"You knew her?"

On this hot day I get out of my car and start heading for the coffee shop. I pass a man who says, “Hello,” to me and I greet him back. As I walk on the patio I see a regular customer sitting outside drinking his coffee and reading a newspaper. I enter the shop and it seems to be really busy today as most of the tables are filled up. There is only one open table and I contemplate if I should go put my backpack down but I don’t want to be rude to the man in front of me so I decide against it. I get in line and a young woman in front of me lets me go first since she says she is waiting for someone. I thank her and move forward to stand in line behind an older man in is 60’s. While I am waiting the man who said hello to me in the parking lot gets in line with the girl who let me cut her, so it is sort of awkward when we make eye contact. To avoid eye contact I look around the room and notice that there are new paintings along the wall. They add a lot to the room. There are two new employees that I have never seen before. One of them sort of reminds me of Jared Letto from the band 30 seconds to Mars with his long hair and beard. The other employee is wearing a red beanie. Jared says he will take my order in a minute as he is making the older man’s drink first. Eventually he takes my order which is the same, a Chai Tea. He is really nice and he complements me on the color of my nails and of course I say thank you. Red beanie boy is doing some inventory in the front. Luckily one of the tables opened up and is near a good amount of people. The 60’s man is sitting in the table next to me. There is a sorority girl sitting in the table in front of me with books and notes all over the table. On my right there are two girls who are working as well. As I try to ease drop on any conversation I hear one of the girls mention the horrible accident that happened on Thursday October 15^th.  In case you don’t know what happened on the intersection between Triviz and University a young girl driving and her 3 friends in the bed of the truck turned on a green light and were hit by another truck running a red light. One of the passengers died and the other friends are in critical condition. So as I am listening to this conversation and one of the girls mentions that she saw it happen right in front of her and that she was the next to turn on the light and that that could have been her. Her friend tries to comfort her and the girl just looks sad and says, “It has had a big effect on my psyche” and her friends replies with a sympathetic, “I’m sorry!” They continue to do their work. An older woman walks in the shop and greets the 60’s man next to me. He looks up and says with a loud voice, “Hello! How are you doing!” and she replies, “Very well!” She puts her stuff down and then went to order her drink. Two girls get up from a table away from me and start heading towards the door. The lone sorority girl recognizes the girls and she gets up to hug them. One of the girls asks how she is and the sorority girls says she is “surviving” with a really sad voice. The girl responds saying, “Oh did you know… umm..”, and sorority girls looks down and says, “Yeah I knew her.” Her friend says she is sorry and sorority girl says, “Thanks I’ll be fine.” The two girls leave. The 60’s man and his lady friend are talking about a book and then shift to a conversation about what movie to see. Both of these people do not speak in low voices so they talk where almost everybody in the shop can hear. The woman says there is this movie and about “addiction” and he says, “Well drugs? Alcohol?” and she says, “No I think it is about sex.”  Immediately the sorority girl looks up to look at them and quickly looks down. And he comments, “Can you imagine being addicted to sex? I have run across people who were addicted and have had a problem with it.” She replies, “Yeah.” He says, “Is sex part of a relationship? Because I’m not all that sure.” She replies with a timid, “I think so…” She makes more comments about the other movies showing. He says, “Well who are the actors? Do you like them?” I can’t hear her response with red beanie boy grinding some coffee. 60’s man gets up to refill his coffee. He has a strange walk. On his way back he stops in the middle of the pathway and takes a sip of his drink then continues to walk back. He sits down and says, “I think we should go see the sex addiction one.” She replies, “Alright that’s fine.” Immediately he says, “Alright let’s go now! Let’s leave!” in a really excited voice. She doesn’t respond fast enough and he says, “Well what time does it start? 3? 3:30? 4?” she responds calmly and says, “4:30.” This man seems to be in a rush. The woman gets up to look at the newspaper options and he continues to talk to her from across the room and she says, “Yeah” twice and “Oh yeah.” another two times. Then he says, “I can’t wait to go see this movie because I really want to eat some popcorn.” She returns to the table as I am about to leave. This observation was strange… until next time!