Coffee

She's drinking coffee. It's her first time. She was so excited she dropped the chocolate shaker in it. The coffee is all over the floor now. The woman reading a book by the window is distracted by this. The slow insidious rythm that it drips.

She pulls a face. She doesn't quite like the taste, but it's her first time and she feels like an adult now.

None of them do anything about the dripping coffee. It's like it doesn't exist. Only I and the woman reading notice it. Together we share this moment. She doesn't know I'm sharing it with her though. She's teasing her fingers through her hair.

She's getting sugar now. Packets of it. I look at her with distaste. She feels so old, so wise. I guess her mother never told her about the kind of people who drink coffee.

The woman reading looks wistfully out the window. The ring on her finger tells me she is feeling trapped. She's not thinking about her husband now. She's thinking of a woman. A woman like me.

Change clatters on the floor and we both look up. Our eyes meet for the first time. She looks away is if it were a mistake. I see her looking at the spil again. The kids are gone now. it's just us, but she doesn't know it. She's moving to the spill. I stare on curiously. She glances at me, and then with one cautious movement she drops the book. Page down onto the spill. She walks over to my table and sits beside me.

"That was a horrible book," she says.

"I know," I reply. But I don't.