17

She tilted the mug back, letting her fingers arch out, letting the initial mouthful linger in her mouth. She eventually swallowed; without haste, without barbarity. "This is good."

I stared at my mug. The pitch liquid stared back, strands of steam lapping against my chin. Too hot to drink, I assumed. "I'll try some in a second."

"It's complex." Linda adjusted in her booth, curled her legs up under her. "Nutty, slight hints of citrus."

"Oh, cool." The surface of the liquid shimmered as a newcomer shut the coffee shop's door. "I don't know that much about the stuff."

She took another sip, with more gusto. "That's fine. Most don't, I'm realizing. And much to my chagrin."

I bounced a leg against the ground, nervously. Less steam pour from my mug, so I took it up in both hands and had a sip. It tasted like coffee. "Huh."

Linda continued. "When you enjoy something this much, when you're passionate--" her fingers hooked through the mug handle and slowly pulling in like a scorpion's stinger, the hard consonant sound at the end of her last word thudding across the table into my lap "--about something, especially something most people take for granted, they called you a snob and elitist."

I saw my CD tower spinning. "I think I can relate."

"Because if you end up chatting with people about something you're passionate about, they start to assume you're trying to warp their way of thinking, like, like their actions or perspectives aren't good enough."

"Like they're getting defensive."

"Exactly." She looked down into the cup, as if she'd find her answers there. "Sometimes I keep a low profile, because."

"Because?" My leg slowed down, cut the beats-per-minute to a slight thump.

"Because when I start getting involved in things, I start caring. A lot. And that just results in ostracization for piercing peoples' comfort zones, or whatever."

"Can you give me an example?"

"Well." She looked up, at me, eyes on eyes. "We'll use coffee as an example. I started drinking coffee when I was younger. Nine, I think." I raised my eyebrows. Her eyes did not move. "My parents drank stuff from the grocer's, the stuff in the can. You know. They'd always let me try it. So I got hooked. I never thought twice about it until high school. One of my friends, she was really into coffee. Would go out of her way to buy coffee for herself, get little bags of un-ground beans from a co-op nearby. I thought she was crazy."

"Huh."

"Well, she was. But that's not the point--she'd store a small grinder, this little burr grinder with its own cleaning brush, in her locker, take it out during a study hall and actually make coffee in the art room. No one was there during that period. She got me hooked. I could actually taste the difference, so it wasn't some sort of caffeinated brainwash session. But she explained a lot about the beans, where they came from, the different nuances you'd usually find from the various origins. And the more I drank the good stuff," she circled the rim of her mug with a fingertip, "the more I distanced myself from what my folks drank."

"I take it your parents didn't take too kindly to that."

"I don't think they cared. But after a while, they did notice that I was drinking something different. And I explained what it was, they got defensive."

"Agitated."

"Right. They made these comments, ones that were laced with criticism, like I was too good or high-brow for their coffee. Like that."

"Yuck." I took a sip from the coffee; it had cooled considerably, and was pretty good. My palette grasped for the nuances Linda spoke of, though, only letting them slip through the metaphorical fingers. I tried to generate adjectives, but none that could be applicable--'swarthy,' for instance.

She shrugged. "So now I just avoided showing how much I care about certain things."

The coffee felted thicker going down. "Student activities isn't exactly the best place for keeping a low profile."

"No, it's not. But I feel like I'm able to do what I need to do--call shots, even--without really letting people know about, you know..." She drifted off as she refilled her cup, tipping the cylindrical press pot like so.

"Without letting them think you're so into it that you're part of the elite."

"Yeah."

My leg had stopped drumming. "Should we get another?" I pointed to the press pot.

Linda sipped and looked up, to the wall-mounted clock near the espresso machine. "No. I need to be back soon." She brushed a bang back, around the curve of ear. "I'm thinking about round two."

"Oh."

"You can do better than that."

"Huh. Well," my mind flipped through an appointment book, "are you doing anything Friday night?"

Linda swung her legs from under her, brushed past my pant legs. Tactile exclamations ran marathons up and down my shins. She cocked a ghost of a grin. "Why, no, I'm not. Besides meeting you again, I mean."