The clink of china on mahogany awoke her from her journey into the inked deep. And like the curl at the end of a smoke trail, the affirmation:
“One flat white with sugar syrup.” The smile, the small tilt of his head.
“Miss Lilac,” he added.
“Thank you,” said Lilac, looking up from but not altering her position — a half-slouch, half-cuddle with her handbag in her lap and her book on top of that, cradled in the plush armchair of cafe norm.
She resumed reading. Too many times she had hastened to give the coffee a stir, only to lose the page of her book. She could never find a bookmark when she needed one, and it was not as if she could make folds in the pages — they belonged to the library, public property, which essentially meant property of Celestia. Populace or monarch, either way, it would not do.
And it’s not as if stirring it really does anything, she added as she glanced at the steaming mug. The trouser-covered leg of her barista cum waiter lingered in the periphery of her sight. Just when she was about to address it, it turned, fled in its careful stride to behind the bar.
Cafe Seratti was, unlike its many competitors in Sydneigh’s coffee strip, old. The young, brown-maned stallion who had just served her was its fourth owner, the fourth generation of Serattis, originally growers but now purveyors of the drink of the elite.
When the coffee trend had started, Lilac did not know nor cared for; while she knew many ponies drank it either for the buzz or for the image, she was in that cafe because she liked coffee. Not just the buzz and the image, but the aroma, the bitterness, those inexplicable notes of fruit, smoke, and other odd comparisons behind the facade of it. Not just the taste either, but neither excluding — it was all of it.
She was aware of the increase in disdain for lonely coffee drinkers. They made their way in mainstream tabloids, sporting candid photos of scarf-inclined but otherwise normal denziens of the city. They had a term... Hipsters, was it?
Cafe Seratti was sturdy and decidedly rustic. The floorboards were glossed dark wood, and the walls were dirty plastered brick —here and there, behind the many photos of old customers and coffee plantations, cracks like hairs sat and would crumble upon touch. The tables and chairs in the centre of the shop were solid, dull affairs, polished wood — boring, but preferable to the flimsy glass-and-plastic frames in the other bars. Glass displays provided street views, both to the customers and to the outside mob. We are inside and you are not. We are drinking expensive, classy coffee and you are not. That was what a lot of Sydneigh was these days. Who said money couldn’t buy happiness?
She had never been in Cafe Seratti after dark, but the coned lights dangling above looked functional and suitably dim for a lowlight latte. Nothing much else to see up there besides the fans, which were an equally plain tinted copper.
She finished her chapter, committed the page number of the next to memory, and drank, taking sips as she stared vacantly into her cup.
She thanked the barista and left.
***
“Glad to see you’re doing well, sonny.”
“Just what I was about to say to you, sir.”
“You whippersnapper.” A painful, strangled wheeze of a laugh. “I think I’ve had one too many. Mind giving the old pony some water?”
The fizz of a faucet, then the clink of glass. Lilac looked up, not for the first time, and held back a frown. The old pony, trundled in thick red-and-yellow striped fleece, had been chatting with the barista for over twenty minutes now. The rest of the customers were too engrossed in themselves or each other to pay attention, despite the hacks and thuds he let out every so often. He was just another one of those ponies.
“Much obliged.” The old pony drank heartily, and the glass joined its brethren, a grimy shot glass and a soiled white mug. “But it really is good to see that you’re well. Grown so much from back then when you couldn’t even make the froth right. Are you still having those little accidents of yours?”
“No,” said the barista.
“Heh. That’s for the best then. Wouldn’t do at all for you to be like that now that this place is yours. Especially how you used to bawl your eyes out and your mum would pat your head, just there.”
A family friend, Lilac surmised, taking a sip of her own drink. She had never liked the froth, but anything other than flat whites were... just not right. Perhaps lattes, too, not much difference there...
She supposed that she could ask for milk without the froth, though with baristas you never knew. Crying sacrilege and demanding she leave and never return, or just meeting her with patronizing, pitying stares. You never knew with high-end professionals. Poser. Child. Plebeian!
“Of course it wouldn’t, sir. And I remember.”
There was a sigh. “Well, I think it’s time to head on back. I’m sure your parents would be proud if they could see you now.” The old pony dug into his pocket and placed a few bills on the counter. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the barista, same as always.
By now she would have returned to her book, but today her eyes lingered longer on him, and he did something she had never seen him do before.
His lips curled, very briefly, as his eyes flashed anger, before turning away to do dishes behind the cover of the tips jar.
