Voyeur

The girl is wearing a yellow beanie and a dark plaid shirt. A large watch looks very shiny on her wrist next to her white, dirty converse. She was sitting across from a man with a dog, and they had papers between them. The man had a (red?) pen and the girl was listening intensely as he underlined and circled over coffee. They were awkward distance apart in the large, too-soft leather chairs they were sitting in and they had to lean very far forward to both see the papers. The girl sat perfectly straight and nodded in a way that made me think that she was focused more on making it clear that she was paying attention than actually paying attention; even intervals, jerky, and firm. The dog wouldn’t settle down, but popped its head up around various sections of the table for absentminded pets. If I had to name the dog based on what the man looked like—also a plaid shirt, glasses—I would name it Leo. It was a sleek, energetic black lab, and the name Leo has the same sort of energy. She is now laughing on the phone, presumably about said meeting, and the man has since left with Leo. She hasn’t finished her danish, maybe ordering it before the man got there and then deciding she should listen rather than eat. This makes me think that maybe it was a meeting of sorts, maybe one between a student and professor going over a paper. The fact that it is Saturday, however, makes me think it might be for a senior capstone, not just any regular paper. She’s in college still, as I can hear her talking on the phone and comparing her classes to her friend’s. Maybe they met on Saturday because she lives off campus. She’s finishing her danish now as she debriefs her friend about the meeting, glancing out the window every once in a while as if to make sure he’s actually left so she can speak freely. “I’ll figure something out,” she says into her phone, looking out the window after the long gone man with the dog, Leo. That makes me think that the meeting didn’t go as well as she hoped, and she has more work to do than she was planning. A stressful feeling for a Saturday morning. (Kru Coffee, 2/23/19)