What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

Imogen has come to London to make it as a writer. At least, that was the plan. Finding herself in a dead-end job serving coffee to hipsters was not on her to-do list. And even if gorgeous colleague Declan does give her more of a buzz than a triple-shot cappuccino, Imogen can feel her dreams evaporating faster than the steam from an extra-hot latte.

Until her anonymous tell-all blog about London’s rudest customers goes viral – and suddenly, Imogen realises that landing the worst job in the world might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to her! As long as she can keep her identity to herself…

Also by A.L. Michael

The Last Word

Driving Home for Christmas

My So-Called (Love) Life

Praise for A.L. Michael

‘I know it’s a good book when I shut the kindle cover and sigh with contentment. The Last Word totally did it for me.’ 4* from Angela*

‘This is a funny, funny book.’ 5* to The Last Word from Rosee**

‘Fresh, fast and … had that magical romance feeling and a bit of hotness that you just can’t help but love. Absolutely brilliant!’ 5* to The Last Word from The Book Geek Wears Pajamas

‘I LOVED THIS. I laughed, I cried, I fell in love. All of the emotions were felt in the reading of this book and it is definitely one of the best Christmas releases that I’ve read this year.’ 5* to Driving Home for Christmas from Erin’s Choice**

‘I laughed, I cried and I was left with that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you read something wonderful.’ 5* to Driving Home for Christmas from That Thing She Reads

The story put a huge smile on my face and it’s just a feel-good with a bit of spark, glimmer, friendship, heart, fun and love. I couldn’t put it down!!! 5* to My So-Called (Love) Life from Simona**

My So-Called (Love) Life was one of those books I just happened to read at the right time which completely lifted my mood and made me feel and smile and want to start reading again. 5* to My So-Called (Love) Life from Sophie*

*Review from Goodreads

**Review from Amazon

If You Don’t Know Me By Now

A.L. Michael

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © A.L. Michael 2015

A.L. Michael asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474036481

Version date: 2018-07-23

A.L. MICHAEL

A.L. Michael is a twenty-something writer from North London, currently living in Watford. She has a BA in English Literature with Creative Writing, and MA in Creative Entrepreneurship (both from UEA) and is studying for an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes. She is not at all dependent on her student discount card. She works as a creative writing workshop facilitator, and an English tutor, and is currently working on her fifth novel. She has an alarming penchant for puns, is often sarcastic when she means to be sincere, and can spend hours watching videos of Corgis on Buzzfeed. But it’s all research, really.

Thanks as always to the wonderful team at HQ Digital for making my dream a reality. A big, huge thank you to the family of HQ Digital authors, who are always there to support each other, and offer advice, laughter or just a picture of topless Channing Tatum when writing gets tough.

For the friends who read my books, but more importantly, for the friends who know that having a writer friend means that I’ll miss things and flake out and forget stuff, and generally be a rubbish human being. But they put up with it because they know I love what I do. Thank you.

To my family, who know that asking about how the book is going either results in a gruff ‘I can’t talk about it’ or they don’t get to speak for the next hour because I won’t shut up- you have given me the warmth and support to go for a career I always dreamed of, and I’ll never stop being grateful.

And finally, thank you to the Coffee Monkey Teams I’ve worked with- you’ve shared your stories, laughed, tried not to cry, supported and been amazing people to work with. I can’t say I miss the work, but I do miss laughing with you guys. Here’s to being a #miserablebarista

For all the graduates in dead-end jobs trying to make a career out of student loans, caffeine and sheer force of will.

And for the coffee monkey army- you know who you are.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Praise

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

Chapter One

‘So, Imogen … why should I hire you?’

Darrel, the manager of BeanTown, was the sort of man who polished his name badge. His knobbly elbows stuck out from his branded short-sleeve shirt, and he was wearing a baseball cap that proclaimed ‘It’s all in the beans!’ He tilted his head to the side, his body relaxed into the plastic chair. The posture of someone drunk on the power he had been given.

‘Because … I’m desperate,’ Imogen said staunchly, bitter enough about having to apply for the damn Mcjob in the first place.

‘And do we think desperation is a qualification, hmm?’ Darrel raised an eyebrow infuriatingly, that smarmy grin on his face.

Imogen was not going to waste the same answers she’d been giving for the last two weeks: she was enthusiastic, she was hard-working, driven, passionate, eager to succeed, a team player, a solo player … she was a performing monkey who just needed a damn job.

‘Darrel,’ Imogen leaned in, swiping a strand of dark hair behind her ear so she could focus on him intensely. Her dad had always said once she set those hazel eyes on someone, they’d cave. He never said if it was out of appreciation or fear, but she suspected the latter. ‘Desperate people are in the unique position that they will do anything, and I mean anything, to keep their jobs.’

Shit, that sounded like a proposition. She back-pedalled.

‘What I mean is, that because I am so very eager for this job, you can be guaranteed that I won’t slack off. I’ll be here on time, I’ll be willing to work, I won’t complain. You catch me complaining and you can fire me on the spot,’ she promised with a wide grin.

Imogen sat up straight, head held high, like she was a prize beagle showing off her skills. Please, please, please …

‘All right, let’s give it a go. It’s true what they say about northerners being ballsy. Walking in here and telling me you’re desperate wouldn’t have got anyone else a job!’ Darrel laughed, a single hoot.

Probably because they’ve all still got their self-respect in existence and their self-esteem intact, Imogen glowered, but turned all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as Darrel shook her hand and told her she could start a trial shift tomorrow, and to be there by five a.m.

Imogen let the door slam behind her as she walked out onto Holland Park Road. It was drizzling, and as she pulled her hood up it seemed like every single person walking down the pavement bumped into her. What was it with Londoners? Did they have to get everywhere in a hurry? She passed four other cafes that had turned her down, and the pub on the corner that said she didn’t have enough experience. She’d worked in a pub for five years, she argued. Yes, but not a London pub, they’d replied. That always seemed to be the catch.

She trudged along, down the huge wide lanes with the multi-million-pound mansions, counting the sports cars and guessing how many bedrooms each property had.

The point had never been to do pub work anyway. Moving to London to work in a pub … well, she could have stayed in Doncaster. As her father had frequently reminded her five times this week, when he called to see how the job hunt was going.

‘You could still come back,’ he had said softly, and she could imagine him scratching his bald head and walking around in circles, getting tangled up in the cord of the house phone because he refused to buy a wireless one.

‘I thought Babs had turned my room into an office?’ She tried to say it without malice.

‘It’s actually a bedroom for Chico,’ her father whispered, ‘and a mini-gym.’

Babs was a five-eight, size-eight, forty-two-year-old divorcee who was just head over heels for her dad. Which Imogen hadn’t bought for a second, because her dad was a fifty-nine-year-old, five-foot-five, balding, pot-bellied Greek Cypriot man who worked in a butcher’s and had a hairy back. Something was rotten in Doncaster.

But she had to hand it to Babs. In six months she’d got Costa walking five nights a week, cutting back on the red meat and the salt, going to salsa lessons, and had a waxer on speed dial. She was working with raw materials and getting decent results. It was just that she was so … loud about it all. Their house had been so quiet all those years, just her and her dad, reading companionably, sharing meals, drinking Greek coffee. Occasionally the big family would descend upon them, and it would be music and parties and too much food, but for the most part they had a quiet little life. Imogen thought he’d been happy with that.

‘She turned my bedroom into a playpen for her chihuahua?’ Imogen had scoffed, but if she was honest with herself, Babs moving in meant she could move to London and pursue her dreams without worrying over whether her dad knew not to shrink things in the tumble dryer. She was free. It was just a shame that she was free to serve people coffee.

She pounded down the soggy streets until she reached a busy road, all cramped terraced houses leaning on each other out of desperation. She climbed the stairs, opened the door and followed the narrow stairs with the mildew carpet up two flights. Home.

When she’d told her cousin, Demi, about the studio in West London that she was moving to, she’d made it sound exotic and sophisticated. In fact, she was paying an eye-watering amount for a cupboard, with a tiny bathroom and a microwave oven with two hob rings on top. London life was a little depressing.

She flopped onto the bed and opened her laptop, too desperate to even bother taking off her wet shoes. It had seemed fated, this move to London. Her big adventure, after years of saving, staying at home, going to a local uni, working three jobs. Imogen had always known this was her dream, cliche or not. She was going to live in London and write. She didn’t even care what she wrote; she wasn’t the hard-hitting news sort of girl – it made her feel angry and helpless. But writing copy for a charity, writing articles, reviews? Something that could put some positivity out in the world, make people laugh, effect some change. Everything had seemed like it had fallen into place with perfect timing – Imogen had reached her saving goal, Babs had decided to move in, and a friend from uni, Saskia, had given her a heads-up about an internship at her magazine. Which, of course, had fallen apart the minute she got within the radius of the M25. Everything in London seemed to move twice as fast. She’d found a flat, tied up her life and moved down in two weeks – but it wasn’t quick enough. The internship was gone. As was, apparently, every writing opportunity in the city.

Surely one London paper, one tiny magazine or agency would take on a English graduate? Surely someone could do with a fairly intelligent person fetching their coffee? Surely one person out there could say, ‘Oh, hey, she was the editor of her uni paper, and she’s done a Master’s degree in fairy tales – cool!’

Apparently not. But at least she could afford to stay. For now. And how hard could serving coffee be?

Chapter Two

‘You. New Girl. Come here.’ Agnes beckoned her behind the bar with a crooked finger. She dumped the tray she was using to collect soggy napkins and set her jaw. Agnes was terrifying. Terrifyingly efficient, but still plain terrifying. Her round face should have had a softening effect, but her stern features seemed to be sharp within their doughy edge. Her eyes were small and darted about the cafe, the captain in charge of her ship.

‘It’s Imogen,’ Imogen said brightly, with a smile, tapping her name tag.

‘Whatever. You will learn to make a cappuccino properly.’

‘Okay …’ Imogen swallowed, recovering her smile. ‘I’d love to learn that.’

Agnes rolled her eyes. ‘What you’d love to do does not concern me. Watch carefully. Most people get the foam-to-milk ratio completely wrong. That is not acceptable.’

Imogen blinked, and watched as Agnes steamed milk, tilted the silver jug, swirled and ground and pressed buttons, pouring until there was a perfect cappuccino with a heart on the top.

