September

Issue 36

    It was an October-cool morning when Elsie dropped her backpack onto her desk in the anthropology teaching assistants' office. She pulled her binder from her bag, and sorted through her notes, a final attempt to organize the   lecture she'd give in two hours.
    Elsie's body jittered like the leaves outside. Her lecture the previous week and had been a failure.  She had stammered, forgotten information, and kept dropping the white board markers.  It was only Anthropology 101.  It shouldn't be hard.
    As Elsie flipped through her notes, a small canary-yellow piece of paper fell to her desk.  One of the students in the class had passed it to her the previous week as he left the catastrophic lecture.  He was slight and dark skinned.  "Come on by; I think I can help," he'd said, a gold tooth flashing.
    "I doubt it," she'd thought. But now, as she looked at the paper, she wondered.  On it was a map with directions from her office in Butler Hall to a building a few blocks away. The student had marked the building with a big X and written El Remedio next to it.  "'The Remedy', "Elsie said. She got up from her desk, gathered her notes, and left Butler Hall.
    El Remedio was a dark brick building with ivy growing up the sides. A small wooden sign with, "Your Barrista Today Is:" in large block letters hung above the door. Below there was a smaller sign that read, "Pel".  
    Spicy odors saturated the inside of the building. The walls were covered with abstract paintings and woven blankets.  South American music came from the speakers.
    The student approached Elsie from behind the bar. "Hey," he said, "You came. I was worried you wouldn't."
    "I hear you sell remedies," Elsie said, smiling.