The Italian's proposal

Chapter 3

The coffee shop was packed, it was a small place, with only eight tables, each with four metal chairs with semi-padded backs. Customers usually came in desperate, as if a rabid dog were chasing them and it was life or death to get a coffee. Melody was trying to work at lightning speed, cranking the machine, pouring the coffee that was kept hot from the glass pot, and charging the customers. It was a lot of work for one person, but the place was being remodeled and because she was pregnant and the owner had taken pity on her, Melody was the only employee in the coffee shop.

She was in charge of opening and closing and on days when she couldn’t open the place at seven in the morning, Mr. Doyle would come down from his apartment and open it.

The Doyle family had lived above the coffee shop for over twenty years, supporting themselves from it as their only source of employment, the couple had only one son, who had gone to college on a scholarship, and only returned for the summer. Raymond loved his father, but he couldn’t stay in the shop forever. At least that’s what Doyle told her when she came recommended by Lucy. Her friend had known Doyle for years, he had given her first job. That was why Melody was struggling, she didn’t want to make her friend look bad, not after she’ d gotten her a job and given her a temporary home.

“Young lady,” the man in the rumpled shirt called out to her for the umpteenth time.

The man had asked her for a double espresso and the machine was jammed, something that used to happen, but she hadn’t found someone to fix it.

“I’m coming, sir. I’ll get this started right away,” Melody apologized without looking at the man. She was sure that, if she looked at him, she would find a face of disgust and anger.

“That’s what you told me ten minutes ago.”

“As you will see, neither you nor the others have had your coffee dispatched. It is not personal. You can wait or you can walk for twenty minutes and find another coffee shop with minimally regular coffee and

where you might even find hair in it.”

The customers standing around the bar stared at her as if all hell had broken loose from her mouth.

But none of them said anything. She was right. Melody knew all of Manhattan like the back of her hand.

There wasn’t a single coffee shop nearby, at least not one worth even going into.

At Doyle’s - a most unoriginal name - at least she had excellent coffee and rich buttermilk rolls and honey.

Melody was doing her best, she had put in the effort from day one, and even if things weren’t flowing the way she wanted them to, at least she had a job.

The other employees Mr. Doyle had in the cafeteria were young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty, guys who didn’t really need to work eight or ten hours, but who did it to have something extra and earned with their own sweat. She knew that at least one of them had gotten the job as part of the beginning of becoming independent of the parental bond. Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

Kids like she had once been. Even when she came of age, her father still provided for her, she didn’t have to work that was the whole point. Her father always stressed it to both daughters of the marriage: Working is not an option. Studying, a university degree, is the best inheritance I can leave you when I die.

For the girls it had been drastic, but now she understood in part, why her father said that and never tired of repeating it.

She was never going to regret going through with her pregnancy, her child was her family, from the moment she saw the positive pregnancy test, her baby had become everything to her. But her mother

was right about one thing, she was going to change her life forever, the life that with so much eagerness and sacrifice her parents had given her.

“A coffee please,” the man in his forties stood in front of her as if to let her know he was in a hurry.

Melody ignored him and went around him to bring three muffins to old Clark. A customer who according to her boss had been visiting her coffee shop for quite some time, almost like one of the owners.

“Can’t you hear me? I’m in a hurry, my boss is waiting for coffee.”

“I heard you, but as you may notice with those ridiculously big eyes, there are more people waiting and the machine is not working properly.”

At that moment she heard how the coffee pot had started to rise and she almost started to jump for joy.

Finally, she was going to be able to give the service that corresponded and to be able to empty the place.

“Do you want me to wait for these ...? six people?” the man appreciated not believing what the woman was saying. Looking at her as if she was stupid, he got back in her way. “Mr. Giannato gets very cranky when he doesn’t have his coffee early.”

Melody crossed the bar and poured three coffees and put the lid on it, pointing to the sugar she handed them to their respective owners, they left the money on the bar and said goodbye thanking her.

“Wait your turn. I don’t care who this Gianetto is, for me he’s just like any other customer. You wait your turn.”

She wasn’t going to carry on a conversation with that guy, Melody told herself going to pick up a table and walking back past the suited man.

“My coffee miss,” it was the man with the rumpled shirt and desperate look.

“Here,” she told him returning with her hands full of plates, she placed them on the bar and poured the coffee for him. “Sugar? No? It’ s...”

“What about my coffee, William?” Melody was interrupted by the voice of a man who had just arrived.

Her morning couldn’t get any worse. First the vomiting like she was sick, and then the coffee machine slowing down all her work. She was a walking hazard, her hair disheveled, for with the constant walking in the coffee shop, carrying plates and coffee back and forth, several strands of hair had come loose from her tail. Melody was not an exuberantly beautiful woman, she did not captivate at first glance, she did not consider herself to be in a magazine by any stretch of the imagination, but what she did have were beautiful gray eyes and waist-length jet-black hair. Her eyebrows were minimal, so she had to paint them with dark pencil and her nose was smaller than she would have liked.

She had grown accustomed to being disheveled. Although Lucy had urged her to keep her makeup and hair done, she ignored it. She was at the coffee shop to provide a service, not to offer herself as a product.

Melody didn’t even look at the man, she listened for the sound of the little bell indicating that someone had opened the door and continued to charge the wrinkled shirt’s man.

Doyle had allowed her to stay, she wasn’t the most skilled at the job, nor was she the most versed in dealing with customers, but he had trusted her to stay. Maybe it was the fact that she was the oldest on the team, maybe it was because she was pregnant, “which you couldn’t tell yet, except when she threw up everything, she ate every morning,” even though she was the newest employee the owner had hired. Barely a week old, he had decided the day before that he was going to spare all the kids but her.

“The young lady looks busy,” was all the helper or assistant replied to the newcomer.

Melody was irritated by those people who had the luxury of having an assistant to buy their coffee, to take their clothes to the dry cleaners, even more so when they were young and arrogant, like those millionaire sons of mommy and daddy who thought they were lords and masters of the world.

She had never associated with that kind of people for fear of letting her true concept show, the one she was sure would escape from between her lips, because if there was one thing she always did, it was to say what was going through her mind no matter who would be offended along the way.

She didn’t mince words and that had always caused her a thousand inconveniences.

“Busy? Doesn’t she know she’s in a food business? Service? She eats because customers come in.”

Melody clenched her fists to keep from throwing the coffee pot at the arrogant man. She stared at the coffee machine and cursed under her breath.

“Speak up I can’t understand you,” the man addressed her specifically and Melody ignored him completely. She poured five regular coffees and one with skim milk, capped them and handed them to their respective customers.

She turned to the studious man who had come in just to annoy her and finish ruining her morning and was stunned to see the man.

In front of her was the tallest man she had ever seen, with high cheekbones, fine, shiny golden blond hair, a narrow mouth, and a square jaw. This man exuded pure masculinity and the scent of money. His eyes were emerald green, so light they could appear almost gray, flanked by thick lashes.

He stared at her and for an instant, for a millisecond Melody wondered what it would be like to be possessed by those delicious lips so appealing.

She was seized with embarrassment and her pale skin was invaded by an almost full-faced blush.

For an instant she forgot why she was in that place and all the anger she had felt at the man’s constant attack.

“Can you give me the coffee, or do I have to call Doyle to come and make it himself?”

He had noticed the impact he made on her.

Smiling cheekily, he raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest.

For the first time, Melody was speechless.