“It’s not a question about what you can control,” she said, grabbing the untethered blonde hair in her hand and moving it to her left shoulder. It’s how she focused on one thought at a time. “None of us are in control. How can we be more consistent with our efforts?”

She sat in a corner at Be(an) Cool, a coffee joint that’d been around as long as she had, meaning twenty two almost three years. Before that it was her grandfather’s Mr. Fix-It Shop. The refurbished wood tables had sprigs of lavender in aqua opaque vases shaped like tulips. Burlap sacks labeled with Panama, Costa Rica, and Ecuador hung from the walls. The general vibe was mellow folk remakes of popular songs. The smell was caffeinated. 

She listened to the other end of the phone call through her earbuds while she blew ripples across the steaming black surface of her coffee. A couple two tables down made stern faces at each other. She watched from the corner of her eye, debating who had angered whom, the man in the jean jacket with a mole next to his left ear, or the woman in the white beanie soaking up a puddle of liquid on the table with a fistful of napkins.

“You’re right,” the voice from the phone said.

One song ended on a high note and passed the fiddle to the next. Sunlight from the eastern windows shifted the shadows. The woman pulled a frosted scone out of a paper sack and replaced it with the balled up wad of damp napkins. The scone sat on a dry napkin, wondering its fate: peace offering or ultimatum.

“It’s not a matter of being right,” she said quietly into the earbuds. “It’s the way things are.” 

The voice paused while she observed.

“What’s the name on the order?” the barista asked two kids holding skateboards. 

“Sean and Shawn,” they said like two parakeets matching tones.

What day was it? What time? 

“How long have I been here?” she asked the voice on the phone. 

The woman in the white beanie spun the triangular scone until one corner pointed at the man. He tapped the corner, fiddled the cardboard heat cover up and down on his coffee cup, and spun the scone until a different corner faced the woman. 

“Not long enough,” the voice said, then, harmonizing with the chorus echoing through the shop, “Too long.”

She drank from her rippled coffee, bracing for burn and cherishing the comfortable heat. Her blood sucked the caffeine in. Her heart beat with the percussive flair of a drumline. 

“Ma’am?” one of the skateboard Shawns called from the pick-up end of the counter. “What’s your Wi-Fi password?”

“You’ll never know, you know,” the voice said through the earbuds. Her ears rang.

The man with the mole reached down and rolled his jeans up to the calf. He pulled a butter knife out of his sock and sliced the scone into two pieces. He wiped the knife on a napkin and returned it to his sock, leaving the jeans rolled up to the pale calf dotted with sprigs of wispy hair.

The lavender on her table tilted towards her in a welcoming gesture. Hello, friend, it said. Stay for a while, won’t you? And then after that – a while longer. 

“Next time, I listen to you,” the man said to the woman, dipping his half of the scone in his coffee and holding it up to cheers. 

“We need to talk,” the woman said, dipping her half of the scone in her coffee and plunking it into her mouth.

“How long is a while?” she asked the voice on the phone.

The new song playing reminded her of a memory, sad and bad and lingering. The sunlight from the eastern windows warmed her left side. 

“Just after a little bit and a ways before forever,” the voice said.

“Better late than never,” the barista said and tamped a portafilter full of finely ground espresso beans. She spun it into the machine and hit a button. Steam hissed. “Next!”