The Girl in the Coffee House

I am entranced. 

    I am fixated. 

    I cannot seem to pry my tired eyes away from her. 

    I must be crazy, I must look like fool, but I just can not turn away. 

    I see her sitting on a high chair in the corner coffee house through black french doors with its peeling paint and run away rain drops. The windows are foggy, blurring out everything inside but a focused image of her sitting alone humming a quiet tune remains. I see her anxiously tap her feet and bite the cap of her pen while hovering over scattered papers and crumbs from a stale blueberry muffin.  Her face describes her delicate disarray. One that accurately matches that of the papers in front of her. The rain outside falls lightly to the soft humming that escapes her delicate lips.

    I see that she looks tired. Small, yet noticeable bags of blue and grey shadow underneath her lower lashes. Her face looks diminished and defeated. Her posture is sloppy and uncomformed and boneless. Her long arms melt onto the table and her perfectly arched back sinks into her chair. She puffs out her cheeks and blows all the air in her lungs into the crisp atmosphere that is the Barrington coffee house. She pushes her bangs off her lightly wrinkled forehead as her lonely eyes droop and the muscles in her face ease. She lets her pen slip through her sweaty fingers and hit the hard wood table. I see her pick up her steaming chai tea and wrap her chapped lips around the plastic rim of the cup. Taking a few cautious sips, she sets it back down and refocuses on the task in front of her. She frantically tucks her dark hair away once more. This time behind a pale ear decorated with plastic pearls. The pearls catch the light from the lamp hanging lazily from the ceiling. They sparkle even though they shouldn't, they're pearls--not diamonds. But somehow, oh somehow, those cheap pearls are compellingly glamorous and shining with poise. 

    I watch as she lifts up her angelic head and opens her eyes slowly, peering out the window beside her. She rests her blushed cheek upon her white hand and glares at a woman across the street who is walking quickly, holding a meager grey umbrella over her head. I watch intrigued by her as she stares blankly, hopelessly even, out the dim window onto the murky wet streets of Seattle- opening and closing her bright eyes to the damp wonders outside the dusty coffee house. She watches as people scramble across the street and cover their barley dry heads with soggy wrinkled newspapers. They nearly race each other to the smallest square inch of dry sidewalk, shaded by a small blue awning that belongs to the bank across the street. I watch as an unprovocted subtle tear breaks away from her tender eye, and rolls its way down to the middle of her precious cheek, before being promptly swept away by the tips of her chipped-nail-polished fingers.     Her tears flow quietly and gently, sweetly in tune with the music of the rain. Each one of them formed slowly, and preciously in the immaculate corners of her enchantingly sad eyes.  My heart aches and stings with every unnoticeable tear that escapes her. My mind is numb to all things that do not pertain to her, my thoughts blur and I too, want to shed a tear. 

    I watch as she turns back to her pile of open books and papers. I watch as she lets her head fall heavily into her clammy palms. Smoothing her messy hair away from her eyes, she sits up straight and grips her pen with the chewed cap again in her hands. Tapping it ferociously against the table and sending a small vibration through her small hands.  She takes another sip from her large paper cup and rolls her head to crack her neck. She turns around and grabs the top of her chair and twists her back around, first the left, and then to right. Exhaling deeply, she collapses into her pale, folded, skeletal arms.  Sobbing quietly, unnoticeable to the other unworthy inhabitants of the corner coffee house, she hides her beautifuly sad face in the comforting crevices of her elegant arms.

    She returns to having her back erect and adjusts her posture. Wiping her eyes and regaining control of her emotions she sighs a long sigh and takes another sip of her tea. Just before she turns back to her work, she looks up from her uncomfortable place inside the old coffee house where all her papers and books lay, where her room temperature tea sits and leaves a small ring on the dark wood table, where the sound of the rain beats on the roof and creates a calming muffled sound that everyone inside enjoys along with over priced coffee and yesterday's left over bagels. She looks up and her place inside the coffee house and her blue eyes sing in harmony with the shinning pearls on her ears. She looks up and our eyes meet. She looks up, and looks at me.

    She smiles with her straight, pallid teeth. The freckles on her nose and cheeks wrinkle as her lips turn up as she continues to look in my eyes and smile. The hair that was once tied behind her feminine ears, falls gently over her dimpled cheeks and squinting eyes. She quickly pulls it back and raises her hand to wave to me. Suddenly, a loud horn beeps at me. 

    "The light is green!" I hear someone shout angrily. 

    Her smile fades as I press my unsure foot on the gas pedal and hum off into the dark, miserable, rainy night with the image of her only left in the traces of my  mind.