The cement steps lead up to a screen door, glass during the three seasons that aren't summer. It had been over a year since I last swung open that door, stepped inside, walked up to that counter.
Community announcements plaster the front of the counter. Sunrise yoga classes, seeking jam-band participants Wednesday nights at 9 in back of the used book store, a constellation show at the planetarium - BYOB.
It's reggae, some Saturday mornings, that ushers everyone in, as if it doesn't trust the wafting scent of freshly brewed coffee or the sizzle of the grill to greet as proper hosts. Other Saturday mornings, it's an album of Pearl Jam, that lines us up and takes our order.
I always have a number two with soy sausage substitute and a coffee. Sometimes a vitamin water. XXX if I can reach. I went often before I left. (Leaving with connotations different than moving. Always phrased as leaving. Never certain why.) He knew my name then.
"Emily, right?" He didn't wait for me to answer before he wrote my name next to the order.
I wrote "Become a regular at a coffee shop" on a wish-list a few months after I left Maine. A few days ago, the day before I traveled back to Maine, a D.C. Starbucks guy gave me my iced-latte for free. "Don't worry about it; you're a regular." He waived my bank card away. He handed me the latte and the wish-list item to cross off. I took the latte but kept the list uncrossed. I wasn't sure of his motives. I was standing in the center of an international corporation. "It doesn't count," and I walked out.
Two days later, I stood at that counter of that neighborhood coffee shop with the best breakfast sandwiches I have ever had that serves the best coffee I have ever had. He wrote my name down next to my usual order and I finally realized: I had been a regular all along.
