12 13 THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW “Uhh,” I say for the second time in the same two-minute span. There’s a whip-topped, chocolate swirled creation pictured on the back menu, framed with a border of clipart snowflakes and ribbons. HOLIDAY SPECIALS. “Can you make the peppermint mocha…but frozen, like a frappe?” “Yup,” she nods. “What size?” “16 ounces,” I say, because I’m too ignorant of Starbucks’ lingo to call it grande. “Name for order?” “Haley.” And I find myself wondering which of the twelve ways it’s going to be spelled. “That’ll be…$6.75.” “Thank you,” I say, but she’s gone before I can even pull my credit card out. I add a $1 tip for good measure and step into the swarm waiting by the counter for their drinks. My back’s starting to cramp along the butterfly curve of my shoulders. Finals week weighs heavy in my bookbag. I tend to work well in spurts. Maybe the caffeine will give me a boost, and I can get some work done on my papers before boarding. A mousy little boy who looks to be about ten slips by me and grabs a drink carrier on the counter. His mom hovers over him, checking the names on the cups. Each one froths at the top with whipped cream and syrup streaks swirling down the plastic sides. Now I’m ready for that peppermint mocha frappe. I cup my hands under both sides of my backpack to alleviate the weight. There’s a small book wedged behind my laptop, biting at my spine. I try to shift away from it. It doesn’t work. Minutes pass. More drinks slide across the counter. Fingers toy with lids, pepper-haired men adjust their glasses to read the names. I lean against my suitcase and peer beyond Starbucks to my gate agents. They’re behind the desk, just standing there looking bored. It would be a good time to talk to them. I won’t leave, though. Not yet. My drink is coming soon. I begin to realize that the people in my vicinity have all changed. I have a new neighbor: An older woman with a cropped, silver thatch, petal-pink sweater and necklace with frosty-glass beads. She, too, is leaning against her suitcase. I wonder if she has arthritis. I glance down at the floor, noticing the details in the tiles again. Cobalt flecks adorn the outer rings of the rhombus pattern. I used to think there were little shell pieces embedded there but now, I’m not so sure. It just looks like shards of scrap metal. I think about the beach. The real beach, with giant conkles washing up from the gulf foam. I miss the authenticity of the beaches I once knew. We only went to the beach once on this trip. It wasn’t what it used to be before the hurricanes. Ft. Myers beach was once home to a Dairy Queen, to shell-studded sand that sliced into your heels when you walked, to tide pools that filled up by the shoreline and turned to spas (and probably toilets) for small children, to a concrete boardwalk that we once
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