‘You try.’ Agnes gestured towards the machine, turning her back. ‘You stay here and keep trying for the next forty-five minutes. I will return.’

Imogen was sure she could do it. In forty-five minutes she would wow Agnes and win her everlasting respect. She would.

Forty-five minutes later, Imogen was angry at herself. She’d burnt the milk, burnt herself, got coffee grounds everywhere, sworn at the machine, accidentally started a cleaning cycle, and made everything but a cappuccino. Damn foamy bastards.

‘She freaked you out, no?’ A tall young black man with his hair tied back in a bun grinned at her, tying up his maroon apron and pulling on his baseball cap.

‘She could freak out world leaders. She’s wasted here,’ Imogen breathed, still fiddling with the milk jug.

‘If Agnes wanted world domination, she would have it. Sadly … she only wants the coffee shop to be efficient. And free whipped cream,’ he winked.

‘I’m not even going to ask,’ Imogen laughed, holding out her hand. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Imogen.’

‘Emanuel.’ The man smiled, his French accent acting as a balm. ‘Would you like me to teach you how to make a cappuccino?’

It took most of the day, but Imogen finally figured out how to make a cappuccino. And a latte. Mostly she cleaned, and listened in awe as the customers demanded things she didn’t even know existed.

‘My usual,’ was the cold-voiced demand she heard most; no please or thank you, or acknowledgement at all.

‘What’s his usual?’ she whispered to Emanuel as he started making the drink.

‘Large whole milk, triple-shot, extra-hot, extra-dry caramel latte,’ he shrugged, swirling around to reach for ingredients like a possessed dervish.

Imogen blinked, looking around for another example. ‘What about hers?’

‘The redhead? Small black decaf Americano, extra shot.’

‘The guy with the tattoos?’

‘Medium mocha, extra caramel, extra cream.’

Emanuel didn’t bat an eyelid, just grinned as she looked at him in awe.

‘You’ll pick it up quicker than you realise.’

‘Doesn’t it feel like a waste of brain space?’ she asked, before realising that was a pretty damn rude thing to say, especially to someone who was helping you.

Emanuel just quirked an eyebrow. ‘What else am I doing? Becoming a brain surgeon?’

‘Why not?’ Imogen shrugged, cleaning down the surfaces as Agnes gave her the evil eye across the cafe.

‘I like this. Some of the others, they are nurses, students, artists, musicians. But me, I’m not here for a career.’

He poured two creamy coffees and handed her one, lifting up his cup and tapping it against hers.

‘So what are you here for?’ Imogen took a sip and had to admit, the man could make a decent cup of coffee.

‘Ah, but of course,’ he gestured at himself. ‘L’amour.’

‘You came here for love?’ She smiled to herself as Emanuel chuckled.

‘Yes, and then she left. And I stayed for another. I always stay for another. Something about London girls … they’re so disinterested. It’s almost French.’

Imogen had to admit, as she hobbled home exhausted, feet aching, the faint aroma of stale coffee beans clinging to her skin: it was exhausting, and confusing … but it didn’t suck.

*****

Imogen was wrong, of course. It did suck. Which she learnt when she was finally allowed to use the till and serve her very first customer.

‘Good morning, welcome to BeanTown, what can I –’

‘Oh. My. God.’ The pretty Indian girl plastered in Marc Jacobs burst out laughing. Imogen froze, blinking, waiting for an explanation.

‘I didn’t think you were going to speak English!’ the girl explained, still smiling. ‘No one in the service industry speaks English. And you look so foreign!’

Imogen looked at the Indian girl, honestly stunned.

A bunch of responses appeared in her mind, including:

‘Well, so do you.’

‘Yes, I do appear to have a tan, madam, you’re very astute.’

‘What the fuck?’

Instead, she settled for retaining a cheerful expression and simply shrugged. ‘Well, appearances are often deceptive – what can I get you?’

Life went on. The day passed in a flurry of rudeness, casual racism and coffee grounds. Agnes seemed to inhale whipped cream in times of panic, but even she had looked over at Imogen’s stoic responses and nodded in approval.

The trick, Imogen realised as she rubbed at her red eyes in the mirror of the disabled toilets, where she had barricaded herself for the thirty minutes of her lunch break, was not to let them get to you. Or if they did, not to let them know it. Which was why she was making it through with the odd lip wobble and ‘something in my eye’ until she made it to her break or the flat.

The pub had been bad at first, too, she had to remind herself: the shouts of ‘oi darlin’’ and the bum pinches, the insinuations that she’d sleep with them and the comments about her boobs. But no one had ever made her feel like an idiot before. The pub lot had never shaken her.

She took a deep breath, fanned her eyes and stepped back outside again.

A small woman with owl-like eyes behind square glasses stared up at her.

‘I need the bathroom code,’ she demanded.

‘X4093,’ Imogen rattled off thoughtlessly.

‘And what if it doesn’t work?’ The woman crossed her arms.

Then you try it again until it does? Imogen raised an eyebrow.

‘If it doesn’t work, madam, feel free to come and bother me with it.’

‘Excuse me?’

I won’t complain, I won’t complain. I said he could fire me on the spot if I complained.

‘Oh so sorry, madam,’ Imogen sighed and hated herself for what she was going to do, ‘my English not very good. Come get me if there’s a … problem? Not bother, I meant no bother to you. I wouldn’t want to cause you bother, you see?’

The woman raised an imperious, thinly drawn eyebrow, but seemed satisfied and walked away.

‘You’re English is not very good?’ Emanuel smirked as she returned to the bar and commenced making her tenth espresso of the shift.

‘Of course not, I’m foreign.’ She rolled her eyes and threw back the shot.

The nights in the little flat were starting to get to her, too. She’d lie there, still hyper from all the caffeine she’d ingested that day, her mind going over and over the horrible things the customers said:

Are you stupid?

How did you even get this job?

Is there anyone here who isn’t completely incompetent?

What colony are you from?

What is wrong with you people?

Was it worth it? Was it worth it, just to have enough money to live in a tiny box room where the walls were starting to cave in? She was exhausted, too stressed to write anything. The only creative work she was doing was imagining all the witty remarks she’d wished she’d made to those horrible people. But what was left for her back home? Going back to her dad and Babs, cuddled up on the sofa while she tried not to remember her mum sitting in exactly the same spot? Watching as her home slowly became their home. She’d needed to get out before that happened; it was too hard to watch all those memories get painted over as if they didn’t matter.

‘It’s not so bad,’ she told her cousin, holding the phone with her shoulder as she watched bright blue lights chase across her dark room. She held her breath – seconds later the ambulance sirens blared. She hadn’t thought to check if her ‘perfect London flat’ was on a main road.

‘Then why are you calling me at midnight?’ Demi yawned. ‘Happy people tend to call to comment on their happiness when it’s light out. Unless you’re waking me up to purposefully gloat, in which case: fuck you.’

Imogen sighed. ‘Okay, it’s crap! It’s horrible! The flat is awful, I’ve eaten toast for dinner every night this week, and I’m getting fat from all the paninis and cake I’m eating at work just to give me enough energy to get through the day!’

She heard her cousin stifle a laugh. ‘Go on.’

‘The job is bad, worse than bad. People are mean! And it’s not like they’re sad because they have sad lives! They’re rich and have everything and are still dickheads! This woman screamed at me today, actually screamed in my face because I forgot that she wanted extra whipped cream. I gave her a normal amount and she freaked out.’

‘We all scream for cream,’ Demi laughed, ‘but at least you know they’re ridiculous. How’s the writing going?’

‘Too exhausted. And emotionally deadened.’ Imogen stretched, rotating her shoulders to release the kink in her neck. She lifted up a hand to her neck in dread, wiping it. ‘And I’ve just found mocha sauce on my neck.’

Strangely, it was this that made her almost burst into tears.

‘Dirty bitch. You’re wasting your time being single if that’s the fun you’re getting up to.’ She could hear Demi’s wicked grin in her voice, and suddenly missed home fiercely.

‘Maybe I made a mistake,’ she said quietly, as if the London Dream that had brought her this far could hear her failure.

‘Nope.’ Demi’s voice rang out too loudly, and Imogen winced. ‘You, Imogen Cypriani, are a freakin’ badass, and if it’s too hard for you, then it’s too hard for me. And seeing as I need to escape this hellhole, I refuse to accept that. Pick yourself up and go kick some arse.’

Imogen grinned to herself, tugging on her dark braid.

‘Besides, it’s been weeks. Maybe all this talk of home and work and careers and creativity is putting you off your game. Find some pretentious London wanker to have sex with, and everything will fall into place.’

‘Oh yes, you’re so wise. I’m a run-down exhausted mess of a human.’

‘I thought you said you had chocolate sauce on your neck, you smelled like coffee, and you had free access to whipped cream? Start playing to your strengths, bitch.’

Chapter Three

Imogen was feeling surprisingly chipper. Things could be worse. She didn’t have to hear Babs’s nasal whinnying every night (as well as worse noises) from her father’s bedroom any more. She had free access to caramel macchiatos, and Agnes had patted her shoulder this morning when she weighed her cappuccino to assess the foam-to-milk ratio.

‘Passable,’ Agnes nodded and marched off to the back office with her tiny espresso cup swirled up with cream like a mini Cornetto.

‘That was a big deal,’ Emanuel winked at her. ‘She doesn’t give away such praise every day.’

‘Passable is praise? What happens if she says I’m good?’ Imogen grinned, refilling the espresso machine.

‘I will fall down in shock,’ he snorted, then pointed at the twitchy businessman walking up to the till. His tie was askew, his jacket creased and his face crinkled with strange lines. ‘Prep his usual – a red eye.’

Imogen raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not on the menu.’

‘Black filter coffee with a shot of espresso in it,’ Emanuel replied, going to put it into the till wordlessly, nodding at the zombified businessman.

‘Two shots today,’ the man yawned, and Imogen pressed the button, wincing at the anticipated taste. She passed him the drink and he saluted her with it.

‘What’s it called when it’s got two shots of espresso in it?’

‘A black eye,’ Emanuel said, deadpan.

‘Really?’

‘Why not? It’s the same as a punch in the face, no?’

