Young Writers Society

People-watching was one of her favorite pastimes. This was partly because she enjoyed finding clichés in everything, but mostly it was a great way to avoid real work. She even had rules. Girl with boy around the same age: definitely dating. Kid hanging out with parent on weekend: socially awkward. Group of females: scouting for boys, hanging out being the secondary objective. Group of males: food, the presences of girls considered a bonus. Anyone sitting alone: lonely and longing for the company of anyone willing.

Her tongue grazed her lips as she raised both eyebrows and one side of her mouth. Sitting alone in a small café downtown, she began a familiar inner dialogue of the excuses that brought her to where she always ended up. I’m people watching, because what else do I have to do? I mean, other than homework that’s overdue or homework that’s almost overdue or look for a job or write an actual resumé or apply for grad school or look for scholarships because who can pay for any of this? But seriously, what else am I really going to do? That was how she convinced herself it was okay to pull out her laptop and just pretend. Shielding her face with the screen, she slipped on a pair of sunglasses, because, hey, it can be pretty bright out in December.

Letting her eyes drift around the small space, they landed first on an old man sitting alone. In front of him sat a cup of coffee and two donuts, the latter softening her face. The table next to his housed a middle-aged woman with a laptop and a stack of coffee cups piled four high. The papers lay scattered across her lap, breathing frantically with her. Imagining how many coffee cups the woman went through in a mere week, she have her the same look she’d directed at the old man. What did a woman’s life have to lack to spend so many hours in a place like this doing work like that?

A couple occupied the small corner table, leaning into each other to whisper. Passing them over quickly, she smiled, and let her eyes rest on the male sitting at the table farthest from her. Placing a guess at around 21, she scanned the text books laid neatly in front of him. The chair across from him was pushed in. Feeling her heart pound a little heavier, she looked back to her computer screen and watched him out of the corner of her sunglasses, ready to give him a score.

His legs folded beneath the table with a struggle and his shoulders ended well above the chair back. One point. His hair was nothing special when glanced at through the sunglasses, but dipping her head to look over them brought a renewed smile. The strands caught the light with a sultry attitude and spit it back out even brighter. One point. Two bonus points for the textbooks. The more she looked, everything about him invited her over. His eyes never caught hers, but that was part of the game. She bet they were blue to match the plaid shirt he had unfastened the top two buttons of. The lines glided across his broad shoulders and chest, wrinkling around his forearm where he had pushed them up haphazardly, probably in the heat of studying. Two points. His bare arms stretched across the table, sinewy and strong, connected to big hands with clean finger nails. Two points. While she was debating whether to approach directly or play coy, someone took a very uninvited seat across from her.

“He’s not a good guy.”

Immediate distaste threatened to spill out of the top of her head. “Excuse me?”

“That guy you’re staring at.” He thumbed in the general direction.

Removing her sunglasses became a necessity to give him the full affect of her stare. “I think you’re mistaken.”

Crossing his arms, he leaned back, slouching slightly. “Am I?”

“I was working on my resumé.” She refrained from tipping his chair.

“Were you?”

Coffee grinders and faraway conversations filled the silence between them as her mind brewed. “Who are you?”

“Sorry. Excuse my lack of manners. I’ve really been meaning to work on that. I’m Matthew.” He stuck his hand out . “What’s your name?”

“And you’re at my table because?” Her arms crossed themselves.

“You seem like a nice girl.” She snorted. “And I wanted you to know that I go to school with Eric and he’s not someone you want to go about intentionally meeting.”

“I can make that decision on my own.” Her eyes scanned him quickly. His shoulders barely passed hers, her hair barely passed his, and she could bet his skin felt like sand paper. Hypothetical braces and a whole new wardrobe and maybe she could give him a sympathy point. Two reluctant points for being in school. The final tally was already less than weak when she realized he was one half of the couple in the corner. Coming to talk to her with his girlfriend sitting right over there. Minus one point.

“While I’m sure that’s quite true,” he began, and she wanted to ask him what era he was raised in. “I thought I would extend the courtesy to a beautiful girl who might want to protect her heart.”

Her eyes caught the ceiling and then fell upon the female half of the couple’s corner table as she walked over. A smile that spread across the other girl’s face, and she stared unabashedly as the “girlfriend” leaned down to kiss Matthew on the cheek. “I’m gonna head out, okay? Don’t forget mom’s birthday dinner tomorrow at seven.”

He smiled. “Okay, bye.”

Her lips tighten and turned up as her eyes flitted across the table. Now she was walking away.

“So, I was wondering if you wanted to have coffee with me some time.” His pause only left room for a breath. “If you’re considering saying no, consider a free drink instead.”

His fingers tapped the table as his teeth scraped against his lip and the skin on his forehead wrinkled into little waves of uncertainty. Taken aback, her mouth opened and shut. Her eyes skirted to the corner where Eric sat, still folded, still wearing plaid. She watched him glance around, reach into his backpack, and pulled out a flask, pouring the entirety of its contents into his coffee. His hand disappeared into the bag with the flask and reappeared with a pack of cigarettes. He stood like a bunch of hinges unfurling and took both liver and lung cancer outside.

She looked back at Matthew looking at her. “That’s just the start,” he said. “Also take into consideration my being right about him.”

“No.” Sorry, no. Although she didn’t know why she said it.

His eyelashes fell and rose, the corners of his mouth tight, as he dipped his head to her slowly. “Very well. Maybe the next time we run into each other you’ll reconsider.”

Watching him go led her eye to the old man by the door. Bracing the hands that told stories of his years against the table, he stood with strong bones and walked around the table. A woman took a seat in the chair he pulled out, and smiled at him, gently placing her wrinkled hand over his. A familiar smile passed briefly between them before he returned to his seat and pushed one of the donuts toward her.

Four coffee cups found their way to the garbage as the middle aged woman shoved her papers in her laptop case. Folding the computer and blowing her hair out of her eyes she smiled without showing the number of hours she’d been awake. “I just finalized everything. They said we can go get her tomorrow.” The man on the phone made her giggle as she pushed open the door to leave. “I know. We’re finally going to have a little girl.”

The girl sitting alone folded her laptop, the cursor still blinking on a blank screen. She put her sunglasses in her bag and looked at the floor. She left alone.