Richmond, Virginia
Sitting by the register, Meg reflected on how much she couldn't stand so many of the people around her. Not just in any vague and abstract sense, but specifically these people that came into her coffee shop, and upon whom she waited every day. The tourists in the Summer annoyed her. The parents of the students scattered about through the various universities that peppered the city, when they came to town to visit their over privileged, under mannered kids irritated her no end. The locals, all of the sad sacks that lived in the Carytown area and chose to hang out here, where she worked... she hated them more than any others.
Meg had read about the earlier times in this city's history when the prosperous class had been mostly, almost exclusively, Caucasian. She hated the term "white." As if she, and those like her, were somehow totally lacking in any pigmentation; not even the very few "albinos" Meg had seen were "white." But, she felt there were too many people with too much pigment to suit her. It made Meg uncomfortable. Most days she knew that was the wrong way to be, and catching herself out thinking these horrible thoughts about people who didn't look close enough her own idealized norms made her feel like she was wrong. Somehow. Even being uncomfortable about her ill comfort made her feel worse.
But, then, her mood shifted sharply for the better. She could see a ray of sunshine in human form appear, like clockwork.
Walking down Cary Street, she watched as Elgin Stark, having come out from a set of apartments over one of the shops he
owned, and directly operated, made his way to the small coffee shop, Carytown Coffee Clatch, sitting next to the venerable and eclectic bookstore, Screaming-Mimi's. Elgin smiled. He hummed, Meg knew, though she couldn't hear it from where she sat; if Stark was anything, he was predictable. He would have broken into whistling, or even singing if his mood had lifted itself by even one more mere iota, Meg knew. There were mornings, like today, when it felt like she had been watching Elgin Stark walk the walk of a man without a care in the world for years now.
Down this same sidewalk each day he came. His father had done the same, she imagined. And his grandfather. She heard from others who worked here in Carytown longer than she had that the Starks had been working and living here for over a hundred years. Possibly more. An elderly friend had once shown Meg an article from a newspaper printed in the early 1900s about the opening of the Starks' first business on Cary Street; it had been a jewelry store called Midas's Gift.
A well kept forty year old man, or up to a superbly vigorous and in-shape sixty year old. Meg had been told by a news program recently that people were living to a healthy 110 years now, and she thought this was making it hard to just some men's age. He was a petite man, and was very broad shouldered. Elgin Stark had an unfortunately high forehead that might possibly point to developing baldness, and a broad face with a wide mouth, and a broad, flat, wide nose. Had anyone ever asked Meg about Mr. Stark's ethnic origins, she would readily admit to not knowing.
Dressed in his dark suit he cut an odd, yet familiar figure to the denizens of Cary Street, the area that all Richmonders agreed for a few centuries now was called Carytown. Each day, whether in chilling rains, blistering humid sunshine, the rare Richmond snows, and certainly, even in a Biblical "Rain of Frogs," she would be willing to bet, Elgin would be seen at seven thirty each day sauntering over to the Carytown Coffee Clatch (CCC, to those that go) for a cup of bad coffee, an oily but ridiculously chocolaty muffin, and a read of the Richmond Ledger on his tablet, while he enjoyed the sounds of the morning people around him.
Most of the people in the CCC that morning knew Mr. Stark. He was in every day. It would have been remarkable had they NOT seen him swing good naturedly through the doors as the first of the shop’s daily rushes hit its peak. High cheekbones,
messy mousey brown hair flecked with salt, short on the sides, an over-wide nose kept silver wire framed glasses in place before large expressive, dark brown eyes beneath heavy brow. That heavier than usual brow, festooned with the twin forests of a pair of eyebrows and the thin lipped wide mouth, almost always sporting a grin, made Elgin the most readily known, if not the most
handsome face in town. He had tried his level best, it was said, to stay out of the papers; Elgin worked hard to make the community thrive, but to not ever "caper in the spotlight, like a fool."
The tips of his unruly hair trying to reach beyond his mere five and a half foot frame waved furiously as his head bobbed about as he approached the counter.
Meg had his order ready. Every day she had his order ready just before he trotted into the front doors. She had only been at the CCC one measly hour sixteen years ago when her new bosses told her of “Mister Stark.”
“He will always order the same thing, no matter the weather. No matter the day. Coffee, chocolate muffin and another paper-wrapped muffin to eat later.” Mister Raymond had confided in her. “He may even make a disparaging joke about his waistline. It won't be funny, but please do not hold it against him." Raymond had paused then, "Don’t you waste anyone’s time telling him the specials, do not bother with suggesting items to him.”
Mister Raymond’s heavy "Old Richmond" accent was getting heavier as he looked more serious. All the while, Mister Sajid
stood to the side of his brother, nodding his head emphatically.
Mister Sajid was unintelligible to her when he spoke, his drawl coming out as more of a slurred mumble, even to this day she could not understand a thing he said. Truth be known, she would have to admit, the fault was more likely than not her own hearing. As it had gotten worse, her ability to understand such accent-tinged talk fell off dramatically. Early on he
had accepted this, and had not bothered to speak to ‘Ole Meg unless it was doubly important, usually just communicating in a series of short gestures.
Raymond had then worked himself up to a well rehearsed and agitated speech, and continued, “He
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is actually our landlord. And we do not EVER charge him for the items he orders every
day. And his family has NEVER raised our rent in twenty-five years. TWENTY-FIVE years, d'you hear me? We started to rent this store front from his father all those years ago, and now we rent from him. If he would order ten times the amount he orders every day, we would still not charge him! For what we pay in rent it is worth your job if you offend him!”
An emphatic nod from Sajid, as he vigorously cleaned the espresso machine.
