More complex trick... Use item masks that apply to the things which you need drawn behind them. So, the counter would have a black and white mask image, which is applied to the character. That would simply erase the character parts which should be unseen. (However, RenPy only has one mask option per image. So you would be limited to only masking off one item, per item. I believe. You couldn't have a separate coffee cup on the counter and have that ALSO mask-off the undesired parts of the character.) You would have to create a custom "mask image" from all masks in front of the character. Then apply that merged mask to the character as one mask image.
But now I am getting into some more complex stuff. However, for complex scenes... That would be needed, for fast drawing of the scene. RenPy isn't exactly a graphical speed daemon!