Nancy Rommelmann

Literature, Coffee, Beer: Transportation in Miami

We are here in balmy Miami, drinking the best coffee in Florida roasted and purveyed by our friends Joel and Leticia Pollock of Panther Coffee. The beautiful Leticia--with an assist from John Hood and seemingly every other cool fast person in Miami--is throwing a book party tomorrow evening. I'll read from Transportation, we will drink some coffee and Cava, and talk books and whatever else you like on Panther's smashing new outdoor plaza.

In the meantime, I am imaging all the ways I can tell the guys who run Beached Miami how smashing their coverage of the event is, primo primo el supremo. Check it. Thanks guys, and the rest of you, see you tomorrow.

Hurricane Sandy Relief Day at Ristretto Roasters - Friday November 9

THIS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, A PORTION OF ALL SALES AT ALL RISTRETTO LOCATIONS WILL BE SENT TO BROOKLYN, TO HELP WITH RELIEF EFFORTS IN THE ROCKAWAYS, RED HOOK AND OTHER AREAS HARD HIT BY THE HURRICANE.

WE WILL ALSO HAVE A DONATION BOX ON THE COUNTER, SHOULD YOU WANT TO DONATE ADDITIONALLY. WE WILL MAKE SURE IT GETS SENT ON SATURDAY.

I AM FROM BROOKLYN, MY WHOLE FAMILY IS THERE, MY DAUGHTER AND BROTHER ARE DAILY INVOLVED IN THE DIGGING OUT AND DISTRIBUTION, OF FOOD, BLANKETS, MEDICINE AND INFORMATION.

MY HUSBAND, RR OWNER DIN JOHNSON, AND I THANK YOU –

Nancy Rommelmann

Our daughter Tafv, in Rockaway on Sunday: She pitched in as needed: passing out blankets, water, helping with clean-up. “There were a lot of volunteers who brought their kids,” she said. “My friend and I watched the kids on a basketball court outside. I had a group of 9 year-old boys playing basketball for two hours. It was good.”

 

 

Coffeehouse Chronicles

20.

"It is not fattening," said Laurent.

"Certainly! It has only inside..." Marie brought her face closer to the case. "Pardon, what is the filling here?"

Mae took a shot at deciding which one the woman meant. "I think it's marionberry."

"No, not that one."

"Oh, prosciutto and cheese."

Marie laughed. "All wrapped in a nice beurre pastry, super low-cal!"

"What do you care, you're looking so wonderful!" said Laurent, and to Mae, "we'll have two."

"No, no, I don't want it!"

"Yes, you do," said Laurent, nodding at Mae. They were making light, now, but Laurent knew Marie-Therese was not out of the woods. She knew exactly what her sister liked, had liked since they were tiny girls, standing at the lip of their grandmere's baking table, accepting the pinches of unbaked brioche dough their mother forbade them, saying it would give them worms, a comment that drew from their grandmere a hum and, once her daughter -- cross, always cross -- was on the flagstone porch smoking, the story about how the baby birds had to find their own food after their mother was gone, and who they met in the woods, and how their courage always brought them to "la grande fete avec tous les animaux -- les ours, les lapins, les renards," and as she told it the girls holding open their mouths for little pops of sweets. Later, they would hear their mother arguing with her mother, accusing her of trying to make them fat, and their grandmere's voice steadily explaining that this problem was not of the children's making.

Marie-Therese was 27; she had almost not seen her 24th birthday. Laurent had seriously considered, the last time Marie went in-hospital, having their mother arrested. Their mother, who'd become so desiccated she looked like a broken wooden chair, the white cigarette now held by the teeth, all lip fat having been cannibalized.

"Also a scone, avec raisin," said Laurent.

"Ca va," answered Mae, and smiled at the young women. They were, Mae thought, so put-together, the way French girls always were.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

19.

Richard felt the action orbiting six inches outside of his head. It made things muffled, made him shall0w-breath. He thought she'd snapped his photo with her phone. He had hit her only because she was getting in his face, and how the hell did she know he busted the chain? She didn't know that. It had been 45 minutes before and the fat bitch probably wasn't even on shift then.

