Beauty - The Coffee Shop
Originally published here for Vanity Stories
A woman sits in the far back right corner of a coffee shop on Lexington Avenue on a Sunday morning. Her attention flits back and forth from a well-worn book held in her left hand to a laptop. Her bright eyes, half-hidden behind the round frame of her glasses, glancing up briefly to meet those of her waitress. She offers a slight smile before reverting back to her true, studious form. Every now and then her right hand extends slightly towards its keyboard, brushing past a half-empty plate. Her lips, stained a perfect scarlet after four bites of a long since forgotten cherry pie, hovering absentmindedly over a café au lait. She ordered it chilled, with more ice cubes than necessary, as an ode to warmer weather ahead.
She tells the waitress that she’s a first-year law student at Columbia and a regular at the coffee shop. The booth she sits in near the kitchen is unofficially hers. She’s been coming to this place since her first day in the city two years ago. She’s tried everything on the menu, but it’s the café au lait that’s worth the trek from her fifth-floor studio apartment to her favorite place. Just as she savors the semi-bitter taste of the coffee on her tongue, she always finds herself looking forward to spending time alone in the presence of others. To her, this coffee shop: with its aged floor-to-ceiling windows, faded brick walls, and stained wooden floors, is as beautiful as it comes.
Spring has finally arrived in New York: the bare limbs of Central Park’s trees are heavy once again with new growth. The coffee shop fills with late morning warmth and light as customers filter in and out of the room. She lifts her face from her book to receive the sun. Her glowing skin is bathed in light. While most enter the place with plans to depart as quickly as possible with a coffee cup and brown paper bag in hand, others settle down in their chair or booth with the sole intention of enjoying their day. The woman in the coffee shop will always be the latter.
- V.S. Girl