The Geeky Guy Makes a Deal
By: Keith R Wilson
Tags: Work, Novel, Romance, Fiction

The Geeky Guy Makes a Deal

Chapter 24

Image by Pikrepo

The next day, the Lisping Barista didn’t show up for work. She was supposed to open the Epiphany Café, but when the usual early morning customers came by, everything was still locked up. The Waving Man took up his position just outside the door and waved at every car as it passed by. He didn’t say a word to the people when they saw the closed sign still dangling in the door. He didn’t stop them when they yanked on the handle, just in case. He didn’t console them if they stalked off, angry, or crept off, sad. He did wave at them when they drove away as if he was thrilled to see them and couldn’t wait until they came again.

Not everyone made a big deal out of the Epiphany Café being closed. Some just got their coffee somewhere else when they saw the windows were still dark. The Connecticut River, for instance, did not stop for coffee. It kept right on going, at least for a few miles, until, under the influence of the tides, it seemed to change its mind, turn back, and check again. Only one customer, one who knew the owner, give her a call, and told her the Lisping Barista had failed to show.

The Owner of the Epiphany Café, a worn-out woman of a certain age, came to open the café; but she didn’t unlock the door until after she waved away the Waving Man. “Go wave somewhere else,” she said. “You’re driving away my customers.” The Owner had little patience for anyone, especially the Waving Man.

What little patience she had with the Lisping Barista had been completely used up. She no sooner put on an apron, brewed the first pot of coffee, and waited on her first customers, the local telephone line crew than she began to complain of the Lisping Barista not being reliable. Until this point, the Lisping Barista had been a perfect employee, and she was well known as being the main attraction to the place, responsible for more sales than the daily drink specials. Any reasonable boss would have figured something had come up with the Lisping Barista and had a good reason to not be there, but the Owner was not a reasonable boss; she was a tired boss who long ago regretted buying the café, and was annoyed whenever she had to work there, herself.

The Owner had not been in the café that morning for more than five minutes before she decided, and told anyone who would listen, that the Lisping Barista was fired, and she was looking to hire a better barista. None of the members of the local telephone line crew were interested in the job. They’d rather be paid to drink coffee than to make it, but seeing as though their specialty was communications, they said they’d spread the word. The morning was not yet half done before the whole town of Kenilworth, except the Lisping Barista, knew that she had been fired.

The local telephone line crew played telephone with the information. They spread it around like they said they would, but it came out garbled and distorted. Everyone had a different idea of why the Lisping Barista got fired. The Dog Fearing iPhone Pecker thought she was fired for serving the Crazy Dog Lady’s dogs. The Crazy Dog Lady heard the problem was Rabbi !’s sermonizing. Kenilworth’s Resident Saint repented for causing so much trouble giving away free coffee and went right to the café to explain. The Owner wasn’t having any of it and turned the Saint away when she tried to buy a cup of coffee for someone else. “I don’t have time to keep track of who paid and who didn’t.” Rabbi ! was convinced it was the broken pot. The Drug Dealer figured she’d been busted by the Ponytailed Cop and the Ponytailed Cop figured she’d been busted by her boss. The Therapist Emeritus hoped she’d run off with the Geeky Guy. That would have been a feather in her cap, a perfect conclusion to a successful treatment. The High Street Witch knew the Geeky Guy had come home that night, all beat up, and went off to work the next day. She was just glad the Lisping Barista was gone.

The Weather-Beaten Man in a Cowboy Hat heard when the owner gave him a call, offering him a job. Someone had told her the Lisping Barista had taken his application. “I hope you’re more reliable than your friend,” the Owner said to him, “and show up every day when you’re supposed to.” The Cowboy said he was much obliged, Ma’am; and assured her he’d reckon he’d be at least as good as he was in the last job he had.

The last one to be told the Lisping Barista had been fired, except for the Lisping Barista herself, was the Geeky Guy. He’d been working all that morning, two black eyes squinting into his CAD-CAM, without benefit of a wake-me-up cup of coffee. He thought showing up at the café that morning would reveal his eagerness to see the Lisping Barista. He understood, from what people had said, that women prefer men who don’t tell them they like them. They favor the strong, silent type; the kind that keeps his feelings to himself and communicates in snarls and grunts. No, he shrewdly counseled himself, it was best to play it cool and hard to get.

When he finally heard the Lisping Barista had been fired, the Geeky Guy went right down to the Epiphany Café, without even clicking save. He didn’t know what had happened for her to get fired, but he knew it must have been his fault. He didn’t know what he could do, but he knew he had to do something. If she was fired that meant she would leave. She’d go back to following the Spellbinding Fish Fry, which she loved, and he loved her too much to want her to be happy in anything that didn’t include him. Yes, that’s right, he loved her, or at least he believed that, after they got naked, she touched him where he liked to be touched, he touched her in her womanly parts, and she called him her boyfriend, he was supposed to.

The Geeky Guy had played enough role-playing games to know a damsel in distress when he saw one and every damsel in distress needs a knight in shining armor. By the time the Geeky Guy arrived at the café, he knew just what he had to do. He stepped up to the counter and didn’t even bother ordering coffee. He knew who the owner was, without ever having met her. She was the tired one, exasperated by every customer. She said, not, “May I help you?” But, “What do you want?”

He looked up at the menu board as if the price might be listed there. Not finding what he was looking for, he just asked, “I want to buy your café. Is it for sale?”