He gunned it up Interstate. It wasn't yet seven and not much traffic heading north. He parked the Explorer in the big shadows of the Fremont Bridge. The stanchions were huge, not much going on, parked utility trucks and emergency vehicles for the nearly hospital.

He saw what was probably the ambulance carrying the security guard scream past twenty minutes later. He'd hit her pretty card. But that wasn't his fault. She should not have confronted him that way. You don't come up to a man and get in his face about parking. What, did she own the lot? What did she care if he had to stop there? Why did a woman have a job like that anyway? Richard ignored his phone -- Joanne, wanting to know where the car was, no doubt; she could fucking wait -- and listened to talk radio. Five cars in total passed, and then it was eleven.

Richard crept up Williams. He'd ditch the car. He'd have to. There was a construction site just past Fremont; Richard took the left and parked it with the crews trucks. He left the keys on the floor mat.

Richard walked up Williams, past a clot of young snots waiting for restaurant food, probably one of those stupid Portland places that charge $15 for eggs. A cop car went past fast, its lights whirling. Then another. Shit. There was a sign for a coffee shop. Richard put his head down and went in.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

18.

The best part is the summer dresses, thought Mike, steaming a pitcher of milk and watching a stream of ladies walk in, back-light making their skirts transparent, their thighs visible to their panties. It was the second day of summer, and so far Portland had not let anyone down.

Matt went back to the milk and thought about what his friend Dario had said, that there was no better word in the English language than "panties." Who could argue? The milk frothed and Matt poured it onto a double-shot of espresso.

"Latte up!" he said, placing it on the counter, wondering whether, perhaps hoping it was for the small punk girl with the pink hair. Instead, a bulky gal who looked sort of Native came for the drink. She was a regular and Mike thought she might work nearby. Tipped well, never chatted.

The pink-haired girl had been gone a few hours and was now back. She had poured herself a water from the condiment bar. Matt wanted to shoot her, maybe video, the contrast between her dark eyebrows and the cotton candy-color of her hair was tight, interesting. Not so many girls in PDX pulled it off. He thought of a quote he read on some blog, "Intent is noticed and one is annoyed." It was attributed to Goethe but he didn't think that was right, anyway, that's what he thought too many of the girls in Portland did; guys, too: what up with all the stud belts and brass knuckles? Hard outside, pudding inside.

"Do you know that girl's story?"Matt asked.

Katie looked at the pink-haired girl. "Just that I gave her a cookie this morning."

Amelia saw the heads of the baristas above the espresso machine; she thought they were talking about her while trying not to look as though they were. Did they want her to leave? The guy with the curly hair was half-smiling. Amelia brought the glass to her lips and tried to look through it, but the bevel fractured everything. She felt acutely exposed, standing there, and turned so that the body of lady pouring sugar into her drink half-shielded her.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

17.

Luther nodded at the baristas. He smiled his closed mouth smile. He walked to the coffee bins. He checked the levels. The rhythm of keeping track had been a part of his day for five years, no one else could do it and he did not want anyone else to do it.

He took out his tiny pad and a pen. He did this each time he checked. If anyone were watching, and sometimes people were, it would be logical to think Luther was taking notes. He was, if not about coffee. He was drawing one of many thousand tiny drawings in blue ballpoint, this one of a dog with a hind leg like a plump hot roasted chicken drumstick, and a front paw raised in triumph, choking the neck of a chicken with Xs for eyes. In the background, three small children, in a ring-a-rosy. Luther put the pad away.

"You want an espresso?" Mae asked.

"I'm good," he said, heading out. "Later."

Coffeehouse Chronicles

16.

Marea inevitably needed to stop back into the cafe after that initial morning run, when she picked up the bank. Today, nearing 10:40, when she might have been home working on her story, she was back, bringing some paperwork Matt needed, employment verification for a new landlord. As she approached the cafe, she pictured North Portland as a Lite-Brite, each of the homes and apartments her employees lived and had lived in the brightly translucent colored pegs.

Huh, he was still there, Marea thought, passing the man at the far outdoor table. He'd been there every morning for two weeks. He always had several books at hand as he wrote in a notepad. With diligence, it would seem; he was there when she came earlier, and he was there now. Perhaps he was a writer; this happened occasionally, writers hanging around, waiting to chat with Marea. Today, he was in conversation with two men his age, mid- to late-30s. They saw Marea and all nodded hello.

