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  ‘Look,’ Sarah contributed, ‘his knees are starting to buckle.’

  ‘Have you people no compassion, no empathy?’ I demanded, putting my wine glass on the bar. ‘That kid goes down, it’s the end of my TV show.’

  ‘Our TV show.’ Kate joined me to elbow our way through the crowd.

  The camera kid was setting the camera down when we reached him. He was maybe five-two, with a freckled face, glasses and close-cropped blond hair.

  He straightened up when he saw us and stuck out his hand to Kate. ‘Kate, good to see you again. We’re nearly set up here. Jill just ran back to the truck to get a light stand.’

  He turned to me. ‘And you must be our emcee, Maggy Thorsen.’

  ‘Maggy, meet Jack,’ Kate said, apparently reminded of her manners by a kid who had enough for both of them.

  He smiled patiently. ‘Actually, my name is Jerome. Kate just finds it easier to remember Jack and Jill.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, glancing at Kate who was scanning some notes. ‘Jerome and Jill just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?’

  ‘Apparently not,’ Jerome/Jack said, the same patient smile on his face.

  This kid was more mature than I would ever be. Combine that with the extremely short hair, the straight-ahead I’ll-take-whatever-life-sends-me gaze, and it seemed all too familiar.

  My brother had that look – the look of a kid who had fought a battle someone his age shouldn’t have to fight.

  ‘Ready, Maggy?’ Kate was saying.

  ‘I’m sorry―what?’

  ‘I asked if you were ready,’ Kate repeated impatiently. ‘Marvin’s getting miked-up.’

  I turned. He was indeed clipping a Lavaliere microphone to his lapel at the direction of a union engineer. LaRoche sported a different dark suit than he’d had on earlier. His accessories included cufflinks, a school tie and a wife and baby at his right shoulder and one step back. There was no wet spot on either Janalee or Davy. I assumed rubber pants were part of Davy’s formal-wear.

  ‘LaRoach is certainly ready.’ I said.

  ‘Wait.’ Kate was checking her notes again. ‘I thought it was pronounced LaRoshay. Jill?’ She looked around wildly. ‘Where is she? How long can it take to go to the truck?’

  ‘Here I am, Kate.’ A girl, presumably Jill, ran up winded. She was taller than Jerome by six inches and was holding the stand and base for a light. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Didn’t you confirm the name was LaRoshay, not LaRoach?’ Kate started in.

  ‘Wait, wait, wait,’ I said, before my contrariness got the kid into any more trouble. ‘He does pronounce it with the “shay”.’ I explained about Marvin’s pronunciation of his name, versus the rest of the family. ‘This is his convention, so we’d best go with his version.’

  Jill grinned gratefully at me. ‘Glad I had it right. I’m going to talk to the convention’s AV guys and get a feed from their audio.’ She took off.

  I had to give her credit for not being cowed by Kate. I had a feeling these kids were going to be just fine.

  ‘We just have the one camera tonight,’ Jerome was saying, ‘but we’ll have three for the barista competition.’

  ‘Good,’ Kate said, ‘that means the second and third cameras can―’

  ‘Is this thing on?’ LaRoche’s voice boomed out over the sound system.

  Our execs at First National had thought it necessary to start speeches like that, after paying professionals big bucks to make sure the microphones were indeed on.

  ‘Just start your speech,’ I muttered. ‘If it isn’t working, you’ll find out soon enough.’

  Sadly for those of us in the audience, the microphone was working just fine.

  First, we were subjected to ten minutes of self-aggrandizing.

  ‘He’s not going to whip out the home movies, is he?’ Kate leaned over and asked at one point.

  ‘Just so he doesn’t whip out something else,’ I whispered back.

  ‘Onan the Barbarian,’ Kate snickered softly.

  I, on the other hand, laughed out loud. Snorted, even.

  LaRoche, who had just explained how he’d taken a thousand dollars seed money and grown it into a chain of twenty HotWired stores ‘and counting’, peered into the crowd. I stepped into the shadows behind Jerome, who was taping.

