“Take a breath, man. You know I’m here to help.”
“How you did mind control on that guy? To buy the Nitro Cold Brew instead of his regular?”
I laughed. “It wasn’t mind control, Brian. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t that.”
“Yes, it was! The dude came in here wanting one thing and walked out with another. Not only that, but he enjoyed the other thing. It was like you put him under a spell. And I’m not saying I want to be a wizard or anything like that, or that I want to control what people drink, but I just want to be able to”—he paused to scratch at his face—“to be persuasive, you know? Like maybe if I can learn how to do that, I can get a girlfriend or something like that?”
I didn’t want to break the bad news to him, but the power of persuasion probably wasn’t going to do the trick as long as his face looked like a burnt pizza.
“Listen, Brian. I don’t know how to do mind control, nor do I know how to be really persuasive. It was just something that happened in the moment. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, but what I can do is make sure you’re as good a barista as possible so you can woo women with your coffee-making skills.”
“Yeah, okay. But I just want to say one last thing.”
“Go for it.” The first clip-clops of the day walked in. Nicole and Carlos were handling them but would need backup soon.
“Most superheroes don’t know they’re superheroes until they get caught up in a moment, just like you. Something either overcomes them, showing them a glimpse of their hidden powers, or they’re pushed so far past their limitations that they have no choice but to succumb to whatever makes them most special.”
“Thanks, Brian. I’ll keep that in mind. Now let’s get to work.” But in that very moment, his eyes went wide, his mouth fell half-open, and he raised a zombielike finger toward the door.
I turned around, and there was Rhett Daniels. He was walking in just like any other day, but unlike any other day, he didn’t have earbuds in nor was he looking at his phone, chatting with his Dobermans, or trailed by faithful followers. He was staring at me.
And he was pissed.
* * *
He waited in line with the other addicts. But when he got to me, he just kept staring. I looked away.
“Can you come for a walk?” he asked, his voice calm.
“Uh, no, I need to man the Starbucks.” I was starting to sweat.
“No, Darren, it’s fine. We’ll man the fort while you talk,” Nicole chimed in out of nowhere.
“Yeah, man, we got you,” Carlos added.
Rhett winked at them, then looked at me. “So?”
Fuck it. I untied my apron, put it down on the counter, and followed him out the door and through the lobby.
“Where to?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t been outside 3 Park Avenue at 8 a.m. on a workday in years. Twenty-first-century yuppies walked through the revolving doors like worker bees returning to the hive.
“Wherever you want. You hungry?” He scanned his phone before slipping it into his pocket.
“No, I’m good.” I didn’t owe him an explanation or an apology. But for some reason, I felt like I did. It was as if he had a gravitational pull, and if you got too close, it was impossible to escape.
“Great, let’s get pancakes.”
We walked for only a few minutes, but our silence made those minutes feel like days.
He opened the door to a diner named Bobby’s Big Breakfast, BBB for short, and we sat down in a booth in the back.
“So, pancakes,” he said, ignoring the menus in front of us.
“Pancakes.” I nodded, avoiding eye contact. I’m trapped, but it’ll be over soon.
An eager blonde waitress appeared with pen and pad in hand and stared at him—his unblemished skin, his defined jawline with light black stubble—as though she were hypnotized. I know this guy is attractive, but damn. Snap out of it!
Rhett ran his hand through his tousled brown hair, no doubt achieved through relentless scrunching and spritzing, and smiled. “Hi.”
“Oh,” the waitress replied, waking from her daydream. “Sorry, what’ll it be?”
“Two black coffees and a stack of banana pancakes for me. And blueberry pancakes for my friend,” he said.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, drooling over him now like a dog outside a butcher shop.
He flashed a flirtatious grin. “No, that’ll be all. Thank you.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, and walked away.
“You cool with that, Darren?”
“Um, yeah, sure.”
More silence. Exactly one and a half minutes of silence until our coffee came out, and another six and a half minutes until our steaming plate of pancakes arrived, a mountain of chocolate chips on both of them.
“Something a little extra for you boys,” the waitress said.
I sat there, wrinkling and flattening my pants. The aroma rising from the coffee entered my nostrils. Guatemalan.
“You haven’t touched your coffee,” he said, nodding at my cup.
“Uh, yeah, I—”
“Take a sip, it’s delicious. It’s not Starbucks”—he smiled—“but it’s still good.”
I stared at the black pool in my cup, saw my watery reflection. No fucking way.
But Rhett nodded at the cup again.
I looked back down into the mug. Fuck you. I lifted it to my lips and took a sip. Fuck you to hell!
“Pretty good,” I said. I was surprised; it wasn’t half bad.
He laughed. “What did I tell you? Also, has anyone ever told you that you look like Martin Luther King?”
“Uh, no. You’re the first.”
He leaned back. “Well, you do. So, where are you from?”
“Bed-Stuy.”
“Chris Rock, nice,” he said, clearing all of the melted chocolate chips from the top of his stack before cutting it up piece by piece.
“Most people only know it for Jay-Z,” I replied, surprised.
He continued to cut his stack into little layered triangles. “Most people only know what other people talk about. But what about school? Where’d you go?”
“Bronx Science. I was valedictorian.”
He stopped cutting his pancakes and looked up at me. “So you’re either incredibly smart or just someone who knows how to do what’s asked of them incredibly well. Which is it?”
I looked down at my leaning tower of pancakes, suddenly hungry. “I’m still not sure.”
“And what about college? Where’d you go?”
“I didn’t go to college.”
“Why not?”
“Just wasn’t for me.” I wasn’t about to tell this guy my life story no matter how deep into his gravitational field he pulled me.
“College wasn’t for the valedictorian of one of the best high schools in America? C’mon. Don’t give me that.”
“It wasn’t. I had—I have other priorities.”
“And what did your mom and dad think about these other priorities?”
“Well, my dad is dead and my mom wasn’t too happy about it. Still isn’t, really,” I said, taking a sip.