Short Story 4

Joann sat back in the chair and pulled out her iPhone. She took a sip from her freshly made French vanilla latte and tried to block out the noisiness of the coffee shop that she was taking her break in.

         “Is this seat taken?” said a voice from above her. Joann looked up to find a handsome young Caucasian standing above her, inquiring about the chair at the same table that she was sitting at.

         “Uhm, no, it’s not.” The man awkwardly sat down in the chair. Her interest was sparked for a moment, but she quickly re-focused her attention back to her handheld device.

         “So, uh….what do you do?”

         Joann placed her phone down and looked at the man with a smirk. “Alright, what is it that you want?” she asked.

         “Wait-what are you—“ he started, but Joan cut him off.

         “This is a coffee shop. People drink coffee because the workload that is put upon them is too much for them to endure without an extra stimulus. And the only reason people sit in coffee shops is because they are trying to take a break from the ongoing cycle that they call their life—which is actually really counter-productive, because they’re drinking coffee the whole time, which means that they’re taking in caffeine, which is an upper—but regardless they sit in and attempt to relax.”

         The man looked extremely confused, but Joann did not let up for a moment.

         “Do you know why people don’t come to coffee shops? Not to talk or socialize. None of these people here care what I do for a living, or how I feel. They can barely grasp the basis of their own lives, talk less try to take on the idea of someone else’s. Do you understand? Everyone in here is a zombie. So the fact that you’re asking me what do I do only leads me to believe that you’re either a beggar or a private investigator. And considering that you have on a pair of Ralph Lauren shoes that probably cost anywhere from $140 and up, the former is out of the question. So that leaves me to only ask you: who hired you?”

         The man was completely flabbergasted. To think that such a simple question impelled such a complex and thought-out answer really fascinated him, and kind of turned him on at the same time. So he gathered himself and answered, “Well, to answer your question, no, I am not a private investigator. And you’re right; I didn’t come in here to drink coffee.”

         “So then that reverts me back to my original question: what is it that you want?”

         “Well, you see….I recognized you from the bookstore.”

         “Excuse me?” Joann replied.

         “There was this one day that I saw you at Bridges and Pages, and I recognized you through the window.”

         Joann looked at the man with great disbelief. “I’m sorry, I’m not quite following the story here.”

         The woman’s assertive voice made a shiver run down his spine. But he began to explain.

“A couple of weeks ago, you were at Bridges and Pages Bookstore, right? You were there with a couple of other people. I was there too..and I noticed you. My first thought was ‘Wow, that woman is beautiful’. But, I mean, this is California; there are beautiful women everywhere, so that wasn’t so new. But then I heard you start talking…and you captivated me. You talked about literature and politics like it was something that you did in your sleep. It was really something ahmazing: to see a pretty woman who was intelligent as well. But I didn’t make any move. And I let you walk out of that bookstore without saying a word to you. Now that I think about it, it was probably one of the stupidest things I have ever done.”

The man paused for a moment to let his words sink in. Joann was truly flattered, but she wasn’t a woman to wear her emotions on her sleeve. So she maintained her stern yet approachable expression and took the pause as an opportunity to ask the waiter to bring her a glass of water.

“Ohkay; so what?”

“So, I was walking by and saw you through the window, and I told myself that I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice and decided to come in here and talk to you.”

At the conclusion of this statement, the waiter placed a glass of water on the table. Joann thanked him, and then turned her attention back to the man.

“So you want to talk to me,” she repeated slyly.

“Yes.”

“….Ohkay.”

The man smirked. “Just ‘ohkay’?”

“Yup. I am flattered by your bold approach to me, and also your keen sense of facial recognition, so I guess we could talk. Oh, but there is one problem: we have to start over.”

“What?” he asked.

“The way you approached me isn’t exactly the way one approaches a person whom they wish to talk to. In the courting process, an individual shows off their best qualities and features in an attempt to flatter the other, with hopes that they will succeed. What just transpired here was more comparable to a puppy begging a stranger for a piece of meat. So.. we need to start over.”

“Uhm, ohkay. How do we do that?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Joann said. And with that, she grabbed the man by the shirt collar and kissed him. That lasted for about 10seconds before she released her lip-lock. Before the man could even process the kiss, though, she grabbed the glass of water off the table and threw it in his face. This was followed by a solid slap planted on his right cheek.

All of this managed to draw the attention of almost everyone in the café. The man slid his chair back away from the table and stood up.

“What..the HELL was that for?!” he half-yelled, wiping the water from his eyes.

         “I told you; we needed to start over.”

         “And how did that in the least sense signify us ‘starting over’?”

         At this point, all Joann really wanted to do was laugh. But she smothered her laughter and said, “Oh, come on, if you’ve seen any cliché romance, you would know that the end is usually signified by throwing a drink in the guy’s face and slapping them. Even if you haven’t, if you would have at least been to a bar at least twice a month, you would know that. In all honesty, I didn’t even do it right; I’m really supposed to do it with some type of alcoholic beverge.”

         The man still stood there, with his arms up, slightly bewildered. “I-I can’t believe you just did that.”

         “I know,” Joann replied calmly. “And I know that your brain is probably blowing tons of bells and whistles telling you that this woman is crazy and it’s time to abort the mission. So now that we have started over, the decision of what you will do is up to you.”

         At this point, the man could see the glow in Joann’s eyes, and realized what was going on. He took his seat again and sat back in the chair. He let out a little chuckle.

         “It’s funny you say that, because my mind is definitely telling me that you’re crazy, considering that you just kissed me and threw water in my face and you don’t even know me. But….I don’t have any plans of aborting this mission.”

         “Oh really?” Joann answered, leaning in towards him. His calmness with the situation and obvious sense of humor made him 10x more appealing to her. “Well then, in that case—“ she stuck out her hand towards him “My name is Joann McCathader. It’s nice to meet you.”

         The man grasped her hand and gave it a firm shake. “Christopher Buchanan. And, please; the pleasure is all mine.”