Matt was at the register.

"Boy, you are so tan," Marea told him.

"That's what a month in Nicaragua will do," he told her. He'd been there on a photo shoot for... uch, Marea could not remember. Too many details to remember! She could ask, and it would undoubtedly be interesting, but there were three customers waiting, and she was on deadline.

"I'm going to stick the papers here," she said, slipping them over the counter.

"Thanks," Matt said, and turned to his next customer.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

15.

Amelia pulled her fingers through her hair, which was damp from the shower down the hall. The building did not lock it, and judging from the bike racks mounted to the wall, she figured it for cyclists to get clean. 

Amelia had no bike. She'd had a car but sold it three months for $300. It was once her mother's car. Her mother lived in Saskatchewan. She might have been trying to phone Amelia, but the phone was off. So was the electricity as of yesterday.

The cafe was walking distance from the punk house, the one by Fremont Bridge. Amelia had stayed at the one on Glisan for a while, but left after that night the guy with dreds started cutting himself in the chest with a big knife. The new house was cool, there were a few more girls. Amelia had liked that chick Monika, until she hooked up and told Amelia she needed the bed for her "business," whatever that meant. The living room had a hole burnt in the floor; it wasn't solid. Amelia found a sleeping loft in a walk-in closet. It felt a little like a coffin, the ceiling a foot above Amelia's face, and there was a bare electrical wire sticking out of the wall that Amelia covered with a shoebox. But it was private.

This morning she had a five-dollar bill, and forty cents. She did not want to break the five. She noticed the customers here bussed their plates and cups, sometimes dumping half their toast and jam. Man. And the toast smelled good. 

Katie wiped the counter and watched the girl the short pink hair. There was no possibility she wasn't hungry, she was spindly as a fawn. And, Katie thought, would probably spook as easy.

"Hey, kid," Katie said, and nodded the girl over.

Amelia looked but did not move. What, was she going to tell her to leave? It was a free fucking country.

"Come here," the woman said.

"What?" 

Katie smiled. "I have a favor to ask."

Amelia watched the woman take a pastry out of the case, put it on a plate.

"The baker brought us some new things today," the woman said, reaching for a ceramic mug. "We're trying to find out if people like them, so try it, with some coffee."

Amelia approached the counter. She held mug. It was heavy. 

Coffeehouse Chronicles

15.

Ten AM. Mac time. Twelve of them open on tables, plus two iPads. Where, Marea wondered, did all the PC users go? And should she take a photo of the cafe and ship it to Apple? She would like to peek at the individual screens, to see who was looking at what. But the screens faced away. Not like at the other cafe, where the tables were situated so that customers did not have their backs against a wall, hence it was inevitable that the baristas, or anyone walking past, could see what people were looking at online. This had been the case five years ago, when Marea passed a table and found herself seeing porn. It was a slow Sunday afternoon, no little kids in the cafe, but still.

Marea had called the barista on-duty to the back. The customer, the barsita said, came often. He never spoke to any of the baristas, all young women then, beyond ordering a cup of coffee, which he nursed for hours. He seemed harmless, but for the bug-eyed looks he sometimes gave the girls. 

"And once," the barista said, "he was on at a site called, How to Kiss a Woman."

Okay, Marea thought. It's sad, yes, it is, that some men reach sixty and do not know how to do that. But porn? Go home and do that, like the rest of humanity.

"Excuse me."

Marea was at the man's shoulder. He shielded his laptop. "I am going to have to ask you to not look at that here."

The man blinked. His eyes were gluey behind his glasses, pleading and defiant at once.

"Seriously," Marea said. "You can't do that here. I think you better go."

The man had clicked closed his PC and left. Marea had seen him once since; she did not kick him out again; he did not give her reason. And in truth it was not the porn  she found provoking, it was the how to kiss a woman. Had he just wanted the girls working to see? Did he really not know how?

Coffeehouse Chronicles

14.

