A Town Called Prairie: Chapter Five

Chapter Five:

Katherine’s Coffee Shop

I walked to the coffee shop and got my usual hot chocolate and one person table in the corner facing the windows. Cars were zooming by headed out of town to George’s Creek just on the horizon beyond the waving fields of grain. The coffee shop had only a few of the old timers and business men passing through to the next town over, talking on their phones with discontented look of the old timers directed at their seemingly unnoticing faces.

After about a half hour, it was just the old timers and me, most were reading the newspaper or old paperback books that were falling apart from the many times they had been read, reread and read again. Their old faces were concentrated on the politics and tales of people from faraway places. I was in the present though, watching the life of my town bleed out through the asphalt ‘vein’.

When I finished my hot chocolate, I sneaked a paper that was already read on one the tables and scanned it. Same old same old politics and Wall Street messes, my motto was that rumors on Wall Street were the same as stocks dropping. I glanced over the paper at the park across the street and saw some kids from school, the ones who usually hung around the coffee shop later at night were standing in their little groups on the green dewy grass, darting looks at the coffee shop. I went back to the paper and just began reading an article that was promoting something good in life when someone walked in. glass shattered and people gasped. I looked up and saw one a group of 4 kids standing in the doorway of the coffee shop, one holding an iron pipe, the others with tree branches or assorted random potentially dangerous items. Two of them looked scarcely over 10 or 11; the other two were around my age.

“Give us the money!” the supposed leader of the group, a tall boy with brown hair yelled.

“The bank is down the street.” The cashier stated, pointing out the now shattered glass door.

“I don’t CARE where the BANK is!” he yelled, waving the metal pipe in the air. “Give ME the MONEY!”

“Well you got to come closer to the counter for me to do that.”

“Don’t be a smart-”

“Hey, cool it.” The robber group looked at me. Who said that?

“Don’t tell me to cool it Muchacha.” The leader stepped my way.  Muchacha? What the heck is a Muchacha?

With the group’s attention my way, the cashier jumped from behind the counter with what appeared to be a pitcher from a blender and headed straight for the leader. The leader must have seen the shocked look on my face and turned right as the pitcher slammed into his head. Scared expressions came across the two younger kids faces as they ran out the door. The second older kid turned to go after the cashier, who assumed a sumo like pose as I ran at the attacker from the back and tackled them to the ground. The cashier came at them with the pitcher from the blender and whacked them over the head until the cops came in and told her to stop, flipping over the two robbers that remained and dragged them both out of the shop unconscious.

“Stupid kids.” The cashier flicked her hair out of her eyes. “No offense.” She added when she looked at me. “

“It's ok.” I replied.

“Thanks for the help.” She added. “I’m Katherine by the way.”

“Lauren.”

“Nice to meet you. What’ll you say to a free cup of cocoa on the house?”

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I moved to the table closer to the counter and talked a bit to Catherine as she cleaned up behind the counter when the morning rush had gone away. Turns out she graduated from Hillside last year and was working to raise some money for college.

“Once I head off to Stanford, there’s no way I’m coming back here.” She popped the gum she was chewing and scrubbed the counter.

“What are you going to major in?”

“Genetic engineering.” She fixed her hair and kept scrubbing. “Stupid chocolate won’t come off the counter.” She mumbled to herself. “Genetics has interested me since 7th grade, it’s something I've always wanted to do, but my grandparents wanted me to work in the shop.” She nodded her head up like she was gesturing to the coffee shop. “I’ve been looking for people to take over when I leave, but it seems no one wants to work at a lowly coffee shop, lazy bums.” She muttered ‘lazy bums’ under her breath.

“Would I be able to apply?”

“How old are you?”

“15.” I looked down. I knew the whole child labor laws or whatever.

She looked me over. “Oh, I thought you were 16 at least.” She looked me over again. “Works for me. When’s your birthday?”

“January.”

“Cool, you’re hired.”

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“So you’re part of the garage drama club?” Katherine asked as she locked the door to the shop that night.

“Yeah,”

“I was in that way back when, my grandparents wanted me to ‘be more outgoing’ and ‘meet new people’. That was back when I first got here, freshman in high school. I thought it was bogus then, I still think it was bogus. The people were strange, loud and obnoxious, I hated it. After one meeting, I just snuck around the house and headed over to the park to throw rocks in the river or stare into nothing. It was my alone quiet time.” Katherine fixed her jacket as a cold wind blew.

“Which way do you walk?” I asked. Katherine pointed away from the road to George’s Creek. “Same here,” I replied and we began walking.

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“My parents gave me up for adoption when I was 9. I still remember the day my mom took me to the mall in George’s creek and dropped me off, saying she was gonna go look for a parking spot. She didn’t show up after ten minutes so I sat down. Half hour, hour, after an hour and a half, a cop showed up and stood by the door. He was obviously making sure I was ok, but he just stood there silently with his sunglasses and hat, dark uniform and all, he looked like the grim reaper. The time when the mall was supposed to close came around and he came over to me and asked what I was waiting for. ‘My mom, officer, she went to go look for a parking place. She’ll be back soon.’ He knew obviously she was not going to come back for me, so he took me inside the mall to the security office, where a social worker came and took me to my recently abandoned home to get my things and head off to a foster home for the night. Eventually my grandparents got custody of me and shipped me out here from New York.”

We took a few strides in silence. “I’ve never told anyone all that.” She added.

Why did she tell me? I wondered, what makes me stand out from everyone else?

“I guess you look like someone who knows what I’ve gone through.”

In truth, I didn’t. I had never been ditched at a mall my mom, or lived in a foster home or gone half way across the country to live with my grandparents. Furthest I’ve ever gone was to George’s Creek for take your kid to work day with my mom. If she thought I understood any of the emotions behind what she’s been through, she had no idea who she was talking to.

“I’ve lived here my whole life. People think I’m quiet, smart and weak. They want me to be like my grandmother whom I’ve never met. I’m setting out to prove them wrong.” I spoke quietly.

“Prove them wrong?” she asked.

“That’s why I joined garage drama club. I’m going to audition for a play in George’s Creek, one in the big performing arts building.”

“You think being in a play is going to prove a whole town wrong?”

I nodded, “yes. It’ll be good enough for me.”

“Why don’t you want people to think you’re quiet and smart?”

“Because that leads to the assumption that I’m weak.”

“Not always.”

“But mostly, yes. I want to let the whole town know there’s more to me than just ‘Florentine, the girl whose parents were the Romeo and Juliet of town, the girl who lives in an ancient house across the street from her grandparents, and the girl whose grandfather is best friends with the sheriff. There’s more to me than that, and at this point in time, I can’t change how I act to change everyone’s mind about that. I want to be known by everyone, I want to stand out.”

“Who says standing out won’t hurt as well as help?”

“No one, that’s who,”