I looked down at my body.
I had added bruises on my wrists, biceps and thighs as well as some small scratches on my arms and legs.
Very attractive.
To make myself feel better about this situation, I turned to my MAC cosmetics. MAC never let me down. I put on some dewy blush, eye shadow that really had no color but was mostly sparkles, that white under-mascara-base-coat that makes our eyelashes look a mile long and a double-coat of mascara. I donned my Lynyrd Skynryd t-shirt, jeans, black woven belt with the big, square, silver buckle stamped with tiny roses and black cowboy boots.
I’d just tugged on the second boot when my cell rang.
“We have a problem,” Duke’s gravelly, Sam Elliott voice crunched in my ear.
“Duke! God, I’m glad to hear from you.”
“I’m at the store –”
“I closed the store for the weekend,” I informed him belatedly.
“I saw the note, I opened it. We have a near-riot on our hands here. People are freakin’ that Rosie’s not here. It started out pretty peaceful but now the mob want blood.”
“Are you there alone?”
I was aghast. Staffing Fortnum’s in the morning alone in the years pre-espresso-counter was doable. Post-coffee, impossible.
“Dolores is with me.”
Uh-oh.
Dolores drank instant coffee. This was not a good thing.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I flipped my phone shut and the buzzer went just as my cell rang again.
The phone was Ally, I flipped it open and told her to hang on while I hit the button on Lee’s intercom. It was Hank so I told him I’d be down to meet him.
“You doin’ okay?” Ally asked.
“Yeah, I ache but other than that, fine,” I answered.
“What’re you up to today?”
“Duke opened Fortnum’s and just phoned in a potential Rosie Riot. I’m heading over with Hank.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
Hank was not thrilled about heading into a riot situation as the first order of business during his Indy Watch. I talked him into it by alluding to concerns about his masculinity.
I walked in the door at Fortnum’s and wished I’d let Hank talk me out of riot control. There were at least fifteen, maybe twenty people and the air crackled with hostility. It was pretty clear that the regulars were okay with a few confused Rosie-free days but now the natives were getting restless.
Annie spied me before the door shut behind Hank. Annie had been coming every weekday morning for years, eight fifteen, wearing a suit, her blonde hair molded into a style reminiscent of a football helmet. We’d chatted over the counter hundreds of times and she was always pleasant if sometimes in a hurry. It was Sunday and I’d never seen her there on a weekend.
“What the f**k is going on here? Where’s the little guy who makes the coffee?” she snapped.
I stared at her and my mouth dropped open.
“Yeah. Where’s Rosie and why was the store closed yesterday? Ellen never closed the store. As in, ever.” That was Manuel, he’d been a regular since before the days of caffeine. He used to read Vonnegut and Updike for hours in the T-U-V section. I’d known him for as long as I could remember.
“I go out of my way, seventeen blocks, for the Coffee Guy’s coffee. What am I gonna do now? Where am I gonna go?” another guy asked. I didn’t know his name but he’d come with Rosie after he left the chain-coffee-shop and usually popped by a couple of Sundays a month and sometimes actually bought a book.