Oh? she thought to herself briefly, before taking another sip. She licked the froth off her upper lip and played with the spoon. Was it rude to skim off the froth, leave it on the platter? She looked at it, tried stirring to see if this time, the layers would meld. They didn’t. They never did.
If I wanted to be subtle, I could always fold it into a napkin. But there had been stories about certain chefs in certain restaurants who made their commis look through those, to see what the esteemed guests had been spitting out while nopony was watching.
Maybe the barista had been angry because the old pony had neglected to drink his froth.
She looked at the barista again, and then her napkin. Would you betray me? she mused, dabbing the tip of her spoon on the square. The drop of brown spread to the size of a pearl.
Nopony was watching her — she had checked — but she drank the froth anyways.
***
It had been about four months since Lilac had committed herself to the cafe for her weekly, bi-weekly ritual. She did not come often enough to confirm her suspicion, but it seemed that there were not many regulars.
“Oh, honey bunny...”
More like smalls, she thought. Ha ha.
There was the Thursday couple, who always took the couch at the back. They were both university students, judging from the snippets of actual conversation they had, dredged and dried from the soppy sea of “You’re cute; no, you’re cute” and “I love you. No, I love you. No, I love you” — they were doing some kind of science degree, because the mare had mentioned dissection and the stallion had made a joke about giving her his heart, which she found adorable and Lilac found abominable. Or abdomen-able. Ha ha.
If there was ever an act that was here all week, it was the lovey-dovey act. She had tried sitting in a direction that would let her watch them, but she found herself ducking her head and biting her lip more often than not. She could hear them, and that was enough — stupid rhetoric, vapid back-and-forths, and a lot of kissing. For whatever reason, it was apparently necessary to say “Mmm-wah” as one performed the action — onomatopoeia is discouraged in fiction, isn’t it? And it’s redundant in real life; where do they get these ideas — and make squeeing noises as one hugged.
She had watched them long enough to concede that it was, at least, not a matter of having no shame. All the embracing and mutual absorbing created a world for only them, a bubble of happy ignorance. It was like that in the dramas too, wasn’t it? Not to mention the streets, which had its share of couples. She looked outside the window, and immediately spotted two within six seconds of searching.
It was youth. She almost sighed as she sipped her coffee.
Is it me, or is this a bit more bitter than usual?
She looked to the barista, who was wiping cups with a detached expression. She had watched him pour the sugar syrup with the coffee, pulling back a second quicker than usual. The couple hadn’t noticed, but he had spilt almost half the foam as he made their order. He had wiped the evidence away with the cloth he kept around his waist, leaving the cup clean as before.
Chefs did that too, polishing the plate even as it left the station. Perhaps there was something profound to be gleaned from that last humble step towards perfection. “Even the worst of spills are just a hip’s wipe worth of work” — yes, that could go into a poster, or a box in the corner of the daily paper. Or the front page of a teen magazine.
But all she could think of was how the barista had made a rookie mistake like that, and the realization that she didn’t even know his name — and that he, despite her initial belief that he was younger than her, actually looked to be about her age, in the suddenly heavy steps of his and the bags beneath his eyes.
***
Brown mane. Olive coat, and eyes the same shade, dressed in a smooth black-and-white uniform hidden by the off-white apron bearing Seratti’s logo across the chest. Earth pony, of course. Lilac’s eyes trailed him as he made the occasional trip from the counter, almost hearing the silk of his pants swish at the ankles.
Some ponies were born with elegance, and by elegance Lilac meant white coats. Pure white coats were a sign and, early genetic research suggested, product of high breeding. It meant nothing in modern Sydneigh — perish the thought of colourism in her socially mobile generation, down with castes, and so forth — but she was certain that it took certain ponies further than they deserved.
Fleur Delish or something, for one, whose only evident merit was aesthetic, had her face splashed all over the rag mags. Nopony seemed to know what exactly it was she did, but everypony agreed that she was the epitome of noble grace, and definitely, certainly, white, and that was enough to warrant celebration.
Having suffered three months at etiquette school when she was six, Lilac knew that grace was half talent and half vanity. You either had it from the start or craved it enough to learn it, with the cultish obsession required to master the art. Lilac was fortunate enough to find inner peace with the way she carried herself in life, but she understood how a pony could desire grace to the point of envy.
She spun around to see if the couple was there. They were not. The mare was the faintest shade of butter, if memory served, and the lad was a navy blue. Normal foals.
