Wrinkles are an honor when grandchildren count them. He has his four grandchildren from his son Meir. I, as he’s well aware, am a bubby to no one

Maybe the problem isn’t Chanoch.

My husband isn’t asking for anything crazy. All he wants is for us to stay with his son Meir for Asher’s bar mitzvah Shabbos. And it does make sense, it’s a fifty-minute walk each way from our house.

Maybe the problem is me. Because staying with Meir means acting all Bubby for an entire Shabbos, and I can’t, I just can’t do it.

Maybe Chanoch’s snoring — better put, his roaring — isn’t his problem either. It definitely is mine.

Not that I’d sleep well otherwise. I’ve gotten enough sleep in my lifetime, throughout all the years that my friends were up at night with babies. My body doesn’t seem to need all this rest.

Five o’clock, I wrap my scarf around my neck and gently close the door behind me. The world slumbers as I hurry off to Black Mug to get the coffees brewing. I like this time; I need my solitude in the morning.

It takes 15 minutes for the espresso machine to heat up. I start with that, then move on to the other machines, getting them all humming. By the time the first coffee is ready to be served, the frostbite in my fingers is gone.

Nobody’s thinking about their morning brew at this hour. They dream blissful dreams as I load milk bottles and whipped cream dispensers into the fridge, stack cups and sleeves and lids on the counter, empty a pack of stirrers into their holder.

Five-thirty, there’s a text from Chanoch, which means he’s up. I look at the message: it’s a picture of Meir’s toddler Huvi, her face smeared with ketchup.

I guess I should reply with a bunch of giggling emoji faces, but I don’t find her dirty face all that funny, so I stuff my phone into my apron pocket and return to work. The first round of pastries should be out of the oven now. I pass the metal double doors to the kitchen, mumble good morning to the pastry chef and his crew, and hoist a tray of hot corn muffins off the counter.

By six o’clock, when Mrs. Turner unlocks the front door, the shop is ready to greet its customers. Neat rows of muffins, croissants, doughnuts, and scones are lined up in the display case. Fresh breads, baguettes, and bagels tower in the bread baskets, and an assortment of chocolates and pralines glistens on the corner counter.

Another morning, another cup. I can get a coffee shop up and running with my eyes closed.

Some workers break for coffee at seven o’clock, but I don’t join them. I find a quiet corner and eat the cut-up fruit I’d brought from home. Coffee? I get my coffee fill by serving it eight hours a day. Besides, I don’t subscribe to the caffeine religion. Water quenches thirst, sleep quells fatigue. I’ll sleep at three o'clock, when I get home, for 45 minutes. That’ll take me until the night, when I’ll dose on and off, palms over my ears, until I’ll flick my alarm clock off ten minutes before it’s set to ring.

I’m refilling the chocolate croissants — always the most popular item — when I suddenly go blind.

“Aurgghh!” I splutter, working my gloved fingers to peel someone’s hands off my eyes. “Whaaa, hey, who… Margie!”

The second shifters have arrived. Okay, things will get colorful now. Margie’s already laughing and making everyone else laugh, and I suspect she didn’t even say anything. They’re only laughing because Margie’s laugh makes you laugh.

Or maybe they’re laughing at me?

I’m annoyed — really, there’s nothing funny about blinding me, I could’ve dropped all the croissants to the floor — and make my way to a quiet side of the counter.

The day crawls along. I serve coffee, pack pastries, ring up orders, wipe down counters. My job hasn’t changed in the past 33 years.

But Black Mug has. The décor: exposed brick in place of mint green walls, rustic wood instead of Formica countertops, dim lighting in favor of florescent bulbs. The staff uniform: black canvas aprons with an embroidered store logo instead of disposable white plastic. (“Because black aprons makes coffee taste so much better,” Margie had solemnly declared after Mrs. Turner distributed the uniforms.) Even the menu; where it was once humble coffees and teas, it’s expanded to a range of blended beverages and custom hot and cold drinks with names I can barely pronounce.

“It’s the vibe,” Mrs. Turner explained. “We need it for the vibe.”

“Eleven-thirty vibe break,” Margie would whistle for months after that comment.

With the new vibe came a new clientele. We still got staid businessmen and scrub-clad hospital personnel, mainly very early in the morning, but throughout the day, the vibe attracted knots of giggly friends and trendy sisters who seemed to have endless hours to kill and no qualms about spending eight dollars on a cup of coffee.

One of these pairs — I can’t make out if they’re sisters or friends, they’re both giggly and trendy — walk in a little after twelve. While they pore over the leather menu cards, I catch the eyes of the toddler in her stroller. The kid picks up a pudgy hand and waves. “Hi, Bubby!”

Like the hundreds of lattes I serve each day, I froth.

What makes me a bubby? The wrinkles on my face?

Chanoch gets perplexed when I complain about those wrinkles. He thinks I’ve earned them and should be proud of them. What he doesn’t realize is that my aging is different. Wrinkles are an honor when grandchildren count them. He has his four grandchildren from his son Meir. I, as he’s well aware, am a bubby to no one.

“Coming for lunch?” Eniko asks.

I shake my head. Eniko’s been asking me the same question every day since she was hired as a barista two months ago. A few more days and she’ll learn. Everyone knows I need my own company over lunch.

But today she persists. “Why do you eat alone every day?”

“I prefer to.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

My eyes whiz across the hot pink and yellow stripes on her sweater. Eniko always dresses in flamboyant colors. She’s always chatting and humming and laughing, as though life is one big carnival — and maybe for her it is. It certainly appears so, with her pushing 50 and not a wrinkle to show for it.

Eniko clucks her tongue. “You should join us in the stockroom. It’s cooler in there, and with Margie around, you might even smile by mistake.”

Here we go again. Since Eniko started working at Black Mug, she’s made me her mission: to pull me into her cheery life, make me join her carnival.

I won’t let her get away with that smile barb. I catch her eye and stretch my lips as wide as they go.

“On purpose,” I tell her.

I grab a Clorox wipe and swipe it across the counter.