  ‘Apparently LaRoche has conveniently forgotten his wife’s contribution of an already successful coffeehouse,’ I muttered more to myself than to Jerome. ‘The man wouldn’t know a porta-filter from a porta-potty without Janalee.’

  LaRoche’s partner in life and love had stepped even farther back on the stage, apparently trying to become one with the curtain. Given that she was wearing a black suit and the curtains were black, I figured she had a shot at it as long as she and Davy didn’t topple off the stage backwards.

  Having discounted his wife and demeaned every coffeehouse owner who was happy to own one or two stores, LaRoche went on to call socially conscious efforts like Fair Trade and shade-grown coffee ‘fiscally unconscious’.

  An angry buzz started amongst Levitt Fredericks’ EarthBean group. By the time LaRoche had gotten around to suggesting coffeehouse owners buy their own roasting operations and dairies to ‘cut out the middleman, and retain more of the income’, the buzz had turned to a roar. He had alienated ‘the middlemen’ along with nearly everyone else in the room.

  When he ended with: ‘. . .and that is how you, too, can cultivate creativity and profits,’ he obviously expected applause.

  ‘Guess we know what the sound of one hand clapping is,’ a voice in my ear said. Sarah had emerged from behind the bar. She nodded toward Janalee, who was doing her best to applaud while juggling Davy. Amy was in the EarthBean camp and didn’t even try.

  ‘This is embarrassing,’ Jerome said, still keeping his eye to the camera lens. ‘Shouldn’t you start the applause just to get him off stage?’

  LaRoche was standing next to the lectern with a big grin on his face.

  ‘Can’t,’ I said. ‘I’m an independent coffeehouse owner. If I applaud, it means I agree with him.’

  ‘And you don’t?’ Jerome twisted his head around and asked.

  ‘There’s money to be made in coffee, but not at the expense of the children in the fields, or the growers, or the roasters. Or the earth, itself, for that matter.’

  Jerome smiled and turned back to the camera.

  ‘C’mon, Maggy, clap,’ Sarah said. If Jerome was the angel at my right shoulder, Sarah was the devil at my left. ‘It isn’t like you haven’t been the shill in the audience before.’

  She was right. At First National I would stand in the back and clap or laugh in all the right places to kick-start the audience for the execs.

  ‘I don’t have to be anyone’s shill anymore,’ I said to Sarah, a little too loud in the quiet room.

  But in that second, someone on the convention staff must have had a brainstorm, because the sound system kicked in and Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ enveloped the room.

  Under patriotic cover, LaRoche stepped down from the stage and starting chatting up the front row. Janalee hesitated and then disappeared behind the curtains.

  The rest of us headed for the bars.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning I had a bit of a headache from closing the bar the night before. The talk had been all about the Talk and how could I miss a second of that? Unsurprisingly, the consensus was that LaRoche should be exterminated.

  Or maybe asphyxiated. That would take care of him, I thought as I ran the blue haze gauntlet outside the convention center. The smokers had again formed a knot outside the front door. No surprise there, but I was happy to see Sarah hadn’t joined them.

  I was also happy to see that there were no life-size domino games going on in the exhibit hall. Indeed, by the standards of the day before, Java Ho was looking almost tame.

  How Sarah had squeezed nearly five hundred vendors on the exhibition floor, I didn’t know. Most of them were hand
ing out free caffeine in various forms: lattes, cappuccinos, mochas, smoothies, hyper-charged caffeine shots and colas. People already were bouncing off the walls. It was little wonder that everyone spent the nights in the bar. Who could sleep?

  As I passed through the hall on the way to the competition room, I saw Levitt Fredericks. ‘The EarthBean booth looks good, Levitt. No damage from the little mishap yesterday?’

  ‘Mishap?’ Levitt uncoiled himself from a chair and stood up, always the southern gentleman. ‘I swear, Miss Maggy, you have an exceptional gift for the understatement.’

  ‘Why thank you, Mr Levitt,’ I said with a sweeping curtsy. ‘I’m trying to become a cup -half-full kind of person.’

  ‘Good luck to you on that,’ he said, getting somber. ‘The way things are going, the cups of most everyone in the coffee industry are going to be half empty. Or worse.’