All in all, not a bad day. Customers had been rude, but unmemorable. There had been a lot of tourists, which meant a frustrating number of gesturing, umming, and awwwing, as well as some mis-made drinks, but she’d made it until three p.m. and there wasn’t a wobbly lip in sight. The sound system, which usually repeated the same African-themed versions of Paul Simon songs all shift, had a new CD, and Chuck Berry’s ‘You Never Can Tell’ came on. Emanuel even jived with her behind the bar when there were no customers around. She was just cleaning the filter machine, planning what she would write when she got back to the flat, and the actual food that she might make for dinner after stopping at the shops, when an Irish voice bellowed across the cafe.

‘Oi Miss Barista. Get your cups out fer the lads! I like ‘em large!’

Imogen whirled around to face the door, an eyebrow raised at the tall, brown-haired man with the scraggy beard and bright eyes. She watched with some satisfaction as the smile fell from his face, and his eyes widened.

‘Oh no, no, no!’ He stepped forward, hands raised. ‘I thought you were Liza …’

‘Who?’ Imogen frowned, arms crossed.

‘No, you don’t understand,’ he said, his Irish accent emphasised as he moved swiftly across the cafe, unbuttoning his coat. Some of the customers looked up with interest.

‘What are you –’

‘See?’ The man pulled open his coat dramatically. To reveal a maroon BeanTown apron. ‘I’m a member of the resistance,’ he whispered dramatically. ‘I’ve been sent by HQ to procure more drinking receptacles. The plan for world domination via caffeine is going better than expected.’

He leaned in on the counter, grinning at her expectantly, his eyes a deep blue in contrast with the reddish tinge of his brown stubble. Here was a man who knew the effect he had.

‘Emanuel?’ Imogen called, not taking her eyes away from the man, ‘were we expecting any strange people today?’

‘No more than usual,’ Emanuel replied, shrugging, until he looked up and saw the other barista. ‘But we make an exception for this one. Hello, my friend.’

The men shook hands, and the stranger gestured at Imogen. ‘What happened to the she-devil?’

‘Left to become a fashion blogger, or something,’ Emanuel said with distaste, then pointed at her. ‘This is Imogen. She’s an improvement. Imogen, Declan. He works at the BeanTown in Notting Hill. He often comes to bug us for things that his idiot manager was not smart enough to order enough of.’

‘Hey, you ever expect a truckload of Japanese tourists to want vanilla frapshakes in winter? Give the guy a break,’ Declan shrugged. ‘Nice to meet you, Imogen. Sorry about the heckling. I was used to Little Miss Vogue looking down her nose at me.’

‘Does anyone get away with looking down their nose as a barista?’ she asked, blinking at the intensity of Declan’s gaze. He was an active listener.

‘Not if they don’t want hot coffee thrown at them,’ he replied.

‘Someone threw coffee at her!’

‘No, customers threatened to. I dreamed about it a few times,’ Emanuel admitted.

‘Me too. There’s no place for ego here. You’re being paid for people to emotionally beat the crap out of you. But I’ll tell you a little secret, Imogen.’ He leaned in against the counter, eyes hypnotic, the vaguest smell of cinnamon and Columbian blend as he spun her a tale, his voice soft. ‘You are terribly important, because you are the Guardian of the Gate. You are the thing that stands between them and their working at maximum efficiency. You have the most incredible power …’ He dropped his voice even lower, and Imogen felt herself drawn in. ‘If you so choose, you can give them decaf. And royally fuck up their day. And they’ll never even know.’

Imogen grinned. ‘Well, that sounds infinitely more reasonable than stabbing them in the eye with a stirrer.’

‘It’ll actually be more painful. But with great power comes great responsibility …’ He winked at her, and she found herself drawn in, her pulse fluttering, just a little.

‘I’ve already had to warn her about being more careful about giving the skinny bitches whole milk. They have a sixth sense,’ Emanuel sighed.

‘Hey, never whole milk! Even I’m not that mean. But if a bitch calls me incompetent, then she’s getting the semi-skimmed at the very least.’

Declan held up his hands. ‘Preaching to the choir, love. No justification needed.’ He turned to Emanuel. ‘Has she encountered Nigel yet?’

He sighed and turned to her. ‘Small skinny three-shot half-caf semi-dry cappuccino – let me weigh it.’

Imogen rolled her eyes. ‘That turd of a human being made me remake that drink four times on Tuesday. I even weighed the damn drink on the scales and he didn’t believe it was heavy enough. A semi-dry cappuccino isn’t even a thing!’

‘How long have you been here, three weeks? My darling, you ain’t seen nothing yet.’ Declan grinned at her, holding her gaze a little too long. ‘But I’m pretty sure you can handle it.’

‘I’m glad someone thinks so.’

‘Well, that scowl on your face when you turned around almost made me shit myself, so I think you can handle a couple of pompous wanker bankers.’

Imogen twitched her mouth into a smile. ‘Well, I don’t take kindly to strangers talking about my cups.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

Emanuel returned with a stack of large takeaway cups. ‘When you’ve quite finished being your usual self, maybe you should get back to work before your boss starts calling here in a panic?’

Declan took the cups and smiled at Emanuel, who wore a look of saintly patience. He nodded and buttoned up his coat, heading for the door. He turned back. ‘Was lovely to meet you, Miss Imogen. You should stop by my store sometime. I’m sure I could teach you a thing or two.’

Imogen was so torn between saying ‘I’m sure you could’ or ‘I sincerely doubt it’ that she simply rolled her eyes and said nothing.

Not a bad day at all.

*****

Imogen couldn’t bear to stay in the tiny studio all the time, and instead sought out solace in a little pub on a backstreet behind her flat. The Hope and Anchor, it was called, and she spent that afternoon with a pint of pale ale and her laptop. Soul music whispered from tinny speakers, and occasionally she’d nod her head along with Etta or Aretha as she tried to scratch the coffee grounds from under her fingernails.

‘Y’all right there. darlin’?’ the barman, a slim, grey-haired man called out across the empty bar. She stared up at him from the blank page.

‘Yeah, just … blank.’

The older man grinned, his bright eyes enhanced by his red cheeks. ‘Finish your pint, love. That’s liquid inspiration right there.’

‘I’m trying to savour it, or I’ll only want another,’ she shrugged, fingers stroking the keys.

‘So what? Worked for Hemingway,’ the man laughed. ‘I’m Keith. Just bottling up out back; give us a shout if you need anything.’

‘Cheers, Keith!’ Imogen grinned back, relieved that the rumours of Londoners not being talkers was clearly a myth. The pub was empty at four-thirty in the afternoon, but then again, it was a Shepherd’s Bush side road on a Tuesday. She loved how these pubs just seemed to appear out of nowhere on the corner of residential roads, as if they had been put there for the locals, and no one else would find them if they didn’t know where to look.

Imogen took in the worn blue wallpaper and sticky dark-wood tables … no one had been looking for the Anchor for quite a while, it seemed. Which was a shame, because those stained-glass windows gave the whole place a warm glow.

Imogen managed to squeeze out a few small articles – about London pubs, about moving to the big city from the north, about what London property agents had the audacity to call a one-bedroom flat. None of it was very good.

Maybe what she needed was to write herself a fairy tale. She’d spent years researching them, after all. Her English MA dissertation was on representations of femininity in fairy tales … which everyone was really fucking sick of hearing about. The blokes who worked at the pub had been nice enough, but when they’d made the mistake of asking her about it, and she’d made the mistake of answering, their honest response had been, ‘Huh, didn’t know you were one of them lezzers. Cool.’

What fairy tale would she write herself into now? The princess out in the wilderness, looking for a key to the castle? Except princesses were boring. She wanted to be an Amazon, or even better a goddess. She’d loved all those Greek myths that her dad had told her as a child, fudging the storylines and melding them together in the wrong places, but told with such joy and pride. ‘This is your birth right, my darling – you keep these stories for you.’

Demi had it, an identity ready-made with her name, after Demeter, goddess of the harvest, of the seasons. And it fit. Her little cousin was the barefoot hippie child, always chilled, always with a smart answer and a perfectly arched eyebrow. She’d walk into this pub and find someone to talk to. Hell, she’d stand out on the street until she found someone to drag into the pub with her. But Imogen wasn’t like that.

Friends. That’s what she was missing. Sure, she loved working with Emanuel, and they had a laugh, but he wasn’t someone to go for a drink with. At least not yet. A couple of her London-based uni friends had said they’d meet up, but it’d been radio silence since she’d moved down. Saskia had been quite frosty with her when Imogen had asked what happened with the internship. She’d frankly said, ‘You just don’t get how it works here.’ She was right.

The only other person she’d quite enjoy having a pint and a chat with was Declan, the chatty Irish barista. In the five minutes that she’d spent talking to him, she’d started to feel pretty. To feel interesting and witty, like she had something more to offer than an empty shell covered in coffee grounds and operating on caffeinated auto-pilot. But princesses (or goddesses) never needed a man to make them feel interesting or pretty. Which was why Imogen packed up her laptop, downed her pint, shouted her goodbyes to Keith and jumped on a bus to Oxford Street. A free makeover at the beauty counter of Selfridges was just London-y enough to make her feel excited, and wasn’t an extravagance. She was off to have adventures. And her mother had always said a woman with the right shade of red lipstick could do damn near anything.

*****

Declan came by again over the weekend. A brief appearance on Saturday morning with a hurried plea for long straws. ‘Fucking caffeinated milkshake bastards. Drink some freaking orange juice,’ he said lightly, grinning as he took the bag from her.

‘Nice lips,’ he winked, and was gone without a backward glance, leaving Imogen smiling to herself, sure that the eye-watering twenty quid on a lipstick called ‘Artemis Red’ had been a good choice. She felt powerful, invincible even.

‘This is NOT a flat white,’ a voice whined from the left of her, and she went to explain for the fourth time to the same woman who came in every week, ordered the same drink, and always complained about it, that what she really wanted was a bloody cappuccino.

‘But I like the name of a flat white,’ the woman said staunchly.

‘Okay, so from now on you order a flat white, but we’ll both know that what you really want is a cappuccino with extra foam, right?’ Imogen compromised, wondering for the tenth time that day whether she was going mad.

‘But I want it in the same cup that a flat white comes in, so it looks like a flat white.’

So it looks like a cappuccino with extra foam in a flat white cup … lady, just kill me now. Imogen smiled and made the woman the drink she wanted, in the cup she wanted, and made herself a green tea. She’d learnt if she limited the coffee she was less agitated. Less agitated meant she didn’t take things nearly as personally. She was cultivating a zen style of working, Imogen decided, sipping her tea.

