TWO LATTES.
“Good evening, Margaret Edith! The usual, two lattes?” I asked with a smile, though my eyes lingered anxiously on the small, deeply wrinkled face of our late customer—a face still holding onto its charm.
“Hello, dear Lucy! Yes, two lattes, as always. And, if you wouldn’t mind, a cinnamon bun as well. Be a darling,” Margaret Edith replied, carefully hooking her walking stick over the back of her chair before easing herself down by the window, suppressing a grimace of pain.
“We were all quite worried—what could’ve possibly disrupted your routine? You’d never forget what day it is. I even ran outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of you,” I told her, pausing just a moment to quietly instruct the new waitress.
“Oh, my dear! That thing you’re imagining will happen to me one day, but when and how, nobody knows. Don’t fret—there’s a simple explanation. The blasted cash machine swallowed my card this morning! Had to traipse all the way to the bank, and what a queue! Must’ve been pension day—every old dear in London decided today was the day for grand financial manoeuvres!” She laughed, but the exhaustion in her trembling, lace-gloved hands and the weary droop of her lips gave her away. Age spares no one.
I’m the manager of a little café in the heart of Canterbury, a city that cradles secrets like an old book cradles its pages. I started working here at fifteen, desperate to earn enough over summer break to buy my mother a new phone. They let me scrub floors and wash dishes at first, then, after some training, promoted me to waitress.
Now, I study psychology at university—distance learning—but in a way, this café is my real classroom. Coffee revives tired souls, stirs memories hidden in the corners of the mind, where dreams settle softly, never to leave. Watching people is my fascination. I read their moods in the lines of their faces, avoiding misunderstandings before they even surface.
Our customers vary—noisy teenagers, quiet lovers whispering over shared glances, ladies with silver-haired gentlemen, mothers chasing restless children.
Years ago, I met a striking couple, the kind that sticks in your mind. A tall, silver-haired man and a woman who, despite time’s wear, clung to grace. Every Saturday, without fail, rain or shine, Margaret Edith and Thomas Alfred would stroll the cobbled lanes and stop in for coffee. A ritual nothing could break—almost nothing.
“You’re freezing, you impossible creature—partner in my life’s crimes, no less! I told you to bring an umbrella, didn’t I? My joints ached all last night, and still you insisted, ‘No rain today, no rain!’ And who was right, hm?” Thomas Alfred grumbled, though his eyes sparkled as he watched his wife sip her latte, pinky poised theatrically.
“So? I won’t melt. I’m not a sugar cube,” she shot back, feigning irritation.
“Remember last autumn? Tramping through puddles like a child, catching that nasty cough? A whole month I nursed you! Must you always be so reckless?”
“Oh, don’t fuss like an old hen! I’ll be fine. Better fetch me another bun—these are divine,” she said, nodding like the Queen herself. And he, stirring sugar into his cup, never took his eyes off her.
“Love watching you eat,” he’d murmur. “How does so much fit in you? And you don’t gain an ounce! Meanwhile, I can barely stomach toast since the surgery.”
A year ago, Thomas Alfred passed. Yet Margaret Edith still comes, punctual as ever. Always two lattes—she drinks one, leaves the other untouched. She sits by the window, stirs her coffee, and stares outside, as if waiting. Sometimes, she cries into a lace handkerchief. I never intrude—those moments belong to her alone. Memories can’t be sold at auction or bought for any price.
Once, she shared their story. Shy eighteen-year-old Margaret met Thomas in a library—clichéd, she admitted. She’d toppled off a ladder reshelving books, and there he was.
“Are you hurt?” he’d asked, catching her. Her skirt had ridden up, her face burned with embarrassment. But his hands were steady, his eyes—oh, his eyes. “I didn’t just fall into them—I drowned,” she’d whispered.
They married three months later. “I just knew,” she told me. “When I was ill, he’d bundle me in woollen socks, bring tea to my bedside. I miss him, Lucy. Half of me is gone. But I’ll see him again. Until then… I endure.”
The café owner often tries to waive her bill, but Margaret Edith refuses. “Everything has its price,” she insists.
Now, paid up, she leans on her stick and shuffles out. I watch her go, shoulders hunched against the wind, and I weep. I want faith like hers. I decide then—I’ll learn her secret.
Two cups remain. One empty, one full.
As long as people like her exist, there’s reason to live. And to love. Against all odds. To love.
