Blackberry Winter: A Novel (5 page)

Gene grinned. “Do you think you’re dressed warmly enough?” He pointed toward the street. “That’s arctic air out there.” Ever since
the incident
, he, and everyone else, it seemed, looked after me like a lost little bird.
Are you too cold? Too hot? Will you be safe walking out to the corner market after dark?

I appreciated his concern, but it annoyed me just the same.
Do I have an enormous sign attached to my back stating,
ATTENTION: I’M PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY UNABLE TO CARE FOR MYSELF. HELP ME, PLEASE?

Still, I didn’t fault Gene. “I’ll be fine,” I said confidently, revealing a strained smile. “I may be a California transplant, but I’ve been through enough Northwest winters to avoid frostbite on my way to the office.”

“Just the same,” he said, pulling a pair of mittens from his pocket, “wear these. Your hands will freeze without them.”

I hesitated, then accepted the scraggly marriage of blue and white yarn. “Thank you,” I said, putting them on only to please him.

“Good,” he said. “Now you can throw a proper snowball.”

I walked out the door, sinking my feet into a good three inches of snow. My toes instantly felt the cold.
Why didn’t I wear wool socks?
The streets were vacant except for a group of young boys hard at work on a snowman.
Will Café Lavanto be open?
I hated the thought of hiking up several hilly blocks to my favorite café, but hot cocoa smothered in whipped cream would be worth the effort, I reasoned. Besides, I didn’t feel like going into the office just yet, and I could pass the trip off as research. Storm-story research.

Twenty minutes later, when I found the door to the café locked, I cursed my decision, and my boots, which were sopping wet and on the verge of freezing my feet into two boot-shaped blocks of ice.

“Claire?”

I turned to see Dominic, Café Lavanto’s owner, walking toward me. Tall with sandy brown hair and a kind smile, he had always struck me as out of place behind the coffee counter. It was one of those pairings that didn’t quite add up, like my college English lit professor who’d moonlighted as a tattoo artist.

“Thank goodness,” I said, leaning against the doors. “I made the mistake of walking up here in these.” I pointed to my shoes. “And now I’m afraid my toes are too frozen to get back down. Mind if I defrost in here for a bit?” I regarded the quiet storefronts, which would normally be buzzing with people by this hour of the morning. “I guess I didn’t expect the city to completely shut down.”

“You know Seattle,” Dominic said with a grin. “A few flakes
and it’s mass pandemonium.” He reached into a black leather messenger bag to retrieve the key to the café. “I’m the only one who could make it in. The buses aren’t running and cars are skidding out all over the place. Did you see the pileup on Second Avenue?”

I shook my head and thought of Ethan.

He pushed the key into the lock. “Come in, let’s get you warmed up.”

“Thank goodness you’re open,” I said, following him inside. “Seattle’s a ghost town right now.”

He shook his head, locking the door from the inside. “No, I don’t think I’ll open today. I could use a day off, anyway. But someone had to check on Pascal.”

“Pascal?”

“The cat,” he said.

“You mean, I’ve been coming here for six years and didn’t know about the resident feline?”

Dominic grinned. “He’s a grumpy old man. But he has a thing for brunettes.”

I felt my cheeks tingle as they began to defrost in the warmth of the café.

“He spends most of his time upstairs in the loft, anyway,” he continued.

“The loft?”

“It’s not much, just a storeroom where we keep supplies. Mario, the former owner, kept his desk up there. I’m thinking about turning it into a studio apartment—live above the shop.”

“Sounds like a nice life,” I said, detecting the vibration of my cell phone inside my purse. I ignored it. “So I hear you recently bought the café, is that right?

Dominic nodded. “I did. And I’ll be in debt until I’m one
hundred and five. The gamble is worth it, though. I love the old place. I’m going to be making some changes, though. Starting with a real awning, a lunch menu. And a new name.”

“Oh? What’s wrong with Café Lavanto?”

“Nothing, really,” he said. “It’s just that it has no ties to here—to history.”

