Coffee Breath

“I’m coming to terms with the fact that my mouth hates me.”

He giggled behind his coffee mug.

“What?”

Charlie set the cup down and licked his pink lips. “Look at you. You’re beautiful and you know it. If I didn’t know you, I’d call you a snob. But you have the most fillings of anyone I have ever met.” He laughed aloud, open, jubilant, showing his teeth that were perfect by nature, even in spite of his coffee breath.

“Not funny,” I mumbled.

I shifted my gaze out the window. The illuminated sign of the coffeehouse across the street arrested my glance. I slid around, uneasy in my chair. I cradled my mug of cappuccino.
The owner of our old favorite coffeehouse slumped out the door. She leaned on the glass pane, lit a cigarette, and dialed on her mobile; clearly, no one was in today.

I looked at Charlie’s double espresso, wondering if it tasted as good as my cap, better than our old coffeehouse. Charlie sipped freely, swallowed in his leather jacket imported by his Florentine love, or whatever you wanted to call her.

I gazed back out at the old shop. The owner finished her call, pressing the off button violently. She shrank her eyes, looking out on the street, onto the shop across the street, right at me. Or at least that’s how it looked to me. She took a last long puff on her fag and hissed the smoke out through her flat lips. She plunked the filter onto the ground and placed her hands on her more than ample hips. With one last tut to the street, she shuffled back inside.

I sat back up from my sunken pose in my chair. I sipped. Life changed, I decided. Not in that moment, but in general. I drank in the present while it was still warm in my cup and smothered in foam.