Once Upon a Grind Read online

  “Who got her daughter out of Russia?”

  “Group dedicated to freeing victims of government oppression. Many of these men suffered at the gulags of the old Soviet Union. Here they formed local business collectives. You know some of these men, Clare Cosi. They are friends of mine. I introduced you not long ago.”

  “Yes, I remember . . .” (How could I forget a meeting wearing nothing but a towel and a smile in a Brighton Beach bath house?) As I poured hot water over the ground coffee in the press, Boris went on—

  “Red has relatives in America. Older couple owned little pharmacy in Brighton Beach. Red was raised by them. They were not nice people—the kind who hit children instead of talk, you know? They sent her to school, told her she must be pharmacist and work for them. But she broke away, was like her mother, wanted artistic expression.”

  “And Anya?”

  Boris shrugged. “Anya has not been here long—two years maybe. No one knows much about her. Some say Anya’s mother and Red’s mother were friends. That’s all I can find out.”

  “Well, Red is the only one with answers because right now Anya is lying unconscious in a hospital. And she may die.”

  “That’s why I am scared—for Red and for my Esther. We must find them.”

  “You agree then. They’re in trouble?”

  “The Russian phrase Red used when speaking of Anya: Ya budu ryadom! Ya budu ryadom! You know what phrase means?”

  I shook my head.

  “I will be next.”

  FIFTY

  AFTER our second pot of coffee, Boris headed into the streets of Alphabet City to check places in the neighborhood where Esther sometimes hung out.

  I returned to the Village Blend with a list he’d scribbled of other possible places she might have gone.

  Nancy and Dante checked addresses around NYU. Matt volunteered to take a cab to Astoria, Queens, where Esther sometimes worked with a documentary filmmaker. And I remained behind to hold the fort, coordinate the search, and send out text messages to the rest of my staff.

  I even texted Harrison Van Loon.

  The festival’s lawyer texted me back an address for Red, but it was her adopted family’s house in Brighton Beach, and Boris already told me that she no longer lived there.

  Then I finally heard from Tucker:

  No sign of Goth Queen. Will watch 4 her. Am crazy busy w/ so many shows this week. Will drop by 2 CU soon.

  Esther’s married sister in Westchester replied next. She said she hadn’t heard from Esther in over a week.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I texted back—seeing no reason to alarm the woman (yet). “She’s been out of touch and I’m trying to reach her.”

  Secretly, I hoped Esther would return to the coffeehouse, so we could have a heart-to-heart. For her sake and (to be honest) for mine.

  My discussion with Boris about love and misunderstanding, dark spaces and disappointment, had unnerved me. But I had no one to talk to about my conflicted feelings, certainly not Matt, who was apoplectic about the possibility of my moving to Washington.

  But the more I considered Boris’s crushed expression, and Quinn’s elated singing in the shower, the more I worried about losing the heart of a man I cherished. Maybe not all at once, but little by little, like grains of sand washing out to sea until the softest parts were eroded away and nothing was left but stone.

  I didn’t like being alone with these thoughts, but Esther never came back. Nancy and Dante returned with nothing but sleepy frowns. And an hour later, Boris called to report that he’d had no luck with his local search.

  Finally, Matt fired off a text message. The Astoria filmmaker was out of town, but a neighbor knew about Red, who performed in the area often. So he was heading off to check a few Astoria nightclubs.

  I wished Matt luck, closed the shop, and went up to my duplex.

  On the way, I got a call from (of all people) Gardner Evans.

  “Hey, boss, what’s up?”

  Hearing my night manager’s friendly voice cheered me immensely. He’d spent his day off performing at jazz clubs around town with his group. When they finished their last set, he checked his phone and saw my text message.

  “Why are you looking for Esther? Is anything wrong?”

  “Lots. I can’t explain now. Just let me know if you see her.”

  “Will do,” he said. “Me and the guys are heading up to Harlem for fried chicken and waffles. You want to come?”

  “Amy Ruth’s?”

  “You know it.”

  Gardner had taken me there a few times. It was a homey little place with a soul food menu, and the best Belgian waffles and honey-dipped fried chicken I’d ever tasted.

  Gardner laughed. “I still remember the night you asked Sister Janet how she makes everything so good.”

  Sister Janet was the head chef at Amy Ruth’s. And her answer impressed us all. She told us there was one simple secret to her soul food—she prayed before she cooked. I smiled at the memory, and couldn’t help thinking of Boris and his points of light in the dark.

  “Thanks for calling, Gardner.”

  “No problem. Text me if you want a take-out bag.”

  Signing off, I sat down at my kitchen table and drummed my fingers, wondering what else I could do to help find Esther. That’s when I noticed the shiny green bag with the M, sitting exactly where Quinn left it.

  Matt’s Magic Beans . . .

  I told my ex-husband I’d never drink his Lake Tana coffee again. Just thinking about it sent me into a cold sweat.

  If I drank this coffee one more time, would it help me find Esther? Or simply mess with my head? Was there really something to this stuff? Or was it all coincidence and superstition?

