The Morning of The Tea Saga
Ramona Ferguson was a very confused woman. Very confused. And others were often confused by her. She preferred to go by "Mo" these days. This was a wilful yet often fruitless attempt to distance herself from the fact that her mother was an intriguingly, yet ridiculously fanatical Ramones fan. Even now, her elderly mother had an affinity for American punk rock that, in Mo's opinion, was extremely age inappropriate and frankly quite unhealthy.
Mo was seated on her favourite chair, in her favourite café. It was 9:30am. Her usual morning "out and about" time. It was highly debatable in her mind if this was her favourite city in which to be living but she was content enough. Her current city was one where she could remain relatively unnoticed and anonymous and also not have her eardrums burst whenever she needed to put her garbage out on Tuesday nights.
She always felt grateful for the living arrangement she had now found herself in. Her city was kind to her and was unlike any of the other places she had lived before. Everything in her house was her own. She loved being at home around her comforting books, old photos and pretty trinkets, most of which looked expensive, at least to her, but if turned over, the tatty two dollar shop price sticker on the bottom would reveal otherwise.
She certainly didn't miss any of her previous "living" environments. The over-the-top dramatic performances about dishes and fridge space and the ferocious yelling at Quiet Paul, as he was mysteriously known, to stop leaving the toilet seat up. Mo just found Quiet Paul intriguing because he listened to the most extreme of thrash metal music and Nirvana one minute and Taylor Swift and Shania Twain the next. Once or twice she had heard him singing brightly along to "That Don't Impress Me Much" when he thought no one was home.
She had lived alone in other places too. Small towns where the silence was unbearably deafening and bigger cities where, wherever she went, there was an inescapable whir which she felt she could never escape from.
Mo was very well acquainted with the barista Tom at Café 165. Her transactional relationship with Tom was probably one of the most significant human relationships in her life at the moment. She knew that this wasn't all that healthy but she was satisfied enough. She liked Tom. He made phenomenal coffee and always gave her a big smile whenever he caught her eye. Every morning he would ask her how she was and what she had been up to, even if they had only seen each other a few hours ago. He also, as an added bonus, made Mo feel so much younger than she actually was. Here he was an absolutely stunning millennial who wore skinny jeans and always had perfect hair, engaging with her in deep and profound conversation. Though, as profound it ever got, was when Tom would ask her if she wanted her usual morning blueberry muffin or something "a tad more adventurous" that day.
He would always very gently offer her something different to try. In saying that, he seemed to have a thing for offering up banana bread as a good alternative. Maybe it was just because it was easy to prepare. Maybe it was just one of his personal favourites. Maybe all the employees of Café 165 had a special "banana bread clause" in their contracts. Maybe it was a condition of there employment to sell as much of the strange, off-site created, breakfast option as humanly possible. Either way, Mo always went with the muffin. Always.
She absolutely thrived on predictability. She also knew herself too well. If she did let loose and venture into the banana bread world, she would eventually just end up yelling over to Tom for extra butter and proceed to eclipse all taste of banana away tiny packet by tiny packet anyway.
Mo liked to think that she was a spontaneous kind of person but, deep down, she knew this just wasn't the case. If she arrived at Café 165 for her usual morning deep and meaningful with Tom and "her" spot was taken, the rest of the day never did feel quite right.
On this morning, however, she thought she might have nearly given Tom an effortlessly stylish, millennial heart attack. She still got the blueberry muffin. That was forever going to be a given. But she had switched her coffee for a fancy pot of English Breakfast tea. She thought she could see all the blood drain from Tom's face when he heard the unexpected request and he had to pause for a moment to take it in.
She had read somewhere that morning, in her extensive online travels, that coffee can make a person feel extremely stressed and that it affects other parts of the body too like…. she paused to think. She couldn't remember. But basically, the gist was that nothing good can come from coffee. Especially for someone as prone to stress as her. Coffee should be avoided. Mo didn't quite see the logic and certainly didn't understand the science, but the internet told her so therefore it must have been true.
She stared down into her cup of weak English Breakfast tea that she had poured out way too soon. She gazed down as if contemplating the origins of mankind and then cursed under her breath. It felt like the foreign unpleasantness in the cheap white cup was staring back up at her mockingly.
Mo put her pointless cup of fancy tea down. It was still way too hot to drink. She closed her eyes and took an incredibly deep and calming breath in and out, to let all the stress flow out of her body. In. and out. And then she opened her eyes and called over to Tom.
"Hey Tom. Who am I kidding? I'll have a large double shot flat white with 3 sugars. Oh and, just to be different, I'll have a second blueberry muffin".
A flood of relief seemed to wash over Tom's face, as if he was somehow reassured that Mo was still Mo despite the whole English Breakfast saga. "Coming right up" he trilled and quickly got to work.