Life After Coffee

by Virginia Franken

  “I’ve been working with Getu for a long time. We’re pretty straight with each other and he knows his stuff. There’s a lab nearby where I can do some further testing, but I trust Getu completely. If he says this varietal’s clean, it’s clean.”

  “Is it resistant to all strains?” she asks.

  “There’s no possible way to know that without studying samples. As I said, there’s a lab nearby so—”

  “So basically you’re asking us to fund your research trip.”

  “I—”

  “Where exactly is he located?”

  “I . . . can’t tell you that.” That’s like asking someone to give you their ATM PIN. There’s no way I’d ever reveal that information to her. It’s completely awkward of her to even ask me.

  “Can you at least tell me the size of the farm we’re talking about?”

  “It’s midscale. About five hectares.” That’s pretty tiny for a farm in most places, but actually on the slightly larger size for the region.

  “Five hectares? Amy, one tiny farm isn’t going to prop up our entire business.” She says it almost with relief. “We don’t have the capital to make a long-scale investment like that.”

  “And what if Darren leaves, Jasmine? Then we’ve passed this up for nothing.”

  “Darren isn’t going anywhere,” she says pretty decisively. Roth and I both immediately go to the same place, wondering how she knows that Darren isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps she’s actually closer to Darren than Roth might be comfortable with.

  “My wife’s a little more sentimental than I am,” says Roth with a smile that’s never going to bridge the chasm of awkwardness here.

  “I’m certainly not sentimental when it comes to money. The benefits of this don’t outweigh the risks for a business our size. We’re going to have to shift to using more Robusta until prices start evening out again. We’ve talked and talked about this, Roth. That’s what everyone’s doing right now, and if we want to survive, we’ll do the same.”

  Roth’s disgusted. And he’s disgusted with her for even saying it out loud.

  “You could run it alongside your other coffee as a single-origin artisan item,” I offer.

  “I’m sorry, Amy. It’s just too difficult in the current climate. I’m sure you’ll find someone else who’ll be very interested,” says Jasmine.

  “We’ll discuss it and let you know,” says Roth.

  I won’t hold my breath.

  “Thanks so much for meeting with me anyhow,” I say, quickly packing my stuff. I just want to get away from here. The tension between Roth and Jasmine is toxic. Roth mournfully watches as I put my magic beans back in my burlap satchel. Under normal circumstances, I’d leave the whole bag with him. After his wife’s hijacking, that’s not happening.

  “We’ll be in touch!” says Roth optimistically as I walk out the door.

  “Great. Can’t wait!” I reply in an equally upbeat tone. This is tragic. The door doesn’t swing closed all the way, and before I can walk back down the corridor, I hear them start yelling at each other.

  “Are you crazy?” asks Roth.

  “Are you crazy? What on earth do you think you’re doing interviewing a new buyer behind my back?”

  “I don’t know—trying to radically improve our product?”

  “We don’t need to radically improve our product; we need to stay above water. It’s not enough just to break even anymore. We do actually have to start making money at some point, you know.”

  “How can you not taste how special those beans are? Do you even like coffee at all?”

  “Of course I like coffee. That’s an ugly thing to say.”

  “I just don’t get it. You don’t show a flicker of interest in anything going on here for weeks on end, and then you saunter in like you own the place—”

  “I do own the place,” hisses Jasmine.

  A woman wearing an apron and a headscarf suddenly turns the corner.

  “Can I help you with anything?” she says, a little too loudly for me to be sure that Roth and Jasmine didn’t hear.

  “Nope, I’m good,” I say, mentally scavenging around for some reason why I’m standing in the middle of this corridor listening to someone else’s highly private conversation. “My shirt got caught on the door, but I pulled it free so . . .” We both look at the smooth metallic swing door for a moment. “I’m going to go now.”

  “Okay.”

  I haven’t even made it back to my car before I get the call.

  “You do realize this is a seriously amazing opportunity you’re passing up. This could be the next Geisha—and you know it,” I tell Roth. There’s really no reason for me to rub salt into his wounds; however, I can’t quite help myself.