  I couldn’t help thinking of Sister Janet at Amy Ruth’s, praying in her kitchen. Was that superstition? Or could an act of faith better focus the mind?

  I wonder what Matt’s friend “Dr. Pepper” would say about it . . .

  Whatever the answer, I didn’t have time for lab experiments or religious debates. A young woman I thought of as a daughter could be in danger. She was lost and needed to be found. That meant I needed to try anything and everything within my power, namely—

  A little prayer, which was why I recited one as I walked to the counter and put on the kettle.

  And a little magic, which was why, with shaking hands, I measured out Matt’s special beans and ground them.

  FIFTY-ONE

  “OUT of bed, sleepyhead! Your coach awaits!”

  I opened my eyes.

  I was no longer in my kitchen, where I’d bolted down a pot of Lake Tana coffee. I was lying on a dirt floor, dressed in a gossamer pink gown.

  Rising, I looked for the promised waiting coach, but saw only earth-covered stone walls and prison bars.

  “Am I in jail?”

  “You’re in the queen’s dungeon.” The familiar voice came from the next cell.

  “Gardner? Is that you?”

  Dressed as a Renaissance troubadour, with an English bowler on his head, my jazz musician night manager began strumming a lute.

  “Is there a way out?” I asked.

  His only reply was a jazzy rendition of a children’s song: “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?”

  I went to the iron bars and shook the cell door. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Aunt Clare! Are you there?”

  “She’s down there. I see her!”

  Far up the high stone wall, the innocent faces of Jeremy and Molly Quinn were pressed against the iron bars of a tiny window.

  Mike’s kids! “What are you doing here?” I shouted.

  “We’re here to help,” Jeremy told me firmly.

  “How?”

  Bark! Bark!

  “Penny!�
�� The little collie poked her head through a narrow gap in the dungeon wall. Squeezing through, she raced up to me. As I bent down to pet her soft head, she barked in greeting then set to work, digging a hole in the dirt.

  “What are you looking for, girl?”

  She dipped her head into the hole, and her teeth brought out something shiny. The key—Anya’s golden key!

  When I tried the door, it opened, and Gardner’s serenade finally stopped.

  “Free me, too!” he called. “I’ll show you a way out!”

  I tried the lock on Gardner’s cell. The door swung wide. He grabbed my hand, and we raced down a shadowy, torch-lit corridor, Penny at our heels.

  When we turned the corner, fluorescent lights nearly blinded me. The dirt floor changed to linoleum, and we were running down a ground-floor hallway at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt.

  “There’s the exit!” Gardner cried, tugging me toward glass doors. But before we reached them, they opened and a heavyset man with a ski mask stepped through. He aimed his gun and fired.

  I was hit. Shocked at the blood seeping out of my lower left leg, I collapsed to the floor.

  “Wake up, boss!” Esther called. “Wake up! Wake up!”

  She’s come back to us, I thought groggily. Esther’s back! Thank goodness!

  I lifted my head from the kitchen table and realized I wasn’t in my kitchen. I was lying on a cold slab of pavement outside that creepy Upper East Side club.

  “Are you there, boss?”

  “Esther? Where are you?”

  “In here!”

  I rose from the ground and shuffled over to the recessed brick wall. The diamond-shaped mirror was talking with Esther’s voice. But I couldn’t see her face. The glass looked cloudy, as if filled with smoke.

  When the smoke cleared, I saw Red dancing like she had at the Poetry Slam, but not in her red leather dress. She was dressed in Anya’s Pink Princess gown. Unlike my own gossamer gown, her fragile garment had lost its sparkle. It was dirty and ripped, and sadly soiled—the way I’d found it on Anya in the park.

  As music played and Red rapped, waving flags appeared in a framed border around the picture.

  I tried the door, but it wouldn’t open. Then I stumbled backward, falling into a chair at a café table. I was in my coffeehouse. The tables around me were empty—and so was the cup before me. Coffee grinds showed my future, and I refused to look.

  Then the cup turned into a laptop computer. The lid flipped open to show me a scene. It was the very same scene I’d glimpsed in the magic mirror.

  I stared, mesmerized, at Red dancing in Anya’s pink gown, UN flags around her. Then she stopped dancing and the laptop screen went black.

  “Help! Please, someone! Help me!”

  Red was calling out. Her voice was small, like a little girl’s. She sounded scared.

  I tried to move my arms, but couldn’t. I was frozen in place. Looking up, I saw my master bedroom from a high vantage through a strange wood-lined window.

  Not a window, a picture frame. I was trapped inside the Café Corner, the painting in my own bedroom.

  I could see a fire blazing in the hearth, two bodies making love under the covers of the four-poster bed. I closed my eyes, hating the paralysis, wishing for freedom.

  “Let me go! Please! Let me out of here! Help me! Someone, help me!”

  “Clare?! What’s wrong?”

  “Let me out! Let me go!”

  “Wake up, Clare! Wake up!”

  I opened my eyes to find a frantic Matteo Allegro shaking my arm. I felt groggy and a little dizzy. When he saw that I was conscious, he peered into my face.

