Letting go of the sheers, I frowned, trying to guess Bree’s endgame with my ex-husband. As long as he needed her influence, she could pull his strings.
The hearth’s fire was dying out, and the room had grown colder. I felt almost empty inside, hollowed out and exhausted. Rubbing my arms, I couldn’t help thinking of Mike Quinn.... Was he sleeping now? Missing his wife? His kids? His old home in Brooklyn? Could he possibly be lying in bed, thinking of me?
I cupped my hand against my cheek and chin, where he’d touched me earlier, and wondered if it had crossed his mind to touch more of me anytime soon.
I could certainly push things... but he was a trusted friend, and I didn’t want to lose that. I couldn’t risk misreading him, or—as Matt had advised me about my own daughter—if I pushed too hard, I could end up pushing him away. Then again, maybe Matt was speaking from his own experience with Breanne.
A sudden yawn put an end to my tortuous conjectures. I picked up my bowl, put it to my mouth, and guzzled the last dregs of Matt’s tangy ragout. Then I took the bowl to the kitchen, wiped my mouth on a paper towel, and headed up to bed.
At the top of the staircase, I remembered Ric. Quietly I opened the door to Matt’s room. I stepped a little way into the darkness. The light from the hallway splashed onto the bed pillows, illuminating Federico Gostwick’s ebony hair and handsome profile. I could see he was sleeping comfortably. His breathing sounded even, not labored, and I was glad. Then I closed the door and headed down the hall to my own bedroom.
Mike’s words came back to me as I stripped off my clothes and pulled the extra-large Steelers T-shirt over my head. I thought again of how much Matt and Ric looked like brothers, and my mind began to worry that fact...
The vision of Ric in the cold, wet alley came back to me then. I saw the man’s slumped over body, but this time with Matt’s face. The image sent a sick chill through me.
Matt was my business partner and my child’s father. He and I were no longer husband and wife, but after all we’d been through together, I wasn’t prepared for any harm to come to him. Unfortunately, I’d blown his trust this evening when I’d admitted talking to Quinn.
“Tomorrow morning,” I whispered, settling under the covers.
Matt will be at Bree’s, and I can talk to Ric without interference.
“One way or another,” I mumbled as my head hit the pillow, “I’m going to get my questions answered....”
Eight
“How about a fresh pot?”
Ric nodded.
When it came to mornings, I didn’t consider myself conscious until I’d sucked down at least one mammoth cup of our Breakfast Blend. But Ric was off caffeine. At his request, I was about to brew up a pot of the Gostwick Estate Reserve Decaf in my apartment’s kitchen. Ric said he’d been researching decaf so long, he’d grown to prefer it.
Since I was going to use a standard drip method this time out, I set the burr grinder between coarse (for French presses) and fine (for espresso machines). I could almost hear Detective Mike Quinn’s voice over the grinder’s noisy whirring—
I’d already had hours to think about questioning Ric. I’d been up since five thirty, taking in the day’s bakery delivery downstairs and brewing urns of our Breakfast Blend.
Between six and seven, I’d served about twenty customers when the door jingled and in walked a welcome surprise—Dante Silva. The compact twenty-six-year-old strode right up to the coffee bar, looking a little uneasy. “Good morning, Ms. Cosi.”
“You can call me Clare,” I said, and not for the first time. “What are you doing here? You said you were running a fever last night.”
“I was, but I stayed in bed, slept it off... I’m good to go now, and I thought I’d make up the time by pulling a double shift today. I wouldn’t want to lose this job, you know? Rents are tough around here, even with the three of us in the two bedroom.”
Dante lived on the Lower East Side near Teany (the recording artist Moby’s restaurant) in a two bedroom apartment he shared with two female friends from college. He said each of the girls had their own bedroom and he spent most of his nights on the sofabed in the living room. “Most” of his nights had a sort of
In the course of his barista chatting, I’d overheard him talk about a pipe dream of purchasing his own Soho loft— a pretty common wish for young painters who come to the big bad city expecting a sun-washed studio. The reality check, of course, was more than obvious with one glance at the
“Dante, calling in sick every now and then isn’t going to get you fired,” I assured him. “But I’m glad you’re here. Apron up.”
“Excellent.”
He clapped his hands and came around the counter. Stepping into the pantry area, he removed the backward Red Sox baseball cap from his shaved head and peeled off his long flannel shirt, revealing more than a few tattoos on his ropey arms. I actually liked his pieces of skin art. My favorites were the demitasse on the top of his left wrist and a Picasso-esque Statue of Liberty on his right forearm.
The day I’d met him, I’d asked what was up with the body art, and he admitted, with a great deal of pride, that he’d designed every tattoo he displayed. As a painter, he said he wasn’t about to let anyone else stain the canvas of his own skin.
A new crowd of customers flowed into the store, and I put Dante on the espresso machine. “Take a few practice runs.”
“Don’t need to, Ms. Cosi,” he said, tying on the Village Blend apron.
“Humor me, Dante. Take them.”
To me, espresso-making was an art. Like a perfectionist painter, a superior barista was one who exhibited an expert hand and palate. From day to day, adjustments needed to be made. Even the weather was a factor. High humidity meant the espressos could run slower, and the beans would have to be ground somewhat coarser. Lower humidity meant the espressos could run faster, so a finer grind was required.
I didn’t want one single inferior demitasse served under my watch, which was why I insisted Dante make some test shots. As I supervised, he ran through the process.
Initially, I’d been wary of Dante. When he’d approached me three weeks earlier, asking after employment, the guy’s tattoos made me wonder just how fringe he was. I’d already lost two part-timers in two months, and I didn’t want to spend time training someone who would start bugging out on shifts. But then he began talking, and I could see he was articulate, intelligent, and (this capped it) he’d already been trained. In his teen years, he’d worked at a coffeehouse in Providence, so he was an old hand at making Italian coffee drinks, not to mention handling thirsty urbanites with caffeine deficits.
During his first week, he was a little rusty at applying even pressure at the tamping stage. At least thirty pounds of pressure is needed when tamping down the freshly ground coffee beans into the portafilter—and if the