  “Believe me, I’m not happy about it. It kills me to say it, but why don’t you take this over to Urban Monocle?”

  “Yeah, I’ll probably try that,” I say. But I have tried Urban Monocle, and several other roasteries, and it hasn’t worked. Third-wave coffee roasters seem to be going through some kind of financial implosion right now. The Arabica bean shortage has tipped their precarious business model right over the side of the cliff, and whereas before owners would have been throwing all the money they could find at me, these days I haven’t been able to get face-to-face with anyone but Roth. The third wavers are simply running out of capital.

  “Let me know how you get on with it. I’d be interested to know. I wish things were different on my end, but Jasmine and I are on rough financial ground right now.”

  “But think about it, Roth. This bean is good enough. It could carry your whole enterprise.”

  “It couldn’t, not until there’s more of it. Jasmine doesn’t want to take the risk. Her dad’s been propping us up forever, and he’s been getting antsy about it since the downturn. We have to tread carefully. Your timing sucks, O’Hara.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll keep working on her, but I doubt I’ll get anywhere—we’re moving away from quality right now, not toward it. Just like everyone else.”

  “How do you sleep at night?” I’m only half joking.

  “I often don’t.” He’s completely serious.

  “Well, you have my number if you want to reconsider,” I say.

  “It won’t be anytime soon,” he says. “It’s off the table for now. Good-bye, Amy.”

  “Bye.”

  Good-bye, Roth Ellis—and good-bye, financial security. Hello, potential destitution.

  CHAPTER 13

  And so it’s come to this. I’m here in this auditorium surrounded by all my worst fears. And all because of the promise of money. I glance from side to side, trying not to move my head too much and attract attention. If the apocalypse happened while we were all sequestered away in this seminar and the world had to repopulate itself from this group of women and the parking attendants outside, the human race would not last very long. The gene pool would get all gunked up with an irrational love of “crimson blaze” highlights and the need to “get right” with baby Jesus, and before too long the human race would come to an end simply because its IQ was too low to continue.

  Religion, makeup, sales: all things that make my whole body shudder like I’ve been chewing on bone-dry cotton wool. And I’m sitting right in the center of a reptile’s pit of it, with no obvious means of escape. If I could only somehow creep out of here without bringing any attention to myself . . .

  So I realized this setup was not for me the moment Sylvia made her entrance. Rising up from out of the stage, clouded in a puff of dry ice, she benevolently looked down on us all from up on high, backlit by nothing but a pink crucifix.

  “My angels,” she said. “Welcome.” It all seemed a bit calvaryesque to me. Who does she think she is, Russell Brand? As Sylvia started talking about the divine mission of us, her “angels,” I glanced around to see if anyone else was wearing the same quizzical expression that I was. Not the case. They were all lapping it up like a group of stray cats given their first
taste of pink-tinged cream.

  “Welcome to your future,” said Sylvia. “Welcome to a world where every woman can be beautiful. Where beauty can be every woman. Where woman and woman work together to build a better world. A beautiful world. A world for all women.”

  And on it went. Before long the woman next to me, wearing very shiny panty hose and a blue skirt suit at least one size too small, sang out “Amen!” in agreement. And, well, I couldn’t help it. I snorted. And . . . it was probably a little loud. I tried to snuffle it back down, turning around my head in derision, offering up a gesture that hopefully relayed: “What fallen woman made that noise? Is there a Democrat in here somewhere?”

  But it was too late. Sylvia had seen me.

  Of course, this was all Annie’s idea. After Jasmine ruined my deal of the century with Roth Ellis, I called Annie up in desperation, remembering her vague offer of her old sales job when I last saw her at Time for Twos. We were one minute away from not making the mortgage. The listing for the buyer’s job with Stumptown had been taken down. Driven by the need to feed and house my children, I applied for the job at the Penny Bean, but didn’t hear a whisper back. The more Annie talked about Sylvia’s Angels, the worse it sounded, but it did seem like I might be able to make some decent money fairly quickly. She was talking about thousands of dollars a month, and this was not a “maybe” or a “could be”—Annie had the second home in Big Bear to prove it. “The house that Sylvia’s Angels bought” she called it. She had made it sound like the money was already there, just waiting to sashay its way over into my checking account. All I had to do was attend a training seminar, purchase some inventory, hit my “territory” hard, and all would be fine. In order to quickly earn the kind of money I needed, Annie said I was probably headed for either sales or a stripper pole. And as I’d likely have to pay people to look at my gangly body rather than the reverse, I took her suggestion and opted for sales. Thinking on it now, though, we might actually have some luck with Peter working as a Chippendales dancer . . . Okay, that’s never going to happen, but it’s an idea to keep in the back pocket in case things get truly bad. The man has to start paying his way at some point.

