The Saturday morning early
winter air filtered through the half open window. Deborah stared out
at the grey skies and stretched. No work today, no running around
chasing little toddler kids while she wondered what she really wanted to do
with her life. Maybe instead she will have time to catch up on her
reading, her writing...maybe head to a certain coffee shop and
see...him.
It had been a few weeks
since their meeting, she'd popped into see him but the shop had been
busy, in flux of last minute tourists riding on the coat-tails of the
ending season, seeing the final theatre shows and buying up the last
minute touristy store items. Deborah was so glad she was no longer
working at that boutique down-town.
Yes, Matt had been busy
lately. One of the new girls had recently up and quit and he was
left filling in the gaps. When he wasn't busy, he was sitting
outside on the small patio, crowded together with a wide assortment
of his guy friends, a guy who always wore a suit, an older hippie
man, a tall lanky fellow with dark floppy hair, and the one who
always wore black and hunched over his coffee, brooding, seemingly.
Deborah always wanted to join them, wasn't sure what to say, but she'd
always wanted to be one of those sorts people who hung out at coffee
shops, the edgy sort. The kind that sat and stared at their dark
coffee, talking about all sorts of dark things, intellectual things,
and the like. There was that one brooding dark guy that sat on the
porch with Matt and his friends, she was both afraid of him and
intrigued by him. She was also nervous to join them all on the patio
because she was still not sure if Matt liked her, although she
suspected she did, knew she did. That was pretty clear to her now.
But, what if he didn't feel the same but saw her as another nice
customer or something? How did this thing work? She could never
figure out the dating game, as it were.
Having recently gotten out
of an extremely bad three year relationship, Deborah was still
reeling from the after effects. Could she trust another guy? Could
she trust herself to fall in love again? Did she even want to? Her
best friend, Mari, who was a devout Christian was adamantly husband
hunting. They had to find husbands, in fact, that was the sole
purpose of looking for a man, to bed him and wed him. Well, maybe
not the bedding part according to Mari, however, Deborah knew that
Mari was not a virgin, rather a self proclaimed born again virgin,
born again and again and again and again...
Mari had taken Deborah to
church a few times. She wasn't sure what she thought of all of that.
Mari had taken her under the rouse that she needed to find the Lord,
although Mari didn't out and out say that, but Deborah could tell.
She also watched as Mari anxiously flirted with all the young
eligible bachelors at the church, even there devout in her sole
purpose to marry, no other goal in sight. Deborah thought that the
church setting was almost as bad as the nightclub setting, just
couched in some form of a Christian safety net.
If everyone in the whole
world, just in different circles, was telling her how to date, how to
fall in love, who to date, who to fall in love with, and how, when,
who to marry, then why was she still confused? Why hadn't any of it
worked yet? Maybe that was really the point of it. Love was
undefinable, unexplainable, it existed but was elusive at times, and
always uncontrollable.
She pulled her journal out
of her near by backpack, a pen tucked inside from where she had
stopped writing the night before, and started pouring out these
thoughts on the paper. She wrote and wrote feverishly pouring out
every last drop of concern, worry, even desire...until her soul felt
satisfied and she threw down the pen to get ready...ready to make her
way to the coffee shop.
At the coffee shop, Matt
stood on the patio, alone at present, smoking a cigarette and sipping
his third espresso of the day, looking anxiously up the street,
waiting, hoping that she would come. His friend, Stephan, already
dressed in his suit for work, approached.
“Waiting for something,
Matt?” Stephan asked.
“Not really,” Matt shook
himself. “Get you something? The usual?”
“Yeah, to go please,”
Stephan went on. “I've got to get to work.”
They both moved into the
coffee shop. There was a smattering of customers sitting about the
various tables, engrossed in their lives, one was reading a book, the
other the paper, and one was just staring dumbly out the window, lost
in thought. Matt handed Thomas his steamy black cup of coffee in a
go-cup and Thomas laid three dollars on the counter. Matt snatched
it up, ran it through the cash register, and handed Thomas his
change, which he tossed into the tip jar.
“Thanks, man,” Matt
said. Thomas shook it off and moved over to pour some cream into the
cup.
“Got to cool it down,”
he explained, without reason.
“Yeah, of course,” and
Matt started to move out to the patio, following his friend, but a
new customer entered the store. She asked for a frapacino and
Matthew inwardly groaned and Thomas said,
“Yeah, you want Starbucks
up the street!”
“Oh, thanks,” she said
and turned, quickly leaving. Matt and Thomas looked at each and
rolled their eyes.
“Tourists,” Thomas said.
