// Toriv

The first day of actual spring at the shop opened with a crisis. One of my employees, Daeci, fumbled a milk bag and by some mean trick of physics, it happened to burst open when it hit the floor. That in itself wouldn’t have been so unusual, since not a day goes by that we don’t spill something all over the place, but the moment I turned to say “no worries, it’s just spilled milk”, Daeci covered her face with her hands and went into a full-blown screaming bawl.

Now I like to think that I’m able to keep pretty cool under pressure, but girls crying their faces off at six thirty in the morning in my shop is where I tend to draw the line. Luckily, the much less startled Kiv, Daeci’s twin brother, was also there to help open the shop, so he whisked her away into the backroom to let the storm pass.

Which is how I ended up opening café Vanellas all on my lonesome on one of the busiest days of the week, otherwise known as Monday. Folks need their comfort coffee on Monday mornings, yo. I would know, having had the ingenious idea of making a business of supplying all of the Elven Quarter with their daily breakfast.

“All not emotionally-compromised hands on deck!” I yelled in the general direction of the backroom, as the line in front of the register grew longer and the queue of drinks and sandwiches looked more and more dire.

Kiv came racing out, fighting to yank his hair through an elastic and to tie on his apron at the same time. “Sorry, boss. Dae’s got a thing happening.”

“Drinks queue, please. What’s the thing?”

Kiv waved like a circus performer at all the waiting customers and got started on all the little lined-up cardboard cups. “Just a boy thing. You know how it is.”

“Do I ever,” I said super dramatically, to smirks and laughter from the eavesdropping clientele.

We got everything done as best we could, finishing up beautifully once Daeci joined us on the floor, her face still blotchy from crying but set with determination. So the morning had gotten off to a rocky start, but between the three of us it turned out fine, which is really all I can ask for at the end of the day. Or the end of the Great Monday Breakfast Frenzy, as it were.

“Sorry, boss,” Daeci told me once the rush had died down. It always kind of weirded me out how she and Kiv have the exact same way of saying things. “I kinda lost it for a minute.”

“It’s all good, kiddo. I get it. Boys suck.”

“Yeah, they do.” She looked around at her brother, who was wiping off the espresso machine with a very intense, very suspicious kind of concentration. “They can’t keep a girl’s privacy worth a darn, either.”

“Was that a secret?” Kiv said without turning around.

Daeci looked like she wanted to give his ponytail a tug, but in the end she just sighed and turned back to me. “Julien broke up with me, that’s all. Whatever, he was a dick anyway.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.”

“I never asked you, Kivariev!”

We shoulder bumped instead of hugging, since she had a package of cold cuts still in her hands and I had four steaming pitchers in need of washing in mine. I thought it the perfect time to dole out some friendly advice. “Don’t worry, Daeci. A better one will come along. Or one who’s just the same. Or even worse, but hopefully not. What I mean is, there are plenty of fish in the sea and you’ve got a truckload of bait at your disposal.”

“Thanks, boss. I guess.”

“You’re very welcome. Now double time it, kids, we need to get ready for lunch and I still have to write up the order.”

After all the cleaning and wiping and lunch planning had been done, I settled at one of the unoccupied tables in the shop to catch some early spring sun. Maybe I wasted a minute or two practicing my pencil twirling, but all practice is good practice, right?

Anyway, admin stuff. I won’t bog down this super stimulating autobio with boring details of backstage shopkeeping, but I will say that orders and accounts take up a lot of my time. Especially the money stuff. It’s like tax season level shit but every week. The horror, etcetera, etcetera. Plus Loriev had daytime hospital duty that week, and no bestie meant no tossing the financial crap to him like a hot potato worth my entire life’s savings. So there I was, sitting on my exquisite ass, counting up a week’s worth of breakfast supplies as fast as my high school education could go. I had even fallen into the trap of counting on my fingers a few times before realizing I could just as easily whip out my phone and calculate everything that way, therefore making me look much less like the mathless wonder I actually am. That should be my sub-title, honestly. TORIV VANELLAS, CEO. MATHLESS WONDER.

