Not Up to You
Why the neighborhood coffee bar decides whether or not you belong
Near the end of the day, during my move to a new apartment three years ago, the man I’d hired to help stopped in the living room and shook his head.
“Un attimo!” he said, wagging one finger. “Wait a minute! Where are you going to put the television?”
“I don’t have a television.”
He was puzzled. “Then what do you do at night?”
A few days later, one of my new neighbors offered to loan me an old TV she had in storage.
“Just until you can get your own,” she suggested.
A while after that, I was headed toward the dumpster with the oversized box my new dining room tabletop arrived in when the owner of a nearby restaurant smiled and held his hands out in front of him.
“Finalmente!” he said. “You finally got a television!”
Fortunately, over time, people in my new neighborhood began to pay more attention to my dog Mocha than to my home entertainment preferences. I was still an outsider, but I began to settle into a routine.
Every morning, I’d run errands while walking Mocha: first the coffee bar, followed by one or two stops -- maybe the supermarket, butcher, dry cleaner, fruit seller, bookshop, bakery, or pet store. Then I’d usually have another coffee.
It didn’t take long for the barista at the coffee bar I went to most often to learn my order and make it without being reminded. But he remained formal. Each time, he’d set my caffè macchiato al vetro down with exaggerated care and quietly say, “Lei è servito” -- “you are served.”
It worked that way for months. Then, one day, randomly, at least half a year in, he asked if I was a tourist.
“No,” I said. “Of course I’m not a tourist. I’ve been coming here for months.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I noticed sometimes you come in here early, sometimes late, sometimes after lunch. Do you have a job?”
“I work at home.”
“What kind of work?”
“I’m a journalist.”
“But you’re not Italian,” he said. “Where are you from?”
“I grew up in America.”
There was a pause, and then his eyes lit up.
“Yes! I’ve heard about you!” He stood up straight, smiled, and crossed his arms and said, “You don’t have a television!”
