Common Grounds
by Marijean Oldham
No one remembers when we started collecting grounds for Rob, but we got in the habit, setting aside the spent coffee in plastic bags near the back door, night after night.
We were all exhausted from the holiday rush; there must have been fifty pounds of grounds each night for weeks. The phone would ring about the same time each day and one of us would answer. “Do you have any grounds,” he would ask and one of us would confirm. “OK,” he would say, “I’ll be there in a bit.”
We all knew his voice; pulled the bags of grounds to the front when he walked in the door night after night. We asked one another what on earth he needed so much spent coffee for. Susie said he was a gardener, but by then he had enough coffee grounds to fill a swimming pool.
We were shocked, then, when, on a Monday, a woman called and asked for grounds. That’s when we met Anna, who came in right before the evening rush and collected what we had gathered earlier in the day. Clad in cotton overalls and wearing rubber boots, we figured Anna was a gardener, too.
When Rob called, one of us had to tell him the bad news; we had given someone else the grounds.
We wondered if they’d ever meet. Rob kept up his consistent call, appearing at our door, dressed in worn jeans, a faded fleece jacket, just as we started our closing routine. He hauled the bags out the door to his trunk. Sometimes there was enough to warrant two trips. Anna showed up more sporadically, even her appearance suggested a lack of consistency, far less commitment to the collection than our friend Rob. We started to wonder aloud at the two of them, their lives and circumstances. They both seemed to be avid gardeners, environmentalists. Neither one of them ever bought a cup to drink.
During down times, we started to fantasize about the meeting of Rob and Anna. Were they a love match? We’re not sure when our fantasies turned to conspiring, but one night we decided. It was time Rob and Anna met.
We consulted one another and put together that a) Monday was Anna’s night, generally, and that b) we had her phone number from that time she left it written on a napkin, hoping we’d let her know if there were grounds to pick up on the weekend. (There never were; we hadn’t told her about Rob.)
We elected Susie to place the call to Anna. “Hello, this is Susie from Common Grounds. We have A LOT of grounds and were wondering if you could come around 7pm tonight?”
At 6:55pm we all sort of stopped what we were doing and started watching the door. “I’m so excited,” more than one of us said.
And then it happened. Two sets of headlights poured into the glass storefront, then winked out. The bell over the door tinkled as Anna, in pink overalls and an olive jacket, entered the store, already chattering to Rob, who held the door. The pair came in, eyes locked on one another, not even paying any mind to us as we all stood, rapt, apron clad and staring openmouthed.
Rob and Anna made it to the counter and Rob stopped to nod at us. “Can I help you to your car,” he asked Anna, as he hoisted the bags of spent beans in his capable arms. She nodded and grinned, blond curls bobbing. The couple because, as we learned in the weeks to follow, did indeed become a couple, headed out the door with nary a look backwards. We grinned at each other and went back to cleaning and closing the store, another day in the books.
Marijean Oldham is a public relations consultant and writer. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in The Maine Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, the Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Sad Girls Club, and The Lindenwood Journal. Marijean has written two editions of the guidebook 100 Things to Do in Charlottesville Before You Die (Second Edition, 2018 Reedy Press) and Secret Charlottesville, a Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure (2021, Reedy Press). In 2003, Marijean set a Guinness Book World Record for creating the largest bouquet of flowers.