TWO LATTES.
“Good evening, Margaret Elizabeth! The usual—two lattes?” I asked with a smile, studying the small, deeply lined face of our late customer, worn but still charming.
“Hello, dear Lizzie! Yes, as always, two lattes. And, if you wouldn’t mind, a cinnamon bun too, please.” Margaret Elizabeth hooked her walking stick over the back of her chair and, suppressing a wince, lowered herself with difficulty into her usual seat by the window.
“We were all rather worried—what kept you today? You’d never forget what day it is. I even stepped outside, hoping to catch sight of you,” I said, pausing only to direct the new waitress.
“My dear! The end you’re imagining will come in time, but not yet. No need for alarm—it’s nothing so grim. The wretched cash machine swallowed my card this morning, and I had to queue at the bank for a new one. Apparently, every pensioner in Camden chose today to conduct their financial affairs!” She laughed, but weariness clung to her.
Her hands, always gloved in black lace, trembled. The corners of her mouth sagged, and her pale, thin face looked gaunt. Age spares no one, alas.
I work as manager in a little café in the heart of London, a city dear to me, keeper of countless secrets. But I’ll come to that.
I started working at fifteen, eager to earn enough for my mother’s new phone during summer break. They let me scrub floors and wash dishes at first, then trained me as a waitress. After school, I enrolled in university to study psychology, though my real education has been here, in this café, where the aroma of coffee revives weary souls and stirs memories tucked away in the corners of the mind—where dreams settle, unseen and everlasting.
Watching people has become a fascination. I read their moods in their faces, smoothing over misunderstandings before they begin. Our patrons vary—boisterous teenagers, quiet lovers, young ladies with silver-haired gentlemen, mothers chasing curious children.
Early on, I met a striking couple who came without fail every Saturday, rain or shine. Tall, silver-haired Edmund and Margaret Elizabeth, clinging stubbornly to her beauty, would stroll arm in arm through the winding streets before stopping here for coffee—their weekly ritual, unshaken by anything. Almost anything.
“You’re freezing, my stubborn little rebel—and partner in all my days. I told you to bring an umbrella! My knees ached all last evening, and still you insisted—no rain, no rain. Well, who was right?” Edmund would scold, though his eyes softened as he watched her sip her latte, pinky daintily raised.
“And what of it? I’m not made of sugar—I shan’t melt,” she’d retort with mock severity.
“Forgotten last autumn already, have you? Splashing through puddles like a child, then coughing for a month. Must I always be the voice of reason?”
“Oh, hush, you old fusspot. I’ll manage. Order me another bun, won’t you? They’re divine here.”
Like a queen granting approval, she’d nod regally while he stirred sugar into his cup, watching her with undisguised delight.
“I love watching you eat,” he’d say. “More satisfying than eating myself. How do you stay so slim? Envious of your appetite—since the surgery, I hardly have one.”
A year ago, Edmund passed. Yet Margaret Elizabeth still comes, always ordering two lattes but drinking only one. The second sits untouched. She stirs her coffee in silence, gazes out the window as if waiting, sometimes dabs her eyes with a linen handkerchief. I know better than to intrude—those memories are hers alone. No auction could sell them; no fortune could buy them.
Once, she confided in me.
Shy, eighteen-year-old Margaret met Edmund in a library. He’d walked in just as she tumbled from a stepladder.
“Are you hurt?” he’d asked. “I was too stunned to speak,” she recalled. “My skirt had ridden up—I was mortified. Then he lifted me, and I saw his eyes. Saying I was charmed would be an understatement—I drowned in them. His voice, like velvet, left me breathless.”
They married three months later. “I just knew,” she said. “Not once did I regret it. He nursed me through every cold, brought me tea in bed. I miss him, Lizzie. When I close my eyes, I hear his shuffling step, his cane tapping. Half of me is gone… But I’ll see him again. Until then, I wait.”
The café owner often offers her coffee on the house, but she always refuses. “Everything in life must be paid for,” she says.
Tonight, she left as always, slow and stooped, her stick tapping the pavement. I watched her go, blinking back tears. I want faith like hers. One day, I’ll ask her secret—what keeps her afloat.
On the table, two cups remain. One empty. One full.
While such people still walk the earth, there’s reason to live. And to love. Despite everything. To love.
