Double Shift
JHENE
The espresso machine screams like it’s dying.
I’ve been here since five-thirty this morning, and the sound has burrowed so deep into my skull that I’m pretty sure I’ll hear it in my sleep. If I sleep. Which, let’s be honest, is a solid maybe at this point.
“Jhene, I need a vanilla latte, two cappuccinos, and—shit, what was the other one?” Cameron leans against the counter beside me, his flannel rolled up to his elbows, hair doing that messy thing it always does by hour three of our shift.
“Oat milk cortado, extra hot, no foam.” I don’t even look up from the pitcher I’m steaming. My hands know this routine better than they know anything else. Pour, steam, swirl. Pour, steam, swirl. Rinse. Repeat. Die inside a little.
“You’re scary good at that.”
“It’s called being broke and needing this job.” I slide the finished cappuccino across the pick-up counter. “Cappuccino for Marcus!”
A man in a suit that probably costs more than my rent doesn’t even glance at me as he grabs it and disappears out the door.
That’s the thing about working at Brew & Muse. We’re positioned right on the edge—the invisible line between downtown grit and uptown glitter. We get the people who work uptown but don’t quite live there yet. The ones still climbing. Still hungry.
And then we get the people like me. The ones who serve them.
“You good?” Cameron’s voice cuts through my spiral.
I realize I’ve been staring at the empty space where suit-guy disappeared, milk pitcher still in my hand, steam wand dripping onto the counter.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth either. The whole truth is that I’m so tired I can feel it in my bones. In the way, my lower back aches from standing. In the way, my feet throb even in my non-slip sneakers.
But Cameron doesn’t need to hear that.
“Vanilla latte for Sarah!”
Cameron handles the cortado while I start on the next order. It’s muscle memory now. I could do this blind. I have done it half-asleep, which is basically the same thing.
The morning rush is the worst. Everyone wants their coffee now, nobody makes eye contact, and they all assume you’re too stupid to remember their modifications.
“Can you make sure there’s absolutely no dairy? I’m severely lactose intolerant.”
“Oat milk, got it.”
“Is this oat milk? Because last time—”
“Yes, it’s oat milk.”
“It doesn’t taste like oat milk.”
I smile. The smile I’ve perfected over two years of this. The one that says: I’m here to help you and hides the part of me that wants to scream, then make your own fucking coffee.
“I can remake it if you’d like.”
She stares at me like she’s trying to decide if I’m being sincere or sarcastic.
I’m both.
“No, it’s fine.” She leaves, and I know she’s going to leave a bad review on Yelp. They always do.
By nine-thirty, the rush finally breaks. The cafe settles into its mid-morning lull—a few laptop warriors nursing Americanos, a couple in the corner booth having what looks like a breakup conversation, and old Mr. Chen reading his newspaper with his usual black coffee, one sugar.
I lean against the back counter and close my eyes for exactly three seconds.
“You look dead.”
I open them to find Cameron holding out a croissant. “Eat. You’ve been here four hours, and I haven’t seen you consume anything except coffee and anxiety.”
“I’m fine.”
“Jhene.”
“I’m fine.”
He sets the croissant on the counter between us anyway. “It’s from yesterday. We’re gonna throw it out. So really, you’re doing us a favor.”
That’s Cameron’s thing—making charity feel like a favor. He’s been doing it since he started here six months ago. Covering my shifts when I need to pick up extra hours somewhere else. Splitting his tips when it’s been a slow day. Acting like it’s no big deal when we both know it is.
I take the croissant. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He goes back to wiping down the espresso machine, and I try not to feel like a charity case.
The thing is, I’m good at this job. Really good. I remember every regular’s order. I know that Mrs. Patterson likes her latte exactly 120 degrees because hotter temperatures hurt her teeth. I know that the college kid who comes in every Tuesday is studying for his MCATs and takes his coffee black because he read somewhere that it’s better for focus. I know that the woman in the pencil skirts is having an affair with someone who isn’t her husband because she meets him here every Thursday at two, and they never touch, but they look at each other like they’re drowning.
I see people. Really see them.
It’s just that nobody sees me back.
Except maybe Cameron, but that’s different. That’s coworker’s obligation. That’s basic human decency in a world that doesn’t always have it.
My phone buzzes in my apron pocket. I already know what it is before I look.
Mom: Did you send this month yet? Antonio needs new cleats
I close my eyes again. Longer than three seconds this time.
Antonio is my baby brother. Thirteen, all legs and dreams of playing soccer professionally. Mom works doubles at the nursing home and still can’t cover everything. So I send money. Every month. Whatever I can.
Which this month is approximately nothing, because my student loan payment is eating everything, and my phone screen has been cracked for eight months, and I’m still wearing the same two pairs of jeans I bought sophomore year of college before I had to drop out because—
“Jhene.”
Cameron’s voice is soft.
I open my eyes.
“You good?”
“Yeah.” I pocket my phone without answering the text. “Just my mom.”
He doesn’t push. That’s another Cameron thing—knowing when to leave it alone.
The bell above the door chimes, and I straighten automatically, smile sliding back into place.
It’s a woman in yoga pants that probably cost two hundred dollars and a sweatshirt that says ZEN in glittery letters. She orders a matcha latte with oat milk, no sugar, and light ice.
“Can you make it in a Grande cup but only fill it to tall? I don’t want too much.”
“Sure.”
