The latte artist
Contemporary nonfiction was Jake's favorite section to shelve when he worked at Borders because from that aisle he could see behind the coffee counter where the best artist he knew worked quietly. Sam Winsholt was Jake's earliest major crush, though Sam never knew it. On breaks, Jake would sit in the café like a customer, observing Sam in the act of creation. His hands deft on the steam wand, tap tap on the counter, then the most subtle dance as he poured. The milk flowed thick, then thin as Sam poured life into the surface of the latte. Leaves and hearts, faces if he was in a mood, abstract geometry, an acid projection, roots, a storm, a dandelion. Then he'd pop the lid on the paper cup and call out the customer's name. Nobody but Sam would ever know the value of the art they were drinking. Well, nobody else but Jake.
Jake wanted to tell Sam that he knew about his secret art, but what if speaking of it would ruin everything? The art exists as it does because nobody knows about it. If Sam wanted people to know about it then surely he would show them. The act of viewing is not innocent. It changes the canvas, or what the artist sees in the canvas that nobody else can see. Jake was seeing something he was not supposed to see, and he knew it and loved it.
Sometimes he watched the people who recevied one of Sam's secret works as they sat sipping and reading some book or magazine they may or may not buy. Perhaps they would be the one millionth person to learn the secret of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and Jake could be sent to contemporary nonfiction to restock it and steal another moment of Sam creating. His fingers impossibly light under the metal handle of the frothing pitcher, allowing the milk to pour free then pulling back to slow the stream. Tilting the paper cup to stretch the lines, then standing it up to finish the design in detail before covering it with a black plastic lid and calling another unknowing name.
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