The coffee is good today. Michaela must have set up the brewer, after a thorough wash of all the parts that even the Mom and Pop shops seem to need to have for a decent cup, at high traffic volume. I sashay over to a single table in the corner. The table has one chair and a padded bench seat that extends from one end of the wall to the windows opposite. I prefer the bench because I sit here several times a week to watch the customers wander in, sit or hurry out, all versions of my past and future selves filing through.

The bench is comfortable, my coffee black with just the right amount of oil to rainbow the top, steaming in the chilly shop air that hasn’t had a chance to warm up yet. I keep my wool jacket on, but loosen my volumes of pashmina scarf.

The bell jingles as the twenty something student pushes her way in the door, a pack heavy with books and notebooks, face bright with anxiety and expectations, not all of those expectations her own. She smiles at the barista and greets her by name. She’s a regular, also takes her coffee tall and black, but only because the fancier coffees cost more than she can afford right now. Part-time work and a tiny efficiency near campus is her current strategy as she chases an advanced degree that takes her further from her original purpose. Expectations, right?

She considers an offering from the bakery, but takes her cup and tops it up with the free cream and brown sugar, sprinkling a little nutmeg from the repurposed salt shaker. There’s an open seat, single, near the window and she sets up for the next several hours, and doesn’t notice the guy on the opposite wall, worn cargoes, untrimmed coal black hair that tangles in the collar of his flannel shirt. His deep blue eyes, shaded by dark brows and lashes, glance up at her. He is studying, too, and for a moment, assessing, and trying not to smile. Looking back down to his heavy textbook, he tugs on the scruffy beard along his jaw line, and sighs. She doesn’t notice him, and her anxiety is a little off-putting.

Girl. Get your head out of your ass and look at him. Smile and forget about head of the class for just one minute. I know you see him, you always do. You’re allowed to have that fluffy cruller, that frosted brownie, the coffee with cane sugar and cinnamon. Nothing to be shy about. And those later boys? They’ll never be as sweet as this bakery boy.

Hours later and both the bakery boy and the high-pressure student have left. I’ll leave it to you to figure out whether she followed my advice or not.

A woman comes in, small dog on a leash, a heavy dark gray sweater wrapped around her that may well have been bought a couple of decades ago as it’s stretched to just below her knees. Several scarves spill out of the collar, one the very pashmina I’m wearing today. Her hiking boots are sturdy, but it’s time for a new pair because these are almost worn out from hiking the El Camino de Santiago the previous year. Once the frost drops in earnest, she’ll need new boots with more secure soles, maybe some grippers for the occasional mid-winter melt. Red, orange, and bright navy striped socks lounge over the tops of those hikers, and she’s wearing midnight-navy leggings.

She points to a fresh blond cruller under the glass case and holds up two fingers. The barista nods as she turns to make the usual medium latte this woman always – well almost always – wants. The door jingles again and a gust brings in an older man, blue jeans and hikers, silver gray curly hair and a beard that clearly grew from youthful patchy to a soft grizzle. He wipes a mitten under his nose, complains about the parking and bends to greet the dog. The woman holds out the leash to him, and points to the table where the handsome young man had been sitting only hours before. The dog jumps up on the man and the leash is dropped as he laughs and thumps the tiny dog’s barrel chest affectionately.

The barista calls out, turning back to the counter with two tall coffees in hand, the crullers on a shared plate, next to the cash register. She sets them down and steps around the counter to hand the dog a biscuit and ruffle its neck, dog tags jingling happily. Mittens now stashed (mostly) in his pockets, he grabs the coffee and proceeds to the table, spilling only a little. The woman sighs and pays, pulls a half-dozen napkins from the basket on the counter, and follows him with the crullers. They sit side by side on the bench and share the table, kiss once on the mouth in greeting and laugh at some stupid joke she just read on a social media page.

I catch her eye and raise my coffee — a fresh cup — in a toast. Well done, woman!           

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2023)