who: Sama and OPEN where: the main kitchen when: a little after 7am on Sunday morning
Sama had a lot of experience with hitting the ground running after a long flight. She’d tried innumerable tricks over the years, gleaned from coworkers and articles and even the occasional blog post, and she’d found what worked for her. An eye mask to sleep on the flight was crucial, as was putting her hair up in a clip so it didn’t get flat and splashing cold water on her face in the airport bathroom. Of course the most important step was coffee, but only after she’d reached her ultimate destination. If Sama tried to drink coffee before a flight it just made her antsy while she was on the plane, and these days people tended to get nervous if there was an antsy brown person on a plane.
The venti iced coffee Sama got from the Starbucks at JFK gave her the buzz to drive from the city to Woodrow House, in a rental car because she refused to ask one of the drivers to pick at 3:00am, but by the time she pulled up the drive, it was long gone. Sama chose to ignore the mess of feelings bubbling up at the sight of the place where she’d done most of her growing up in favor of focusing on her current objective: more coffee. She carried her suitcase into the kitchen with her, hoping to avoid the sound of the wheels rolling across the entry hall carrying up the stairs. It would be great if Alison’s room wasn’t on the second floor, but she doubted anything in this house had changed that much.
The coffee maker was one thing that had changed, however, and Sama noticed that immediately. Gone was the familiar coffee pot that had been state of the art when Sama left but, she had to remind herself, that had been 14 years ago. State of the art in 1991 was not state of the art in 2005, and Richard had always loved having the latest and greatest. This coffee maker was very fancy, and not a model Sama was used to, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She found the light roast coffee, she needed the extra acidity in the morning, a travel mug, so she could bring her coffee into the shower with her, and made sure the reservoir had enough water in it.
With her hands planted on the counter to either side of the coffee maker, Sama stared it down. “You will not be the coffee pot to defeat me,” she muttered, as much to herself as to the appliance.