‘Do you think you could help me?’ an older man asked, approaching the bar. ‘I’m after a drink, but I don’t know what it’s called. It’s a little sweet, a little bitter, kind of warm with a –’ he paused to make a chewing sound ‘– nom nom nom sort of taste?’

Imogen took a deep breath. Fuck zen. She punched the button for an espresso, and went to list all the drinks on the board that could possibly be described as ‘nom nom nom’.

Chapter Four

‘You know, Immy, we really think things are working out with you. I hope you’re feeling like part of the Bean Team?’ Darrel grinned, ballpoint pen clicking against his cheek. There were four blue dots on his face, and a fairly big gash of ink in the corner of his mouth, but Imogen was so offended by the shortening of her name that she didn’t say anything.

‘I’m really … learning a lot about myself. And rising to a challenge.’ Imogen had started to say she was enjoying it, but lying seemed to be a bad option. She’d said she wouldn’t complain. And it was true; she was enjoying rising to the challenge. She still couldn’t really write, and she was exhausted, and smelled like stale whipped cream and despair at the end of every day, but it was becoming less ghastly.

Most of that was to do with the team. Darrel was hardly ever there, except to do paperwork in the back office, encourage more understanding of the ‘company ethos’ and remind them that the auditors were due. Emanuel was becoming a friend – until he fell in love with a customer just because she’d been in twice in three days, and he suddenly had to expound on why her hair fell across her face like an angel’s.

‘Look at her, there’s something miraculous there,’ he sighed, eyes trained on the girl who sipped delicately at her mocha-sippy-something.

‘Yes, a deep conditioning treatment and absolutely no desire to date the staff,’ Imogen replied, throwing a cloth at him. ‘Save your attentions for someone worthy.’

‘What’s the point in saving the love when there is beauty everywhere to share it with?’ Emanuel raised an eyebrow.

‘You do realise you don’t have to be a cliche just because you’re French, right?’

‘And you realise I’m not French?’ Emanuel shook his head. ‘I’m from Guadeloupe!’

‘Yes, and yet you tell all these silly girls that you’re from France in the hope they’ll suddenly think of Audrey Hepburn and La Vie en Rose, and romance and art … except you’re picking people who are more about Marc Jacobs and Made in Chelsea.’ Imogen sighed. ‘Be more discerning.’

Emanuel shook his head. ‘I never tell them I’m French. They assume. And how do you suggest I look for The One, then? Because as far as I can see, you’ve never even blinked at a customer.’

Imogen twitched her lips thoughtfully, twisting her side-braid around to the other side of her neck, and then washing her hands when she realised what she’d done.

‘Well, there was the guy last week who said he and his wife were looking for a threesome partner, and asked if I knew anyone who’d be interested. I blinked at that.’

‘That’s not what I mean, and you know that very well.’ Emanuel rolled his eyes, setting up a coffee tasting, heating the cafetiere.

‘We’re doing training?’ Imogen asked, smiling. She was quite enjoying the ‘specialism’ of it all, knowing what blends went well with what flavours, what textures, what time of day. Personality type, star sign, bank balance, etc.

‘Yes, don’t change the subject. There’s been no one of interest?’

‘I … I just don’t have the time or energy. By the time I’m done here each day I just want to sit in a quiet room where no one’s asking anything of me. And small talk. I hate small talk.’

‘But the British weather is such an invigorating conversation topic!’ a voice lilted from behind them. Declan. She felt her cheeks warm, and tilted her eyes up to him, flashing a smile.

‘Come to steal more supplies?’ She twitched her mouth. Be clever, Imogen told herself; be relaxed and unimpressed and … nope. Imogen leaned back against the bar, her hand touching the jug of steamed milk. She jumped and yelped, knocking the jug with the milk all over the work area.

Well, that took 45 seconds. Great. She grabbed a cloth, and Declan jumped over the bar to help.

‘No point crying,’ he shrugged, crouching down to stop the drip that was quickly making it’s way under the fridge.

‘Funny.’ She rolled her eyes.

‘It is. Especially when it’s 6 a.m. and you worked sixty hours this week, and some guy comes in asking for a macchiato, but what he really wants is a latte, but instead of realising that, he calls you incompetent and stupid and a pathetic waste of a human existence. Sometimes it’s not the spilled milk that gets you.’ Declan nudged her gently with his arm, and she looked up to find those blue eyes, soft brown lashes framing them.

‘So, how’s your week been?’

‘Broke three cups. Spilled bin juice on me and a customer’s child, because the little shit was playing kiss-chase with his imaginary alpaca or something. Served a senile priest, evil grandma and that guy off X Factor, who was actually really nice.’

‘Soy sugar-free vanilla latte?’ Declan asked, smiling.

‘Yeah!’

‘Have you started seeing people in their drink orders yet? It’s a bit like The Matrix. When you’ve been working here long enough, you don’t see red-head, or brunette, or blonde. You see soya, chai, double espressos. Objects become symbolic.’

Imogen turned to look at him, eyebrow raised.

‘What, I’m meant to be stupid because I work here? I thought you’d know better than that.’ He folded his arms, and though he was smiling, he looked a little disappointed. He stood up, wiping his hands.

‘No, it was just a very deep response to a very normal thing,’ Imogen shrugged, secretly wondering if she had assumed he wasn’t smart. Or maybe it had just been so long since she’d had a decent conversation that wasn’t about Emanuel’s love interests or Agnes’s failed attempts at dieting. And even those weren’t decent, but they were preferable to trying to explain why the prices were what they were, and how that wasn’t her personal decision. She, personally, wasn’t ‘capitalist scum trying to con the everyman’, which was pretty rich coming from someone who was … well, pretty rich.

‘Well, that’s me, deep as a shallow pool,’ Declan laughed, holding her gaze a little too long, until she felt her breath hitch. He stepped back and shrugged.

‘So …’ Imogen exhaled and heard it shake a little. ‘Cups?’

‘Cupholders,’ he shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

Emanuel raised an eyebrow, ‘I find it surprising that your boss has got so much worse at ordering in the last few weeks. Before it was bad, but now it’s like he’s not even thinking.’

‘Seems normal to me,’ Declan said lightly, but glaring at Emanuel.

‘No, it’s definitely been more. We only used to see you once a month, and now, here you are every other day. Isn’t that funny, Imogen?’ A smile played around Emanuel’s mouth as he watched Declan shuffle, putting his hand in his pockets.

‘I don’t know, why would it be funny?’ she said, returning with a bag of cupholders. ‘Do you need this many?’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t,’ Emanuel grinned as Declan’s face reddened.

‘That’s fine,’ he said gruffly. ‘Sorry for bothering you.’

Imogen shrugged. ‘It’s not a bother. Nice to see another member of the resistance.’

He smiled a little, looking at her from under his lashes. ‘Cool.’

Emanuel’s voice cut through again, as he began cleaning the coffee machine. ‘We were just talking about the fact that Imogen is a cold-hearted woman who has no interest in love.’

‘Were we?’ she heard her voice shriek a little, ‘because I thought we were talking about your need to stalk any female who comes in here.’

‘No,’ Emanuel’s accent twanged, ‘I believe we were talking about the fact that you are incapable of showing romantic interest in people, and that you should work on that. Go on dates, that sort of thing.’

Emanuel was too casual, and when she chanced a glance at Declan, for some reason he was glaring at Emanuel, too. Maybe this was his thing, being a busybody in other people’s lives.

‘I’m sure I will, when I’m not falling down from exhaustion and staring at blank pages every night, wondering why I thought it was such a good idea to move to London and be a writer.’

‘Well, maybe you need some inspiration?’ Declan ventured awkwardly, rubbing the bristles on his chin. ‘This city is … well, it’s here to inspire. You won’t get anywhere by working here and sitting in your room.’

‘He’s right!’ Emanuel said, delighted. ‘Why don’t you let Declan take you out; he know London very well!’

‘Um –’

‘I –’

‘It’s a wonderful idea, no?’

Imogen could feel herself blushing, but also knew she was glaring at Emanuel. She didn’t need a pity date. It was nice enough for Declan to come in, for her to quietly drool over him until he left, and then wait for her heart rate to return to normal. That was all she needed. That was enjoyable, in a distressing sort of way. Now, he’d feel guilty and obligated, and she didn’t need that.

‘That sounds–’ Declan started, glaring at Emanuel as well, when his phone rang. He looked at the screen and rolled his eyes, answering with ‘I’m just picking up cupholders like you asked’. He looked at Emanuel again. ‘I’m on my way.’

He put his phone in his pocket, and picked up the bag. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to run. Apparently I’m taking the ruddy piss, or something. See you guys later.’ He sent a soft smile towards Imogen, and she nodded. Then he was gone.

‘What is WRONG with you?’ she rounded on Emanuel.

‘Sorry, darling, just trying to get you a life,’ he said, shrugging.

‘I have a life!’

‘A love life,’ he turned to serve a customer, leaving her completely irritated.

She didn’t need Emanuel’s broken concept of love. She didn’t need love at all. All the classic fairy stories told her everything she needed to know – the women who would cut their feet in desperation for a chance at a glass slipper and a better life, the abandoned children, the evil stepmothers. Okay, so Babs wasn’t quite in that territory, unless there was a story about ‘irritatingly sweet stepmother equivalents’, but no one talked about the characters’ dreams. No one thought, ‘Holy crap, that princess is going to have to give up her whole life to get dressed up, be presented to the people, pop out royal sprogs, and who the hell cares what she dreamed of doing before?’ Love trapped you. Kept you in one place. Hell, if her dad hadn’t become obsessed with her mum, they never would have lived in Doncaster. Maybe he’d have stayed in London, gone to college like he used to mention. He always wanted to be an accountant. But he met Daisy, and he chased her to Doncaster, and there he stayed, the local butcher for ever more.

Imogen always felt a little uncomfortable about how much her dad loved her mum, watching that unequal level of adoration. If love meant sacrificing every dream you ever worked for, and doing so without a second thought, she didn’t have time for love. Which was exactly what she told Emanuel when he brought the subject up again.

He looked at her with pity. ‘If you don’t have time for love, you don’t have time for life.’

Imogen rolled her eyes. ‘Go play a mentor in a rom-com, why don’t you?’ Then she disappeared to rearrange the stockroom for an hour, just so she didn’t have to listen to him any more.