“Right,” Matt agreed and
they headed out on the patio. Matt sat down at the table while
Thomas waved and headed for his day at work, just beginning. Matt
had only a few hours left before the one remaining girl started her
shift. His best friend, aptly known as Shaggy because he greatly
resembled the cartoon character rambled up, followed by the coffee
shop's very own old man hippie, Ray.
“Hey guys,” he said in
greeting and he put down his still unlit cigarette and followed them
into the coffee shop, with his cup to get a refill as well.
A few minutes later, he saw
his friend, James, the new guy in the group, heading down the street
towards the coffee shop. His long black hair falling over his face
and his eyes dark. His black clothes and long trench coats were not
the only thing that gave Matt the willies, actually he couldn't put
his finger on what it was about James that seemed odd. I mean, all
his friends were a bit off so he really didn't pay much attention to
it. He knew James had just recently divorced his wife, James talked
about it and how crazy his ex was a lot. A lot more than Matt did
and he too had recently gotten the dump.
James entered the coffee
shop and he passed out the morning cup of joe and muffins to each of
his friends. James headed quickly out to the patio and sat in the
chair Matt had recently vacated, facing the street. Ray and Shaggy
lingered around the counter with the milk before Shaggy headed over
to the computer.
“I found something online
last night,” Shaggy explained, calling up the internet. “Something
very suspicious, wanted to show you guys. That okay?”
Matt looked over at his
friend. This conspiracy theory fascination was new and not how he
had been since high school. So too was his express desire to be
known only as Shaggy, 'the better to hide from the government', he
had explained. Matt worried about his friend and truly hoped this
was a passing fancy.
“Yeah, yeah,” Matt said
and came around to stand behind Shaggy at the computer. Ray stood on
his other side and both leaned over to see the web-page detailing
some crazy government cover-up Shaggy was so convinced was real.
Meanwhile, Deborah, adorned
in European style clothes complete with black pea coat and warm
scarf, neared the coffee shop. On the patio, she saw James sitting
alone and she hesitated at the steps to the coffee shop.
She looked up at him, biting
her lip, in anxiety and intrigue, and said, “Hi.”
“Hello,” was all he
said. And, then Deborah quickly passed into the coffee shop to find
Matt huddled over the computer with his other friends, engrossed in
some website or something.
“Hi, can I get some
service here?” She called out, laughingly.
Matt turned and looked over
at her. A big smile spread across his face and he headed towards
her, happily, bouncing in his familiar walk. And, he hugged her.
Surprised, she put her arms around him. They awkwardly pulled away
from each other, somewhat reluctantly.
“How are you?” Matt
asked, looking at his feet. “Another cappuccino?”
“Yeah, I'd love one,”
she smiled. “And I'll even pay.”
Matt moved behind the
counter and started making her drink. She pulled five dollars out of
her wallet and waited.
“So, how have you been?”
she wanted to know.
“Eh, didn't sleep well
last night,” was all Matt said while he concentrated.
“Yeah, sorry to hear
that,” Deborah was really concerned.
“Not really been sleeping
the last few nights, actually,” he explained. “Stupid insomnia.”
Deborah cocked her head to
one side and thought. Her mind raced as an idea sprang into her
head. Should she or shouldn't she? Meanwhile, Matt finished her
cappuccino and set it on the counter before her. She handed him the
five and he rang up the amount in the cash register. She moved over,
grabbing a napkin from the counter with the milk, and before she lost
her nerve, jotted down her name and phone number on it. She moved
over to him and as he handed her his change she said, nervously,
“Here's my phone number,
if you want to call me when you can't sleep,” she said and held out
the napkin to her. He smiled down at her and handed her the change.
She took the change and smiled her good-bye and left, passing the
patio with now three of his friends, the old hippie one, the tall
lanky guy, and the scary dark boy.
A few minutes after she
left, Matt crossed down to the patio, with his refilled mug in hand.
Still holding the napkin, he held it up to his friends.
“She gave me her phone
number!” he exclaimed.
“Nice,” said James yet
Matt thought he heard a hint of jealousy in it. Yet he shook it off.
This was good news and nothing was going to damper his happy moment.
Deborah walked down the
street, grinning broadly. She had done it and now she waited to see
if he actually called. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and
looked at it, as if he would call right then and there. She knew she
had to wait, he was at work and who knew what he was doing after
work, what he had to do, or if...she gasped...what if he already had
a girlfriend or liked someone else? Her heart broke a little inside,
shame spread over her face. What if she just made a complete and
utter fool of herself. She could never ever go back to that coffee
shop, never. She couldn't face him or his friends. A pang of
disappointment consumed her as she made her way home.
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