The ringing of the phone broke the silence, and Trisha held her breath, knowing it was the call she'd been waiting for, her last chance. As she went to answer it, she tripped over the mop bucket that Amber Grace, her part-time employee, had brought out to clean the floor. Finally, she clumsily grabbed the phone, almost dropping it before putting it to her ear.
"Ed's Gourmet Java Joint," he replied, swallowing to hide the nerves in his voice. "This is Trisha August."
She immediately recognized the voice of her interlocutor, the bank teller with his verdict on the loan. Her heart was beating so fast she could barely hear over its sound. It was the moment of truth. Between growing anxiety and a certain optimism, she listened and nodded, unable to utter anything other than yeses and noes, while the banker spoke in a polite but distant tone.
Then she felt her heart stop. She'd heard that rejection speech so many times that she couldn't bear to hear it again.
–But I'm very responsible and a very efficient worker. I'll do anything for the loan!
–Thank you for your interest in Kansas City Unified Bank.
"I'll do whatever you ask!" he shouted. "Please give me a chance." "Thank you very much for your interest," the banker said, ignoring him.
of their prayers.
Trisha clutched the phone in her hand, filled with rage at the injustice being done to her. She was convinced she could do it; she just needed the money.
"You can't ask for money without money!" he shouted as he angrily hung up the phone. "How do people open their businesses?"
"That's a good question," a man's voice replied.

Startled that a customer had entered without her noticing, she glanced at the counter and saw a tall man wearing a camel-colored coat that she presumed was made of the finest cashmere. His expensively draped shoulders and dark hair shone with snow, shimmering in the fluorescent lighting. Yet it was his face that caught Trisha's attention most. He wasn't smiling, but one side of his lip was slightly curled upward in a gesture that gave him a certain arrogant indifference. His gaze was penetrating and appraising, though Trisha found it difficult to see the color of his eyes beneath his thick lashes. Brown, she thought, maybe gray. She must have been staring at him for a long time, because the customer suddenly cleared his throat.
–I wanted a coffee.
Trisha felt stupid. She circled Amber Grace and her mop and then realized the teenager had also frozen.
"The milk isn't going to clean itself," he told her aside.
"Oh, yes," the girl replied, snapping out of her reverie and continuing to clean. Trisha ran to the counter and smiled, though she noticed it was forced. That loan would have made her dream come true, and it was gone. She hadn't had time to get over the unfair defeat yet, but she had to push it away in the back of her mind, knowing that
That was not the time or the place to vent his bad mood.
"Good afternoon," she said as politely as she could. "Today we have three special blends: vanilla and strawberry, Jamaica with chocolate, and orange with..."
–Do you have something called coffee?
Then she looked more closely at his eyes, silvery gray, an unusual and striking color, though the gaze was too penetrating for comfort. For some strange reason, she struggled to remember if they had something called brown.
–What do you think of our "Colombian Dark Secret"?
–As long as the dark secret is that it has coffee.
"I promise you have coffee, sir," she smiled, despite her broken dreams. "What size do you want: Biggie , Biggie-extra , or Biggie-boggle ?" she asked, pointing out the different...