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Jude winced as her face met the icey air at speed. Moisture pooled in her eyes, and her fingers grew stiff around the handlebars of her bicycle. Late autumn had wrought its most bleak and bitter morning yet, but cold commutes were eventually remedied with coffee. Scalding hot and black as a heart. Just a few more blocks to the cafe.
The city stood still against a whip of wind, it's buildings tinted bluish in the predawn light. Suits of many sizes would soon flood these streets, but for now they belonged to Jude. To Jude, and to a lone street sweeper who looked every bit as miserable as she felt. They shared a resonant nod as she peddled by.
Jude tucked her hands under her arms and let the downward momentum of a hill glide her toward the cafe, sending torrents of russet leaves scattering in her wake. She arrived with a screech of brakes and a skimming of tyres. Pigeons greeted her with a chorus of startled cooings overhead. She locked her bike to their streetlight and fished out a key from her jacket pocket. Not a key, the key.
The key to Cosmic Brew Cafe.
Four years spent working here as a part-timer and two years of solo ownership had flown by. She had outlasted two managers and a dozen fresh-faced summer hires. She alone remained to man the tiny cafe. It took the occasional shuffle of furniture arrangements or reinventing of the tea menu to assert that feeling of ownership. She was also partial to writing cryptic riddles in chalk along the bottom of her menu boards, offering free coffee to her customers in exchange for correct solutions.
It was a solid, safe sort of power, the likes of which a younger Jude might have snubbed, but a twenty-something Jude learned to appreciate. Dearly.
The lock on the cafe door opened with a satisfying click.
Jude hurried inside, eager to get the heaters going. She flicked on the counter lights, finding all as she had left it on Saturday night, deep-cleaned and ready for the Monday rush. A mismatched array of chairs set atop two well-worn wooden tables. A pair of wobbly stools at the bar. A modest stack of outdoor furnishings, still damp with rain. A tower of empty milk crates ready to be traded for full ones in just twenty minutes when the milk man came. A half-eaten blueberry muffin in the fridge, beckoning to be heated and consumed with a healthy spread of butter.
As always, Jude began her open with Toad.
At the flick of a switch, Toad greeted his barista with an unimpressed groan. He was an uncommonly manual espresso machine, proud and shiny with his copper frame and polished wood handles. Toad lacked modern features like screens and automated timers. His clunky levers and various pressure gauges used to scare the summer hires, especially when he started blowing searing hot steam at them for no good reason. All this suited Jude just fine. Toad made more sense than most mortal gadgets which had the bad habit of expiring almost as soon as they had landed in your hand.