*****

Imogen thought her little cousin had asked for her address to send her things: letters, birthday cards, care packages with her Auntie’s homemade baklava. Apparently that was naive. When she arrived back from work that afternoon, there was Demi, all blue-streaked hair and leather jacket, sitting on her front step looking miserable, with a rather alarmingly large holdall.

‘How long?’ she sighed, stepping over her to the front step.

‘Just a couple of days.’

They walked up the rickety narrow staircase, Imogen having to open the door and walk all the way through to the kitchen area at the end so that Demi could fit through the door and close it behind her.

‘You do realise this doesn’t actually qualify as a flat?’ Demi heaved her bag onto the bed and looked around.

‘You do realise you weren’t actually invited, and therefore don’t get to say shit,’ Imogen bristled. ‘Also, this is pretty spacious for London.’

Demi looked horrified, and Imogen nodded.

‘Anyway, we’re family,’ Demi shrugged. ‘Su casa es mi casa.’

‘That only works if I say it, Buster.’ Imogen clicked the kettle. ‘So do I need to call Thea so she won’t freak out?’

‘I called them from the train. Said they saw it coming. Plus I’m with family and they can’t get to me, so really they just have to wait ‘til I come home.’

Imogen rolled her eyes, but didn’t disagree.

Demi wrinkled her nose, still looking around. ‘No offence, but could we maybe go out and get a drink or something? This place is making me claustrophobic.’

‘Excuse me.’ Imogen turned the kettle off at the plug and grabbed her handbag. ‘I think you’ll find your presence is making this room claustrophobic. Which I would have mentioned. If you’d called. Running away from home every few weeks is stupid.’

‘I’m twenty-two. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for me to run away from home – I shouldn’t be living there as it is.’ Demi was making a fair point, but it was undercut by the way she crossed her arms and glared from underneath her heavy dark fringe.

Imogen knew better than to press this, and instead ferried her down the stairs and out to the Hope and Anchor, which Demi at least smiled at.

‘This is good,’ she nodded with approval, looking at the teal tiles along one side of the bar, and the framed picture of Winston Churchill, which someone had attached a fluffy moustache to.

When they were slumped opposite each other, and Imogen had had time to take in the scene, she wanted to laugh at how clearly related they were. Demi sat across from her – younger, prettier and more fiery with her blue highlights and nose piercing adding that little edge of rebellion, but they both wore jeans, band t-shirts (The Who and The Velvet Underground respectively), bright hoodies and leather jackets. Except she had a pint of cider and Demi had a Guinness.

‘Go on then,’ Imogen gestured with her pint. ‘Spill.’

Demi leaned forward, hands splayed to tell her story in that Greek way, all backstory and impressions, but she stopped, leaned back and sighed.

‘I’m just not as good a person as you are,’ she said, tracing the rim of her glass with a fingertip. ‘You stayed at home until you were twenty-six. You paid the bills, cooked, looked after your dad, stayed in contact with the family. You never missed a birthday and you were studying and working two jobs!’ Demi shook her head. ‘I can’t seem to be there for either of them. They say I’m selfish, and they’re probably right.’

‘I did it because I had to, Dem. I had no choice. Your dad being sick, well, he’s better now, but your mum is always going to see him as ill. You know what she’s like. It’s almost a competition as to who can love him the most. I don’t blame you for not playing along.’

Demi shrugged. ‘That whole time he was sick they both pushed me away. He didn’t want me to see him weak; she didn’t want to sacrifice any time with him. But now he’s better and things are still … weird. They didn’t want me to leave, but they don’t really want me there, either.’

Imogen sighed. She didn’t really have any insight into her Auntie’s weird ways. But she knew what it was like to watch one parent dedicate themselves wholly to another and get forgotten in the process. How weird that it should happen to her cousin in such a similar way. A small, bitter part of her complained that at least Demi got to keep her dad around. She shook her head.

‘My dad couldn’t survive without me. That’s why I stayed,’ Imogen shrugged. ‘It doesn’t mean I wasn’t planning my big escape that whole time.’

Demi looked up hopefully. ‘Do you think you would have left if Babs hadn’t come along?’

Imogen thought about it. ‘Eventually. But I would have been in my forties and really resented him for it.’

‘You would have left before then, Saint Imogen,’ Demi laughed.

Imogen shrugged, honestly unsure. At the time it felt fated: Babs moving in, hitting her savings target, the promise of the job. It was like the stars had aligned … except that she should have know better than to believe in fairy tales.

‘If it hadn’t been now, it would have been three months from now when I woke up to Chico biting my face. Or over dinner listening to Babs giving me a life lesson on the importance of intimacy in lovemaking.’

Demi choked on her drink, and Imogen just nodded, grinning. As irritated as she was that her cousin had arrived uninvited, it was nice to have family. She hadn’t realised how lonely it had been without the bustling noise of all the cousins, and second-cousins, and third-cousins at their get-togethers.

‘Did you go to Kristina’s baby’s christening?’ she asked Demi, thinking of the hilarious invite she’d received where the child had been photoshopped into a variety of unlikely scenarios. One of them being on board the Death Star.

‘Yup, it looked like a dragon had vomited blue and gold everywhere.’

‘Oh, stop it.’

Demi raised an eyebrow and smirked around her pint. ‘The baby screamed blue murder, then shat in the font.’

Imogen pressed her lips together. ‘… Holy crap?’

Demi’s shoulders shook. ‘Cheap shot.’

‘But quick,’ Imogen grinned. ‘So, then what happened? The priest declared that the devil was inside little … ’

‘Frank.’

‘Excuse me?’ Imogen dribbled her drink down her chin. ‘What?’

‘The baby. He’s called Frank.’

‘Why?’

‘Who the fuck knows? But there was this big hoohaa about the priest refusing to christen him unless he had a Greek name –’

‘– yep, I remember those arguments.’

‘So when the baby shat in God’s magical paddling pool, it was of course because he didn’t have a strong Greek name.’ She put on a thick accent.

‘So what happened?’

‘They donated a hundred quid to the church and the baby’s middle name is Apollo.’

‘You’re shitting me?’ Imogen shook her head, grinning.

‘Nope, talk to Frank for that.’

The afternoon passed into evening, full of laughter and ridiculousness.

‘Please, come on! Big city! Lots of things to do!’ Demi cajoled. ‘There’s this band I love playing in Camden tonight. Let’s go?’

Imogen’s usual excuses – ‘I’m broke, I’m exhausted, I’m lonely’ – suddenly seemed flat and empty. She needed Demi to bring life, get her motivated, but Imogen wasn’t sure what she brought to the equation. She tried not to think about it.

‘Sure, why not?’

‘Good, I knew you were still fun really.’ Demi sipped the cocktail that she had convinced Keith to make, which was an alcoholic disaster, and winked.

Demi had always been one to make things happen, one who would turn up unannounced with train tickets to a random destination and a massive grin. More often than not, they ended up at a tiny station in the middle of a field and spent most of their time waiting for the return train. But occasionally they’d find a great pub, or a sweet lake, or hidden garden, and return feeling like something new had been discovered. She had life. The indefinable thing that Imogen had never been very good at. Demi knew about make-up and clothes. She knew how to walk into a room, how to start a conversation with a stranger. Whenever Imogen went out with Demi, she always came back with a raging hangover, five new Facebook friends and the numbers of people she didn’t remember in her phone. That didn’t happen when it was just her. You had it or you didn’t. She liked to think she had talents her younger cousin didn’t, but pulling a perfect pint or being able to excellently reference your essays suddenly didn’t seem very relevant any more. She was the sensible one, the hard worker, the serious face. The one who stopped Demi running away, and comforted her aunt, and made sure her dad ate vegetables. Yet when Demi turned up, she got to be fun. But the payoff never seemed to be worth it. It was like the universe knew she was an impostor.

When they crashed into her flat at three a.m., desperately gnawing on the kebabs they’d cradled close to their chests on every night bus home, Imogen knew that she should have seen it coming. The realisation hit her harder than that sixth shot of Jaegermeister.

‘I have to be at work in three hours,’ she yelped, then ran to the bathroom to throw up.

*****

‘All right, sunshine?’ That lilt, while soft, was still painful to hear. And she couldn’t wear her sunglasses inside the store.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked Declan, realising as soon as she said it that it sounded a bit rude. ‘I mean, you don’t normally sub full shifts.’

‘Agnes apparently has something resembling a friend, and that friend is in hospital. And we couldn’t contact Emanuel to switch,’ he shrugged, unlocking the front doors.

‘Probably off stalking some hipster girl who has no idea he exists,’ Imogen snorted, then winced.

‘And I guess you’re not going to be much use to me today, either.’ He raised an eyebrow and held open the door so she had to walk under his arm.

‘Give me a couple of large iced coffees and don’t make me talk to anyone for the first hour, and I’ll be just fine.’

‘Drink making and floor cleaning it is, sunshine,’ Declan chirruped. ‘Good night then, I assume?’

‘My cousin visited unexpectedly. She kind of brings the party, whether you want to attend or not.’

‘Kinda seems like you didn’t mind attending,’ Declan said lightly.

‘What makes you say that?’ Imogen chucked back the first shot of espresso with ice and thumped her chest. It hit her tender stomach and she paused, bracing herself for trouble. Nope, all clear.

‘Well, the combination of the lovebites on your neck and what I guess is a fella’s number on your hand.’ He smirked. ‘Shame it smudged; you could have had a real connection.’

‘Maybe we already had our connection and I disappeared into the night,’ she bit back, entirely too tired to be embarrassed and making it damn clear she was not about to be slut-shamed by some guy.

‘And leave your cousin to fend for herself? No way, not buying it.’ He shook his head and grinned.

‘You don’t know that about me.’

He shrugged. ‘Just a feeling. Intuition. Let me make you a drink to cure the hangover?’

Imogen raised her hands in defeat, and went to double-check her till before the day started. She focused on counting the money, breathing deeply and trying to ignore the pounding in her temples.

‘Here.’ A plastic cup was plonked before her on the desk, followed by a plate with a bacon roll. ‘Perfect balance of sugar, fat, salt, caffeine and hydration.’

She smiled up at him, shocked at how dangerously attractive he was when he was solving all her problems. ‘Thank you.’

‘Take five minutes and then come out and get on the bar. I’ll tell everyone you lost your voice so you can’t talk to them.’

‘Are they already banging on the windows?’