  ‘You mean LaRoche’s speech?’ I asked, catching sight of Janalee approaching. Every few feet someone stopped her to talk. I was glad to see people weren’t blaming her for last night. ‘You know he doesn’t speak for the rest of us.’

  The tall gray-haired man nodded. ‘Of course, my dear. And not to worry, EarthBean has taken its share of shots over the years. No, it’s the industry in general I worry about. Every man for them―’

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt.’ Janalee had finally made it to us. She was without baby, for once.

  ‘Not at all, Janalee. Are you OK?’

  She didn’t look OK. She looked like crap.

  Seeing it, Levitt took her hand and led her over to his chair. ‘Janalee, my dear, sit down. I hope you’re not upset by last night.’

  ‘Last night?’ Janalee looked up at him blankly. ‘Oh, you mean Marvin’s speech. No, no – that was just Marvin being . . . Marvin. I know you understand.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Levitt patted her hand. ‘Then whatever has you so disturbed?’

  Janalee leaned forward in her seat and looked from me to Levitt and back again.

  ‘Janalee’s Place,’ she said softly. ‘Apparently someone burned it down on purpose. Who in the world would gain from starting the fire?’

  She said the last in a hushed tone, but her words seemed to reverberate in the big hall. Fire, fire, fire . . .

  The two old ladies from the bar last night passed by and glanced at us and then quickly away.

  Now, I knew that I didn’t burn down Janalee’s Place. So why did I feel so guilty?

  Despite the news about the fire, both Janalee and Amy still took part in the barista competition. By the time the audience had settled in, the stage was set and the judges and cameras were in place.

  Jerome had positioned the three cameras so one was on the particular barista who was competing, the second moved between the judges and the audience and the third was on me.

  And that suited me just fine.

  ‘Welcome to the Second Annual Java Ho Barista Competition,’ I said into the microphone.

  The crowd burst into wild applause.

  Already, I was one up on LaRoche.

  Further buoying me was the fact that Sophie Daystrom and Henry Wested – my once and, I hoped, future customers – were seated front row center. Maybe they did still love me and Uncommon Grounds. Or maybe they were there to support Amy and Janalee from HotWired.

  I tried not to let the thought throw me off-stride.

  ‘Each competitor today will have a chance to prepare an espresso, a cappuccino and a signature drink for each of our esteemed judges. They will be scored on taste, presentation and technical skills. All drinks must contain espresso, of course, but none can contain alcohol.’

  I waved down the boos and smiled into the camera. I was liking this emcee stuff.

  ‘The top six point-scorers will come back for the finals tomorrow morning to vie for this trophy.’ I lifted the first-place trophy, ostensibly to show the crowd, but more to mug for the camera.

  The bronze sculpture was supposed to be steam in the form of a barista, rising from a cup. But now, as I looked at it a little more closely, I realized . . .

  ‘She’s naked,’ Sophie Daystrom exclaimed loudly from the front row.

  ‘Shouldn’t she at least have an apron on?’ Henry asked in what he seemed to think was a whisper. ‘A big one?’

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Then the whole audience laughed.

  I think we had a hit on our hands.

  Janalee and baristas from Java the Hut and Bean There comprised the first trio of contestants.

  ‘Isn’t Java the Hut in the UK?’ George, the technical judge who was not sleeping with Priscilla, asked as the Java the Hut barista, a young man named Mitchell, wheeled a cart with his supplies onstage.

  ‘This is a different place,’ I said, handing him a technical score sheet. ‘Somewhere near Cincinnati, I think.’

  When we were trying to come up with a name for our own coffeehouse, I’d learned that no matter how clever you thought your name was, someone already had come up with it.

  ‘Is that legal?’ Priscilla asked from the judges’ table. While the technical judges roamed, looking for violations, the sensory judges got to sit down and be waited on.

  ‘Don’t know.’ I gave Priscilla a sensory score sheet. ‘It probably depends on trademarks and market areas and all that jazz.’

  The judges had turned their attention to their score sheets, so I turned my microphone back on.

