Клео Коул - Latte Trouble

I’d met Lottie about a year before, when I’d first returned to managing the Blend after a decade of suburban single motherhood. Madame had arrived one afternoon with Lottie, the two chatting and laughing as they breezed through the coffeehouse door.

“Clare, dear, I’d like you to meet an old friend and a former light of the fashion world,” Madame had chirped.

I shook Lottie’s hand. “Model?” I asked since, at over fifty, Lottie appeared tall and slim enough to have been one, and with her bold scarlet-dyed hair she obviously didn’t mind attention.

“Model? Clare, surely you jest!” Madame chided. “You don’t recall Lottie Harmon accessories? Her brand name was magic.”

“ Was being the key word,” said Lottie with a laugh. “Once upon a time, back in the early 1980s.”

I thought Lottie’s comment was funny and self-deprecating, but her laugh made me cringe slightly. It didn’t sound as tossed off as the remark—in fact, it sound strained, high-pitched, forced.

“Lottie was the creator of Spangles,” Madame reminded me. “You must remember some of those popular pieces like the Spangle tie-bar? She sold millions.”

I nodded vigorously as my mind raced back over twenty years to big hair, shoulder pads, skinny neckties, Flashdance legwarmers, and New Wave music. “Lottie Harmon Spangles! Of course!”

Spangles jewelry had been a fashion trend used by every glam rocker and drooling fan. David Bowie, Prince, Annie Lennox, Madonna—all of them wore Lottie’s Spangles. American magazines did glossy spreads of her line and famous European ads posed models wearing nothing but Lottie’s jewelry. Then came the grunge movement, and that was that. Another designer might have tried changing with the times, maybe stuck around to create bling-bling for rap artists, but Lottie Harmon had simply dropped out of the fashion scene.

“Pleased to meet you, Clare,” said Lottie. She smiled, then turned back to Madame. “But where is that husband of yours? Pierre? And your son? The last time I saw Matteo he was barely out of college….”

“Well, I’m very sorry to say that Pierre passed away, but my son is the Blend’s coffee buyer now, so, of course, he’s always jetting off to heaven knows where…” Madame’s voice trailed off as she led Lottie to a cozy table by the fireplace.

My former mother-in-law had later informed me that Lottie had come back to New York City to reside in Greenwich Village once again after twenty-five years of living overseas. She’d made it a point to look up Madame within a month of her return to America.

Lottie stopped by the coffeehouse at least once a week after that first meeting. Like Madame, I found her to be a person whose energy and enthusiasm belied her age. She wore her scarlet hair loose and long, and her striking deep blue eyes always seemed to be examining the subtlest color or shape of things. She acted as though she were hungry to hear about the latest trends of popular culture, which seemed a bit strange to me, considering her sudden drop from the center of its spotlight so many years before. Nevertheless, she would routinely arrive with an armload of European and American fashion magazines, pile them on a table and spend hours pouring through their pages, all the while casually engaging my staff or the customers in wide-ranging discussions about fashion, film, music, or current events.

It was during one of her visits to the Blend that the formerly “defunct” designer seized on the simple but brilliant idea that would resurrect her fashion career.

“What a color!” Lottie had exclaimed that Friday as she sat beside one of our regular customers. “That looks absolutely delicious. What are you drinking, darling?”

Rena Garcia, a petite Latina with shoulder-length dark curls, full, cocoa-painted lips and laughing dark eyes, tipped her cup in Lottie’s direction. “It’s a caramel-chocolate latte. I felt the need for some comfort today—and the Blend’s the only coffeehouse around here that makes these.”

The latte in question was a Village Blend specialty. Because of the extra prep time involved in making the homemade syrup, I placed it on our menu only Fridays through Sundays. The drink had been popular to begin with, but it was lately improved by Tucker Burton’s addition of whipped cream with a chocolate-covered coffee bean placed atop it. Since Tucker’s tinkering, the drink had become even more popular. Everyone who tried it loved it and came back for more.

“I’ll have one of those myself,” Lottie declared.

It was a happy coincidence that Rena had been there at all. The savvy, outspoken marketing professional, who was barely out of her twenties, had been fired the day before from her high-powered job at the nearby Satay and Satay Advertising Agency. She was only in the neighborhood to “clean out her desk and say good-bye to everyone,” which included the staff at the Blend.

“Stay awhile and let’s enjoy our lattes,” Lottie insisted after hearing this.

When I set a fresh caramel-chocolate latte in front of her, Lottie seemed transfixed by the hot liquid, the threads of our own homemade chocolate-infused caramel syrup crisscrossing the whipped cream, the single chocolate-covered coffee bean sitting atop the cloud.

“Now that is delightful,” said Lottie.

Rena regarded her. “But you haven’t even tried it yet.”

Lottie twirled her finger above the drink. “The white of the whipped cream is the perfect foil for that beautiful caramel-chocolate color of the syrup and the rich brown of the bean.”

“Excuse me?” said Rena.

“It’s a sophisticated color, too,” continued Lottie. “Not like those bubble-gum pinks I’ve seen far too much of. These colors are classic, not trendy. Subtle, mature, reassuring…colors that dispel the chill of the autumn day. What was the word you used—”

Rena laughed. “Comfort. It’s a comfort drink.”

Overhearing them from behind the counter, I jumped in. “Like comfort food, right? Chocolate chip cookies or apple pie or mashed potatoes and meatloaf.”

Lottie nodded, tapping her chin with her finger, even more intrigued. “And all of those foods are part of the same palette—creams, tans, browns. Look, Rena. See how, as you drink it, the caramel-chocolate swirls in the latte froth…see how it would highlight the weave in your sweater.”

“It would look good on me as a brooch, then,” said Rena, half-jokingly. “Better that than spilled on my sweater. Actually, I haven’t found any jewelry that doesn’t look tacky on me. Everything’s either blah or trying too hard to be faux antique or like some thrift shop rhinestone retro ‘find’ when it obviously isn’t.”

Lottie’s brow was still wrinkled in thought, then she nodded. “You’re right, Rena. It would look good as a brooch…in fact, it would look fabulous!” Lottie instantly grabbed a dozen napkins and borrowed a pen from me. As she began to sketch, a man stepped up to the coffee bar from a nearby table to join their conversation.

Tad Benedict, a thirty-something, self-employed investment banker, was working some personal stock trades on his laptop computer when he’d overheard the women. It was soon fairly clear that Tad was more interested in Rena Garcia than the unique hue of her beverage, but all three were cordial to each other.

“You said you’d been fired?” Tad asked Rena. “But why would they get rid of someone like you? Don’t they need good people over at S and S anymore?”

Rena tossed her dark curls and laughed. “My boss got rid of me because I’m smarter than her,” she replied. “I came up with ideas she took, and when I started making noise about a promotion, a raise, or some sort of recognition, she trumped up complaints about my performance. That uptight vampire bitch of a manager only has a job because she’s bled young assistants dry one after another then tossed them aside when she felt threatened.”