  “You were raving like a madwoman. What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

  I spoke, my own voice sounding distant—

  “I drank your coffee.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  “WHY did you do that, Clare?! And all alone?! You told me you were never going to drink it again!”

  Matt looked less than steady himself as he ranted at me. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold, his brown eyes filled with fearful confusion.

  “I’m okay,” I told him, “give me a minute to get my head straight.”

  Matt shrugged out of his suede jacket and began to pace. “How do you sober someone up from coffee?” He stopped, took my hand, and patted it. “Do you want an aspirin? An antacid? How about some ice cream? Chocolate? A pickle and chipped ham sandwich?”

  “I’m not pregnant, Matt, I’m disoriented. But it’s nice you remembered.”

  “Of course I remembered! I made enough trips to all-night delis. And I had to learn what chipped ham was.”

  “I appreciated it. If our daughter were here, she’d concur.”

  “You sound better. More lucid.”

  “You can stop patting my hand now—I need it back. Thanks.”

  I rubbed my eyes and tried to stand. Seeing me wobble, Matt grabbed my waist. But after a glass of cold water, and a few minutes on my feet, I felt back to normal.

  “What time is it?”

  “Four in the morning. I just got back from Astoria, Queens.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Very little. People knew about Red. She performs in clubs there, but they had no idea where she lived or how to reach her.” He looked defeated. “Come on,” he said, putting an arm around me again. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “Whoa, there, Charming, I’m not that disoriented. I still remember the divorce—and your remarriage.”

  “I didn’t mean we should go to bed together . . . unless you want company?”

  I flashed on that scene at the end of my vision: two bodies making love under the four-poster’s covers. No, no, no!

  “Joy’s room is open,” I told my ex. “If you want to crash here tonight, that’s my best—and only—offer.”

  * * *

  THE next morning, Matt shocked me by sneaking into my bedroom very early. (No, not for that reason.) He turned off my alarm, went down to the shop, and opened the Village Blend.

  “I wanted you to get some rest,” he confessed a few hours later. “You really worried me last night.”

  “You don’t need to worry.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Yawning, I sat up in bed. Before I could say another word, Matt pressed a freshly made cappuccino into my hands.

  “I didn’t know what you’d want to eat, so I brought up a couple of choices: the Corn Muffins with Caramelized Bacon. We’re almost sold out, but I snagged one along with that low-fat chocolate muffin you’re always eating during your afternoon break, the one with ricotta and virgin coconut oil, what do you call it at the shop?”

  “Chocolate Ricotta Muffins.”

  “You want that one?” He held it out.

  “That’s really sweet, but I don’t have an appetite yet. I’ll just sip the capp. Have you heard anything?”

  Matt’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. No word yet.” Silence fell between us, and then he met my gaze. “So? Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There could be something in it, Clare, something that could help us.”

  With a sigh, I slid over a little to make room on the mattress.

  “It was so bizarre,” I began as Matt sat down and tucked into the corn muffin.

  “Another Fellini movie?”

  “More like David Lynch. Near the end of it, I was trapped in your mother’s Hopper painting and before that Esther spoke to me through a mirror.”

  “Was Red in the dream?”

  “She was the star of it, dancing and rapping to music, but wearing Anya’s pink gown. And all these flags appeared around her—”

  “Flags? What sort of flags?”

  “National flags from dozens of countries. Like the flags on my scarf—”

  �
�The one Joy gave you.”

  “Then the magic mirror changed into a laptop screen.”

  “That’s funny,” said Matt.

  “What’s funny?”

  He shrugged. “Sounds like you were looking at an amateur music video, something Red’s fans might edit with an app, throwing on some hokey flag border before uploading it to YouTube.”

  YouTube, I thought. Of course!

  “Where’s my laptop?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  Ten minutes later, Matt was looking over my shoulder as I searched online for videos tagged with Red in the ’Hood.

  “There are too many. Pages and pages of them!”

  “You need another search filter.”

  “Let’s narrow it by date.” I typed in the parameters. “Okay, now the list has Red’s most recent appearances on top. Before Esther’s Fairy Tale Slam last night, she appeared in Brighton Beach twice.”

  “Yeah, but look at the next five.” Matt pointed. “They’re all in Queens. I was at a few of these Astoria clubs last night.”

  Many of the videos were too long to view fully, so I sampled. And then I saw it—the bowler. Red was wearing the hat in one of the videos, dancing around tables at a restaurant. A party was going on, and when the camera panned the room, I recognized the flag hanging on a wall: a yellow triangle on a field of blue with a line of white stars.

  “There’s something here.”

  Matt read the video’s title. “Eldar’s Birthday.” He looked at me. “Who’s Eldar? Do you recognize the name?”

  “No, but Red was very friendly with the livery driver who drove her and Esther away last night. He wore a bowler. The same man picked up Red here the night before.”

  “Who uploaded this video?”

  “A car service company: Zenica Limousine—and I’ll bet if we can find this bowler-wearing driver, he’ll tell us where he drove Red and Esther last night.”