Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [107]
And then Spyder had Niki drive her downtown, and she made a sign from poster board and a squeaky purple Magic Marker, taped it to the window of Weird Trappings—“Closed Until Further Notice”—had shown Niki around the shop, picking out a few things to take back to Cullom Street with her.
It was Niki’s idea to go to the Fidgety Bean afterwards, wanting to keep Spyder out a little longer, wanting to see Daria and be out herself. Spyder shrugged and nodded yes.
“I don’t drink coffee,” she said.
“Not ever?” Niki asked, incredulous, and suddenly she was thinking about Danny for the first time in days, Danny whose love of coffee had bordered on the religious. She pushed his ghost away, reached out and held Spyder’s warm hand as they squeezed down an incredibly narrow alley to Morris.
“It always makes my stomach hurt. Makes me nauseous, sometimes. Big-time handicap for a member of the caffeine generation, I guess.”
And then the alley opened, released them to the cobblestone street, and they were under the dreary sky again. Three doors down to the Bean, and Niki changed the subject, talked about going thrifting for a bed, tomorrow perhaps, and maybe a new lamp, too.
Early afternoon and the coffeehouse was almost empty, nobody but a rumpled wad of slackers in the back smoking and talking too loud. Niki sat down at the bar before she saw Daria, bleary-eyed and a big coffee stain down the front of her little red apron. She smiled, a genuine glad-to-see-you smile, and put down the tray of glasses she’d been carrying. Spyder took the stool next to Niki and stared out through her dreads.
“Hi there, stranger,” Daria said and hugged Niki across the bar and a cautious “How you doin’, Spyder?”
“Okay,” Spyder said, and turned her attention to a jar of chocolate biscotti. “I want one of those,” she said.
“Sure,” and Daria reached beneath the counter for metal tongs, the lid off the jar and then a big piece of the biscotti on a napkin sitting in front of Spyder. “You gonna want some coffee with that, right?”
“I never drink coffee,” Spyder said again.
“Makes her barf,” Niki added.
“How about some hot chocolate or tea?” But Spyder shook her head, and then she took a loud, crunchy bite.
“Christ, Spyder,” Daria said. “You’re gonna break a tooth or something.”
Spyder smiled, and there were cocoa-colored crumbs on her lips.
“And you want a Cubano, right?” she asked Niki, who was examining the long list of exotic coffee drinks chalked up behind Daria, neon chalk rainbow on dusty slate.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure, and I want you to make Spyder an almond milk.”
When Spyder started to protest, Daria held one finger to her lips, shhhhh, “I promise, it won’t make you barf. Just steamed milk and a shot of almond syrup. Unless you’d rather have hazelnut or caramel, or vanilla.” And Daria pointed to a row of tall bottles behind her, lurid shades of Torani syrups, and Spyder looked at Niki.
“Almond’s fine,” she said, mumbling around her second noisy mouthful of biscotti.
“Coming right up, ladies,” Daria said and turned her back, went to work with coffee grounds and sugar, almond syrup and the shiny silver Lavazza machine.
“So,” and Niki wasn’t looking at Spyder, speaking to her but watching the kids at the back table. “How’d you get the shop going, anyway?”
Spyder wiped her mouth with the napkin, picked up stray crumbs from the polished countertop, each one pressed down until it stuck to her fingertip and then transferred them to her tongue.
“A friend helped me,” she said.
“But didn’t you have to get a loan from a bank or something?”
“No,” Spyder said. “I tried, to start with, but nobody’s gonna give me a loan, Niki. I had a friend.”
And Niki was looking at her now, a soft smile on her Asian lips, and now she was holding Spyder’s hand again.
“A friend who loaned you the money?”
“No, a friend that died and gave me the money,” she said, and Niki’s smile faded a little.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That your friend died, I mean.”
“Yeah. He could look just like Siouxsie