She looked outside of the window. The streets were not busy, but even if they were, the chance of seeing a white pony wasn’t high, and that was including the spray-coat ones. She opted to stare at a mare tinged pale blue window shopping with two other decidedly duller (drab green and dark yellow, respectively) friends, if the noun “friends” still held valid after whatever biased injustice they had suffered because of her unbalancing reception.
“Your ice water?” asked the barista, the clink of glass on table causing her to spin around. She caught the stallion jolting back an inch and looked at the glass.
“Er, yes. Thanks.”
The watched him leave. Apart from his tail and ankles, all of his hindquarters were covered. Pinstripe, the fabric was, not thick enough to completely hide the shape of his legs and rear as he walked —
She felt her hooves burn as she clenched tightly on the glass, and a bit of heat shot up her cheeks.
He wasn’t exactly striking — handsome was an archaic measure that she personally did not use — but he wasn’t too bad to look at. Comfortable on the eyes from all angles. Charming smile and certainly deft with his skills. Professionally distant from his patrons, but the bar was always open to a pony looking for a chat, or so the unwritten rules of etiquette went...
She looked into her glass of water. A generous serving of ice cubes jostled each other like politicians on the front page, with equal depth. Why was it in movies that you could see your reflection in a glass of water? It wasn’t true at all.
Half empty or half full? she asked, looking at the untouched glass. She took a long draw and felt the cold bite into her gums. Such a difference from the double-shot mocha she had finished not five minutes ago. The water was almost sweet.
Idly, she picked up the spoon from the mocha mug lying quietly — he hadn’t taken it away, she noted with mild curiousity — and transferred a block of ice, giving it a push to make it skate along the inside of the mug, melting the dark crusts that had formed from the dregs.
He was handling the bill of a pair of female customers now. That twinkling smile of his as he secured the bits, the more-than-pleased tone of the mares’ responses. One of them even looked back as she stepped out of the door. Whatever lack of advantage he had in colour was made up by experienced service. Which was what it was, really. Service.
Did they actually care enough to mean “Have a nice day?” Did they genuinely hope for rendezvous with their “See you soon”s? They had no reason to, but she found herself defending him. Maybe he does actually care.
This was Equestria, after all. Ponies were still nice in the distant, non-urbanized regions. Upper Hillings, maybe, or the Highlands, where bumpkins grew tea of the highest exquisitry. Or Ponyville, even. Where service wasn’t faked, because everypony had enough bits (where everything had a low enough cost, rather) to live and work how they wanted to. Nopony would stand in a checkout eight to five unless they, Luna forbid, wanted to, if you were in Upper Hillings or the Highlands or Ponyville, and that was a revolutionary thought — but then again they probably didn’t have malls or Louie Mutton, and if you didn’t have malls (which had everything) the logic went on that you really didn’t have anything.
Lilac watched the barista clean cups. He really wasn’t too bad to look at at all.
Lilac was healthily self-aware. She had a stable job, lived on her own, was purple fringed with white like her namesake, fairly refined and culinarily adequate. Decent on all accounts as a mare, and that, she felt, was a fair assessment. Recently, her workmate had gotten herself a coltfriend, and the honeymoon lunacy was in full swing. Millard-this, Millard-that, all day long around the water cooler. Most of it she tuned out anyways, but when she started teasing Lilac about her apathy towards the matter, she had inadvertently raised... questions. Her parents, too, had gently suggested she consider partnership during her visit back a couple of weeks ago, even though she was perfectly happy as she was.
I mean, I know I’m nothing too special. But neither is he. Which makes it okay, right?
She stopped herself there. Thinking about the barista, when they had virtually no conversation, let alone relationship between them was bordering on psychotic. She shook her head firmly, feeling it spin a little. That was not sensible. Even if he was good-looking and probably a decent suitor, she did not need one of those at this point of her life.
She gave him a stiff nod of acknowledgment as she left, turning away quickly before she could see his smile in full.
***
Lilac was grumpy. Very grumpy. Her mane was an unbrushed mess, she was fuming, her eyelids were sore. She could feel her retinas wrinkling. The dull pressure in her nostrils from congestion irritated her to no end. She almost couldn’t smell the coffee; the long black in front of her, sourly bitter as it was, was one of the few things she could taste at all.
She held the cup, shaking slightly as she held back the impulse to dump its contents over the folder of spreadsheets filling up the area of the table.
