If You Don't Know Me By Now. A. L. Michael

then sure. Very Tracy Emin. I like.’ Emanuel sauntered off and Imogen stamped her foot a little that he always managed to get the last word. She was going to make him suffer over whichever chai-drinking hipster chick he fell in love with today. That was certain.

      But when no one was looking she clapped her hands with glee and allowed herself a little dancing bum wiggle of joy. Laptop or not, he’d said it was a date. This whole London thing was looking up.

      *****

       ‘Young, Rich Couple seek Barista as Personal Chew Toy’

       It’s busy, a Saturday afternoon. Don’t ask me why your average coffee shop should be overpopulated on a Saturday afternoon. I would desperately hope that people had better things to do. But, they don’t. So there’s a big queue, and I’m running back and forth, getting orders. This has worked sufficiently for the last five minutes. And then they arrive.

       Mid-twenties, beautiful, and entitled. You may recognise the word ‘entitled’ in these blogs. It’s a trait I find equivalent to being homicidal. Possibly worse, depending on whether they sound like a toff (when killing you, or ordering you around, it’s all the same really).

       ‘Hi, can I get your drinks started?’ I squeak in my excited, ‘grateful to serve you’ voice.

       ‘Oh, oh, darling, I think she’s talking to us!’ The woman puts her hand to her chest in surprise, like the corgi just declared she needed to go for a tiddle.

       ‘Are you talking to us?’ the man says in confusion.

       ‘Yes … yes, I am. Can I take your drinks order … sir?’

       The woman then steps forward, while the man throws his hands up, like the concept of ordering is just far beyond him. Women’s business.

       ‘I’ll have a skinny latte, a chai tea latte –’

       ‘Are they both medium?’ I jump in, suddenly aware she’s going to regale me with a torrent of orders.

       ‘They’re all medium,’ she says pointedly.

       You’ve only told me two. Two is both. I have an English literature degree, so don’t mess with me, bitch.

       ‘Okay, both medium,’ I say to myself as I mark the cups with the appropriate hieroglyphs. ‘Anything else?’

       ‘Yes, as a matter of fact …’ She then lists a few more pretentious drinks, and I can tell exactly which one is for her (sugar-free vanilla soya cappuccino extra-hot) and which one’s for him (medium skinny latte) and can imagine who their friends are, depending on the variety. The kooky girl with the good stories has the chai tea latte. The two guys who don’t really drink coffee, but didn’t feel like they could ask for a coke have got regular lattes. The filter coffee with pouring cream is for the driver on what is no doubt a jaunt to a country estate for the weekend, in what I would presume is either a Mercedes SLK or a BMW. It’s fifty-fifty odds that one of them is named Binky.

       ‘Oh, oh, actually, I think I’ll have a brownie. I’ll be so terribly bad!’ The man, before this comment, could have been considered attractive.

       Weird, a brownie, my money would have been on –

       ‘Oh, and a granola bar, yum!’

       There it is. The grand order of the world has been restored. You are not a unique snowflake, with the wings of a butterfly. You are a subject created of class, income and whatever magazines you read.

       Mr Previously-Attractive then continues to repeat, loudly, to his girlfriend about the brownie, for the next three minutes, while I am making their drinks.

       ‘Where is it, why hasn’t she got it? Was he meant to get it? Did I pay for it?’

       Well, if you looked at the price you were paying instead of throwing down a fifty-pound note, maybe you’d know.

       I hand over the five drinks, the granola bar and the brownie, and Previously-Attractive looks at me in surprise, a crooked grin appearing.

       ‘Well, aren’t you a good girl!’

       And I’m back to being the corgi.

       ‘Come on, darling,’ the girlfriend replies. ‘Binky’s got the Merc running. We need to be in Windsor by five.’