Espuma

I was naked with only one man, Eladio. He liked my coffee, a lo cubano— the way I could turn powdered sugar into smoke. It’s like he’d never seen someone make cafecitos this way—grinding sugar and espresso in a tin mug.
At the cafeteria I worked at, he’d meet me some mornings. I wore jean dresses then, thought they brought out the caramel in my skin. He was handsome, darker, hardly spoke English. He’d help me display day-old pastries under warming lights, restock cigarettes. Sometimes before the rush, he’d stare at me studying for class.
I didn’t learn until later that he lived nearby. When I’d visit he’d toss my books on the bed, get me naked, press me into all those pages. After, he’d sneak into the shower behind me, lather my back with soap.
Nights we’d sit up in his kitchen, clean, sipping on espuma and caressing each other’s skin. Nights rolling around in his bed, under the neon glow of a nearby motel, exhausted and intoxicated with caffeine. The way he’d lay and study me—that strange trimmed moustache, his dark penis limp against his leg.
Now my office window overlooks that tiny cafeteria. I wear suit dresses and pumps. I take cigarette breaks and drink caramel frappuccinos. But there are still some nights, who knows why, when I stand, groggy, grind- ing sugar into espresso, as if he’s a thing I could conjure up—a veil of steam coming into shape in my hands.