“And you’d change it to…?”

He poured milk into a steel pitcher and inched it under the espresso machine’s frother wand. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe you can help me think of something good.” He winked. “You’re a writer, aren’t you? A wordsmith?” Bubbles erupted in the pitcher as the steam hissed.

“You remember?”

“Sure. The
Herald
, right?”

“That’s right. But if you ask my mother, who sent me through four years of Yale expecting me to emerge as a staff editor at
The New Yorker
, I’m a hack.” I rubbed my hands together to warm them.

“Oh, come on,” Dominic said, grinning. “Don’t you think you’re being a little too hard on yourself? Surely your parents are proud?”

I shrugged. “I write fluff for the local newspaper—which is what I’m doing today, in fact, reporting on the snowstorm. Not exactly what you’d call substance.”

“Well, I, for one, think your work sounds very interesting, and worthy,” he said, leaning against the counter. “Certainly better than a thirty-five-year-old barista. Imagine the comments I get every year at Thanksgiving.”

I liked his humility. “What did you do before this?”

He looked up from the coffee grinder, which he had just filled with espresso beans, shiny and slick-looking under the café lights. “Just one false start after another,” he replied.

“Failure builds character,” I said.

He didn’t respond right away, and I worried I had offended him. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply that
you
are…”
Why did I open my mouth?

“That I’m hopelessly unsuccessful?” he said. “Fine with me. This place wasn’t exactly the wisest business decision.”

I bit my lip.
At least he’s smiling.

“But even if I go bankrupt in a year, I won’t regret it,” he continued, gazing around the café with pride. “Sometimes you just have to take chances, especially when it makes you happy.” He sighed. “When I came to work here three years ago, I’d just been laid off from the accounting firm that hired me straight out of college. I had a lot going for me then—a decent salary, a fiancée, an apartment, and a pug named Scruffles.”

I stifled a laugh. “Scruffles?”

“Don’t ask,” he said with a pained smile. “Her dog.”

I nodded knowingly.

“When I lost my job, she left.”

“And she took the dog?”

“She took the dog,” he said, polishing the chrome of the espresso machine with a white cloth.

I half-smiled. “So you got a job here?”

“Yeah, as a barista,” he said. “It was only going to be temporary. Then I realized how much I loved the gig—getting my hands gritty and stained from coffee grounds, pouring perfect foam into ceramic cups. I didn’t miss the long hours at the firm or the number crunching or any of it. Making coffee was cathartic somehow. It sounds weird, but I
needed
it. And when Mario offered to sell the business, I jumped at the chance, even though my family warned against it.”

I smiled. “Well then, you’re lucky. Do you know how many people hate their jobs?”

He hopped over the counter with a box of dry cat food in his hands, pouring a generous portion into a white dish on the floor near the door. “Pascal,” he called. “Here, kitty.”

Moments later an overweight black-and-white cat appeared, eyeing me cautiously before settling in for his meal.

“Can I make you something?” Dominic asked, turning to the enormous espresso machine. It felt funny being the sole customer at the café, sort of like being backstage at a theater before curtain time.

“Oh, you don’t have to make anything for me,” I said.

He turned on the coffee grinder and its hum filled the air with a comforting lull. “I insist.”

I grinned. “Well…”

“It’s no trouble,” he said. “I’m making myself a cappuccino. You like hot chocolate, right?”

“You remember?”

“Of course I remember,” he said. “And I always see you sprinkling cinnamon on top. Would you like me to mix some spices into the cocoa? I could make a Mexican hot chocolate. You’d really like it.”

“Yes, thank you.”

He spun around to retrieve a canister of cocoa powder. “I don’t mean to pry,” he said, “but why is it that your husband…” He paused. “He is your husband, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Right,” he continued. “Why does he always give you a hard time about ordering hot chocolate?”

I smirked. “So you’ve heard him tease me, I take it?”

Dominic nodded.

I shrugged. “I’m married to Seattle’s biggest coffee snob.”

