I'm watching you at the cafe

The simple pleasure of eavesdropping over coffee

Hair by the Raquel Welch wig line

I’m drinking an iced latte in the outer burbs, full cream and served in what could pass as a medium vase. Trucks and white vans flicker past the window. It’s too hot inside, but the patrons are tolerant. As Melbournians we can agree air conditioning before December is obscene.

The grind of a food processor sounds through a small square service window that looks into the kitchen. Framed inside is the chef, who appears lost in a memory. The corners of her mouth are downturned like one of Edward Hopper’s girls. I imagine her dishes are prepared with the subtle flavours of disappointment; carrot muffins that sweat in cling film, family pies sunken in the middle. Her intentionally hateful efforts would be reserved for the specials board - a bone dry chicken sandwich, for example, or soup made of nothing but capsicum. The chef stops blending and disappears through some plastic strips with a slap. 

Every second weekend in the 90s my father would take my siblings and I to cafes in exotic places like Fitzroy and Albert Park. He would pack a small carton of So Good in his coat pocket for my lactose intolerant sister. There were no iPads or alternative milks on the menu, just an outdoor table so dad could smoke and an instruction to ‘Watch the world go by.’ Also to sip slowly, as it was one hot chocolate a piece. Surely it trained me for all these hours of sitting and watching alone. I don’t think I could ever get tired of it.

The woman next to me receives her coffee. 

‘What a beautiful mug!’ She says. It is turquoise ceramic, a real glamour puss. 

‘Thank you!’ The server says, stopping to turn around. ‘We call it our seaside mug.’ She tucks in her lips and nods. 

‘Well, please tell the barista I love it.’

‘I will!’

A man enters with a shaved head and a single dreadlock sprouting behind his ear.

‘Do you by any chance do white chocolate mochas?’ he asks through the side of his mouth. I don’t know if it’s the dready or the vat of milk hitting my small intestine, but his request feels so filled with shame I can barely breathe. He touches one of the fake plants on the counter in a display of idleness and quickly retracts his hand. I tell myself that he is probably okay even though he probably isn’t. I console myself by entertaining the idea that a white chocolate mocha doesn’t signify gaping terrible loneliness. Maybe it’s just livin’. 

Either way I’m enthralled.