‘Yep.’ Declan grimaced. ‘One of them started yelling “Open this door, I can see you in there, you know!” I was tempted to reply, “Yeah, but you clearly can’t see the sign that says we open at seven, ya twat!”’

He growled a little, then laughed. ‘Sorry, madam doesn’t have sensitivities when it comes to bad language?’

‘What bad language?’ Imogen asked honestly, brow furrowed.

Declan grinned. ‘Good woman. Go on, sort yourself out and let’s get on with this bastarding day.’

She saluted. ‘Yes, sir, Captain Sunshine.’

*****

The thing Imogen was most annoyed about was that she had a whole day with Declan, and she was wasting it being a hungover mess. The only advantage was Demi arriving in the afternoon, dark circles under her eyes, croaking out for a large black Americano … and an orange juice, a sparkling water, a strawberry milkshake and a herbal tea.

‘I can give you a discount, but it’s still going to come to a fair bit, you know,’ Imogen warned her.

‘I would give my kidney for anything that would make me feel better right now.’

Imogen started making the drinks, Declan looking at the order and silently making things she had yet to start. It felt like synchronicity, perfect and normal and yet massively comforting.

‘You know, I feel a lot better, seeing you feeling so shit.’ Imogen stuck out her tongue at Demi, waiting for her drinks.

‘Well, fuck you very much.’

‘No, it means I’m not the older boring cousin who’s lost her ability to hold her drink. It just means we’re both bloody idiots.’

‘Ah, you must be the super-fun cousin,’ Declan boomed, handing over the milkshake.

Demi raised an eyebrow, arching perfectly.

‘No, most definitely not me,’ she winced. ‘No fun, not ever, never again.’

‘I thought you youngsters were meant to be unstoppable. These are your golden drinking years.’

‘Nope, my golden years are definitely behind me, Grandpa.’ Imogen laughed and pointed at Demi. ‘And she looks like a wild child, but it’s all an act.’

‘I’d argue, but I feel too crappy to bother. If you want to cast me as Maria from The Sound of Music, you can, as long as you do it quietly.’ Demi grumbled, clutching her Americano like a lifeline, while Imogen assembled the other drinks on a tray.

‘Sass runs in the family,’ Declan commented, Cheshire cat grin in place.

‘Along with quick wit, great hair and an inability to deal with bullshit,’ Demi said sharply.

‘The blatant hostility, however, is all her.’ Imogen rolled her eyes. ‘Go sit down before you fall down.’

Demi shuffled off, holding her tray of drinks desperately, with both Declan and Imogen watching her in fear, until she finally reached the comfy chair across the room, gently lowered the tray and collapsed into the seat.

‘Sorry about her. She doesn’t deal with hangovers well.’

Declan shrugged. ‘You actually seem really perky.’

Imogen tilted her head. ‘As perky as I can be, working here.’

‘Aw come on, this place? It’s not that bad! There’s that guy who always parks his huge car across the bus lane, and then the bus driver gets out and loses his shit and the guy says –’

‘I pay my taxes! If I want to park in a bus lane, I can!’ Imogen finished. ‘And where else would we see St Francis Apocalypto?’

‘With the plastic bottles?’ Declan snorted.

‘Yes, collecting the plastic bottles out of the bins! I said we’d recycle and he said when the world was over, people would come to him, because he’d have all the bottles and they’d need bottles!’

‘And don’t forget Binky,’ Declan said seriously.

Imogen tilted her head. ‘Don’t know that one.’

‘Rich mum, trailed by a dead-eyed nanny? Michael Kors handbag? Drives a Range Rover?’

Imogen frowned. ‘You do realise that’s, like, eighty percent of our customers?’

‘Skinny hot chocolate extra cream.’

Imogen’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh, that bitch!’

‘Haha!’ he pointed at her. ‘See, fun! And I can tell you from experience, it’s better than being that guy who stands with the cardboard signs pointing towards places. It’s better than being a roofer when you’re afraid of heights. It’s better than trying to sell PPI schemes and the only people you get answering the phone are little old ladies and you don’t want to screw them over. Plus, free coffee.’

Imogen shrugged, wiping down the tabletop, checking around for any customers. ‘Yeah, I guess. But it’s not what I came here to do. I came to write.’

‘So write,’ Declan shrugged. ‘Seems pretty simple.’

‘Yeah, it does until you have to do it. Until you’re exhausted and angry and stressed all the time, and you’ve got no time to be creative because you’re so emotionally spent.’ She shook herself in frustration. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

Declan raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. ‘Oh really, Salinger? Why not?’

He wasn’t as pretty when he was looking at her like she’d managed to disappoint him. She winced. ‘I’m sorry, that was a really shitty thing to say. Precious writer girl bullshit. I just meant it’s easy to tell someone to create, but it’s difficult to actually do it.’

‘True enough,’ he shrugged, walking off, and Imogen felt a rustle of irritation at herself. She’d offended him, obviously, and things had been going so well … not that she wanted anything … but it was nice to have a friend …

Declan reappeared, clutching a small black notebook. He slid it across the counter to her. ‘You’ve heard of the saying “write what you know”?’

She opened the moleskine notebook, and saw not words, but sketches, cartoons and caricatures. The more pages she flipped through, the more people she recognised. There was the little old priest holding his bottles, but instead of joking, the words above his head said ‘Someday they’ll want me. I’ll be important.’ There was the mocha bitch who’d screamed at Imogen only three days before. Her eyes were bulging out of her head as the speech bubble yelled ‘Don’t touch my whipped cream!’ And there was Emanuel, with Cupid’s arrow stuck in his back, gazing lovingly at a coffee cup wearing a knitted hat and with ‘chai’ written across the bottom.

‘Dec, these are fantastic.’ She didn’t look up from the book, flipping through more. ‘Are you doing anything with them?’

When she looked up she saw he’d gone from rugged and confident to unsure, his shoulders curved in on himself. ‘They’re not exactly gallery material. They’re therapy, mainly. I do a couple of those, and then I’m ready to work on a bigger piece, or take some photos, or do something else.’

Imogen blinked slowly. ‘I don’t know, I just didn’t expect this from you.’

He chuckled. ‘Cheers, what did you expect? Football games and pints of lager and action movies?’

‘No …’ She considered, not exactly sure what she’d been expecting. ‘Kind of thought you’d be a drummer in a band, or you’d be into UFC fighting. Something … dominant.’

His face brightened at that, blue eyes cheerful. ‘Nice! And I’m the bassist, thank you. Still very important. Less … dominant.’ His voice dipped in a way that made her stomach throb pleasingly.

‘You just seem really cool with who you are. Few people are so easy in their own skin.’ She tried to shrug it off, like she hadn’t been watching. Like she hadn’t been a little jealous of one more person who seemed to know how to be happy, how to fit in and be okay without wanting something more.

‘Oh, love. That’s an act, all an act. We’re all fucked up in one way or another. The only important thing is to know how, so we can fight against it tooth and nail.’

Imogen took a deep breath and looked around for customers. How had they even managed to have a conversation this long? It was unheard of.

‘That’s pretty true,’ she nodded, thinking it was truer than she’d like to admit.

‘But that’s a lesson for another day,’ he said softly, leaning into her space. ‘The question is, Imogen Cypriani, are you going to write something real today?’

Chapter Five

Cafe Disaster

What the people who make your coffee really think about you.

Welcome to the first instalment of the Twisted Barista Tales. I’ll be your coffee monkey for the evening. Join us on a mystical journey, from macchiatos to hot chocolate, from frapshakes to insanity. I’ll be identifying every fucking ridiculous thing you awful people do, so if you recognise yourself in these stories, it’s my obligation to let you know … you’re a dick.

Let’s begin.

There are many things that, as a barista, I am responsible for: your drink, my attitude, your experience, the constant sense of pointlessness. But things I am not responsible for include your bladder (it’s not my fault there’s someone in the bathroom), the weather (it’s not my fault you wanted a frapshake and now it’s raining outside) and our opening times.

I have had multiple responses when I say we’re closing. They’re usually indignant, sometimes they’re incredulous. Mostly, they can’t seem to fathom that I and my fellow baristas are, in fact, human beings with lives. It’s a bit like when you’re a kid, and it’s easier to believe that teachers go into a storage cupboard and plug in for the night, rather than accept that they have families and aspirations and sex lives. We only exist when they see us there. We only exist when we’re serving coffee. We don’t have homes to go to, or lives outside the coffee shop.

Example:

Customer: What time do you close?

Me: Six-thirty.

Customer: But that’s in five minutes!

Me: Yes, that’s why we told you we’re only doing takeaway cups.

Customer: That’s outrageous, I want to speak to the manager!

Me: Why?

Customer: Because you shouldn’t close at six-thirty, I have nowhere else to go now!

Firstly, your lack of a life is another one of those things that is not my problem. Secondly, the reason you have nowhere else to go is because every other coffee shop closes at the same time. So go bug them about it.

Another:

Customer: Why do you open so late on Sundays?

Me: We open at nine a.m., sir, and usually no one even comes in until ten, anyway.

Customer: Well, we were banging on the door for you to open, and you didn’t! We have to work in the MEDIA, we NEED you to be open for us! Plus, it’s really expensive, even with the discount you give us, so you should at least be open on time.

Me: We are open ON TIME, just the time that is dictated to us by our superiors.

Customer: Well, I’m going to phone your head office about this!

Firstly, this is a lie. Unless he was banging on the door at seven in the morning before any of the staff were even there – in which case, I must reiterate: get a life. Get a sense of adventure and invest in a cafetiere. Get a dog or something that can be forced to love you, regardless of what a horrible and simply stuck-up-media-whore-type person you are.

Why should we open earlier for you, when you are one person? One little person who occasionally comes in here, moans about the price, abuses the staff and generally treats everyone like they’re below you, just because you’re working on the latest series of Big Brother or whatever? Which, by the way, is now on Channel Five. So it’s basically gone to die, as I hope you do.

Other examples of closing-time fuckwittery?

Me: Sorry, we’re closing now, I really need you guys to drink up.

Customers: Well, if we leave, you won’t have any customers.

Yes. That’s the point. Fuck off.

Me: Sorry, we close in a few minutes.

Customers: That’s bloody outrageous. Screw you. *storms off*

Okay. Sure. Thanks for that customer input.

Me: Hi guys! Just to let you know, we’re closing in five minutes.

Customer: Well, we’re meeting someone here in twenty minutes.