All that to say, besides Daeci’s early morning crying fit, it was turning out to be a pretty ordinary day. You’d think I’d be bored by ordinary days. I hate basically anything else that’s ordinary. Ordinary Monday mornings are okay in my book, though. There’s something nice about the constancy of the noises of the coffee grinder and espresso machine, of the early morning chatter in the shop and the noise of the  traffic passing outside. It feels familiar, though it isn’t always the same, what with all the different people going in and out. Just enough change and excitement to make it interesting, but still mine enough to feel like home. That’s the feeling of it, I guess. Home.

And who should walk into it at that precise moment but the handsome professor. I don’t know exactly when I started thinking of him as “handsome” instead of “pretty okay”. Maybe it was around the time the seasons finally turned. I remember he was in a kind of double-breasted trench coat that day, with the collar turned up against the wind. With his usual dress shoes and glasses and leather book bag, I can’t say he looked anything but studious. Studious and kind of fine, to be completely honest, as autobiographies should aim to be.

“Bonjour et bienvenue,” I told him, lounging back in my chair to display my skinny-jeaned self to full advantage. Force of habit, really.

Professor Singh smiled, in that very quiet, shy way he has, like he’s trying to hide behind his fogging-up glasses. “Bonjour. Comment allez-vous ce matin?”

I put a hand to my heart, gasping, “He speaks French!”

He smiled wider. “Of course I do. Nous vivons à Montréal, n’est-ce pas?”

“Yeah, but not all of us speak it à la française,” I said, carefully enunciating in the way of his own fancy Parisian French. “I bet that earns you some serious sex appeal points around here.”

Daeci and Kiv laughed from the other side of the counter. The professor covered his face with his hand for a second, but when he took his glasses off the polish them on the end of his scarf he looked a lot less embarrassed than I would have thought. “One would think. I’m afraid in my experience, that hasn’t really been the case.”

“Oh,” Daeci said extra sympathetically. “Are you having love troubles too, professor?”

“What? No, not really.” For some reason, that seemed to get him more than my sex appeal comment. “I just mean in general.”

Kiv grinned at him from over the espresso bar. “Do you generally have love troubles?”

“I’m pretty sure we all do,” I said, before my employees could discombobulate my customer any more than necessary. “And I’m having trouble with you guys. Go on break, now that we have a minute.”

“Thanks, boss,” the twins said in freaky twin unison as they hustled off to yank off their aprons and fix their hair.

As I slipped away from my paperwork and behind the counter again, Professor Singh readjusted his glasses and looked at me with widened eyes. “So you’re the boss?”

“I am indeed the boss, my good sir.” I tied my apron on tighter and gave my very best Like A Boss smile. “I own this place. Have for the past two years or so. Does that surprise you?”

He laughed a bit and fiddled with the strap of his book bag. “It does, a little. Though I suppose it’s my fault I never thought to ask.”

“To be fair, I don’t actually look very boss-like.”

“No, you do,” he said carefully. He tipped his head as he said it, which changed his expression just a tiny little bit, like when light refracts through water. “Now that I’m looking properly.”

There was a bit of a moment after that. The kind of moment where you’re two people just staring at each other, trying to say something but trying not to give too much away at the same time. I am pretty familiar with this kind of moment. I get sort of the same feeling when I’m sizing someone up over the beer he just bought me: to bring home or not to bring home, that is the question.

Except this wasn’t quite the same as all those other times. For one thing, we were in the shop, and I keep a reasonably strict no macking, flirting, or wooing rule during work hours, just to make sure everyone (including the Mathless Wonder) stays focused and on task. And for another thing, it was the professor standing across the register from me, and I didn’t sense he was the type to buy someone a beer in the hopes of getting invited home later on.

So basically we just stood there looking at each other, long enough for me to notice his glasses were designer and his scarf was probably cashmere, before he shuffled his feet in his fancy probably-designer shoes and looked away. He even did the awkward throat clearing thing, which is, if I’m being honest, super cliché. Kind of adorkable, but also kind of mainstream, if you know what I mean.

“Erm, Toriv,” he said.

