Nina's

She comes to the coffee shop to flirt. She comes to see and be seen, all indirect and discrete. Twenty laptops for eighteen people aged nineteen to twenty eight, and the other two look a lot like grandparents. Count those two out, they’re not part of the game. Thirty six eyes pretend to be working, pretend to be deeply engrossed in their classes, their presentations, their excel sheets, their own lives. Thirty six eyes dart towards the heavy oak door every single time it creaks as it swings open. Thirty six eyes very easily distracted from eighteen very important tasks.

That heavy door creaks and she walks in, sashays in is a more accurate description. She sashays with a hint of strut into a world of coffee and computers and wandering eyes. She walks as if she were in a nightclub and she knows all of the eyes are on her. She scans the room quickly, because she knows it just won’t do to stare. Not on the first pass. She pretends to be looking for a seat, but she’s actually looking for that cute boy with dark hair and sad eyes. She has him pegged for a college student, a lover of wine and alternative pop. She has this feeling that he’s into the Strokes, her favorite band. She doesn’t see him, and so she looks for a seat. The corners are key, optimum viewing with maximum discretion. Second choice are the small tables along the wall, preferably with a view of the front door. Heaven help the poor soul who gets stuck at one of those tables in the middle. That shop over on Selby and Western, by the Cathedral, is her favorite as it has a very small upper balcony with one table high above the crowd. It’s very similar to VIP seating at her favorite club downtown. Above the crowd, removed, it allows her to see everyone and almost no one to see her.

Everyone is dressed up tonight, it’s a Wednesday, and it’s peak night at the coffee houses. The night where the respectable people of the world are definitely not at the bars, but still feeling social in a reserved sort of way. There is very little obvious outward flirting, but on this night, this shop is full of young people searching for someone to hold onto.

Tonight she is lucky, she found an oversized chair in the back. She can curl up feline, the height of indifference, while maintaining direct eye contact with the front door. She can pretend to be bored, read her Kundera, and wait for him to show. Maybe tonight is the night they’ll get past their stolen glances and quick smiles to actual words. She is not optimistic, as there are rules to coffee shop flirting, and the verbal threshold is seldom crossed. There is a strong chance he won’t show at all.

But it is Wednesday night, and she’s always been one of the lucky ones. Thirty-eight eyes dart toward to the heavy oak door as it creaks open, and a youngish student type with dark hair and sad eyes comes in from the autumn night. He scans the room quickly as if looking for a seat, she smiles into her book.