Last night had been a late one. Mitchell was faded around the edges. Luckily, he had neither meetings nor any immediate deadlines. His various supervisors were on vacation.

Mitchell’s plan for what remained of the morning was simple. He would get a coffee or something so that he might be able to flirt with Pamella, the lemur barista, and then retreat into the cool embrace of his office to ruminate on a couple of ibuprofens. He would then spend a few hours reviewing building code violation forms while listening to Spike and the Mad Dog bicker over the finer points of the Orioles’ coaching strategy.

Mitchell stretched, then bopped across Broadway to visit the loveliest barista in all of Manhattan. “Oh, Pamella,” he hummed. “How you’ve rearranged me.”

The Early Cenozoic had been recently redecorated. Vintage illustrations of coffee plants and terraced tea plantations hung on brick walls. The landlords were trying to attract more customers, Mitchell supposed. Not that they needed to. Their big front window faced City Hall. All the bureaucrats had to go there if they wanted decent caffeine. Not that every pen-pusher cared about decent. There was no accounting for taste.

Pamella was behind the register, staring into space with her perfect circle eyes. When Mitchell came in, she acknowledged him with a blink. He felt that this meant something. She didn’t blink at everyone that way. They had a complex understanding.

“Your face is a tuft of amber delight.”

She blinked again.

“The thought of you helps me survive the long hours in my dim office prison,” Mitchell continued. “You can’t imagine how they have us packed in. Like sardines in a tin. The thought of you keeps me going.”

“Oh stop.” Pamella plucked a leaf from a sad little potted plant on the counter and popped it in her mouth. “Don’t tell the bosses I’m eating the décor.”

“Never.”

“What will you have, Mitchell?”

Mitchell had been waging a subtle though as-yet-unsuccessful campaign to get the café to branch out into drinks more exotic than the usual coffee and tea. What wasn’t on their menu had become a subject of banter between him and Pamella. He would conjure something unusual, and she would dismiss his request. The birds who owned the place were conservative in their bulk orders. Therefore, Mitchell already had a cheek full of some guayusa he’d ordered all the way from Ecuador. All he really needed was hot water, which he could get in his office. But office water would not grant him visions of Pamella.

“Could I just get a cup of hot water?”

“I’ll have to charge.”

“For hot water?”

“They count the cups,” she grumbled.

“Would they charge for cold?”

“Plastic water cups are free.”

Not wanting to get her in trouble, he took out some money. He slid it, she slid it back. He returned it, and she gave in and sucked her teeth and thanked him.