Grabbing a tray to fill with empty glasses and cups left behind by the messiest people in all of Cardiff, Ellie made her way to the window, stealing another glance at the TV crew. She hadn’t worked in weather. Or the news for that matter. And she hated being in front of the camera. She hadn’t been on film since she was ten, when her mother last tried to force her to ‘follow her footsteps’ into acting. Ellie was a little too shy for her own good, the directors would say. Still, the envy gnawed at Ellie as she watched the weather girl’s beaming smile light up under the camera.
“Excuse me?” a sharp voice cut through her reverie. “I ordered a soy latte, not... whatever this monstrosity is.”
Turning with an apology on her lips, Ellie immediately recognised Susan Smith, a former colleague from IronHawk Studios—IronMax+ since they merged with Max Mirror Productions—around the corner.
“Didn’t you used to work at—” Susan’s smile peeked into amusement as she lowered the latte. “Ellie, isn’t it? You were always like a quiet little mouse. Blimey, fancy seeing you here. You worked in the ill-fated history department?”
“Historial Continuity Supivisor.”
“Right.” Susan nodded, her eyes narrowing. “Sins of Brig Manor?”
Ellie nodded. Still her last credit since she’d lost her job. Some of her best work. If it hadn’t been for her eagle eyes, they would have streamed the ten-part drama set in 1840s Sussex with more modern slang infused into the dialogue than a wander down a high school corridor.
“Didn’t do so well? Got lost in the streaming mix, I heard?” Susan’s bottom lip curled out in mock sympathy, her nails drumming on the coffee cup’s plastic lid. “Such a shame what happened…”
“Yes.” Ellie forced a smile, trying to mask her discomfort. She fiddled with a nearby napkin dispenser, desperate for something to do with her hands, hoping Susan would leave her alone. But the woman who had a reputation at the studio for ‘testing’ new starters didn’t move, and her expectant smile only grew. Relenting, Ellie asked, “How… how are things at work?”
“Oh, you know.” Susan’s manicured nails flapped from side to side. “It’s absolute madness, really. New executives reshuffling departments like it’s a game of musical chairs. I suppose I’m lucky that I’ve been there twenty-two years or I could have ended up… well, you know…” Susan trailed off as she looked around the coffee shop, as if she’d wandered into a dark back alley rather than a brightly lit space where she could buy a £5.60 cardboard cup of warm soy milk. “Hey, here’s an idea!” she announced. “I heard they were hiring in the canteen at the studio. Could be a way to get your foot back in the door? Climb that ladder again.”
“From the canteen?” Ellie couldn’t stop herself, her cheeks burning crimson. “I have a degree, Susan. I—”
Susan’s eyes tightened as her smile did. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said, looking down at the latte. “You’re still young. You can start again. Twenty-six?”
“Thirty, just before Christmas.”
“Young-ish.” Susan nodded as though to say ‘good luck with that’ before she lifted the latte up between them again. “So, do you have the soy milk or…?”
Ellie didn’t reach out for the cardboard cup. Carrying the tray, she weaved through the queuing customers and hurried into the sterile back room. Alone for a moment, she let out a long breath. The repetition and predictability of what she’d left Jade to deal with in the café burned her ears—soy this, almond that, single or double. ‘What do you mean you’re out of carrot cake?’ scratched at her mind. She inhaled the scent of coffee, but it only turned against her, a constant reminder of the mundanity she’d fallen into.
When she opened her eyes, she looked ahead at her coat on the hook, her pocket vibrating. Perhaps the studio she’d applied to last night was contacting her. Working in admin for a late-night game show buried in the depths of the three-digit Freeview channels wasn’t her dream, but at least she wouldn’t have to make coffee.
Ellie rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. A tear escaped from her clenched eyelids and rolled down her cheek. Happy Bean was suffocating her, and after only six months, that grinning specter on the cups felt overwhelming. In a sudden burst of frustration, she banged her head against the wall. The impact was sharper than she’d anticipated, sending a jolt of pain through her skull.