“Erm, Prof?” I said.

“I was wondering–”

Unfortunately, what he was wondering would have to go on being wondered for a while, because at that exact second, at that most crucial turning point in the conversation, Kiv and Daeci came barrelling into the shop through the back door, twin hair askew, twin menthol cigarettes still clutched in twin fingers.

“Yo,” I said in my most boss-like tone, “what about that ‘no smoking’ sign is not making itself clear?”

A big, deep, twin intake of breath, then: “INSPECTIOOOON!”

It was like a bomb going off. The twins dashed off to stamp out their cigarettes and came crashing back in, frantically hair-and-apron tying, while I launched myself away from the register and started banging plates and pitchers and utensils onto a tray, yelling “WASH UP, STAT” at poor Daeci, whose makeup was still a little smudged around the eyes. While she ran off with the clattering overfull washing tray, Kiv began cleaning like the goddess of war herself was at his heels, cursing himself out loud for all the times he hadn’t scrubbed the espresso machine exactly the way I’d told him he was supposed to.

Daeci came running back in, flushed and rubber gloved, to grab some more things for washing. “We saw her! Coming up the street!”

“The devil’s own,” Kiv said, his voice muffled from having his head and arms shoved into a fridge.

Daeci careened off again, almost falling on her ass as she slid over a patch of wet floor. Through it all, Professor Singh stood by the register, as mousy quiet as ever, like he wasn’t witnessing one of the most awful things to ever befall a food and drink establishment.

“Surprise inspection,” I said as I turned back to the register. “No big deal, though. We’re so within regulation these days.”

“So crazy regular,” Daeci gasped as she ran past again.

“I’m getting a cramp,” Kiv said from inside the second fridge.

“So regular it hurts,” I said, somehow managing to agree with both of them. “But anyway, what can I get you?”

“I can wait until you’re finished preparing to be inspected,” Professor Singh said sheepishly, like he was the one who had been caught not being quite-as-regular as desired.

“Nah, it’s cool. Lay it on me.”

“Well…I was thinking of opening my mind a little and trying a…dirty chai.”

I looked at him. It might be fair to say I ogled. He certainly looked like he was feeling ogled. I told myself I should probably stop ogling and say something intelligent, such as, “Whoa, really?”

“Yes?” He cleared his throat again and repeated, “Yes. I would like to try it.”

“Well, colour me shocked and surprised.” I felt myself grinning despite the chaos of cleaning going on around me, and his answering grin was so new and endearing I could have died. You know, if I were into that. “One dirty chai, comin’ right up.”

I rang him up and nudged past Kiv to get the drink started. Chai and espresso. After his firm refusal from our lucky meeting in the Indian grocery store, I hadn’t expected him to turn around and decide to give it a go. Shows what I know, I guess.

The inspector walked in just as I was handing off the professor’s very first dirty chai, so I didn’t have time for much more than a “let me know what you think” and his murmured “thank you” before I had to go Boss mode again. The health inspector for our store is the tiniest of satyr women, but that only means she can better see the spots under counters and inside fridges that we tend to miss during end of shift clean-ups. And she sees them all, believe you me. Having my shop under her biyearly scrutiny always makes me feel like I’m standing naked under spotlights in front of a deeply unimpressed audience.

It was time to pump up the charm, if only for the few precious seconds it would buy my staff to finish whizzing every washed and polished implement back into place. “Mamzelle Frill! How lovely and unexpected to see you!”

“Mister Vanellas,” Frill said drily. She says everything drily. Dry as a desert, that one. “You can stop preening on your countertop up there, you know what I’m here for.”

“All work and no pleasure? I’m wounded, mamzelle.”

“I’m sure you are.”

As she went around doing her preliminary checkups and asking me the usual maintenance questions, her hooves clicking on the tile like the heels of the world’s smallest dominatrix, I took a glance around the client area of the shop. No professor to be seen, so I guessed he had slipped out while I was occupied with Mlle Frill’s arrival. A bit of a stick in the mud, that man. Likes to fly under the radar, except he then suddenly does strange things like order a dirty chai out of the blue, and then not even stick around to tell me if he likes it or not.

