Pit Stop || Jacky and Elsa
themerchantofdreams:
âElsaaaaa.â Jacky sang the name under his breath as he scrawled it on the side of a foam cup. His handwriting made for tall sharpieâd letters, large and rounded and easily legible, even upside-down. Good barista scrawl.
He had the chance, then, to prop an elbow on the counter and rest his chin in the palm of his upturned hand and just listen to his customer- to Elsa for a while. She wasnât the comfortable speaker he and Ellen and a number of their regulars were, but at least she didnât do the blushing thing or the mumbling thing or the fixating on the ground thing. Not the latter two, anyway. The flush didnât detract from her answer, at least, and while the little barista couldnât say that the list of activities made him want to visit Vermontâs neighbor, they at least made him glad that he hadnât foisted the newcomer off on his assistant.
He didnât straighten right when she finished, waiting, it seemed, for the question that revealed that sheâd come to the end of her recollection. Then he allowed himself a grin of Cheshire Cat proportions and was back to his full and inconsiderable height in a flash. âCertainly!â The affirmation was accompanied by a check on the cappuccino-in-progress and the reveal of a thick line of sharpie inked onto the side of his headâhe really should have been watching where the marker was pointing when heâd set his head in his hand- âFull marks for activity retellings.â -and managed to leave another, almost identical line down the front of his apron as he shoved the offending writing implement, still uncapped, into a pocket. âYou have a flavor you prefer between cherry, blueberry, and cranberry-orange?â He grinned. âAlyssa sticks with tried and true flavors, mostly, but sheâs been on a cranberry-orange kick lately. Made for great muffins last week.â
An odd kind of satisfaction settled on Elsa, allowing her to drop her arms with a soft chuckle. It was a silly feeling--because it wasnât much of a prize, and she hadnât had to do much to win it--but earning a danish for her words let a tiny bit of her diminished self-esteem seep back into her. It was almost akin to the feeling she got when her work audience applauded her original songs. It made her brave enough to speak up a bit more, especially now that the topic was something with which she was more recently familiar.
âCranberry-orange sounds like a good combination in general, actually,â she said, head tilted to one side in mild contemplation. âTangy--no, acidic, I suppose, is the right word. But itâd probably compliment the sweetness of the pastry well, especially if thereâs icing.â Her smile expanded, and she nodded decisively. âPut me down for one of those.â
âBesides, its been my experience that a bit of experimentation in the kitchen never harmed anyone.â As soon as she said it, she regretted it. Her own insomnia-driven baking experiments often resulted in what she secretly referred to as Frankengoods--though her sister preferred the title âbaked badsâ. Some of them were utter, irredeemable flops that filled her apartment with a most repulsive smell that lingered in the sofa upholstery for two days afterward. Others that smelled alright, but tasted vaguely like she imagined roadkill might, and in one memorable instance, there was a batch of blondies that managed to give her food poisoning. Her smile slipped, back into the small, self-deprecating niche which it so often inhabited. âWell...occasionally it harms someone, but those batches donât typically make it past the baker, at least.â
She may not have been the most open person, but Elsa was nothing if not honest.
...Honest and curious, that is. âHas--Alyssa, was it?--ever brought anything that was truly horrendous?â
