La Cafe Cosa Nostra

Chapter 1

  It had been a long morning, and it wasn't even nine o'clock yet. The screaming steam from the spout yanked Annalisa away from the depths of her mind. Shaking her head, she pulled the steam pitcher farther up the wand and secured the base in her hand. As she felt the milk froth and warm, she let her eyes wander around the store that she had spent the day in, and every other day of her life it seemed. A line of people ran out the door, each one of them with their heads down and their eyes averted to the ground between their feet. Soft murmurs filled the room, occasionally interrupted by the clinking of change and the groans of the espresso machines.

As Annalisa's hands began to burn, she pulled the pitcher away from the spout and purged it, the hot steam billowing in her face. With a few quick taps on the counter, she swirled the pale liquid until it was smooth. With a cup of an espresso shot in her other hand, she began to pour the mixture together, her hands moving without thought. A moment later, she called out, "Margaret, I have your latte!"

An older woman, with a scarf tightly wound around her white wisps of hair, reached out her trembling hands and took a hold of the cup. Her lips mouthed the words, thank you, but her eyes kept to the counter and away from Annalisa's face.

This is what her days comprised of. After one drink, it was another and another, each one passed off to a customer's greedy hands. Annalisa sighed, brushing the strands of her auburn curls away from her eyes.

"Annalisa!" She heard the familiar sound of her father's booming voice say to her. "Stop fidgeting and get to work!" His thick Italian accent filled the back of the bar, drawing the wide eyes of many customers in the lobby.

"Si, padre." She muttered back to him. And with a huff, she began the process of the next drink.

A draft of cold, damp air brushed against her cheek as the door to the shop opened when another stranger joined the line. Annalisa's eyes flitted up for a second to find a man shaking the rain from his coat as he stood in the doorway. She noticed the way that he wiped the water away from his nose and looked over to her, his head giving a small nod of acknowledgment.

She froze for a moment but soon returned a small, polite smile. But a grumble from her father pulled her back to her task.

Her father valued the appearance of their coffee shop, La Cafe Cosa Nostra, over anything else in the world. Everything, that is, except for the family name. They were Marzoccos, the finest coffee roasters and brewers in Italy, which is why her father and grandfather decided to make their fortune in the city of coffee: Seattle. She still remembers the opening of the shop and the rigorous training she did to learn how to make every drink to perfection, which were her father's standards. Annalisa was barely able to finish High School before he had moved her to full time for the store, and even then, she had very little time to herself.

She slid out another drink to the open countertop. "Phillip, your americano with cream!" A man hustled up to the bar with his phone up to his ear, his breath short and his words moving too fast for Annalisa to understand.

The door to Cosa Nostra opened again, revealing the large figure of a man that Annalisa recognized, but did not know. Removing this hat, he strode straight to the counter of the store and beckoned her father to come close. He whispered a few things in his ear, and Annalisa watched her father's lips press into a thin line of worry. They murmured a few words before her father cleared his throat. "Annalisa, take over the register," he said abruptly. And with that, he and the strange man exited the lobby and went to the back staircase that took them to the apartment above the store that the family lived in.

Annalisa let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding. As she finished the last drink in order and wiped her hands on her apron, she approached the line of people. She cleared her mind and put forward the wide grin that she presents to customers on busy Monday mornings: the ecstatic, energetic, and overly-positive barista smile.