Well, I’ll flag him down some other day and nudge him until he opens up. He seems the kind of guy who needs a little nudging. Luckily for him, I am very good at nudging people. Just call me Toriv Vanellas, CEO, Mathless Wonder, Master Nudger, owner of the Cleanest Damn Establishment this side of the Elven Quarter.

“Mister Vanellas.”

“Coming, mamzelle.”

// Mahendra

The dirty chai is, frankly, a little awful. Bad enough to have the taste of coffee polluting what would have been a perfectly acceptable chai latte, but only the worst qualities of the espresso seem to come out from their combination: something acrid and bitter that lingers on the tongue as the too-milky chai washes quickly away. I can’t say I’d ever order another cup, but no one can say I didn’t try. I considered it a bit of an accomplishment, since it isn’t often that I try new things, these days.

What bothered me more than the drink was the fact that I had asked for it at all. Apparently something of my previous conversation with Toriv had stuck in my mind, perhaps manifesting as a dream that had left me with an inexplicable desire for such a horrid concoction. It was safe to say, after that one little cup, that the craving was satisfied and would most likely remain that way for the rest of my living days.

The taste of the mild, milky chai was enough to give me a craving for a good old-fashioned masala chai, like the kind my parents used to make when my sister and I were children. How long had it been since I’d had homemade tea? Months, at least, even with the ingredients all sitting in neat rows in my spice rack.

When Anushka and I had cohabited, during our student years, she had liked to have a cup already steaming by the time she returned home to our shared London flat, so like a good flatmate and friend, I would oblige. In the whirlwind of post-graduate studies and social agendas, those few minutes spent sitting on the couch together with our tea, sipping and talking about our day, were such a welcome respite that I still look back on them fondly.

The recipe I used these days was the same one she and I had tweaked to our liking all those years ago: just the right amount of cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, pepper, anise, tea. Just a bit of ginger, a just-so measure of milk. It was the taste of home, simply put. Nothing in the world compares.

I supposed, on my way to work that day, that that was what Toriv had meant by making a drink with “a ton more love”. What’s more loving then hand-selecting ingredients, powdering and mixing them with care, and serving up a warm drink with a smile? A more personal sort of “bonjour et bienvenue”, one that even I could manage.

Do you ever ache for the desire to do something for someone? The feeling surprised me halfway through my daily metro ride. It seems melodramatic to write about it now, after the fact, but the truth is that in the moment, it felt extraordinary. Like your world has suddenly bubbled up, become wider, so incredibly full of potential and yearning that it almost takes your breath away.

I still tasted chai and espresso in my mouth, and suddenly it didn’t seem so bad at all.

Work after that felt strange and insubstantial, like the realest moment of my day had been that burst of feeling in the underground and everything afterwards was somehow less lifelike in comparison. Perhaps it was exhaustion or a variety of winter blues. There was certainly nothing vigorous about the school environment that day. My lectures had far less alacrity than I would have liked, but everyone seemed too listless to notice. For once, I was glad. I needed time to myself, to reflect and recharge and try to understand what kind of realization my subconscious had evidently made during my daily commute but had not seen fit to share with my waking mind.

For lunch I hid away in my office with my salad and tea like some kind of academic hermit and sank into that vague, half-dreaming state of deep reflection/regeneration I’ve perfected over the years. It is my duty as amateur autobiographer to report that these efforts yielded nothing at all. I was tired suddenly, bone tired and just slightly cold, even with my longest, warmest scarf wrapped twice around my neck. Montréal winters have a way of getting under your skin in a way that I’ve never quite experienced in London. Maybe I was finally coming down with a cold, after spending most of the season dodging the inevitable.

A notification rang out from my idling tablet: Anushka C. is video calling you. I poked the accept button, snuggling deeper into my scarf as I waited for the connection to solidify.

“You look awful,” was the first thing Anushka said when her tiny video self popped onto the screen.

I rolled my eyes. “And you look amazing, as usual.” She really did, as did her sunny, meticulously clean Manhattan office.