Me: Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to meet them outside.

Customer: It’s not appropriate to meet people on the street. You can just stay open.

Oh, I’m so glad that forcing a company to stay open just for you is within accepted limits of propriety.

People suck. Here endeth the rant.

*****

Imogen took a deep breath and pressed ‘publish’. It was the first time she’d written since she moved to London. It was therapy. She was going to use all those horrible little people, force them into fiction, make people laugh. She was going to join the masses and become a blogger, use it for practice, get inspired. Connect to every twenty-something working a recession job and trying to make it in the big bad city. She was going to be a writer, no matter what. She was going to write something real.

Chapter Six

Emanuel tilted his head to the side, lips pursed as he surveyed her.

‘Something is different,’ he said with suspicion.

‘I trimmed my hair with nail scissors. It was a terrible decision, I know.’ Imogen rolled her eyes and focused on steaming the milk to exactly 94 degrees, or else the customer who was due to arrive in exactly forty-five seconds would be disappointed. Or royally pissed off and demand not only a remade drink but a freebie voucher. She could not afford to cost the store any more freebies this month. There was a chart and everything.

Emanuel shook his head. ‘No, that’s not it. It’s something on your face.’

Imogen looked at him in panic. ‘What is it? Get it off! I can’t stop the steamer!’

Emanuel moved closer, his dark eyes and little moustache twitching as he stared at her face. ‘It’s something in the mouth area, it’s like … the sides are moving upwards? Almost like … what do they call it? A … smile?’

Emanuel grinned and walked off.

‘You tosser!’ Imogen laughed. ‘I’m allowed to smile!’

‘Yes,’ he called back as he stacked sugar packets in the empty store, ‘but usually it’s more of a resting bitch face situation. Not a “quietly satisfied” look. Did Declan take you out?’

Imogen shook her head, wondering why she could feel her cheeks warm in a blush even though it had nothing to do with the stubbly Irishman.

‘No, this is purely creative fulfilment, I promise.’

‘Oh, what a shame.’ Emanuel pouted and punched in the order for a 94-degrees triple-shot soya white mocha with a half pump of caramel. The man in the Savile Row suit nodded in satisfaction, pausing to hold the takeaway cup for a moment, feeling the warmth in his hand. Then he nodded once more and was gone. The same, every time. Even when he complained, she wasn’t sure he spoke. He just looked scarily disappointed in her as a person and shook his head slowly until she panicked. The Suit. With the really girly drink. She should make a note of that.

‘Well, that’s the only sort of fulfilment I’m interested in. I’m actually happy, I think.’

Agnes marched out, tying on her brown apron, her face unimpressed. ‘Yes, yes, we all care deeply for your health and happiness. Go and count your till.’

Imogen raised an eyebrow. ‘How much bullshit do I get if I call her a dictator?’

‘You get a pat on the head and gold star for understanding how chain of command works. Count your till,’ Agnes said, unfazed.

The rest of the day passed quickly, a flurry of coffee machine whirring, snippets of conversations and the overwhelming smell of mocha sauce, because everything was suddenly a story. Every complaint, every whinge, every ridiculous request was fodder. They were insights, hilarious and so nutty that someone else would get enjoyment out of them.

‘What is happening here?’ Emanuel said later that day, staring in dismay at the till.

‘What? What’s wrong?’ Agnes marched over to inspect, a dusting of whipped cream around her mouth.

Emanuel shrugged. ‘We’re just out of till receipt paper, it’s not a problem.’

‘Don’t worry me like that!’ Agnes filled another cup with a swirl of whipped cream, finishing with a flourish, and marched out to the back room again.

‘Imogen, any idea why we’d be out of receipt paper when I just filled the roll this morning?’ Emanuel raised an eyebrow. ‘Possibly to do with how inflated the pockets of your apron seem?’

Imogen put her hands in her pockets, crumpling the small bits of paper under scrunched fists. ‘I was inspired and I didn’t have a notebook.’

‘Show me.’

She scooped out the scraps of paper. Some were single words, some sentences, some little drawings with speech bubbles. They piled up as she placed them on the side, like a Jenga tower.

‘Sorry, I’ll bring a notebook tomorrow.’

Emanuel shrugged. ‘I don’t know if it’s funnier that in a place that gives you free caffeine, you’re stealing paper, or that you think I care. Write all you like, darling. Just be nice to me in the book.’ He winked and disappeared out to collect wayward cups, and Imogen had the sneaking suspicion, not for the first time, that Emanuel was her London fairy godfather.

*****

The Tale of the Lemony Muffins

‘So … explain these muffins to me.’

It shows you how long I’ve been working as a barista now, that this doesn’t even seem like a strange question.

‘Well,’ I reply cheerily, ‘this is our muffin selection, this one has this, this and this in it. This one has nuts. My personal favourite is this.’

‘What about the lemon muffin?’ The customer points to said muffin.

‘What about it?’

‘Explain it, what’s in it?’

‘Er, lemon.’

I start to suspect this is, in fact, a customer service training exercise, and she’s an undercover market researcher. Except she’s a policewoman. That level of undercover market research may be a little too committed.

‘Yes, but how lemony is it? Is it very lemony?’

What, like you want a percentage? It is 75% lemony, with 15% sugar and 10% ZING.

‘Erm, well, yes, for a LEMON MUFFIN, it’s definitely the more lemony choice amongst our pastry options.’

‘Hmm, I’m not sure if I want a lemon muffin that’s very lemony. What about the peach muffin, what does that taste like?’

There is no way to reply that the peach muffin tastes like peach without sounding sarcastic.

‘It … tastes … like … a sweet nectarine-like fruit that’s been blended in with the muffin mixture.’

Okay, that sounds even more sarcastic.

‘So there’s actually pieces of peach in the peach muffin? Does that mean there are pieces of lemon in the lemon muffin? Or is it just lemon-flavoured?’

This is where I start clawing at my own face asking for some kind deity to please make it stop.

You’re the police. Shouldn’t you be off fighting crime instead of worrying about exactly how much a muffin tastes like the thing it’s named after?

She thankfully takes the damn lemon muffin, after all, and my colleague comes up to me after.

‘Hey, I wanted to ask you a question. You know orange juice … does it taste like oranges? How orange-tasting is it on a scale of one to ten? Because I don’t think I want my orange-tasting juice turned all the way up to eleven.’

On this day, I make a vow, to never eat a lemon muffin again.

Chapter Seven

Declan came in again the next week, and after messaging him online about her little blogging adventure, Imogen was eager to see what he thought. She hoped he knew she’d been inspired by him. She hoped he didn’t think she’d copied him. Which really, she sort of had. Crap.

‘Which feeble excuse are we using this time? Cup holders or straws?’ Emanuel rolled his eyes as Declan burst in. Declan’s mouth became a thin line.

‘Neither,’ Declan shook his head. ‘I’m here to see my dear friends who are always so pleased to see me. Obviously.’ He winked at Imogen. ‘How you doing, Trouble?’

Imogen opened her mouth to reply, but Emanuel got there first.

‘There’s something terribly wrong. It’s like she’s happy or something. I don’t know what to do about it.’ Emanuel grinned and swanned off to talk to the little old lady in the corner about the variety of cups they sold. Imogen knew this, because the little old lady came by every Friday morning at 10.45 a.m. and had done ever since she’d started working there. Still hadn’t bought a damn cup, though.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Declan grinned at her, and she felt a fluttering in her stomach as his eyes met hers. ‘I think she’s a little twisted, our Imogen.’

Imogen bit her lip, trying not to blush, but looked around to see a mostly empty store. She leaned forward on the bar and whispered, ‘What did you think?’

‘Does it matter what I think?’ He leaned back, hands in pockets, a wide smile on his face.

‘Well, sorta, seeing as you’re the one who inspired this whole thing. I didn’t mean to steal your idea, or anything, I just –’

Declan stepped forward, placing a hand on hers on the counter. ‘Hey, love, you’ve done better things with that concept than I ever could. Plus, I turned them into pitiable sad characters in society. You’ve got some rage on you. Funny girl.’

Imogen made a face. ‘Too ragey?’

‘No, but I’ll be sure not to piss you off from now on.’ That Cheshire cat grin again. ‘I’m obviously not the only one who thinks you’ve got talent, either.’

She noticed his fingers stroking hers on the table, and tried not to look down, her heart thumping.

‘What? Who? No one else knows it’s me, right? It needs to stay anonymous. I could get in some serious shit if anyone else knew.’ She pulled her hand away to hold it to her stomach, slightly panicked. ‘I thought I put lots of safety things in place. Did someone mention something?’

Declan raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, a small, surprised smile on his face. ‘Imogen, have you even read the comments on the blog?’

‘No … I just hit “publish” and then ignored it, like releasing a balloon full of crap. Except that it floated … I’m shitty at metaphors. What about the comments?’ Imogen asked. ‘Lots of people telling me that if I hate my job so much I should just go get another one?’

Declan shrugged. ‘A couple, but no, it’s mainly people really connecting with you. A couple of other baristas, bar people, waitresses. You should read them. It looks like you’ve hit on something that people really recognise. I think you’ve got something special on your hands here. How many hits have you got?’

‘Hits?’

Declan held in a little sigh. ‘Don’t you want to know how many people are reading what you’ve written? I thought you wanted to get onto a newspaper or something? Being able to take forward how many readers you have is going to help with that!’

Imogen tilted her head and just looked at him. This strong bear of a man with the kind face and arms that looked like they were carved out of marble. Strong and steady.

‘You’re making yourself a little too impossibly necessary in my life, you know.’

‘Impossibly necessary.’ He nodded. ‘I would have taken charming, interesting, sexy … ’

‘No comment,’ Imogen mumbled, averting her eyes.

‘Would you like me to help you with some of this? The tech side, I mean.’ He shuffled forward again. ‘Setting up SEO and comment filters and social widgets?’

Imogen’s eyes widened. ‘Are we speaking the same language?’

‘Helping people to find your blog.’

‘But not to find me?’ she double-checked.

‘Exactly. I’d say bring your laptop to a coffee shop, but I think we’ve had more than enough of that. You could come round to mine, but it’s currently full of my housemate rugby teammates. Bit loud.’

