“What?” Jonah turned to his uncle, unsure what to make of that comment.
“Happy New Year, Joe.”
Jonah’s dad had appeared. He was wearing a gray sweater that made him look even gaunter than usual. He had a highball glass in his hand with an amber-colored liquid over ice.
“Happy New Year, Dad.”
His father looked as if he meant to hug him, but Truck began wagging his tail so hard that his dad could see what was coming and changed course.
“So!” Jonah glanced at his watch then looked around the room. It looked a bit on the side of ransacked. “Doors open at six in the morning. Are we ready for that?”
“Yep,” Amy said, sailing by with an armful of ketchup bottles, his mother right behind her.
“Does everyone remember we have a new contest for January?” Jonah pointed to an enormous crossword puzzle that was attached to the wall near the front door. The thing was four by four and featured a crossword puzzle from the archives of the New Yorker.
Everyone paused what they were doing to look with varying expressions of understanding at the giant puzzle. None of them looked very positive. This had been Jonah’s idea—solve a clue, get a free coffee. It had seemed like such a great idea at the time, but now it seemed dumb. The printing had been expensive in logistics and cost, and then the rules for the contest had sparked an argument between the six of them that had ended when Jonah shouted that nothing could ever be accomplished by committee.
Amy had decided to make the puzzle her mission. She’d written instructions that were tacked next to the puzzle. “Contestants” were allowed to solve only one word, and there was one drink per correct answer. If a word was solved by a table, say, only one free coffee would be doled out. Jonah said that seemed a little cheap. Amy asked if he was ready to give all of Austin free coffee. Jonah said they were already losing money on the deal, what was a little more?
“Everyone is on board with this, right?” Jonah asked. “Point to it. Get people to play.”
“I know the answer to 1-across,” his mother said. “It’s ICON.”
“I think it’s IDOL,” Belinda said.
Jonah shifted his gaze to the windows and happened to notice that someone had left the lights on in the building across the street. He walked to the window to have a look. Since he’d been out of town, the signage had started to go up. Giant gold letters merrily spelled D-E-J-A. A steaming cup of coffee was positioned next to the A. The letters were affixed over the entry, but not centered, because of course they would need to add B-R-E-W. Billie was right—that monstrosity was a Deja Brew Coffeehouse.
Through the windows, even at this distance, he could see that many of the iconic egg baskets had been installed. The coffee bar on the first floor was so shiny, he wondered how people could sit in there without sunglasses. The coffee apparatus was all chrome and futuristic. Was that necessary to sell coffee?
He looked to his right, at the giant crossword puzzle. It looked ridiculous in comparison.
Amy was putting markers in a box beneath the instructions.
“I looked it up,” he heard Belinda say. “It’s IDOL.”
Jonah turned around. “You looked it up where?”
“Google. You type in the clue and it pops up.”
Amy paused. “You mean people can google the answer and get a free coffee?”
“Yep,” Belinda said.
“Great,” Amy muttered, and looked accusingly at Jonah.
“How was I supposed to know? Okay, everyone, listen up,” Jonah said. “We need to talk.” All heads turned toward him. Except for Truck. Truck was licking something on the table. Jonah made a mental note to get some sanitizer and clean that up.
“Is this a team meeting? Because I have to pick my brother up,” Amy said, looking at her watch.
“Yes, this is a team meeting. Look. We have to get real about our situation, guys. We have to do something to pull in business or Deja Brew over there is going to eat our lunch.”
“What are you talking about?” his dad scoffed. “They’re a coffee shop. We’re more than just coffee.”
Marty lifted his glass for a toast to his brother. Jonah’s dad tapped his against Marty’s.
“First, they are a coffeehouse. We talked about this. And second, are we really more than just coffee? Because the name of the family business is the Lucky Star Coffee Shop. We have to be smart about how we put ourselves out there. We need to be competitive.”
Five sets of eyes stared at him like he was speaking Greek. Except Truck, who always stared at him adoringly, no matter what. “You look so serious, Joe,” his mother said. “Have a margarita.”
“We don’t have any money,” he said to them. “We’re not bringing in any money, either, as you all know. We are losing business because we’re not hip, we’re not fun, and now we have Deja Brew going in across the street, and they are fun, and Starbucks a few blocks down, and they are fast. Do you see what I mean?”
“No,” Uncle Marty said, his brow furrowed with confusion.
Why was this so hard? Jonah resisted the urge to scrub his face with his fingers. “C’mere,” he said, motioning for them all to join him at the window. There was a scrape of wooden chair legs on tile floor, a bit of muttering that he thought came from his father, and then they joined him at the window. Truck pushed in between Jonah and his mother and began to lick the glass.
“See that?” Jonah pointed to the building across the street. To the baskets, the shiny coffee machine. “The seating is cool and probably a lot more comfortable than wooden chairs. See the bookshelves? I hear there’s an actual lending library. Honor system, but still. Notice this is a two-level store? Two separate coffee bars and fair trade coffee.”
“Oh my God,” Amy whispered. “They’re going to destroy us.”
“No, they’re not,” Marty scoffed. “No artsy-fartsy coffee shop is going to hurt us.”
“Coffeehouse. And I think it could, Marty. We have to come up with something to get people in the door. Once they’re in, maybe they’ll stay for the food and the old-town feel. But chances are really good that they are going to walk past us and go across the street.”
They all stood silently for a moment, staring across the street, no sound but Truck’s sudden chewing of his back leg.
“And?” his mother asked.
“And . . .” Jonah looked across the street. “We could take what I think would be an insane amount of money developers would offer us for this land and move on with our lives.”
The room fell silent. No one spoke until Jonah’s father sank into a chair and said, “What in the hell are you talking about? We’re not selling.”