“I agree.” She flipped her hair in that way that always makes me laugh and grinned. “But really, are you all right? It’s flu season, you know.”

“I’m well aware.” I sniffed and hoped very hard that that wasn’t also a bad sign. “I work in a school. That sort of thing tends to run rampant around here, what with people not staying home and resting when they should.”

“Awful workaholics, the lot of you,” Anushka said, as though she wasn’t one herself. “I’ve missed you. What else is going on besides you catching everyone’s germs?”

We chatted for a while, as I wrapped my scarf tighter around my shoulders and Anushka nursed a monstrously large  mug of coffee adorned with an adorable cat face, a gift from me from ages long past. Our chances to talk like this were always brief, given our busy schedules. And despite her impeccable makeup, outfit, and office, she looked about as tired as I felt. Awful workaholics, the lot of us.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I said eventually. “Sometimes I barely have the energy to walk home from the underground.”

Anushka gestured pointedly with her coffee mug, then turned her computer around so I could still see her as she rose to walk over to the futuristic-looking silver coffee machine she keeps across the office. “I’ll send you some, if you like. I just discovered the most fantastic blend.”

“No thank you. Just the one shot this morning was enough for me.”

She looked up mid-pour and stared at me like I was quite mad. “Shot? You drink espresso now?”

“Not regularly. I drink mochas sometimes. And this morning I ordered a…lord…” I paused as regret washed over me in the form of a mild stomachache. My delicate constitution clearly did not approve of my recent foray into espresso beverages. “…I ordered a dirty chai.”

“A dirty chai,” Anushka repeated slowly. She placed her coffee pot back in the machine with exaggerated care, then came to stand before the desk and leaned into the camera. “Tell me that is not what I think it is.”

I swallowed. “Chai and espresso?”

She looked at me like the shame of what I’d done would persist for three generations, at least. “Oh my god, Mahendra…why?”

I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t know!”

“What do you mean you don’t know.”

“I don’t! But he mentioned it and I couldn’t stop thinking–”

“Wait.” She held up a hand imperiously, went back to the coffee machine to fetch her mug, and returned to her chair to face me properly. Her expression above her very large, very cheerful cat-faced mug was stern. “Now. Who is ‘he’?”

I told her, in perhaps more detail than was warranted, about my interactions with Toriv Vanellas, café Vanellas barista, also café Vanellas owner. She listened with intense concentration, sipping her coffee without letting her eyes leave my face. By the end of it I felt strangely embarrassed, like I’d said too much, and waited nervously as she spun a few circles in her office chair, stroking her mug like a movie villain strokes a lap pet.

“He sounds nice,” Anushka said finally.

“He is, I think.” When she raised her eyebrows at me for more, I continued, “We haven’t talked all that much. He seems awfully busy most of the time.”

“So are you,” she pointed out. “So busy I didn’t think you’d ever find the time to linger over a coffee shop counter.”

“I don’t linger…”

“And order things you don’t even like just to get him to make them for you.”

“I didn’t–”

“Are you going to ask him out?” She took a drink, gauging my reaction over the rim of her cup.

I leaned my cheek in my hand. “Why did I know you were going to ask me that?”

“Because you can tell that I can tell you want to. It shows all over your face.”

“I don’t even know if he likes men.”

“So? You’ll find out when you ask him.”

“Right when you’re asking someone on a date is kind of last minute.”

She groaned dramatically. “I’m fairly sure we’ve had this conversation before. And I’m also fairly sure you’re just looking for excuses.”

“Pardon me,” I said into my scarf, “but this is a legitimate concern of the likes you’ve never had to worry about.”

“I’ll give you that, but still, what’s the worst that can happen? He says no, thank you, and you slink away embarrassed and never dare to show your face in there again?”

“That about sums it up, Miss Chaudhry, thank you ever so much.”

“Oh, stop that.” She sighed and finally set down her mug. “You don’t even like coffee, anyway.”

“I like it just fine,” I muttered, and revelled a little in her consternated expression when she realized I was sulking at her.

