This piece was part of a FREEwrite exercise my mentee and I did just for FUN at a lovely coffee shop in Long Island City, and it was by far my most FAVORITE session. Dedicated to my dear FRIENDS, Emiko and Dan.
He strolled into a café feeling bored. It was one of those dull days when rain just hung in the air, soaking the whole world gray. His freelance assignment had ended some time ago; his mornings felt empty now, making him fidgety and vaguely dissatisfied with everything.
The café was dark, illuminated with a few sparse lights. The barista, a young woman in her early twenties, chewed gum and blew out tiny pink bubbles, popping them gently. Her blond hair was cropped super-short and tinted pink. He reflected idly on her pinkish hair and pink gum bubbles, the only blotches of color inside the café filled with brown and golden hues. The girl was plain-looking; she stared blankly into space, lost in her thoughts or, perhaps, simply absorbed in the rhythm of chewing and blowing out the gum. That vacant stare annoyed him somehow, and when he ordered coffee, he was aware of sounding hoarse and unpleasant.
The girl did not seem to notice or care about the tone of his voice. She stared just as blankly at the milk jug and turned his coffee off-white (he preferred it dark). He handed her exact change, and she shifted her body away from the counter, without saying a word.
The place was empty. He looked around and noticed a sign in the corner: “Pick a question. Start a conversation.” The last thing he wanted was to start a conversation, especially since the only other human being inside the café, the barista, seemed totally uninterested in the world. Yet he felt a strange compulsion to check out the conversation starters. He moved toward the sign and leaned forward, trying to make out tiny white letters on small black rectangles, struggling not to spill coffee as he took the first sip. “Who would you have a conversation with if you could pick anyone from history—and why?” he read. He found the question surprisingly difficult to answer. “Who, indeed?” he wondered, and felt a few hot drops of coffee slide down his chin.
“Who, indeed?” said a female voice behind him; his shoulder muscles clenched, and he spilled more coffee on his hand.
When he turned around, he found himself staring down into the dark, alert eyes of a petite woman standing very close to him. (When did she come in? He did not hear the café door open, did not recall a gush of cold, wet air.) She was dressed for the weather, in a long silvery raincoat cinched at the waist with a wide belt that accentuated how slim she was; carmine boots hugged her slender ankles. She held her dripping umbrella away from her body and used the free hand to push her long black hair away from her forehead. It was obvious she was expecting an answer, a faint smile hovering on the very edges of her mouth. He could not take his eyes off her mouth. Her lipstick matched the color of her boots (or vice versa?), and it seemed to glow bright in the dim light of the café. A tiny smudge in the left corner of her mouth where she had pressed on her lipstick a bit too hard irritated him, and his mind went blank. All of a sudden, he felt wary and almost hostile toward her. The woman sighed, gave a tiny shrug, and turned away to place her order.