Katie liked it the most about 9:20, the morning rush through, the yoga mommies from the studio down the block having collected their post-class lattes. She thought the most interesting customers came in now, the ones looking for work, or doing their work here, or needing a place to be alone in public. There were two doing that on the far wall, sitting with their respective thoughts beneath a painting of a bridge. 

Katie did not know the name of the woman in the baseball cap, or what kind of cancer she had. Katie did not think the woman had been a customer before the chemo, but perhaps she had been, perhaps her looks were that changed. Katie and the other baristas often knew things about their customers before being told, the gals who'd previously slammed double-espressos now ordering decaf turn out to be pregnant, people grow thin from illness, or fat from depression. The baristas saw couples nestle into each other as they waited for their coffee, and they saw them fall apart. One couple, daily regulars, had divorced. Several months later, each returned with a new spouse, and later, babies. Spring to summer to fall.

Katie was waiting for the woman in the baseball cap to take the lead. She thought it might have been this morning. They were close to that casual intimacy, a place of easy confidences, no pressure. And Katie knew, as some of the younger baristas did not, about illness and loss. She did not consider herself to have any special powers, but come on, we all need a hand to hold sometimes. 

Coffeehouse Chronicles

13.

"What should I get?"

"Um, coffee?" 

"I'm serious." She pushed his shoulder. He had been telling her about this place since they met two weeks ago, but she had not slept over until last night. He slipped his arm around her; again, the up-rush of emotion, the one that usually lasted only until after the first kiss.

"I don't about this stuff like you do," she whispered.

His pulled her toward him. God he wanted to kiss her.

"All right, so," he said, and stood her before the vertical chalkboard. "You've got regular coffee. Or you can get an Americano."

"What is it?"

"It's espresso, with hot water in it."

"Ew," she said.

He shook his head and steered her to the counter.  "No no, no ew."

"I don't..." And then she was at the counter. 

"Good morning," said May.

"She doesn't know what she wants," he said.

She smacked him on the chest. "Okay, forget it," she said, and looked back to the chalkboard. "I am going to have... a latte." She gave one nod to the girl behind the counter.

"Cool," she the girl. "For here or to go?"

"We'll stay today," he said, standing just behind her, putting both hands on her waist. "You want something to eat?"

She leaned into him; again, the up-swell. "Mm hm."

Coffeehouse Chronicles

12.

"Are you going to tell him?"

Nonni focused on dabbing Danish crumbs with her finger. "I don't know," she said.

"Okay, this..." Laura paused. "That's probably the worst answer you can come up with."

Nonni concentrated on mashing the crumbs. If she looked her sister, she might cry.

"Hey," said Laura, trying to get Nonni to look her in the eye. The younger girl resisted. "Nonni."

Nonni looked up. "What?" 

"Oh, now you're mad at me?'

"I'm not mad," she said, sharp enough that the guy on line with the bike messenger bag quarter-turned away.

Laura shook her head. "You're being incredibly childish."

Nonni turned her profile to Laura and feigned looking at a painting of a bridge on the opposite wall. 

"Hello?" Laura said. Nonni was one of maybe two people in the world, their mother being the other, that could bring on irrational rage. Sometimes she dreamed she was slapping Nonni in the face.

"Nonni, listen to me."

Nonni kept looking in the direction of the painting, but she did not see it, nor the woman in the baseball cap sitting beneath it, she was engaged instead in making her sister know she was being ignored. She continued to stare as Laura said, "Oh my god!" and got up, her knees bumping into Nonni's, fine...

"How are you?" Laura asked. She was embracing a woman who'd come into the cafe, a tall woman wearing interesting brown boots and speaking to her sister in a French accent. The world shrank to a circle, a circle in which her sister and the French woman were laughing and touching each other's hands, Nonni could see only this and feel hotly how she was not in it.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

10.

Matt looked at his phone. The battery had dislodged when Cassi threw it. Seemed to be working. He put it in the pocket of his cargo shorts, hoping she would not wake up and start in. She really had an amazing ability to do that, to fight over nothing.

The cafe was four blocks away. Matt walked, and thought he’d screwed up marrying Cassi. He’d loved her, and she had needed her green card, but it was seeming now like a rash decision. His father implied as much, when Matt brought Cassi home for a visit the year before.