  And now I’ve been rooted out: identified as a nonbeliever. I don’t believe that JC died to save us all from our sins, I don’t believe that blue-tinted mascara is ever the answer, and suddenly I don’t believe that Annie bought that second home in Big Bear by selling makeup. The entire seminar has drawn to a halt. Unable to avoid the inevitable any longer, I look up. Sylvia locks me in her pale-green stare (she apparently does believe in the virtue of tinted mascara) and I feel it: she has the heart of a snake.

  “Come on up, honey,” she says. There’s no getting out of it. She’s talking directly to me. I’m honest to God as scared as the time our guide accidentally took us through the middle of drug-dealer turf in the coffee hills of Huila and I came face-to-face with Victor Toro, the local drug lord, who promptly shoved an AK-47 in my face. He had snake-green eyes too. The longer I pause, the longer I draw the room’s scrutiny. My face is numb with humiliation. My chest seems to have turned to iron, and I don’t seem to be breathing. I have less than two seconds to make my choice. I can either bolt for the doors and hope to God they aren’t tricky to open or I can pretend I’m in the game as much as anyone else, get through this temporary embarrassment, and leave this whole operation as soon as I can make a graceful exit.

  I decide to opt for the temporary embarrassment.

  I rise and make my way up to the stage to a backdrop of applause. I’m immediately bathed in pink light. In the outstretched gloom of the auditorium I see rows upon rows of women sitting in a crop-circle formation, all waiting for Sylvia to make their financial dreams come true.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Amy.” And I’m not your sweetheart.

  “And what brings you here today, Amy?” A moment of appalling lack of judgment. I realize I can either tell it to her straight and try to defend my position on the resurrection and tinted mascara in front of a room full of believers . . . or I can play along.

  “I’d like to make some money,” I say.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that, sweetheart. You’ll have to say it a little louder.”

  Of course she heard it, the silly cow. This is the actual most cringeworthy incident of my life. Even worse than the time I was wearing khaki pants to Billy’s winter concert, and Violet peed on my lap and it looked like I’d wet myself. Violet herself was wearing black leggings so no one ever suspected the real culprit.

  “I said I’d like to make some money.” I say it right into her microphone, along with a tight smile and folded arms. I know she wants me to add some enthusiasm to this statement, but I’m not sure I can. Even in the name of not being embarrassed. In fact, I think I’ve almost reached my limit. Much more of this and I’ll just take my chances with the fire escape. Sylvia smiles her teeth-whitened, lipstick-framed smile and beckons a group of women over from the wings of the stage.

  “Well, we need to make you look pretty first, don’t we?” she sings. And I realize this is all part of the act. Part of the show. Pluck some innocent woman from the audience, the less groomed the better, and overhaul her in the name of beauty. Show off the “wonder products” for the tools of miracle that they are.

  I’m placed on a sticky folding chair, draped in a white sheet, and two women armed with big fat makeup brushes have at it.

  An hour and a half later, I know more about the application of mineral eye shadow and emulsion-based, matte-down, shimmer-up products than any green bean coffee buyer has since the beginning of makeup, or coffee. Whichever came first. It all sounds very similar to painting a room. They even have a primer that they gloss over my face before they start troweling on the other stuff. I can’t even begin to imagine what I look like. The closest I have to a makeup kit at home is one blunt eyeliner and an expired nude lip gloss. And those are ancient castoffs from my mother. I don’t wear makeup. There’s no point in the tropics, and I certainly don’t have time at home. I’m sure this whole process must take at least fifteen minutes, even if you pare it right down. Who has the time? I will say that having my face massaged with products and my skin stroked with a variety of soft brushes is quite relaxing. Maybe on the other side of all this awfulness, when life gets back to normal, I’ll treat myself to some facials. That’s what Goddess Amy would do anyway. Real-Life Amy will probably just panic about how on earth to pay off all the credit card debt that’s racked up in the meantime and cook up schemes to persuade her husband to try out for the Chippendales.

