latte about fifteen minutes after the woman disappeared from her sight, accompanying her as she went on with her day. Once, when the woman—Miranda, she overheard when the woman was on her phone, speaking into it that, “It’s Miranda, not ma’am, how hard can it be to remember how to speak to me?”—ordered a chocolate croissant, Andy tasted it as well, along with the latte.
But all of these were clues. Subtle clues, ones that filled her chest with stupid hope, but still: just clues. Nothing concrete. Nothing that would give her enough bravery to walk up to the most intimidating woman she’s ever seen and demand to be let in into her life.
And so when Miranda sat at one of the tables, not too far from the blueberry cake man, and took out her laptop form her bag clearly settling in for something longer, Andy decided to test her theory out.
It wasn’t too difficult, in itself. They had tons of lemons in the kitchen for making their signature lemon bread themselves as the manager was kind of crazy about it, and Andy was skilled enough with a knife to peel it without an issue. She hesitated before cutting it—thin slices or thick wedges?—before deciding to fuck it and just cutting it in four.
She hoped she would manage to fit it all into her mouth.
The morning rush was gone by the time she exited the kitchens, with a pounding heart and a piece of lemon between her fingers, juice dripping down them and onto the floor, tickling her skin. Miranda was still working, fully focused on whatever fascinating thing she had on her screen, and so Andy took her time to find the best vantage spot, hidden behind the syrup bottles on the pastry window, in such a way that she could see Miranda clearly without being seen by her at all.
She waited until Miranda was frowning at her laptop, clearly upset, and then pushed the lemon into her mouth, chewing furiously for the half a second before her mouth registered the taste.
Nothing, in her entire life, had ever compared in difficulty to trying not to choke on a piece of a very sour lemon, strong enough that her whole face twisted in disgust, mouth aching from the taste. Through the tears that had sprung into her eyes, she could see Miranda’s silhouette, completely unbothered with the torture Andy was currently going through. There was no reaction on her face—not even a small wince, which, given how bad the lemon was, had to be impossible if Miranda were to be Andy’s soulmate.
The sour taste didn’t leave Andy’s mouth for the remainder of the day, and it wasn’t from the citrus at all.
It came to her in a moment of glorious enlightenment: Miranda could have had a poker face trained to perfection.
But a poker face was nothing against the soulmate bond. Miranda could hide feeling the taste of Andy’s lemon, but if she got something incredibly specific to drink, Andy would feel that herself, on her own tongue, even if Miranda wasn’t going to react to it herself. And Andy, tasting that very specific something just as Miranda drank it, she would confirm—or not, though this time for sure—that Miranda was her soulmate.
She waited with going through with her plan until Miranda settled into her routine a bit more; until she stopped leaving with her coffee in the to-go cup, opting rather to stay inside for twenty minutes or so, just reading a book or a newspaper, or just looking at the other customers. Andy had dared to ask her about it, once, with her heart beating so quickly she felt it in her fingertips and her throat both; Miranda had replied—curtly, coldly, but she replied—that it was the only way for her to have a proper break during the workday.
So: a break from work in Andy’s Starbucks.
One that Andy was going to interrupt with an abomination of a drink.
The coffee she came up with was, well. Not good. Triple espresso with tonic and grapefruit and lemon juice and chilli, thrown there for good measure in case Miranda was somehow completely resistant against not only bitterness but also sourness . Andy made it as quickly as possible and then brought it to Miranda’s table with a sweet smile, disappearing immediately to watch it all unfold from a safe distance.
It was a dumb decision, ultimately; she was aware of it, somewhere in the back of her mind—but it was a decision she was pushed to by desperation, by wanting Miranda to be her soulmate so badly that she was ready to risk her job for it. Because that was what she was doing, really: if Andy was wrong and Miranda wasn’t her soulmate, then Miranda would also be incredibly displeased with the stunt Andy had pulled. And judging by how cold she seemed at the best of times, Andy didn’t want to imagine the consequences if she got really mad.
But people did stupid things for their soulmates, and Andy had never been conceited enough to think of herself as of an exception.
Miranda’s eyes were fixed on the screen, moving across it slowly. She reached for the cup with her right hand with the unconscious grace that Andy was so jealous of. Somehow, everything Miranda seemed seemed twice thought through and thrice practiced, and looked so captivating that Andy could spend her lifetime just admiring it, her job be damned.
Everything, except for drinking Andy’s special coffee, apparently, judging from the way Miranda winced the moment she took the first sip—in perfect tune with Andy, who was fighting for her life not to let anything too overt to show on her face. The drink was truly awful; bitter and sour, and somehow even more bitter because of that, and when that disappeared, it gave place to the chilli, burning on Andy’s tongue.
Finding her soulmate, though, overshadowed any coffee discomfort in an instant.
Her legs took her back to Miranda’s table without any conscious decision of hers: one moment, she was biting her tongue against the awful bitterness coming through the bond she shared with Miranda—Miranda, who was her soulmate, apparently, just how lucky Andy was to deserve this—and the next she was sitting at Miranda’s table, across from her.
“Hi,” she blurted out, biting her bottom lip against the smile that tried to force itself onto her face. “I think you are my soulmate.”