It always seemed to Candice that there was something odd about her Aunt Betty. Perhaps it was the quirky way she would dance about her kitchen, or the way she used a wooden spoon to hold her hair in a bun. Perhaps it was the way she liked to talk to her plants in a French accent, or the manner in which she would always insist on greeting the postman each day with an amicable, if not too personal, greeting.
All was not as it seemed to a casual observer, or to her niece, Candice – as Betty’s interest in the mailman was all about his package. She would stand on her doorstep and exclaim, ‘The package may be small, but he always delivers’. Candice, on hearing such graphic filth would tut, and her conservative aunt remained unaware of the euphemisms she was spouting, but as the postman would come closer to her, she would build in enthusiasm, and he would yell from the corner, ‘I’m coming’, and because Aunt Betty’s hearing was poor, he would say it again as he got ever closer, ‘I’m coming’.
As he approached her front gate and prepared to open it, Aunt Betty would inquire, ‘Swinger, eh?’ as he swung open the gate and then she would demand, ‘Give me your seed!’ in an outburst not befitting an aging woman in pink fluffy slippers.
Candice could only shake her head, and flush in embarrassment, as she was only too aware that her dear aunt had absolutely no idea what she was saying. The truth was, she knew, that the Postman named Mike was a green thumb and ran a successful side-hustle dealing in hydroponic seeds and growing some less-than-legal substances – delivering them all over the city under the pretense of simply delivering the mail – and as Mike liked to say, ‘He always delivered!’.
Candice clapped her hands and squealed, ‘Give it to me!’ and she took the small parcel, and winking at the postman praised him, ‘You’re magic, Mike’. And then with a side shuffling dance, she made her way through her house to her greenhouse out the back, with Candice following with peaked curiosity.
Candice thought it strange then when her Aunt Betty opened the package and observed its contents: four small coffee beans. As Candice continued to watch, Betty planted the beans and began to talk to them, offering them a drink before using the watering can to drown them. She wished them a good night’s sleep and went back inside. Again, Candice followed – all the while wondering what her Aunt, who seemed to be embracing the ‘crazed older woman’ stereotype with even more poignant resolution. Then Candice was tripped up by one of Aunt Betty’s cats. It was the small one she called Bean and it robbed Candice of her train of thought – and as she approached the kitchen, she found her Aunt sitting at the small dining table, holding a large mug of coffee with two hands, sitting in simple bliss.
Candice never drank coffee, and she couldn’t help but take in the vignette before her, of a woman whose calm demeanour and extravagant thoughts led her to being one of the happiest people she knew. Candice envied this, and as her own anxiety around her Aunt’s behaviour grew over the next few days, she continued to observe Betty talking to the four coffee beans. Her odd turn of phrases and highly suggestive quips continued to turn Candice red-faced, but the beans drank their water with good humour and the sprouts started to turn into a fine plant, as green tendrils raced about the pot and the four small plants reached towards the sky.
And then – it struck Candice. This was no ordinary plant which claimed refuge in Betty’s backyard. It was a plant which greatly resembled a marijuana leaf. Quite incredulous, Candice stormed around the backyard and then into the kitchen to confront her elder, who, Candice was about to berate, ‘Ought to know better’. On reaching the kitchen, Aunt Betty was in the middle of making coffee – a curious process, which didn’t just involve coffee beans, but the grounding down of the star shaped leaves which she’d seen growing in the yard. Aunt Betty would then blend the leaves, the coffee beans and hot water in the blender, before adding cream and stirring in a heaped teaspoon of sugar. It was messy work, but as she put the mortar and pestle to the side, she let out a sigh of relief – and continued to see the world through her own rosy coloured glasses.
As Candice rose to a hysteria and sought to quiz her aunt, she learned that the beans would be delivered every Tuesday and harvested only a few days later. She learned that her aunty had been buying from Magic Mike, as she defended him, for many years and she finally learned that the woman she revered as the model of conservativism growing up, was enjoying life far more than she. Candice was furious and vowed to call the police to stop the scourge of drugs on her street!
Walking out the front door, and slamming it for theatrical effect, Candice took out her phone and began to dial – her mind racing; the dial tone began to ring and when a voice answered, she breathlessly panted, ‘I need a big boy who knows how to deliver’. And that was how Candice became a coffee drinker.