  “Amy?” Ole Snake Eyes is calling me back. “Do you want to see how you look?”

  “Sure.” I yawn. I start to do a mental calculation of exactly how long it will take for all these chemicals to find their way into my bloodstream. I hope I’m not going to have some kind of toxic-overload reaction. The white drape is pulled away. I’m allowed to separate myself from the sticky chair, and a full-length mirror is brought forth. I feel as if some kind of emotional reaction is going to be expected. She’s picked the wrong girl for that, I’m afraid. There’s a TV camera up close to my face, and I realize the whole incident is being broadcast on a huge screen behind me. Awesome.

  I look in the mirror.

  I’ve disappeared. And in my place is a woman who’s wearing my old clothes, but she’s . . . well . . . pretty. No, beautiful. My bright-blonde hair is no longer the most striking thing about me. I’ve got a face underneath it that bears noticing for the first time ever. I’ve got succulent, plump lips. I had no idea it was possible for me to have lips like that without surgical intervention. My eyes are sparkling, my cheekbones are haughtily curved, and my nose—which was always my face’s most strident feature—has taken its rightful place in the background. I look like Violet’s mother. I’m no longer the ugly impostor in my own family. What happened? I can see that my eyes—which are now huge and, yes, framed with green-tinted mascara—are filling up a li
ttle with tears. I find myself doing that very girly shaky-hand motion in front of my nose—the one that’s supposed to stop you from crying, or supposed to express that you want to stop crying. This is a nightmare. What have they done with the Amy who single-handedly took on the corrupt CafeGro cooperative regime and got them to give the money back to all the coffee farmers they’d weaseled it away from? Where’s the Amy who chased an escapee spare tire down the side of a ravine, pulled it out of a muddy riverbed, hauled it back up to the pothole-ridden road, and then successfully affixed it to a four-thousand-pound Jeep?

  The audience is going crazy. From the corner of my blurry vision I can see Sylvia taking a bow and smiling like she’s just fed the fucking five thousand. This is not how it was supposed to play out. One of the beauticians brings forth a crown and sash and reverently places them on my body. The sash reads “Sylvia saved me 2016.” My mortification is complete.

  Or so I think.

  “See now, isn’t it great to look pretty, Amy? Don’t you feel good about yourself?” says Sylvia with a sigh. Oh, here it comes. I think I’m about to get the hard sell.

  “I guess I’m just surprised that I look so different,” I say.

  “Surprised. Is that all it is?” She doesn’t let me reply. “Wouldn’t you like to look like this every day? Don’t you think you deserve to look like this every day?” She’s got a point. I’m sure Goddess Amy would barricade the bathroom door every morning and put in the requisite fifteen minutes in order to emerge looking like the deity she actually is. But still. It’s not me. These colored powders and triple-performing emulsions are not who I am. And again, like she can read the inside of my brain, Sylvia sees she’s losing me. “Let me ask you this, Amy. Have you achieved balance in your life?”

  “Balance?” I snort. “What’s that?”

  “It’s being able to hold on to one thing without letting go of the other.” She’s talking about having it all. About making enough money to survive and still being able to read my kids a bedtime story every night. She sees my infinitesimal reaction and pounces like a feral feline. “My Angels come from all walks of life. Corporations, schools, hospitals. They come because I can offer the thing they most crave, the thing that so few employers realize all women want: balance. A way to earn a living and still spend time with your children. To stop missing the moments that matter and start becoming a mother that matters. Because all too soon, Amy, playtime will be over and your children will have grown and gone.” Oh God. I’m starting to do that hand-shaky thing again. “I think we have our first Angel of the day!” she says.