Work Text:
The way the sunlight scattered across the counter no longer added charming character to the room. Instead, it pointed out where she had forgotten to wipe up spots of crusty syrup from the morning rush. Twinkling chimes from the bell above the door can only be heard so many times before they became grating as opposed to musical. Saccharine smells filtered out from the back kitchen, making her nauseous rather than hungry. Or maybe that was just the headache creeping up on her.
Table 3’s debate on whether single mom Christine should let her five year old son get a puppy for his birthday was loud enough for her to know that the debate was not really about the puppy. Rather, it was about Christine’s fear of her ex outdoing her. Their vivacious voices were fracturing the fragile peace that permeated the air. Honestly, why come to this place instead of getting bottomless mimosas down the road? At least there the arguments would blend into the chatter.
Table 7 sat an old man who used to come in each Sunday with his wife. They would sit across from each other in silence for an hour while splitting a pot of coffee. She did the sudoku, sipping a mug with more creamer than coffee. He did the crossword, guzzling black coffee and ignoring her comments about his blood pressure. The old man came in three weeks ago without her, the sudoku puzzles left untouched in the Sunday paper.
Table 1 belonged to a college student, who was a new addition to the rotating door of patrons. He was not quite a regular yet but was swiftly approaching that coveted status. Pages covered the table top to the point of being some academically hellish table cloth. His latte always has a shot of espresso thrown in, and every time he asks for it sheepishly as though no one sees the tremors to his hands and bags under his eyes. If it was not that, then the messily scrawled equations covering the sheets were justification enough, she figured.
People never realize how visible you are in public. They never realize that their waitress has been adding to her own pros and cons list of the puppy as she refills their orange juice (sans champagne), that she accidentally puts the carafe of creamer down next to the coffee pot, and that she saves a notebook from a glaring permanent ring stain.
For them, a visit to the café serves as a brief respite from the outside, an excursion from home. For her, the café seems to be her whole life, a cage gilded in pastry icing and vanilla syrup.
And she hated it.