Holiday Grind

After closing early, my staff helped me pick out a New York white pine from the sidewalk vendor on Jane Street. As Tucker’s basso crooned “O Tannenbaum,” Dante and Gardner carried the tree back on their shoulders. Then I helped them set it up in the corner, we cut the bundling wires, and the tree’s springy branches unfurled, filling the entire first floor with the fresh, sharp smell of an evergreen forest.

Esther (actually cheerful for once) began affixing bright red ribbons to the deep green boughs, and I dug out the lovingly packed boxes of antique miniature coffee cups and tin pots that Madame—the Village Blend’s elderly owner—had collected over the years. Then Tucker replaced our shop dinger with jingle bells, and Dante laid out the big red and green welcome mat I’d purchased the week before—the one that said Merry Christmas in a dozen languages along with Happy Holidays! Happy Chanukah! and Happy Kwanzaa!

(Living in a city with as many cultural and religious differences as New York meant you were probably violating someone’s belief system just by breathing. Lofty words like diversity and understanding were often bandied about in hopes of fostering open-mindedness, but after living in this roiling mini-UN for the past two decades, I was convinced that the way to universal harmony lay in a more practical philosophy. A diversity of cultures meant a diversity of foods. Eat with tolerance, I say.)

For a full hour, we continued decorating the coffeehouse, stringing white lights around the French doors, hanging fresh spruce wreaths against the casement windows. Finally, we put up quilted stockings over the hearth’s stone mantel, where one of Madame’s silver menorahs already stood, waiting for the Festival of Lights to begin.

Peace on earth had actually been in play, until we all began judging each other’s coffee creations...

Now, checking my watch, I tensed. Our guests would be arriving soon to sample our new holiday coffee drinks, and we were nowhere near ready.

“Okay, that’s it!” I announced in a tone I hadn’t used since my daughter was in grade school. “No more bickering! Everyone behind the espresso bar! I want Christmas in a cup, and I want it ASAP!”

Forty-five minutes later, two dozen bottles of sweet syrups were lined up on our blue marble espresso bar; stainless steel milk-frothing pitchers stood on the work counter behind it; and I was reviewing our hastily scribbled tasting menu.

Tucker’s offerings included Butter Pecan Praline, Candy Cane (easy on the syrup), Iced Gingersnap, and Old- Fashioned Sugar Cookie. Dante’s flavors were Eggnog Cheesecake, Spiked Fruitcake, White Chocolate Tiramisu, and Toasted Marshmallow Snowflake. Gardner’s Christmas memories brought us Rum Raisin, Mocha-Coconut Macaroon, and Caribbean Black Cake. And from my own beloved Nonna’s Christmases: Candied Orange Panettone, Maple- Kissed Gingerbread, and Glazed Roasted Chestnut.

Esther also had contributions: Apricot-Cinnamon Rugelach and Raspberry Jelly Doughnut because, as she quite rightly put it, “Chanukah has its own flavors.” For Esther, this also included Key Lime Pie because, as she noted, “Every December my family fled to Florida.”

The invited guests of our latte tasting were now mingling near the crackling logs of the store’s hearth, waiting for us to whip up the samples.

Tucker was entertaining his current boyfriend, a Hispanic Broadway dancer who went by the single name Punch. Gardner was playing host to Theo, Ronny, and Chick, the three other members of his jazz ensemble Four on the Floor. And Dante had invited his two aspiring-artist roommates: a pierced platinum-blond pixie named Kiki and a raven-haired girl of East Indian heritage named Banhi.

Checking my watch, I decided to give our missing guests another ten minutes to show. Esther’s boyfriend— Boris the assistant-baker-slash-Russian-rapper—was performing at a Brooklyn club tonight. Since he couldn’t make it, she’d invited another taster, a friend named Vicki Glockner.

Earlier in the year, Vicki had worked as a barista for me. She’d loved experimenting with our Italian syrups, and I knew she’d make a good taster, but I had mixed feelings about seeing her again because she and I hadn’t parted on the best of terms.

My friend was late, too—although he’d phoned to apologize and warn that he might not make it at all. I couldn’t blame him. Since I began seeing Mike Quinn, I’d had to accept that a NYPD detective’s work was never done.

My other tasting party guinea pig was now smacking his knuckles against the beveled glass of the Blend’s front door. I moved to unlock it and realized the night had grown colder and the snow higher. Fat flakes had been falling steadily for the last hour. Now they layered the sidewalk and street with several inches of crystalline frosting. As I pulled the door wide, the newly installed jingle bells sounded above, and a chilly wind gust sent a flurry of ice diamonds into my dark brown hair.

“You actually made it?” I said with a shiver as Matteo Allegro stepped inside.

Two

Skin still lightly bronzed from the Central American sun, Matteo stamped the wet snow off his boots—and (happily) not onto the shop’s restored wood-plank floor, thanks to my brilliant managerial decision to buy the multicultural Happy Holidays welcome mat.

“You sound surprised to see me,” said my ex-husband, unzipping his Italian leather jacket.

“True. I didn’t think you’d show.” I shut the door on the snowy night. “You only got back from Guatemala— what? Six hours ago?”

“Five.”

“And I know how you feel about Fa-la-la-la Lattes.” I smiled at the catchy term. I hadn’t invented it. Alfred Glockner, our local charity Santa, had coined it. In truth, the whole Taste of Christmas idea had been Alf’s.

Matt shrugged. “What can I say? When it comes to coffee, I’m a purist.”

As an international coffee broker as well as our coffee buyer, Matt was also a coffee snob, but justifiably so. The lattes and cappuccinos were a big draw to the Blend and a healthy contributor to our bottom line. But they weren’t his area of the business; they were mine—and my staff of baristas who mixed them to order.

While I roasted and served the beans, Matt was responsible for sourcing them. And because harvest quality could change from season to season, Matt was essentially a java-centric Magellan, regularly exploring the world’s coffee belt—a band of mountainous slopes that circled the globe between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, where sunny, frost-free, moderately wet conditions allowed for the cultivation of the very best arabica beans.

“Good thing your Holiday Blend’s a winner this year,” I said, knowing that our single-origin coffees, seasonal blends, and straight espressos were what lit Matt up. (No artificial oils, no sugar syrups, just his top-quality beans with natural, exotic spice notes, which I regularly roasted in small batches in our shop’s basement.)

“So where’s Breanne?” I asked, glancing through the front door’s glass. Snow fluttered down through the light of the streetlamps, but the curb was empty. No limo. No hired car. No yellow cab with an open door sprouting an endless, designer-draped leg.

“She was supposed to meet me here.” Matt scanned the tasting group gathered around the fire. “She hasn’t shown yet?”

“No. Is she working late again?”

Matt’s reply was a muttered, “When isn’t she?”

“I’ll bet the snow held her up,” I said. “You know it’s murder getting a cab in weather like this.”

Matt didn’t nod or agree, just pulled off his black knit cap, ran a hand over his short, dark Caesar, and looked away.

He and Breanne had gotten married in the spring, went on a whirlwind tour of Spain for a number of weeks, then spent much of the summer in a cottony cloud of sweetness that rivaled Tucker’s Candy Cane Cappuccino. By early fall, however, the sugar had started to melt. Sharp bouts of bickering continually punctured their meringue of constant cooing.

I didn’t see this as any great sign of marital doom. Sooner or later every honeymooning couple had to deal