“And can you make sure the matcha is smooth? Last time it was clumped.”
“I’ll make sure it’s smooth.”
“Thank you so much, you’re a lifesaver.”
I’m not, but sure.
I make her drink exactly how she wants it, hand it over with that same practiced smile, and watch her leave without tipping.
Cameron catches my eye. “Twenty bucks says she posts it on Instagram with a caption about self-care.”
“I’m not taking that bet.” I grab the sanitizer and start wiping down the counters. “That’s guaranteed money.”
He laughs, and it’s such a normal sound that for a second, I almost forget about the text from my mom and the thirty-seven dollars I don’t have and the ache in my feet that never quite goes away.
For a second, it’s just this. Wiping down counters. Bad jokes. The comfortable rhythm of working beside someone who gets it.
Then my phone buzzes again.
Mads: babe we’re going out saturday. and before you say no, i already bought you a ticket. you’re coming. non-negotiable. ily but you’ve been a hermit for three months and i’m staging an intervention.
I stare at the message.
Saturday. Going out. Which means makeup I don’t have, an outfit I can’t afford, a world I don’t belong in anymore—if I ever did.
Madeline has been my best friend since we were seven. We grew up three buildings apart in the same shitty neighborhood, shared everything from clothes to dreams to the belief that we’d make it out together.
She did. I didn’t.
She’s a goddamn supermodel now. Billboards, magazine covers, the whole thing. She made it out and kept climbing, and I’m so fucking proud of her I could burst.
But it also means that when she says “going out,” she means places where drinks cost what I make in a shift. Places where everyone looks like they were born knowing how to belong.
Places where I stick out like exactly what I am—the girl who didn’t make it.
The bell chimes again. More customers. More orders. More smiles that don’t quite reach my eyes.
I slip my phone back into my apron and get back to work.
But Madeline’s message sits there, glowing, insistent.
Non-negotiable.
The thing about Madeline is that she doesn’t take no for an answer. Never has. It’s how she made it out. It’s how she survives in a world that wants to eat girls like us alive.
Maybe it’s how I should’ve been, too.
But I’m not Madeline. I’m just Jhene. The girl who pours coffee and writes poetry on napkins and dreams in the spaces between customer orders and student loan payments.
By the time my shift ends at two, my feet are screaming, and my lower back feels like someone took a hammer to it. Cameron’s working the closing shift, so I slip out the back door into the alley that always smells like garbage and stale rain.
The afternoon sun is too bright. I squint against it, fumbling for my cracked phone to check the time.
2:17 PM
Which means if I walk—don’t take the subway, can’t afford it today—I can be home by three. Maybe write for an hour before I have to get ready for my evening shift at the diner.
Yeah. Evening shift. Because one job isn’t enough when you’re twenty-four and drowning.
I start walking.
Downtown in the afternoon is a different animal than downtown in the morning. The morning is all hustle and purpose. The afternoon is slower, lazier. People actually look at each other. Kids are out of school, playing on stoops. The bodega on the corner has its doors propped open, and I can smell plantains frying.
This is my world. The real one.
Not uptown with its marble lobbies and doormen and people who’ve never had to choose between fixing a cracked phone screen and eating lunch.
Not Madeline’s world anymore, even though she tries so hard to pretend the distance doesn’t exist.
My phone buzzes. I already know who it is before I look.
Mads: you’re not bailing btw i’ll literally come to your apartment and drag you there myself. wear the navy dress i left at your place. love you, nene. see you saturday💕
I should feel annoyed. I should feel pressured.
Instead, I feel something else. Something I haven’t felt in a while.
Nervous. Excited. Terrified.
Alive.
Maybe that’s why I text back:
okay. but if i embarrass you i’m blaming you entirely.
Her response is immediate:
babe you couldn’t embarrass me if you tried. you’re gonna look hot. i’m gonna look hot. we’re gonna have FUNN!
I slip my phone back into my pocket and keep walking.
The thing about experiences is that they’re unpredictable. They’re messy. They’re the opposite of the safe, controlled routine I’ve built to survive.
But maybe Cameron was right.
Maybe it’s time to do something that isn’t work or sleep or worry.
Even if it’s just for one night.
Even if I don’t belong there.
My phone buzzes one more time.
Mom: ???
Right.
The money.
The thirty-seven dollars I don’t have.
Antonio’s cleats.
I stand there on the corner of Fifth and Morrison, halfway between the cafe and my apartment, and I do the math again in my head.
It still doesn’t work.
It never works.
But I’ll figure it out. I always do.
I text back:
sending it tonight. tell antonio good luck at practice.
Then I silence my phone and walk the rest of the way home, trying not to think about how I’m going to make thirty-seven dollars appear out of thin air.
Trying not to think about Saturday.
But when I get home—to my studio apartment with the radiator that clanks and the neighbor who plays bass at 2 AM and the window that looks out onto a brick wall—I don’t go straight to getting ready for my next shift.
I sit on my bed.
I pull out the napkin from my jeans pocket.
And I write.
Some days, I am coffee grounds
After the water has passed through—
Used, discarded, bitter on the tongue
Of a city that swallows girls like me
Without even tasting us first
It’s not good. It’s probably terrible.
And for five minutes, sitting in my tiny apartment with the afternoon light struggling through my dirty window, I’m not a barista or a daughter or a dropout or a charity case.
I’m just a girl who writes.
And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe that has to be enough.
Because it’s all I’ve got