“She’s a beautiful girl, Matt,” his father said, not adding the “but”. It was late summer, a peaceful time on the farm, the harvest in, foals and calves in the fields, the air soft and thick. “Is it that you need to, son?”

Matt told his dad no, it wasn’t that. But there had been pressure from Cassi, to help her, to be a helpful man. And so Matt had been, and was being, and this helpfulness was being repaid by her staying out at night, and accusing him of what she herself was likely doing.

Do I care? Matt asked himself as he came to the cafe. There was a little girl holding a star-wand twirling by the register as the barista with the red hair handed the girl’s mother change.

“Hi,” the barista said. She held out a plate to Matt. On it was a swirled Danish, cut into pieces. “Try this. The baker brought samples.”

Matt took a piece. It tasted like maple and butter and crunchy sugar. He nodded at the barista as he chewed.

“Good, right?” she said, and handed him a paper cup for his coffee. He pumped it himself. As he went for cream, he noticed the woman in the baseball cap, no eyelashes.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

8.

Molly sat at her usual spot -- corner table, closest to the roll-up door -- and felt herself exhale, a loosening she experienced each time she came to the cafe. It was the fourth time this week, a good week. She liked to come early and see the same faces: the two men who laughed a lot together at the communal table, the morning barista; the woman who came in around the same time each morning and said a few words to the regulars. Molly had not yet caught her eye, but maybe soon, if it kept being a good week, a good month.

She sipped her coffee, black -- the chemo was making anything sweet taste like metal this week -- and appreciated the sameness, the no-slippage, the daily routine that took place yesterday and would take place tomorrow. The luxury of sameness. Also, to be around people not asking how she was feeling, how she was doing. She was in fact feeling well. She was still in the hellish big curve, but had a sense it was the second half of the curve; that in not too long the road would open to a straightaway. Preferably a scenic road! The 1 in California. Or what about Capri? There must be a beautiful seaside drive in Capri.

Molly looked into her coffee. Everything these days made her eyes wet, including this morning the gratitude that came with thinking she might get to Capri. 

Coffeehouse Chronicles

7.

James rolled up to the cafe at 6:50, a little earlier than usual. Well, twenty minutes earlier. He'd decided to ride his bike to work today. Not completely unusual, his offices were just downtown, but a somewhat hare-brained idea this week, when he'd have head out to the Bull Run Watershed near Mt. Hood; the feds were making noise again about wanting to cover the reservoirs, which was ridiculous, James thought, as he locked his bike next to hers. Well, he could get a ride out there with Brian.

There was only one customer ahead of James, a pregnant woman with a yoga mat. The girl in the green skirt was handing her change. James did not want his moment to pass so soon. He decided to study the pastry case. Not that he ever bought any pastry, or only a few times, that roll-up thing with the ham. Peering into the case, he was able to surreptitiously see her in profile. She wore her hair short, and yet in the back she had made two tiny pigtails, each no bigger than a pen cap. Just looking at them make James swallow. What was he going to do?

"Hi," May said, to the guy staring at the pastry. "Do you want something this morning?"

Marea, who was behind the counter grabbing yesterday's bank, saw the guy by the pastry case straighten. She'd seen him here before. Youngish, tall, and apparently this morning, struck mute.

"Or just the usual?" asked May.

"Just coffee, thanks," said James, taking the paper cup she handed him, hoping his face was not as flushed as it felt.

Marea stood with May, watching the young man walk out and to his bike. "Ooh, he likes you," she said.

"What? No," said May, but she was laughing.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

6.

Francisco pulled the Ram to the kerb. He was running late today. He preferred to be here by 6:15, and it was nearly 6:30. He opened the door of the double-cab and lifted out the plastic tray of donuts. Two dozen, plus three specials, today aqua-icing with chocolate sprinkles. American holidays called for specific colors, pink-with-red for Valentine's Day, green for St. Patrick's. Francisco was not sure why there was an Irish holiday in the States but none for Italians or Mexicans or Hondurans. Most days, which started at 2:30am, getting the donuts frying and decorated and delivered, Francisco picked the colors at random. It was commerce, not art.

"Good morning," said Francisco.

