Grounds to Leaves: Sip to Success - Part 1

Few lights illuminated the interior of the store across the street. Those few dim pools of illumination didn’t allow her to see much, but Chelsie took in the view with glee. She cast her eyes up at the sign above the window. Even without any light shining upon the golden writing she could read it quite easily. Grounds to Leaves.

Her legs stirred the early morning mist as she made her way across the silent street. It was chilly for September, even at this hour of the day. Chelsie barely even noticed. All she could think about was how nice everything would look in the full light of day. This place, this coffee shop, was her pride and joy; a dream that was about to become fully realized today.

She unlocked the front door and let herself into the shop. The sounds of emanating from the kitchen told Chelsie that Aiden had already arrived and was hard at work. She turned back to lock the door behind her. It was pretty unlikely that anyone would wander in at this hour, but it was better to be safe than sorry. The last thing they needed was their first customer showing up before they were even ready.

“So today is the day, is it?” Chelsie jumped a little at the unexpected voice behind her. It took her a moment to place it after being so lost in her own thoughts. She turned around to see an older gentlemen casually lounging in one of the more comfy chairs in the corner of the store.

“Walter, I didn’t see you there when I came in.” She smiled warmly at him, feeling oddly happy to see him here on the morning of the big day.

“That’s probably because I wasn’t.” He puffed on his pipe and Chelsie watched, fascinated as always, at the rising smoke as it slowly dissipated a few feet above his head. “Well, is it?”

“Is it what?” Chelsie still hadn’t quite gotten used to Old Walter yet. There was no doubt in her mind that he was friendly enough, but she had never really dealt with his kind before. And the fact that he would only ever talk to her sometimes got on her nerves. She was learning to deal with it a bit better over the last few weeks.

“Opening day, of course. I really don’t have much sense of time anymore and I just was curious to know. So, is it?”

“Yes,” Chelsie beamed, unable to contain her joy at the thought. “Today is the day. We open in just under two hours from now. I can’t wait. It’s going to be great.”

Old Walter just harrumphed, but not in response to what she had said. His attention was focused on the entrance to the kitchen. Chelsie turned just in time to see a flour-streaked Aiden standing in the doorway. She glanced back at where Old Walter was sitting and, as usual, he had already gone.

“Talking to yourself again?” Aiden frowned at her and she knew what he was thinking. The first time he had caught her talking to Old Walter she had tried to explain what was really going on. He hadn’t believed a word of it, but she suspected that he had always thought her a little crazy. After all, crazy did run in the family.

“Just a little pep talk is all.” She smiled more to try and convince Aiden that she wasn’t really crazy. She followed him back into the kitchen. “So, how’s the baking coming?”

“Not too bad. I just wish I knew how much to make of everything.” A timer went off. Aiden opened up one of the ovens and smell of fresh banana bread drifted enticingly towards Chelsie.

“Mmmmm, does it matter too much? What we don’t sell today we can sell as day old tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, but you know my thoughts on that.” Aiden frowned at her as he put the banana bread on a rack to cool. They had argued a lot about how they would do things in their coffee house. This was one of the few arguments that she managed to win.

“Right, I’m just going to go and get the house all set up for our first of many customers.” Aiden didn’t say anything in response; he just turned his back on her and set about mixing something furiously. Chelsie tried her best not to feel snubbed. Aiden was just being Aiden. He didn’t mean anything by it.

She hung her jacket up in the office and glanced at the clock. 90 minutes till opening and there was still a lot that needed to be done. She unlocked the safe and took out the float for the till. She kicked it closed behind her as she hurried back out into the shop.

With the till ready to go she did a quick double check of the counter area to make sure that everything was in its place. She went through her mental list of everything they needed to be able to operate smoothly. It all looked good. She grabbed a couple of boxes from under the till and went to fill the island with sugar, cream, stir sticks and the like.

She gave the clock a quick glance again; an hour left till opening. They would have to fill the pastry case pretty soon. She grabbed the glass cleaner and gave the already spotless display case another wipe down. Switching bottles, she went to wipe down the tables, not willing to take a chance that she had missed a spot when she had washed them last night.

“Can I get some help in here?” Chelsie rushed to the kitchen before Aiden could even finish his question. He had already started setting the food onto platters for her to take out. She grabbed the nearest two plates and took them out to the display case.

It didn’t seem to take them long to get all the food set up and displayed properly. They both took a moment to stand back and admire the sight of all those fresh baked goodies. The warm and enticing smells from all the early morning baking just added to the moment.

“We open in five minutes. Are you ready?” Aiden placed a hand on her shoulder and she smiled up at him.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. I just hope it goes well.”

“You put the ads out, right?”

“Yup, you saw them didn’t you?” Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember if he had mentioned the ads to her before. She was sure he would have said at least something to her if he had seen them.

“I did, just wanted to remind you that if you advertised than we should get some customers today. So, do you want to do the honors or shall I?”

Chelsie didn’t even give him a chance. She dashed towards the door, unlocking it and flipping over the open sign. She grinned back at him. “Let’s do this.”

Then they waited for their first customer. A few pedestrians passed by on the street, some of them even slowing a bit to look into the new store, but no one came in. By the end of the day, they had only served four people.

Six o’clock came and Chelsie went to the door to lock it and flip the sign to closed. She looked back at Aiden, standing by the counter looking as depressed as she felt. It took a lot of effort not to break out into tears. She had sunk everything into this place.

“Four customers, four.” Her voice wavered as she said it.

“Well that could have gone better.” Aiden looked at the nearly full pastry case. “Guess I made too much.” He started taking the platters to the kitchen so he could wrap them up and sell them as day olds tomorrow. Chelsie wandered towards a chair and just kept mumbling the word four over and over to herself.

“Will you just give it a rest already and help me get this place cleaned up.” Aiden had already finished with the pastry case and Chelsie hadn’t moved from the chair. She looked up at his sharp tone of voice, her first reaction to anything since she had locked the door.

“Four, Aiden, four.”

“Yeah, I get it, I can count. Maybe tomorrow it’ll be five. Now help me get this place cleaned up.”

“Why did I do this? We are going to fail. I’ll lose everything!” A hint of a panic edged her words.

“You’ll lose everything? Remember who put up most of the finances for this. I have just as much invested in this coffee shop as you do. But we are going to fail and lose everything if we don’t at least try. So quit your moaning and get off your ass.”

Chelsie wanted to snap back at him, but he was right, like he often was. Reluctantly, she pushed herself out of the chair and went through the motions of getting the shop ready for another day. It took an hour to get everything sorted out. By the time they were finished, a heavy fog had rolled into the city.

“Need a ride home?”

Chelsie shook her head. “No, I’ll walk. I need to get some air anyway. Clear my head.”

“You sure?” Aiden frowned at her, not sure if he believed her.

“Yeah, thanks though.”

“Okay, and hey, Chels?” He waited for her to actually look at him instead of the floor. “Things will look better next week.”

“Thanks Aiden. See you tomorrow.” She watched him leave and took another look at her dream that already seemed to be disappearing before her eyes.

“You know I hate to say it, but he could be right.” Chelsie didn’t even bother to look and see where Old Walter was this time.

“I guess we’ll see won’t we? Good night Walter.”

“Good night my dear.”

Chelsie left the shop and wandered out into the fog hoping that the fresh air would clear her head. She wanted to be hopeful that things would get better, but she couldn’t help feeling a little pessimistic. Things always seemed to have a way of going wrong for her.

Maybe next week would look better.