The Coffee Maker Who Stole Your Girl
art by Taylore Rowland
The coffee maker who stole your girl makes coffee every weekday morning at six thirty on the dot. Seven thirty on weekends and days off. It’s reliable, which you aren’t.
You’re trying, you say. Trying my patience! She snaps. You’re always late. You always forget. You never follow through on your promises. You don’t completely disagree. Time management and memory have always been a struggle for you. She says she feels like every time she asks you for something you forget or have an excuse. She’s not entirely wrong.
It’s a trying time, you say, regretting the words as soon as they slip out of your mouth. She throws her hands in the air and sighs. She pours herself a cup and asks if you’d like one. You shake your head.
*
You buy her flowers. You know she likes tulips. A bouquet in all the colors. When you bring them home you find another bouquet twice as large sitting in a vase on the kitchen table.
Who sent you that? You ask.
Who do you think? She quirks her eyebrow towards the coffee maker. You don’t believe her, so she shows you the manual. It sends flowers on important dates. You panic. What date did you miss? Her birthday? Your anniversary? Valentine’s day? Today is July seventh. No bells ring in your head. You give her the flowers, and she adds them into the vase. Yours wilt sooner. Probably because you bought them from the grocery store. She picks yours out as they die and your heart breaks a little more each time she does.
*
You come home to find the coffee maker who stole your girl perched on a side table in the living room with your girl sitting next to it on the couch. She’s laughing like someone told a joke, but the TV is off, and she’s not reading or on her phone.
After this incident, you tell her mother that you’re worried about her. Her mother says that the coffee maker is much more reliable than you. But I’m human! You want to shout but decide that it’s probably not a good idea to do so inside the bakery where you are eating chocolate croissants and drinking coffee (for her) and green tea (for you).
*
You can’t drink coffee anymore. The smell turns your stomach. You get up early and do yard work while the coffee brews. You open all the windows when you come back in and refuse a cup. Instead of brewing less, she brews more. A whole pot. She brews a second pot on the weekends. You tell her you’re worried. That’s a lot of caffeine for one person. She laughs. You don’t remember the last time you made her laugh.
*
She’s always on her phone now, and you accuse her of having an affair. She rolls her eyes and shows you a series of texts from “Joe”. Mostly funny memes, dad jokes, and cute puppy videos. Who’s Joe? You demand. She nods to the coffee maker. You say she is having an affair—with an object. Don’t be ridiculous, she says, taking her phone back. Apologize to Joe. You do not apologize.
*
You notice she smells different when you kiss her the next morning. New perfume? You ask. A gift from Joe. She giggles. You want to scream. To get the hammer you use when hanging pictures. Joe is mainly plastic and glass; it will only take one blow. But it’s ridiculous to be so jealous of a coffee maker as to destroy it. You are ridiculous.
*
You start searching online. It doesn’t take long for you to find others. Coffee makers. Washers. Refrigerators. One woman’s husband is in love with their thermostat. You know now it’s real but not why. There are plenty of theories, of course. Aliens. A mischievous programmer. Foreign governments recruiting assets. But your girl is a third-grade teacher, not a CIA agent. Or at least you’re pretty sure she isn’t. You’ve been in her classroom before. Helped her put up bulletin boards and take them down. Given her rides to and from work. You even go to happy hour with her and her coworkers. Or at least you used to. It’s been months now. You check the school’s website and find her smiling face still there.
*
When you see the ring, you know it’s over. The huge diamond sparkles on the third finger of her left hand. You move out. The house is hers anyway, an inheritance from her grandmother. You move in with your dad. He commiserates. Says your mom left him for a Xerox machine. It’s not true, she left him because she loved her job and he hated cooking dinner for himself. But you nod, empathize. We all need our fairy tales in this hard life.
*
In time, the smell of coffee no longer makes you retch, but you still don’t drink it. You devote yourself to your office job, get a promotion, and your own place. You run into your former girl at the grocery store the day after you sign your lease. A French press in a crochet baby bonnet sits in her cart. She introduces you to “Johanna.” You exclaim over how cute Johanna is and say she looks like her father. Your former girl beams and you part ways. A few days later you see an electric kettle while shopping for your new apartment and a sense of peace comes over you.