Imogen recognised this was probably the part where she should say ‘You can come round to mine!’, but she just couldn’t. The idea of him being in that space, that tiny, sad little space that didn’t in any way show who she was, was mortifying. It would be depressing. Plus he’d take up every bit of air in that room, and it would be uncomfortable, and they’d be in each other’s personal space, and the only place to sit was on the bed …

‘I have the perfect place – this sweet little pub near mine. I go and do work in there quite often. I’m mates with the owner now.’

‘Cool, so – tomorrow? You’re off, right? And I’m on an early so I finish about two p.m.’

‘Sure, I’ll send you the name of the pub,’ Imogen nodded, feeling a little shaky as he typed his number into her phone, wary that Emanuel was slyly looking over from the corner of the room and mouthing ‘I told you so’.

‘Well, I’d better get back to work before Agnes has a fit, but I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said, suddenly shy and unable to make eye contact.

‘It’s a date,’ he said distinctively, and grinned at her when her head flew up in shock to look at him. ‘See you tomorrow!’ And he was gone, off before she could reply.

‘A date?’ Emanuel sidled up.

‘It’s a friend helping me out with a creative project.’

‘If it’s making an art installation out of your underwear, then sure. Very Tracy Emin. I like.’ Emanuel sauntered off and Imogen stamped her foot a little that he always managed to get the last word. She was going to make him suffer over whichever chai-drinking hipster chick he fell in love with today. That was certain.

But when no one was looking she clapped her hands with glee and allowed herself a little dancing bum wiggle of joy. Laptop or not, he’d said it was a date. This whole London thing was looking up.

*****

‘Young, Rich Couple seek Barista as Personal Chew Toy’

It’s busy, a Saturday afternoon. Don’t ask me why your average coffee shop should be overpopulated on a Saturday afternoon. I would desperately hope that people had better things to do. But, they don’t. So there’s a big queue, and I’m running back and forth, getting orders. This has worked sufficiently for the last five minutes. And then they arrive.

Mid-twenties, beautiful, and entitled. You may recognise the word ‘entitled’ in these blogs. It’s a trait I find equivalent to being homicidal. Possibly worse, depending on whether they sound like a toff (when killing you, or ordering you around, it’s all the same really).

‘Hi, can I get your drinks started?’ I squeak in my excited, ‘grateful to serve you’ voice.

‘Oh, oh, darling, I think she’s talking to us!’ The woman puts her hand to her chest in surprise, like the corgi just declared she needed to go for a tiddle.

‘Are you talking to us?’ the man says in confusion.

‘Yes … yes, I am. Can I take your drinks order … sir?’

The woman then steps forward, while the man throws his hands up, like the concept of ordering is just far beyond him. Women’s business.

‘I’ll have a skinny latte, a chai tea latte –’

‘Are they both medium?’ I jump in, suddenly aware she’s going to regale me with a torrent of orders.

‘They’re all medium,’ she says pointedly.

You’ve only told me two. Two is both. I have an English literature degree, so don’t mess with me, bitch.

‘Okay, both medium,’ I say to myself as I mark the cups with the appropriate hieroglyphs. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact …’ She then lists a few more pretentious drinks, and I can tell exactly which one is for her (sugar-free vanilla soya cappuccino extra-hot) and which one’s for him (medium skinny latte) and can imagine who their friends are, depending on the variety. The kooky girl with the good stories has the chai tea latte. The two guys who don’t really drink coffee, but didn’t feel like they could ask for a coke have got regular lattes. The filter coffee with pouring cream is for the driver on what is no doubt a jaunt to a country estate for the weekend, in what I would presume is either a Mercedes SLK or a BMW. It’s fifty-fifty odds that one of them is named Binky.

‘Oh, oh, actually, I think I’ll have a brownie. I’ll be so terribly bad!’ The man, before this comment, could have been considered attractive.

Weird, a brownie, my money would have been on –

‘Oh, and a granola bar, yum!’

There it is. The grand order of the world has been restored. You are not a unique snowflake, with the wings of a butterfly. You are a subject created of class, income and whatever magazines you read.

Mr Previously-Attractive then continues to repeat, loudly, to his girlfriend about the brownie, for the next three minutes, while I am making their drinks.

‘Where is it, why hasn’t she got it? Was he meant to get it? Did I pay for it?’

Well, if you looked at the price you were paying instead of throwing down a fifty-pound note, maybe you’d know.

I hand over the five drinks, the granola bar and the brownie, and Previously-Attractive looks at me in surprise, a crooked grin appearing.

‘Well, aren’t you a good girl!’

And I’m back to being the corgi.

‘Come on, darling,’ the girlfriend replies. ‘Binky’s got the Merc running. We need to be in Windsor by five.’

Chapter Eight

They met in the Hope and Anchor the next day. Imogen tried to pretend she hadn’t made an extra bit of effort. A subtle flick of eyeliner, a top that wasn’t four sizes too big. A pair of jeans that maybe hugged a little bit more than usual. She still had her huge ugly cardigan on, though, the one that looked like a wool factory had exploded. Just so she still felt like herself. Her stomach was in her throat, and she hadn’t managed to eat since they made plans yesterday. Part of her hoped this didn’t carry on into multiple dates – she’d end up waif-like. She thumbed the edge of her fluffy sleeve, looking at her laptop, her pint of cider sitting untouched beside her.

Every time she heard a floorboard squeak, she looked up. Keith walked past, ruffling his grey hair as he went to rewrite the specials on the board. ‘You’re making me nervous. What you waiting for, the firing squad?’

‘Worse,’ she grumbled to herself, demanding that she get a grip. It was a date. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been on a date before. Except that, well, yeah, she sort of hadn’t. She hadn’t dated anyone back home. Partly because she lived at home, and she was too busy with uni and work, and it just seemed very time-consuming, dating someone. Mostly, it was because she didn’t find anyone who interested her. She’d spent years studying stories, and learning about fairy tales. Sure, she knew that life wasn’t a fairy tale, that men weren’t knights in shining armour, and she was quite capable of saving herself, thank you very much. But reading all those epic stories, dying for love, holding love up on this high pedestal – it made modern-day love seem a little … boring. Seemed like all the love stories back home had started with being felt up round the back of the wheelie bins, getting drunk, getting pregnant, and getting stuck with each other. Or just going to the cinema a lot, and creating drama when things got boring. Imogen was happier with the stories in her head.

She was just contemplating exactly how depressing this was on a scale of one to ten when a voice behind her made her jump.

‘Hey!’

She took a deep breath to steady herself.

‘You scared the crap out of me,’ she breathed, trying to smile as she looked up at him, standing just behind her. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’ Dec smiled, and somehow she sensed he’d made an effort, too. His reddish-brown stubble was slightly more styled than usual, and he had on a grey, thin-knit top that strained across his biceps when he moved. He gestured at her. ‘Do you wanna slide down so I can sit next to you?’

She blinked at him.

‘So I can see the screen and we can do all the stuff we need to do?’ he said slowly, waiting for the penny to drop.

Imogen shook her head. ‘Yeah, sorry. Thought you’d want to grab a drink first.’

Now he looked embarrassed. ‘Yeah, of course. Sorry. That makes more sense. I’ll … go do that.’ He bounded off to the bar, where Keith grinned pointedly at her, moving his eyes between them. Imogen briefly closed her eyes and took a second to breathe. Calm the hell down, for God’s sake, she told herself, he’s just working on your computer.

In her head, Demi’s voice conjured a fair few dirty responses, and that made her feel better. She slid her bag and stuff down the bench to make room for him. Declan reappeared with a pint of coke.

‘Thought an Irishman would be all about the booze. Especially if you worked a morning shift,’ she grinned as he sat down.

‘Actually, I don’t drink.’

Imogen tried not to feel like she was staring. She didn’t know anyone who didn’t drink. Maybe just that with her family it was a pastime, an excuse to spend more time with people, much like food. An excuse for celebration. She wanted to ask why, but it seemed inappropriate.

‘I get that look a lot. The Irishman who doesn’t drink. Should be a short story,’ Dec laughed, sipping at his coke.

‘Sorry, I don’t know why I was surprised,’ Imogen blushed.

‘Societal norms? Stereotypes? The fact that drinking is a lot of fun and being sober sucks quite often?’ He laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it. You should hear the bollocking I get at family occasions.’

Imogen looked at her own pint hesitantly, and he noticed. ‘You can drink yours, you know!’

‘Keith actually gave it to me out of habit and I was too embarrassed to turn it down. It’s nice to have a local, but you’re not allowed to change at all.’

‘Well, we know that feeling more than most. We connect through routine,’ he shrugged, turning his attention to her laptop screen. ‘So this is the hosting service you’re using?’

She pursed her lips and raised her shoulders slowly, before simply pushing the laptop towards him. He wasn’t sitting particularly close, but the warmth from his shoulder brushing against hers was making her shiver a little, and the scent of his cologne, manly and slightly spicy, was setting her aflutter. She felt like she was constantly waiting for something. It only seemed to cease when they were talking.

Declan focused on the laptop, frowning at the settings and making adjustments, mumbling to himself, and Imogen took the chance just to look at him. To notice how his nose slanted, slightly crooked, and his bottom lip rounded perfectly. How there was one patch on his cheek where hair didn’t seem to grow, and a pucker on his earlobe from where he’d once had an earring. His eyelashes were luscious, curving prettily, and she saw a thin silver chain around his neck, the pendant dipping down under his shirt. There was something rugged and strong about him, like he could throw her over his shoulder and carry her away. Like he could protect her. She hadn’t been joking when she’d guessed he was a UFC fighter. He looked solid, powerful, but light on his feet. Maybe it was just that he carried himself well.

He was also, as it turned out, a geek. Or at least that’s what she was assuming from the technical jargon he was spouting about her computer.

‘I have no idea what you just said,’ she laughed, taking a tentative sip of her cider.

His eyes flicked to hers, lips quirking. ‘Don’t worry about it. But you should look at this.’

He swivelled the laptop back to face her, then leant over her shoulder to point at the graph. ‘You’ve been running this blog for what, two weeks?’

Imogen nodded. ‘About that. I’ve been writing something almost every day, depending on how exhausted or rage-fuelled I am.’

‘Look at that number,’ he pointed. ‘That’s how many people have read your work in two weeks.’

Imogen blinked. ‘Wwenty-seven thousand? That can’t be right.’

‘Okay, well they may not have read it, but they definitely stopped to look.’ His eyes lit up. ‘Why aren’t you more excited? You have a readership! You’re a writer in London. You’ve done what you set out to do! Drink up!’

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