Black Coffee - A Short Mystery about coffee break clowning.

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Fiction

Black Coffee

Short Mystery by Claire A Lacroix

        The office force was late getting to the luncheonette. The workers from the mill had arrived first, so the bookkeepers started their coffee break by talking while waiting their turn.
        Marian was being especially giddy. Even she laughed at her own silliness. She thought that the New York Yankees' home town was Los Angeles. She took all the ribbing that the boys gave her in a good-natured way. She was seriously silly and was making her co-workers guffaw in this discussion with her pretended dumbness.
        "I'll bet you couldn't get us our lunches without making a mistake, Marian!" dared one of the boys.
        Now, Marian didn't mind being giddy to make them laugh, but this bet was an insult to her intelligence and took the dare with, "I can get lunch for all of us without even writing it down. What'll you have?" she said pointing to the teaser.
        The orders came out: three black coffees with sugar, one black coffee with no sugar, one milk, one hot dog, two apple turnovers, one éclair, and one package of chocolate chip cookies.
        Marian slipped on her coat and in two minutes she was back with the food. "Where's our coffee?" laughed the gang.
          "Wait!   Wait!   I only have two hands," answered Marian as she distributed the food correctly amid grinning congratulations. She went back to the lunch wagon for the coffees and milk.
          The waiter teased Marian, too. "How are you going to carry all those drinks? You have four hands?"
          "Put the coffees in a pastry box," grinned Marian. The waiter poured out the four coffees, dumped sugar and stirrers in three of them, set the pint of milk in the middle of the empty pastry box, and set the four cups of coffee around it.
          Marian served Rita first. Marian laid the pastry box tray on the corner of a desk, and Rita took out her milk.
          "Oh! my gosh!" Marian whispered in panic, "I forgot which coffee cup doesn't have any sugar."
          Rita looked in the box and pointed to a cup of coffee and said with certainty: "That one has no sugar."
          Marian looked at Rita and then at the four cups of coffee. "You're right," she said straightening up with confidence. "Thanks." Marian distributed the coffees correctly and proudly to a pleased office force.

HOW WERE RITA AND MARIAN SO SURE WHICH CUP OF COFFEE HAD NO SUGAR?

Answer...