  ‘Each of our contestants will have fifteen minutes to prepare their workstation, fifteen minutes to create their drinks, and fifteen minutes to clean up,’ I told the crowd. ‘Throughout that forty-five minutes, two of our judges will score the barista on his or her technical skills. Things like using the equipment properly and keeping the work area clean.’

  Mitchell promptly knocked over the bag of coffee beans on his cart, sending them cascading on to the floor.

  ‘Not to worry,’ I said. ‘The two technical scores are averaged together and added to all four sensory scores.’

  I turned to make eye contact – or lens contact – with the camera. I was trying to treat it as a member of the audience. A very important member of the audience.

  ‘The presentation, smell and taste of the drink itself, is more important than a few coffee beans on the floor.’ I gestured grandly toward Mitchell and his beans.

  Henry and Sophie applauded wildly. I smiled down at them. I liked having shills of my very own.

  ‘Are you ready?’ I asked Mitchell.

  Having corralled most of his beans, he was standing next to his cart, waiting for my signal to start setting up. He nodded nervously in response to my question.

  ‘Begin.’ I clicked the stop watch as Mitchell began to unload his cart.

  ‘As you can see,’ I explained, ‘the competitors are responsible for bringing their own beans, as well as the drink ingredients.’

  Mitchell was frantically shoving milk and cream into the mini-fridge. I wasn’t sure why he was in such a hurry. He still had fourteen minutes of prep time.

  ‘They also bring their own china, napkins and any decorations they might use,’ I continued. ‘Even ice –’ Mitchell looked up from the table where he had been arranging his china – ‘is the responsibility of the individual contestant.’

  Mitchell pivoted with a yelp and raced offstage.

  ‘Happily,’ I said as I watched him run off, ‘each contestant has this time to make sure he or she has everything they need. After this fifteen minutes – ’ Mitchell came skidding around the corner with an ice bucket – ‘we will reset the clock for another fifteen minutes.’

  I accidentally glanced down at Henry and Sophie. Apparently thinking it was their cue, they applauded.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Thank you. During that quarter hour, the contestant will prepare twelve drinks.’

  ‘Oh, my Lord,’ Sophie gasped. ‘Twelve drinks?’

  I couldn’t help it: I looked at her.

  Henry clapped.

  Mae West was wrong. T
oo much of a good thing is not wonderful.

  ‘Yes, twelve drinks in just fifteen minutes,’ I said. ‘First four espressos – one for each of the four sensory judges. Then, four cappuccinos. And finally, four of the barista’s specialty drink.’

  I could just feel Sophie and Henry staring up at me, their hands poised to applaud. I willed myself not to look.

  ‘Each contestant also brings music to be played during his or her performance. Do we have the music queued?’

  Because the convention center was a unionized facility, their tech people had to handle the music. The woman in charge of the CD-deck nodded. That would probably cost LaRoche a cool fifty bucks. I stifled the impulse to ask her another question to up the ante.

  Instead, I turned to look at Mitchell. He was standing to attention behind his work table. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple.

  ‘Each barista will explain what he or she is doing as he or she is doing it.’ I was starting to get tangled up in my gender-specific pronouns. Better switch to names. ‘Mitchell will first introduce himself, and then begin.’

  ‘Remember,’ I went on, ‘this barista is not only responsible for creating twelve exquisite drinks, but also for the table-setting and presentation to the judges. All this, while keeping his workstation perfectly orderly and clean. And all,’ I paused for effect, ‘in just fifteen minutes.’

  I turned dramatically to the camera. ‘Will this barista stand the test?’ I boomed in my best reality-show voice.

  There was a thud behind me, accompanied by the sound of breaking china.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Sophie screamed.

  I looked at her.

  Henry applauded.

  Poor Mitchell opted out, even after we’d revived him.

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have been so dramatic,’ I moaned to Kate as we took the equivalent of a TV time-out.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Kate had a huge grin on her face. ‘You were perfect. He was perfect.’

  ‘He was unconscious, Kate.’

  ‘Yes, and even before that. The sweat. The deer-in-the-headlights look when he forgot the ice. Great TV.’ She pumped her fist in the air.

  She was right, it was great TV. It was also the humiliation of a human being. I pointed that out.