“Professor Singh,” she said severely. It was her courtroom voice, the one that made most people tremble in fear on the stand. “How long has it been since you’ve been on a date? Be honest with me, now.”

“I don’t want to think about it,” I said petulantly.

“That’s what I thought.” She took another spin in her chair, then stopped abruptly and leaned so close to the webcam that I could tell how sharp her winged eyeliner was. “At least consider it. It’s obvious you like him. What’s the harm?”

What’s the harm, indeed. Anushka never did care for things like one’s sense of pride and fear of ridicule. She’s made of stronger stuff than me.

We had to part soon after, our respective lunch hours having run out. She wished me luck by the end of it and asked me to forgive her for being such a busybody, but of course I already had. It’s the job of a best friend to give wild and unsolicited life advice, after all.

Although we had come close to arguing, the conversation with Anushka revitalized me for the rest of the day, and I was able to go through with the rest of my professorial duties with aplomb. I left promptly and rode the metro without being blindsided by any mysterious emotional surges. When I emerged from the underground to February sidewalks melting like candle wax, I discovered that the snow banks and other detritus that had previously blocked my usual path back to my flat had been cleared away. I was free to return to my routine: morning tea, metro, work. Afternoon tea, metro, home. It was what I had wanted from the beginning.

I looked down the street as the home-going crowd flowed around me. The sidewalks were wet but clear, easier to walk than they had been in months; nothing was stopping me in either direction.

I was sleepy again, and hungry, and a lot of other things besides, but instead of heading directly home like I normally would, I found myself moving in the direction of the café Vanellas.

It wasn’t until I was standing directly under the cheery green sign of the establishment that I felt the familiar grip of fear around my heart. So much could go wrong. I could give the wrong impression, I could make a complete fool of myself. I could make him look at me like I was dirt on the coffee shop floor. I could make him look at me like I was repellent.

I could make him smile again, if I’d only just try.

The bell above the door chimed. For the first time, I noticed it was strung with little wooden birds painted in bright, springtime colours. It looked handmade, elven make, a beautiful little thing tucked away in the corner of a beautiful little shop.

Someone different was standing behind the counter and for a moment my heart sank. I’d missed him, of course I had, he had been here early in the morning, after all. Anyone would be tired after a whole day on their feet, preparing food and drink and being surprise inspected. Surely he had already gone home–

“Oh, hey, Prof. How was your day?”

And yet there he was, sitting at one of his own tables, smiling fetchingly as he tucked a pen behind his ear. The table before him was strewn with papers, most of them covered in a handwriting scrawl as indecipherable as any I’d seen, and I had seen a lot of it in all my years as a teacher.

“It was fine,” I replied. My chest felt warm with relief. “How was your inspection?”

Toriv stuck his tongue out in a grimace. “Is it ever fun to be inspected? We did okay, though. This place isn’t going to go down because of cleanliness issues, at the very least.”

“That’s good. I would hate to have to find another place to take my mocha.”

“Best in town,” he agreed. “And speaking of coffee, how was yours? The dirty chai.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me like he’d just said something salacious. “And don’t just stand there like a stranger in my home. Come and have a seat.”

He pushed out the chair across from him with a booted foot, inviting me to sit at his table. I sat, arranging the strap of my bag carefully over the chair back to give myself time to formulate a response.

“It was…something,” I said finally. “I must confess, I didn’t really like it.”

Toriv laughed and leaned forward in his chair, propping his chin in his hands. “You don’t have to be so damn diplomatic about it. Les goûts, ça se discute pas,” he added, doing another impression of my own French accent. Then he grinned. “Here at the school of Vanellas, you still get points for trying.”

There was just something so warm and easy about him, so effortlessly friendly and fun that I couldn’t help grinning back at him.  I noticed one of his eyeteeth was crooked and stuck out when he smiled. I also noticed how his hair was escaping from its tie, frazzled from a day of work, and how he had a smudge of something, chocolate perhaps, on the outside of his wrist. A slew of little imperfections, all on display, and he didn’t seem to know or care they were there.

