What's Up with That?

Chloe enjoyed summer mornings at the World Café where there were old customers and new. The new were the single men who’d approached her. Some exchanged phone numbers and with some she was smart enough to give them a fake number.



The exterior of the café was glass from the front to the side. One long table stretched the front with wooden stools and the side with tables seating two people each. The middle of the room had a sofa facing left and right of the room. Of course, the sofas had tables same size as those found on the side of the cafe plus four chairs. It was a café for people who came with one person or none at all.



She didn’t ask but quickly surveying the place, it looked like no visitors had been here since seven in the morning. The tables were clean, no dry coffee stains, no crumbs. The floors were spotless, too. The chairs were in place. It was too quiet for a place that was filled to capacity every hour from start to closing and with customers who before today laughed and talked with each other and with the staff. It was too quiet except for the humming sound of something. She didn’t know what it was.



Chloe had met all five that worked here. Today the one that was least friendly were here. Chloe and she were pretty much physical opposites. Where Chloe wore dark, long hair and was nearly six feet tall and medium build, and wore make-up minus foundation and powder. The other woman wore light brown boyishly-short hair and a foot shorter, slender built, and no make-up.



The employee placed the coffee on the counter. Chloe gave her a twenty dollar bill. She stood to the side of the register for a brief moment her eyes skimmed the register. What else was she gong to do? Look at the ceiling? Some people look at their own feet while waiting for change, others turn to talk to the person next to them. Chloe didn’t look down or up—just in the middle, sort of. Anyways, the register opened and that brief glance of hers produced a great anxiety in the other way—her hands were shaking and she slammed the register shut. She’d been at the café over a month and it was long enough fro them to know she wasn’t a thief. But the other’s actions said otherwise.



She did an experiment. Next day she turned the other way as if talking to someone. That seemed to ease her mind. Day two she glanced quickly at the register as before and the employee looked deeply distressed. Okay that’s it. The employee had an issue and it wasn’t about Chloe. She was never coming here again.