I push my way through the door to the coffee shop and am immediately annoyed with the number of people milling around. I guess since tomorrow is New Year’s Eve a lot of people have off and have decided to spend their morning specifically making my life miserable. All I want is a drink and a chance to read for an hour away from home.

I struggle through the crowd by the door, smiling and nodding. Hi, how are you, lemme just shove past here. Oh, hey. That’s my foot, thanks. Wow, lady, nice baby stroller. I especially love how it’s situated straight across the path to my destination. You smell very bad, sir.

Still trying for the register to order, I emerge from between two almost identically bearded and bespectacled bald men who talk animatedly and look as if they might be dancing to electronic music back to back. A few feet from my goal, my foot hooks an ankle and I take several stumbling steps and manage to get out a hand before I brain myself on the counter. I immediately get my feet under me, straighten my jacket, and say, “Dammit! I need coffee!” to the dejected soul at the register. I hear a giggle over my left shoulder. I ignore it for the moment.

“What can I get you?” the barista asks mechanically. He looks very slightly too old to be working at a coffee shop.

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I squint at the menu. I know what I want, but I always forget what it’s called. “That coffee stuff,” I say, “I got it last week. It was good. It had vanilla in it.”

No response as he gazes at me impassively, his eyes dead like a bucket of cold chum bait. I’ll have to be more specific.

“Or caramel,” I say hopefully, “One of the two.” No good. More of the ocular fish guts.

We work it out eventually, though it takes long enough so that there are vague rumblings and throat-clearings happening behind me. I take my change, dump it in the tip cup and start to the waiting area.

I see the giggler, or at least I assume she is the giggler as her face is split by a wide grin and her gray eyes are, well, there’s no other word for it, twinkling with good natured mischief. She’s about 5’6”, shoulder length brown hair, pretty in a kind of unorthodox way: Long nose, full lips, the twinkling eyes. She’s wearing a t-shirt, dark skirt, and boots that seem neither stylish nor particularly functional. A ring with a bright green stone on her right hand. Her purse is distractingly large and flops gently at her side as she sways slowly to either the muzak or her own internal soundtrack. I kind of think it’s the latter.

She’s looking right at me, so I smile in what I hope is a charmingly self-deprecating way. She looks away, still smiling. Oh well.

I press myself into a corner, open my book and wait for my drink.