Cafe

            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.