I
walk up the stairs and look to my right. Every morning she’s there, smoking a
cigarette and looking at her phone. Occasionally, I offer to pay her for one,
but she always gives them to me for free. Usually, I wouldn’t ever go out of my
way to repay someone in cigarettes, but I liked seeing her there every morning.
She reminded me that we are all creatures of habit, looking for a familiar tick
in ourselves that we can convince ourselves of our own individualism. I could
see myself approaching her awkwardly, however, the constant companion of her
cell phone either meant that she’s a very popular girl, or that she has a
boyfriend. Regardless, I hand her a cigarette, smile, and continue on with my own
daily routine.
I
walk into the café, holding the door for an older gentleman in his forties. The
air smells of hot paninis and ground coffee. One of the coffee girls yells a
name on the side, holding a sandwich and an ice coffee. There’s no answer. For
a minute, I’d like to tell her that my name is Michelle and she’s holding my
order, but she already knows my name. It was one of the things I enjoyed about
coming to the café before class. Everyone who worked there knew almost everyone
by name. Sometimes, the woman at the counter would write out my entire order
before I’d finish telling it to her: an iced 20 ounce caramel macchiato with
soy and a tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich. It was a sandwich of
nostalgia that would always bring me back to a better time in my life when I
lived with my best friend and worked at the Riviera Café in New York. The
coffee was just to wake me up in time for my Screenwriting class.
I
sit down at the table across from the register, pretending to read the economic
section of a USA Today that isn’t mine. While I skim past the headlines, I can
hear the coffee ladies gossiping about which girls’ hair they wish they had. A
group of sorority girls are huddled around a table behind me. Usually I would
assume they were just a large group of friends, but at Lycoming College, the
chances of it being a group of mindless sorority sisters was much higher.
Together, they were an impenetrable team of women, bound by the illusion of
‘sisterhood’. Individually, they were just girls, looking to be a part of
something. Looking to fit in with a particular crowd so that attending the
right party would be a matter of obligatory importance. It made me wonder if
almost all human activity could be synthesized down to a particular set of
primal needs. Regardless, the economic crisis was beginning to bore me and the
loud cackle of the sorority girls made it impossible to read anything anyways.
I
look at my watch. It’s almost 1 o’clock. I dig out my laptop from my bag and
pull up all the normal sites. Nothing’s changed since I last checked five
minutes ago, so I pretend to look at the screen while the people around me
become my entertainment. Without any sort of context as to what people are
talking about, I’m left playing a kind of ad-lib game with the pieces I get
from their conversations. From across the room, I can spot Richard; a kid from
my high school who’s perspective of reality seemed a bit askew at times. I
recognized him from the hoodie he always used to wear everyday. There was
something different about the group of friends at his table. None of them were
talking to each other. At least not more than two words at a time. Every single
one of them had their faces buried in a gameboy. And it wasn’t like all of them
were on the same level as Rich either. One of them seemed like a normal jock
that you’d often find everywhere on campus. And Richard was the leader of the
group! I was there, sitting alone, and the kid, who used to be smelly to sit
next to, had a group of his own friends that he could meet up and play gameboy
with. It was weird how things had changed since high school.
A
girl shouts my name, but is already looking directly at me. I look at her for a
second, wondering if she really expects me to raise my hand. For a split
second, I feel like she has just introduced me to the entire café. Hi, my
name’s Chris and I like coffee and sandwiches. I also enjoy sitting by myself
and observing other people while they eat in front of me. She hands me my order
and smiles. I get up to grab the straw that she always seems to forget. As if
I’m supposed to drink an iced coffee by hand.