"Good morning," said May, as Francisco passed the length of the espresso bar, swapping today's full tray for yesterday's empty, and heading back out the front door within twenty seconds.  

May picked up the donuts. The aqua ones were hilarious. Who, one might wonder, would eat aqua food? But May did not wonder as she set them in the baking case, knowing the specials nearly always sold first.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

5.

Marea pulled open the cafe's glass door. If the cleaning gal looked like a wood sprite, the man on the settee looked like someone who lived inside a tree, like Father Time with a gin-blossomed nose. She'd seen him here several times this month, always just after opening. At first she thought he might be homeless. His white heard was frayed, and he had a timid look, as though he might not be welcome inside. May, who was the cafe manager; who had been the business's first employee six years ago and knew what was and was not good policy without asking, had several times chosen people to give coffee to, for instance, the silent smiling be-robed young man who Marea had seen all last summer, juggling just outside the cafe's back door, whom May had said was entirely harmless.

This old man, Marea decided today, was not homeless. His clothes were clean, he did not shake, he gave off no odor. He made eye contact with Marea, as he had since the first time she'd seen him. And while he always sat very still with his cup of coffee, no pastry, not reading the New York Times delivered each morning and sitting on Noguchi knock-off table in front of him, it seemed to Marea the man's mind was working quite hard to keep him in place.

Coffeehouse Chronicles

4.

The cleaning company wanted Anya to start at 6:30, but in spring and summer she came earlier. It was light enough to see the cigarette butts and empty cups, the loose pages of free newspapers and occasional oyster shell left on the patio. She held the biodegradable bag -- this city, Anya knew, had strict rules about environmental cleanliness -- in one hand and with the other picked up the trash. She also cleaned the street by the kerb, easier to do at 6:15 as not too many cars had yet parked, not too many people coming yet for their coffee. 

Marea saw the woman cleaning several times a week, but did not think the woman saw her. She did not appear to ever look up from her task. She looked to Marea like a  wood sprite, or maybe a Soviet gymnast, her build light and compact, her copper hair cut in a thick wedge, a style not seen much since the 1970s.

Marea, whose husband owned the coffee shop, had tried to make eye contact with the woman before, to no avail.

"What a gorgeous morning, right?" she said today. 

Anya looked up. Could she just smile and nod? But the woman was waiting for a response. 

"Please," Anya said. "You say more slow?"

Coffeehouse Chronicles

3.

Matt looked at the clock: 5:46. He had slept not at all. He'd been lying there looking at the ceiling since Cassi conked out a little after four, after three hours of her crying and recriminations and threats of going back to Brazil. It made no sense; she was the one who came home at one in the morning, slamming her purse on the kitchen table and starting the tape-loop she'd been on all month: where had he been the night before? Why did he have to study with that girl? She advanced on his desk.

"Meu gatão," she said, the once-endearment sounding so sour he thought she might spit.

"What do you want me to do, Cassandra?" he said, his eyes flicking to the cellphone on his desk. "You want me to not pass the boards?"

Matt was not fast enough; Cassi grabbed the phone and sped to the kitchen. She expected him to follow. He did not. He watched her hips lean against the sink as she read the names of people he had spoken with that day: Evan, Dario, mom...

"So now you are erasing?" she said, throwing the phone at the front door. Still Matt did not move. He was too tired, he could not hold algorithms in his head and the tantrums of spoiled 24-year-old from Sao Paolo. Or he could, he thought, watching the ceiling whiten, but did not want to anymore.

What he wanted was a cup of coffee. 

Coffeehouse Chronicles

2.

May had trouble again getting the key to turn. She meant to bring some spray graphite from home, but she'd been up until two painting and forgot. She drew the key from the lock and smoothed its grooves, thinking of what she'd finished, or nearly finished. She was pleased with it, very. She knew she might find the pleasure unfounded when she clicked the easel's clamp light on tonight at ten, always at ten. But she'd told herself that two nights ago and last night the portrait looked just as strong, stronger, perhaps, than he looked in real life. At thirty, Isabel was getting the sense that she could paint him as she wanted. She was thinking what she might do to the collar of his white t-shirt, maybe add a little rust, as she reinserted the key and it turned. It was 5:42. She'd have to hustle.