The Power of Medium

The Power of Medium

Margot had worked at The Daily Grind & Bind for exactly three weeks when she discovered that people who bought self-help books were the worst coffee shop customers.

"I'll have a medium latte," the woman said, not looking up from Unstoppable: Creating Your Best Life Now.

"We don't have medium," Margot said. "We have small, large, and—"

"Medium, please."

Margot made her a large. The woman paid, still reading, and walked directly into a cardboard display of the new Colleen Hoover novel. Books cascaded across the floor like a paper waterfall.

"Sorry," the woman said, not sounding sorry. "I was being mindful of my intentions."

"Your intentions just knocked over forty-seven books," Margot said, crouching to pick them up.

The woman stepped over her and left.

By noon, Margot had served lattes to a man who claimed to be "on a journey" (to the bathroom, apparently, because he left his briefcase at the counter and never came back), a woman who insisted on ordering "whatever feels right in the moment" (Margot gave her black coffee), and a teenager who wanted to know if the espresso was locally sourced, organic, fair trade, and aligned with his rising sign.

"I don't know what your rising sign is," Margot said.

"Sagittarius."

"Then no."

Her coworker, Derek, was supposed to be shelving returns in the fiction section, but he'd been reading the same page of Infinite Jest for twenty minutes, which Margot suspected was just him staring at it to look intellectual.

"Can I get a decaf cappuccino with oat milk?" a man asked.

"Sure," Margot said.

"But I want the oat milk steamed to exactly one hundred and forty degrees."

"I'll do my best."

"Because one hundred and fifty destroys the molecular structure. I read about it in a book." He gestured vaguely at the bookstore around them, as if that explained everything.

Margot made the cappuccino. She did not have a thermometer. She had vibes and a steam wand that screamed like a dying seagull.

The man took a sip, closed his eyes, and nodded slowly. "This is transformative."

"Great," Margot said.

"It's like I can taste the intention you put into it."

She had put zero intention into it. She had thought about her student loans the entire time.

At 2 PM, the real chaos began. A book club arrived—twelve women who had clearly not read the book but had all read the same article about coffee being bad for you. They ordered twelve herbal teas, each one different, each one requiring Margot to dig through the box of dusty tea bags they kept under the counter like archaeological artifacts.

"Do you have chamomile?"

"Yes."

"But is it organic?"

"It's... dusty."

"That'll work."

While Margot brewed tea, the book club spread out across every available table, discussing a novel none of them had finished.

"I think the ending was very ambiguous," one woman said.

"Definitely," another agreed. "Very open to interpretation."

Derek appeared at Margot's elbow. "They're on chapter three," he whispered. "The book has forty chapters."

"How do you know?"

"I actually read it. Unlike some people who just carry Infinite Jest around as a personality substitute."

"I'm on page one hundred and seventy-three," Derek said defensively.

"You've been on page one hundred and seventy-three for two weeks."

A crash echoed from the cookbook section. They both turned to see a small child had pulled down an entire shelf of Jamie Oliver books and was now sitting in the pile, eating what appeared to be a croissant.

"That's not my section," Derek said, fleeing back to fiction.

Margot sighed and went to investigate. The child's mother was in the self-help aisle, reading How to Be Present for Your Children.

The irony was not lost on Margot.

By 4 PM, Margot had made seventy-three drinks, reshelved forty-two books, and cleaned up three spills—one coffee, one tea, and one mysterious green smoothie that a man in a suit had brought from outside, which was both against policy and somehow still her problem.

The man who'd ordered the cappuccino hours earlier was still there, now on his third coffee, typing furiously on a laptop. Every few minutes, he'd sigh dramatically and stare out the window like a Victorian poet contemplating mortality.

"Are you working on something?" Margot asked as she wiped down a nearby table.

"My memoir," he said.

"Oh. Are you a writer?"

"I'm an accountant. But I've lived, you know? I've experienced things."

Margot looked at him—his sensible khakis, his company-logo polo shirt, his spreadsheet-strained eyes.

"I'm sure you have," she said kindly.

"Chapter seven is about the time I got food poisoning in Cleveland."

"That sounds... visceral."

"Exactly!" He beamed at her. "You get it. Most people don't get it."

"How many chapters are you planning?"

"Fifty-two. One for each year of my life. I'm really exploring the narrative arc of existence, you know? The coffee here helps me tap into that creative flow."

"We just use the same beans as everyone else," Margot said.

"But you make it with soul."

By closing time, Margot had given up on maintaining any illusion of control. There were books on the coffee bar, coffee cups in the poetry section, and the woman from the book club asleep in the self-help aisle with a copy of The Power of Now open on her chest.

Derek was finally shelving books for real, and Margot was wiping down the espresso machine when a man approached the counter.

"Sorry," Margot said, "we're closed."

"Oh, I don't want coffee," he said. "I'm just looking for a book. Something funny. I've had a long day."

Margot looked at him—really looked at him—and saw the same exhausted recognition she felt in her bones.

"Self-help section is that way," she said, pointing. "But I'd recommend literally anything else."

He laughed, and it was genuine. "Thanks. I appreciate the honesty."

"It's been that kind of day."

As he walked away, Derek appeared at her side. "You know what's funny?" he said.

"What?"

"We work in a place that's half bookstore, half coffee shop, and nobody seems to actually read or enjoy coffee. They just perform having taste."

Margot looked around at the scattered books, the ring-stained tables, the woman still asleep in self-help.

"Maybe that's the most honest thing about this place," she said. "Everyone's just pretending until it's real."

Derek considered this. "That's weirdly profound."

"Don't put it in your memoir."

"I would never." He paused. "I'm only on chapter two."

The next morning, Margot arrived to find someone had left a five-star review on Yelp: "The barista here really understands coffee on a molecular level. Plus they have good book recommendations. Five stars for the vibes."

She made herself a latte—medium, because she could call it whatever she wanted—and got to work.