“So,” he said, still leaning forward towards me, almost right into my space, “what are we going to try next?” He started enumerating on his fingers. “I’ve got a matcha latte. It’s actually decent with chocolate, if you’re into that. There’s also the raspberry mocha, the cinnamon hot chocolate…it’s to die for, I swear.”

At the school of Vanellas, you still get points for trying.

“A date,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got some date squares too. Good eye.”

“No, I mean–Toriv.”

He stopped ticking things off his fingers and looked right at me. I could see him mentally backing up. I searched his face for signs of discomfort, but all I could see was the cat-like smile he still hadn’t dropped. His eyes, I also noticed for the first time, were green.

“Professor,” he said amicably. His expression was expectant.

“I was…I have been wondering,” I said, trying to hold his gaze but failing desperately. I concentrated instead on pushing the words out. “I was wondering if you’d like to go. On a date. Sometime.”

The smile curled up, Cheshire-like. “With who? The Queen of England?”

“With me, of course,” I said, trying my best to not sound so sheepish. Perhaps his teasing was a good sign? “I mean…if you’d like.”

“Hm.”

The little ‘hm’ was all he said for a time. It was probably only a second or two at the most, but to me it felt like five minutes, just spent staring at his wrist to avoid looking at his eyes. Then, as I continued to look away like a shy schoolboy, he reached out and touched an outstretched index finger to the bridge of my glasses. He pushed them up, very gently, so that I was forced to raise my eyes to his.

“Sure,” Toriv said, still smiling, still with that eyetooth poking out under his lip. “Why not? It’s been a while since I was on a real date.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, legit like six months at least.”

“I mean, it’s really okay?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s okay.” He huffed a laugh and drew his hand away. “Have I ever given the impression that it’s not okay? I haven’t,” he added, before I could answer, “just so we’re clear.”

There was a bit of a silence after that that was absolutely my fault. I had run out of things to say, so overwhelmed was I that he had actually said yes that I could no longer remember how to make conversation like a normal person. Toriv waited for about ten seconds, then he dug into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. “So can I get your number?”

I came to my senses and recited it for him. He typed busily, then looked up at me. “First name?”

“Oh. It’s…kind of difficult to pronounce.”

“Bro. You can’t ask me out and then not tell me what your name is. I am so not down with calling you Professor Singh all the time.”

“Erm.” I took his mobile from him and typed my own name into the appropriate field, then slid it back across the table to him.

He leaned over it to read. “How do I say it?”

“Mahendra.”

It’s funny how saying it out loud always feels like it did the very first time, despite it having been my name for years.

“Mahendra,” he repeated slowly, like he was savouring each syllable. “That’s really pretty. You shouldn’t hide it from people.”

“I don’t. Usually.”

“Good. ‘Cause I’ll be writing it on all your cups from now on.”

Toriv tapped out a message with the tip of his tongue sticking out under his eyetooth. A moment later, my own phone buzzed. I pulled it out to read his text message: Toriv Vanellas, CEO of café Vanellas, Mathless Wonder.

“‘Mathless Wonder’?”

“As long as I don’t have to do any arithmetic on our date,” he said cheerfully, “I should be good.”

I saved his number and resisted the urge to scroll down my contacts list to read it again. “I’ll try to keep us from accidentally doing any maths.”

“I’m having fun already.”

I stayed for a little while longer, listening to him talk about his day and general goings-on at the shop, but when hunger began to gnaw too insistently, I rose to excuse myself. He waved me off, admonishing me for letting him keep me and imploring me to have a fantastic night, in what I was sure was his very best customer service voice.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow night, then?” he asked as I had my hand on the door. “TGIF, right?”

“At six. Right.” I turned to give him a parting smile. My heart may have accelerated a little when I saw it returned. “Goodnight, Toriv.”

He waved with the tips of his fingers, smiling his crooked smile. “Goodnight, Mahendra.”

I set off into the cold streets, picking my way across the driest patches of pavement. As I finally entered the lobby of my apartment building, I had to stop and stand for a while, just staring at the growing pool of melted snow I was leaving on the glossy tile floor, and failing to prevent what I’m sure was a singularly ridiculous grin from showing on my face.