“My wife makes those horrible muffins for him; my daughters are just now
learning how to make them just so." Mister Raymond smiled, then visibly shuddered. "Years ago we brought in more bakery items from the French bakery just up the street, we stopped making all of our own breads and sweats, and while Mr. Stark said nothing, the hurt in his eyes when he saw the new muffins was enough to get even my dead grandfather feel shame and sadness.”
Another nod came from the taller brother from his place behind the counter.
“So now this tray,” he said opening the refrigerator, “holds a tray of heavy, thick, homemade chocolate muffins especially for Mr. Stark. Only for him. These muffins!" Mister Raymond, his face flushing magenta, pointed at the lone tray. "Only for him!
Only him! Other muffins for other customers are in the front case. Use THOSE for people with money; use THESE” Raymond gesticulated into the ice box wildly “for him.”
Sajid’s nodding had worried her that she might see his head pop from his neck and fall from his shoulders at any moment. He then looked at her from over the top of his much shorter brother’s turban and said “Bu’remembah, alvaissbee nizeto’im, plez.”
Her obvious look of confusion that first morning all those years ago spoke volumes to Raymond, who said “He said please remember to be nice to him as well.”
That first exposure to the oddity that was “Mister Elgin Stark” had irritated her beyond all patience. At fifty-seven she had taken this part time morning job to supplement a sagging income, and people who got special treatment stuck in her craw something fierce!
Until she met him.
His lovely rich voice, dark chocolate and coffee on the wind, flowed over her, drowning her in an unexpected sea of good manners, and velvety Old Southern Charm. For such a homely little man, he spoke better than her own Grandfather, May-He-Rest-In-Piece, and dressed as well as any man she could name. Wool in the winter, linen in the Summer, and silk accented variation in Spring and Fall. While obviously the “Lord” of this street, the next few years taught her that he was as kind, humble, self-effacing and as generous a person as she might have ever hoped to meet.
His broad nose made her think of the black folk who passed as white so often when they came from a mixed home. But his hair was as thick and straight as any Filipino’s, but a mild salt and pepper brown and wildly askew every time she saw him.
Wind blown even on a breezeless day, though he kept it properly short as a man should. Eyes as deep a brown as the coffee drinks she served, under a brow cut at angles like granite slabs. Not an ounce of fat on his frame that Meg could see, but shoulders as wide as a football player’s. Meg loved his hands most, though. Wider than any man’s hands
had a right to be, but long oddly elegant fingers.
Meg might be tempted to say he was what her parents would have called a “mix-up baby” from a “home of sinners against God’s plan; maybe some odd, ungodly mix of African, Asian, and white, like the traxx her church sometimes handed out for its parishioners to scatter through the city in an effort to educate those poor souls who had never attended proper services. But she liked him too much to bother with that unpleasant idea. He was too nice to be one of “those people,” and he was properly rich, which was to say, Old Money Rich.
Those sort of folk, the folk she would never mistake for Caucasians, never got that well off without being in the music industry, or playing sports. Besides, his skin was a
"white" as hers, maybe even whiter; it had a rough look to it, like it was textured by years
of hard living, but it was white.
Now, at seventy-three, Miss Meghan, as he called her, awaited his kind and smiling company every day she worked in the CCC. And like every other day he came to the counter, took up his coffee, muffin, and unfolded his tablet from his jacket pocket in preparation of the morning headlines making an appearance, and then spoke with ‘Ole Meg as if she mattered. He listened to her when she spoke. For years after her last divorce she had thought of all men as useless. Now, six days a week, she spent some of each day in the company of an actual “Gentleman.” When he called her Miss Meghan, it was as though he could pronounce the second “s;” it never sounded the way other folks in Carytown said “Ms.”
Of course, it was rare for anyone to call her anything other than Meg now adays, and sometimes “’Ole Meg.” She
introduced herself that way to everyone she met, but Mister Stark called her Miss Meghan from the get-go and LISTENED to her when they would talk. Her very own grandson didn’t often do that.
Cordiality, her parents called it. And this one man was the first ever to show her what it meant.
Taking up his items he sat at his usual table by the window, and tucked in to the muffin as he slowly unfolded the tablet, an older model, Meg noticed, having set the download to begin its information retrieval while he was in line for his muffin and coffee; greeting the old man in the red cap at the next table with a word and a laugh at some lame joke Bart was always wanting to
utter at anyone in earshot whenever he got a new one to tell.
As Elgin sugared his coffee into submission, slowly stirring the now syrupy mixture, his eyes roved over the front page.
And they stopped dead center.
That nasty Event that had happened last night over in Europe or some-other where was what he had to have stopped at, ‘Ole Meg thought. That big ‘explosion. and the man they just found in the early hours of this morning.
She thought there might be some kind of time difference involved in the things that happened in foreign parts versus what time it was here in the US, but Meg was hazy on the details. It was one of the things she was fairly certain they had covered when she had been in school, but hadn't cared enough to remember.
That’s what he’s looking at. Meg thought, as she shifted her stance at the register, and could now see the halo-images that danced over his tablet. The replay of the explosion was now in its third or fourth cycle over the screen, if she was any judge.
Elgin’s grin dropped from his face for the first time in Meg's memory. Probably in the memory of anyone at the CCC.
Getting more and more serious as he read the halo-paper, the shimmering headlines floating above the
table where it rested on the small round table at which he sat. The sad look on his face was startling for Meg to see, it was as if someone he knew had been killed.
Leaving the coffee unfinished, and the muffin mostly uneaten for the first time in anyone’s memory, Elgin Stark left the Carytown Coffee Clatch, returning to his jewelry store in the center of the block of
shops down the way.
Though none at the CCC saw it, he grinned, his smile as comically wide as a maddened clown as he reached his
own storefront and came close to breaking his own door down trying to get inside in an extreme state of flustered haste.