14 Main St
The barristas in the café are the stereotypical Starbucks kind. A plump and friendly looking man with a ponytail and beard – wearing what could only be described as hipster-glasses – is called Daniel E! by his nametag. He’s taking the order of a guy in a proudly “FEMINIST” t-shirt – grande hot chai latte, he asks for. NICK! is standing behind at one of the espresso machine filling the order of another customer, and the nametagless girl with interesting hair – shaved in the back, long and red-dyed in the front – fills the feminist’s order of chai. She calls out his order and hands it to him, and he thanks her. NICK! playfully shoves the nametagless girl for a quiet and whispered comment, and they go on flirting for a minute before walking into the back room. Daniel E! gets down on the floor and cleans out a minifridge full of milk.
A girl with Ray Bans walks up to the counter and Daniel E! gets up. She orders a tall hot spiced vanilla latte, NICK! has returned and overhears the order incorrectly, and picks up a clear plastic cup – he looks at the girl – “Wait, was that hot or cold?” Daniel E! throws him a jokingly judgmental look as he tosses him a paper cup. NICK! drops the plastic cup to try to catch the paper one, hits it up into the air and fails to catch it, Daniel E! throws him two more and they hit them back and forth a few times in the air before NICK! catches one. The three of them laugh like old friends – “Do you always put on shows?” – Ray Ban girl asks. “Yeah” – says NICK! – “but we never try to.” The girl walks away, Daniel E! looks at NICK!, “It’s so professional in here I can’t even stand it.”
“You know where the door is.”
Daniel E! ignores him as he dances to the new song that’s come on over the hidden speakers, jumping around like he’s at some rave.
Ray Ban sits at the feminist’s table. “This music is indie as fuck,” she says as she begins singing along. The feminist has his MacBook in front of him, working on some creative writing assignment for an English class, he says. Ray Ban asks to borrow a pen and begins brainstorming topics for a philosophy essay. Meanwhile a new and very hipsterish group has come in. They must be friends with the barristas, or it would be strange that the guy with highlights and one earring is standing behind the counter talking quietly to NICK!. One of the two girls that came in with him wears a bold-print “I SUPPORT SAME SEX MARRIAGE” t-shirt, and gives FEMINIST guy a subtle glance. The hipsters talk with the barristas for a while before leaving, and as they do NICK! calls out the grande soy double foam he'd been making for the businessman who appeared when no one else was looking. NICK! turns around and continues the day long conversation he’s been having with Daniel E!. They speak in whispers and laugh in a way that it seems like it’s their language. It warms the place.
“Stop being so handsome at me all the time,” NICK! jokes at Daniel E!. He grabs Daniel E!’s face.
Ray Ban girl has lost interest in the essay and distracts the feminist from his writing, mumbling something about how she has her “drinking friends” and then her, “well, I’m not sure how to put it...”
“Your real friends?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t say ‘real’... just, I’ve been friends with them longer.”
She looks down and begins drawing flowers on her and the feminist’s paper cups.
“Hey, your pen’s running out of ink.”
“Yeah, yeah let’s head out soon. But wait I need a way to end this story.”
“Oh! Oh, there’s a fire! Or someone robs a store maybe... no wait, one of your characters can win the lottery and it changes his life forever.”
“Yeah...no. I think I’ll leave it the way it is.”
“Yo,” she says as her sun glasses fall from their perch on the top of her head, “I could be a storywriter.” She glances over at her friends computer screen and they laugh together at something hidden. They get their things together, get up and begin to walk out, waving to the barristas as new customers walk in past them.
--Jordan