Last night had been one of those nights when her brain refused to shut down, leaving her unnerved and helpless as hours meant for rest were spent on recalling the most mundane of events. That one time she wet the bed when she was four, and her brother teased her all day, calling her “Loolac”. When the group of boys from her junior high class joined the fad of spitting ice pellets through straws, and one had landed in her ear. When she had forgotten her speech on soy milk for show-and-tell, and ended up spilling it all over her crush. At least that last one had been helpful, a sudden explanation of her current-day aversion to the stuff.
Even those events, completely irrelevant as they were, had been exceptions. The rest was boredom — boredom in class, boredom at home, flashbacks of her doing inconsequential little actions on inconsequential little objects to pass by inconsequential moments, behind a desk or on a bed or on the swing in the park near her old place, like she used to before her brother ran away from home. It was infuriating. She needed to wake up at seven the next morning, dammit!
It was around three when she caved in. At the back of her cupboard she kept her last resort, a little box of herbs — every independent Earth pony had one of her own — in hers sat a small block of dried eucalyptus. She pulled away two teaspoons of strands, shook off the dust, and boiled them in hot water. She hated the taste, but it was no longer her concern ten minutes later.
...or so she thought, when she woke up to stomach cramps, with fifteen minutes left to get to the bus for work. Which was no good, either, because, not an hour after barging through the shiny glass doors of Tacksy Fay-Djon & Co., there had been a misfiling of tax rates on every income register except one, and so she had to go through every single entry and recalculate the values.
She had ransacked the office pantry, gorging on B-grade fruit as she began work, only to have her manager drop by for a lecture on focusing. Lilac had tuned out all of it.
Normally Lilac would have refrained from coarseness, having been taught that profanities were the week-old nacho chips in the living room that was the mind — but today was a shitty, shitty day.
“Brought your work today, Miss Lilac?” asked a pleasant voice, bringing on its dulcet tones bluebirds that she wanted to strangle, just as she took another gulp of the long black.
Of all the days for the barista to start talking to her...
“Yes,” she said curtly, only to feel a strange warm shudder shoot up her insides as he shifted from the side of her view to her front. She made the mistake of looking up at him. His clean face positively shone, reminding her of how crappy she looked.
“There’s quite a bit of it,” he noted, tilting his head. “Accounts?”
“That’s what an accountant does, after all,” Lilac found herself saying, hating the nasally quality of her voice. She realized what the shudder was — she was feeling cold and weak from the pit in her stomach. A hoof was trembling underneath the table. That... and he was talking to her.
“Ah.” The barista nodded sagely. “You have my respect. I’ve been doing my own accounts for the past, what, seven years, and my accountant always manages to find a slip-up without exception.”
“Haha. Yeah.” What was she supposed to say? She could feel her pulse accelerate. She wanted desperately for him to leave, because this wasn’t the time. This was not the time! Any other time, when she wasn’t so... so undesirable...
“Are you comfortable there?” asked the barista, seemingly oblivious. “I can always move you to a table that’s more your height, or you could come over to the bar.”
Play it cool. Play it cool. “Sure,” Lilac replied sweetly. She pointed to the corner furthest away from the bar. “Maybe the table at the back?”
She could smell earthy tones as he turned his head and his mane swished. Those round eyes of his returned to her all too soon. “I’m sorry, but that one’s actually reserved for somepony in an hour.”
There was a small creak, followed by the widening of the sound of babble from outside. Already the barista was gone; Lilac watched as he ushered, with that unfading welcome, a group of eight or nine mares with various degrees of accessories through that heavy swinging door. Teenagers. They pointed to the the same table she had wanted. He shook his head and pointed to the surrounding ones instead. Chairs were moved and there was a brief groan of metal legs scraping floor as he joined three tables to form a line, which the gaggle took to like robins to fresh seeds. With a sweep and a few steps the barista brought menus and glasses and two crystal green bottles of water, and returned to the bar — but not before giving Lilac an apologetic smile. Pinched, with complementary shrug.
From the orders to the farewell greeting for the group, not once did he return to her side, though he did glance her way a couple of times. She pretended not to notice.
See. You’re nothing special. Just another customer. Just another order to fill. It’s the same with everypony and every thing.
She quickly finished her drink, packed up her work, and left, drowning out with her hoofsteps what was surely her imagination — the barista’s voice, asking her to wait — she was busy, busy, busy, and the moisture in her eyes wasn’t going to wipe itself.