My Little Cafe

Life is so unpredictable I sometimes wonder how people can take it so seriously. You might think it’s supposed to go one way but then one day, without any warning, someone will walk into it and it suddenly becomes very different. In other words, you can’t control who walks through that door. For better or for worse; someone always enters and changes it. What you really think of them doesn’t even matter because that’s life and from that moment forward your thoughts and beliefs will never be quite the same. There was a moment like that which happened to me not long ago where I was just sitting there, like I did every day, when a young woman with short black hair made the decision to come inside for a coffee. This woman, she made the spontaneous decision to do something different all on her own. She didn’t have to try something different, you understand, and that’s why I say life is so funny. This woman, she walked in, and she looked around the room in a sort of casual, scrutinizing way like the way you would visiting a friend’s home for the first time.

“Who took those pictures on the wall?” were the first words she uttered as she approached me sitting behind the counter.

“I did,” I said. Nobody had ever asked me about them before.

She pursed her lips, “You did? Really? They’re amazing!”

“Thanks.”

She didn’t believe me. Whoever this woman was, she was not adept at keeping her internal dialogue to herself. I watched her thoughts ooze over into her sharp features as she furrowed her brow, her eyes darted around the room from one photograph on the wall to the next. There were about a dozen enlarged photographs that I had both captured, edited, and displayed within the four small confining walls of my cafe. Included at the time were several artistic shots of coffee, a few of various dogs that frequented with their owners, and a particular favorite of two rivals playing chess on the table outside. 

I thought this woman was so pretty when she walked through the door. She ordered a small latte and sat down across from me She focused back on me.

“How did you get that one?” She asked pointing at a photograph of a black Shih Tzu that hovered over a croissant with his tongue hanging out. “It’s so good.”

“The dog did most of the work. I just got lucky with the timing,” I replied eyeing an approaching silhouette through the window. “Excuse me.”

The young woman with her wavy dark hair clutched her cup and watched my next customer interaction. She had a hard to place accent but I wouldn’t ask her about it until much later.

There wasn’t much I felt I had control over in my life anymore. I wasn’t going to be rich like my friend told me if I trusted him with my savings and my time. I wasn’t going to have a family of my own like my ex girlfriend dreamed up for us but who eventually found a man that was not plagued with indecision about her. The family I was born with was no longer around, and any lingering extended family no longer a part of my life. I wasn’t going to travel any time soon since my car had broken down outside that theatre a few months back. No, everything I had, and everything I would have, was right there in front of me. This little space I rented out for my coffee shop. This space I could control. As well as the interactions and experiences of the people that walked in. 

The young woman’s skeptical eyes flashed curiously as she watched me greet the large man with the air of professionalism. “How’s it going today, man?”

“So far, so good, brother. Just the coffee today.” He smiled at the woman at the counter. I turned around to carefully craft the same extra hot cappuccino I made at least five times a week and within a minute it was done.

“See you tomorrow, Mark.”

“I’ll be here.”

Mark left after dropping the extra coins in the tip jar.

“Where did you learn to take pictures like that?” The woman resumed when the door closed again. “Were you a photographer or something?”

“No. I learned from someone.”

“From who?”

At this point I was growing tired of what seemed like an endless attempt to expose me. Who did this stranger think she was? I gathered she wanted me to tell her that it was all a ruse and I had actually found all of the photographs online. Maybe I was just an actor working a scene and she walked in on the set. Mark the producer.

“An old friend from the city that worked for a magazine," I said turning away again to clean up the espresso machine. "He critiqued photographs I took for fun."

“Where is your friend now?”

“I think he’s still in prison.”

All she could muster to say was, “Oh.” 

I was waiting for her to ask me why he was in prison but she never did. She was only interested in one thing.

“When do you have time to take pictures?”

“You can see it’s not always so busy here.”

“Are you here a lot?”

“Every morning.”

“Can you do one of me?”

“You want me to take your picture?”

“Yes,” she said, quickly pointing to a blank space on the wall above the door.” You can hang it over there.”

“Why?”

“That space is empty.”

“No, why do you want your picture on the wall?”

“It’s a memory of the cafe, isn’t it?

“Yeah, okay, sure.”

She started posing at the counter with her coffee.

“No, the lighting here is not so good. I have an idea.”

I guided her away from the counter and directed her to act like she was leaving the cafe so the light from outside would better highlight her petite frame. I took out my phone, opened the camera, and placed her within the outline of the door frame. She was not too tall nor too short and maybe not so bad either.

“Perfect,” I said. “Stay there.”

She turned around when I said I was done and I picked out the best one out of a dozen attempts. Shrouded in mystery while accentuated by purpose, I don’t believe either of us thought it would turn out so well.

“Wow! That’s amazing,” she exclaimed. “What are you going to call it?”

I thought for a moment and it came to me.

“Beyond a shadow of doubt.”