“Ow,” Ellie muttered through a rueful laugh.
It was all so silly.
None of what happened at Happy Bean was truly important, and yet the customers acted as if their orders were the be-all and end-all of their day. And here she was, letting it get to her far more than it should. She’d tried to bob along playing ‘barista’ for the first few months, but as those directors had told her when she was a girl being shoved into audition rooms by her eager mother, she wasn’t that great of an actor.
When Ellie opened her eyes, she found Derek, her manager, watching her from his open office door with that smarmy look on his face. He always looked like that. Like there was a joke only he was in on. She had tried to get along with him, but his drunken lunge at her under the mistletoe three weeks into her job at The Black Bull had tainted their working relationship somewhat. He raised an eyebrow, then beckoned to her with a crooked finger.
“Ellie, a word?” Derek pushed his door open wider, revealing the dark patches seeping through his grey shirt. “A lactose-intolerant customer just complained straight to head office about being ignored about a milk switch-up and they’re already in my emails demanding explanations.”
“She’s not lactose-intolerant; she’s just intolerable.”
“She’s a paying customer.”
“I used to work with her.”
“Used to,” he stated, pinching between his brows. “I’m going to have to give you another verbal warning. It’s a written one next time. Crikey, Ellie. Half the time, you don’t say boo to a goose, but when you do speak, you’re always…”
Putting her foot in it?
“I know you’re overqualified for this job,” he said, spreading his palms. “I get it. Me too. You think I want to be here doing this? If I had my way, I’d be directing horror b-movies.” He created a rectangle viewfinder with his fingers and scanned the room. He landed on Ellie and said, “I like you, Ellie, I really do, but you don’t fit in here. You’re always off in your own world, and when you do come down to earth, like I said…” He sighed. “Last week, for example. That woman talking to her friend about Jane Eyre?”
“Jane Austen, and that was important,” Ellie interjected, her cheeks colouring with frustration. “She told her friend that Elizabeth Bennet said, ‘You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,’ when it was actually Mr Darcy. Elizabeth’s response is pivotal to understanding her character’s growth and the dynamics of their—”
“Maybe so, but this isn’t a book shop, it’s a coffee shop,” Derek continued, shaking his head. “You also mix up orders, and just now, you scalded yourself with the milk, and I don’t need to look at the accident book to know you didn’t fill it in. I need people on my team who are focused on the tasks at hand. You can’t keep drifting back to whatever it is you used to do.”
Derek had never asked her what she ‘used to do’, but she suspected he cared as much about that as she did about his squandered dream of directing low budget horror film. And they cared about the job about the same. Derek only had a manager badge because he’d outlasted everyone else, or so people said. Would Ellie be handed that badge one day? Would she be telling the future her about how she’d given up on her dream of using her—very expensive—history degree to serve at the altar of Happy Bean?
She saw her future stretching out before her—an endless conveyor belt of lattes and teapots, while her true thoughts were swallowed by the faces of rude customers overpaying for caffeine.
No.
This wasn’t Ellie.
Six weeks, she’d said.
Six weeks of making coffee and she’d get back on her feet. How difficult could it be to find a new job to put her degree to use? She’d practically walked out of university and into her position at Iron Claw. But she wasn’t twenty anymore, and the world had changed. How long could she hang around her university city hoping to ‘make it’ in an industry that was happy to have Lord Brig tell Lady Oswold he ‘ghosted her’ because he wasn’t ‘down with her vibe.’
“Derek, you’re right,” she said, interrupting him mid-sentence as he droned on about the company’s customer service policies. “You are right.”
“I’m glad you agree. Go and apologise to the woman and fill in the accident log book.”
“No. But you can.” With a sense of finality, she untied her apron. Taking a deep breath, she folded it up and draped it over the back of a chair. She straightened her shoulders, along with her resolve. “I’m going now.”
“Where?”
