The following is an excerpt from The Second Crack, a literary mystery.

December 15, 2010

Day 1

In an act of rebellion that surprises me, I pour the espresso into a Japanese tea cup with no handle, then sit and sip. Unlike my adventurous sister, this is the way I travel the world, cup by cup. Over fifty countries grow coffee and I’ve visited them all without ever leaving The Bean. I’ve sampled Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam, all from this small cup. My thumb pad rests along the crack in the porcelain that’s been filled in with gold, a Japanese tradition that honors past wounds. I think that if people were repaired the same way; foreheads etched with brass hairline fractures, chips of silver embedded along fingers, bolts of gold shot through hearts, then we would know the places to be careful with. I lift the cup to eye level. At this angle there’s no telling how deep the crack, it could be only decorative.

After I drain the espresso, a hint of wine scent from the Kenyan beans lingers in the bottom. Nausea splashes up my throat. I rinse the cup out, set it in the sink behind me, and then run down my checklist to see if there’s anything I forgot to do:

left a note for Suz

filled coffee bins and display cases

unlocked The Bean

turned on the open sign

brushed the door zither twice for luck

All in that order.

It’s five minutes ‘til 7:00 and looks like rain. I’m all about safety, so I drag out the rubber mat that reaches from the door to the counter. I don’t want anyone slipping and falling. Nothing bad has ever happened to any customer inside The Bean. The dishes are vintage Pyrex, every hour I check the temperature in the soup pots, and every night I go over the tables and counters with bleach.

I wash my hands, then scan the dining room. A vase with fresh roses is in the exact center of each table and the Christmas lights wound around the coffee tree are plugged in. Johnnie’s popsicle-stick snowflakes hang between the tree’s waxy green leaves and bright red berries. The snowflake with Suz’s name twists around and around as if it’s caught in a gust of air from a door or window, the glittered ‘S’ going from sparkle to shadow and back again.

Suz isn’t downstairs yet. I let her sleep in because she’s not used to Portland’s time zone anymore; there’s a nine-hour difference between here and Johannesburg. Having her back for the holidays feels like a crevice filled in, but with a nick left along the edge. After she left for Africa there was no one on this continent who knew and loved all my strange fissures. We’d grown up inseparable; in every childhood memory, she’s there, my twin, my better half. We began sharing a womb, then a crib; a year later, a wagon; at five, a tricycle; at six, a bus seat; and at eight, a tragedy. Now we can’t even share a cup of coffee. She drinks tea.

This morning she’s going to help me figure out how to save The Bean. The city wants to widen Rose Way, then put an onramp and overpass to the 405 two blocks down. Some of us business owners will lose our property through eminent domain. Others, like me, might as well lose it. The gas fumes, traffic noise and gritty air will ruin The Bean’s friendly atmosphere, which is one reason I’m in the black. And the people who live here will lose too, all the up-and-comers who moved here for the plethora of rose bushes, the sprinkle of gourmet restaurants, intimate wine bars, and health food stores, the short drive to downtown’s Saturday Market and Powell’s book store. We could all lose a neighborhood that breathes easy. And I could lose my niche. Dad is on my case about a contingency plan, which I do need. But it can’t involve giving up The Bean, only saviing it.