Chapter 4: Coffee the Way She Takes It

By seven on Monday morning there were nine reporters on the sidewalk outside the diner.

My boss had put a hand-lettered sign on the glass.

It said: PIE SPECIAL. NO COMMENT. NO BATHROOM FOR PRESS.

"Put your apron on," she told me. "If you're going to be famous, you can be famous refilling coffee."

So I did.

Sabina took the other apron without being asked.

The regulars in the first booth looked at her curls and at me, and then very carefully at their eggs.

The old man at the end of the counter, who had come in every morning for eleven years, slid his cup toward me.

"Whatever it is," he said, "you're still the only one who gets my order right."

I filled the cup, and my hand stayed steady.

The back door of the kitchen opened at ten past eight.

I heard it before I saw him, because the cook swore, which he only did for health inspectors.

Conor Pascoe came through the swinging door with a paper bag in one hand and two coffees in the other.

He'd shaved.

He had the same charcoal suit on, pressed this time, and his reading glasses were pushed up into his hair where he'd forgotten them.

"Miss Quillan," he said. "Miss Harrowgate."

"Sabina," said Sabina.

"Sabina." He set down the coffees. "Mine is black. The other is yours, Miss Quillan."

I picked it up and drank.

It was hot, a little sweet, with the cream added last so it didn't swirl.

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