Ethan had lived in Seattle his entire life, born and bred. He’d
grown up with the espresso culture and was suspicious of anyone who didn’t share his love of fine coffee, or worse, anyone who pronounced espresso “expresso.” Our kitchen was home to eleven French presses, a percolator from nineteenth-century Italy, two traditional coffeemakers, and an espresso machine that cost more than most people’s cars.

“So he’s tried to convert you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Ethan just doesn’t understand why I can’t get into coffee.”

He handed me a brimming mug, artfully swirled with cinnamon-dusted whipped cream. “For you,” he said, grinning. “And for the record, I don’t think there’s anything shameful about being a connoisseur of hot cocoa.”

I smiled, slurping a generous mouthful of whipped cream. “I like the way you put that,” I said. “‘Connoisseur of cocoa.’”

Pascal purred at my feet before sauntering back upstairs. I eyed the old brick fireplace across the room. The mortar crumbled in places, but a painted tile just above the hearth caught my eye. I squinted to get a better look, but couldn’t make out the scene painted on the ivory-colored placard. Funny, all the times I’d visited the café, I’d never noticed it. I made a note to inspect it more closely on my next visit.

“So what if it’s not a good business venture?” I said. “It’s the coolest café in town.”

Dominic gazed around the little room and nodded. “It is a special building, isn’t it?” he said, grinning. “It’s actually kind of shocking that someone didn’t gut the place and turn it into a Starbucks.”

I smiled, glancing at my watch. “Well,” I said, “look at me, keeping you like this. I better get back out there and brave the weather. I have an editor who needs a story.”

“Where are you headed?”

“To the
Herald
building on Alaskan Way,” I said. “If I can get there.”

“Let me walk you,” he offered, a little self-consciously. “At least until you find a cab.”

“I’d love that,” I said, and together we made our way out to the snowy streets.

Despite the blizzard churning outside, the newsroom bustled as if the thermometer registered a balmy seventy degrees. It didn’t surprise me, though. Newspaper reporters rarely play hooky. Dedication is in their blood, which is why I wondered if I was really cut out for the job. So much had changed since last May, since…I wondered if I still had what it took.

“There you are!” I turned to find Abby approaching my cubicle. The paper’s research editor, she had a sense of humor I’d warmed to immediately. On my very first day at the
Herald
, she had walked up to my desk after my first staff meeting, looked me in the eye, and said, “I like you. You don’t wear pointy shoes.” She then inhaled the air around my desk. “But do you smoke?”

“No,” I said, a little stunned.

“Good,” she replied. Her face told me I passed her friendship test. “I’m Abby.” At that moment, I knew we’d be instant friends.

Abby had a knack for finding obscure facts about anything or anyone. The color of the former mayor’s daughter’s hair, for instance, or the soup served at a now-defunct restaurant on Marion Street in 1983—you name it, she could find it. She had come to my rescue more than a few times in the past few months when I was on deadline but lacked the material I needed to pull together a decent story. “Frank’s looking for you,” she said with a knowing smile.

I rubbed my forehead. “Is he chewing on his pencil?”

“Yes,” Abby replied. “Sound the alarms. I believe I saw pencil chewing.”

“Great,” I said, shrinking lower into my chair to avoid being seen above my cubicle walls. Abby and I both knew not to cross Frank when he chewed his pencil. It signaled a fire-breathing editor on the loose.

“Do you know what he wants?” Abby asked, sinking into my guest chair.

I turned on my computer and watched as my monitor slowly lit up, illuminating a photo of Ethan and me in Mexico three years earlier.
How happy we looked.
I sighed and turned back to Abby. “Frank wants me to write about the storm.”

She shrugged. “So? Doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me.”

“That’s just it,” I said. “There’s nothing
big
about it. You can’t write a story about weather—a good one, anyway.” I collected some loose papers on my desk and straightened them into a neat stack, shaking my head. “I don’t know, Abs. Maybe it’s me. I can’t seem to get excited about
any
story these days.”