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Sat | June 03, 2006

Puffs

On 8th Street in the village there's a cream puff cafe called Choux. Like Puff & Pao and Beard Papa's, it has a crisp white interior and a line of ceiling lights that lend a clean iMac feeling to it. Actually I think this look has existed in Japan for some time, and has only been recently introduced in the U.S. It therefore appears to follow the iMac.

Choux is narrow-- it has just enough room for four small wooden tables to line one wall. Opposite the tables is a counter behind which four twentysomethings operate.

I walk in because it's empty and I prefer my cafes zero to 20 percent full. I order the first thing that I see in the glass case and sit down. After all, I'm only incidentally buying a cream puff and coffee so that I can legitimately stay there for what becomes two hours.

The puff comes on a plastic silver platter with a plastic fork. I consume it in a minute.

My coffee is black and as I approach the counter the woman literally runs towards me. "Yes?" she says.

"Do you have milk and --"

"Over there!" she gestures at the setup by the door. She's got a round cute face.

While I add 'sugar in the raw' to my paper cup, I meditate on the thought that there is too much urgency, eagerness, and need for approval emanating from behind that counter. They haven't caught on that the best attitude is one of mellow near-indifference.

All the workers wear yellow bandanas in their hair and white chef jackets. One of them stands at the next table stapling coupons to palmcards. She's wearing an animal print dress underneath her jacket. Soon she's outside under the awning, her skirt billowing in the post-drizzle breeze.

In just a few minutes she comes in, stamping her feet, and says, "these people don't understand! The coupon's good for one month!"

She walks out and then walks in a minute later. She is now pacing in and out the door. "People don't want to save money!"

When I got my green tea cream puff and coffee, I saw the same coupon on the counter -- it was for fifty cents. What was she saying out there, I wondered-- "Save fifty cents!"?

This place'll tank if there's too much of that girl, I think. She's got nice legs, but she's cranky and insecure, and it comes through in the way she tries to hand out those cards. She leans against the door every time someone doesn't take a card. Which is pretty much every time. She also bounces her knees like a child who has to go to the bathroom. She's apparently under the impression that people walking by can understand what she's saying. The truth is that you can't understand most of what a person is saying while you're passing on the street. You get three words at most. From the wordiness of what she says when she peeps in, I realize that she might be saying some long phrase like "cream puffs, and there's also a coupon for fifty cents off your order and it's good for an entire month!"

I focus exculsively on reading for awhile, but have already begun an experiment, one that I've conducted several times before, in various situations. It begins with my doing nothing, or as close to nothing as possible, since the presence of a person sitting comfortably inside is something. Then I try to draw people in a little. Every few sentences of reading, I look up and catch glances of people on the street. I also make eye contact with the antsy girl, and try to telepathically adjust her mood until the right note of relaxation is in the air.

My "technique" sounds bogus but the fact is she stops pacing. And in a few minutes people begin to come in. It's Saturday, after all, and the village is full of pedestrians with undefined or infirm purposes, just waiting to be swayed. One of the people is a tall guy in a grey army camouflage t-shirt.

"How old is she?" he asks.

Confusion from the two guys behind the counter.

"Is she 45?" He orders a green tea slushie which involves ice loudly crushed in a blender.

The girl comes in from outside. "I'm really old, I'm 21," I hear her say, inbetween blender noises.

He stands outside with her while the drink is made. She comes in. "There's a guy who's really hot," she says to the plump girl with the round face- who looks at the guy in the army shirt coming in behind her.

"Not him!" she says, "the guy on the cell phone." They skittle outside, and she points down the street. They are framed by the open doorway. I feel like I am watching a movie.

The guy in the grey shirt says something in French to the guy behind the counter, who replies in French. Poor guy. He sits in a chair by the wall.

Suddenly the plump girl and the French dude are shouting at each other. Actually it's just the Korean girl shouting at him, her peevish criticisms snapping like snare drum beats. He looks at me for sympathy and I smile. He has dark hair and dark eyes.

"Sorry," she says, turning to me. But I smile at her too. And then she's yelling him again, and it's English but it's so quick and abbreviated, slurring over certain sounds, that I don't make out what she's talking about. I think it's about something he didn't do, or forgot to do. A few minutes later the guys are putting balls of dough on large baking trays. They sprinkle powered sugar over them and put the three trays in the silver oven behind them.

I think maybe this place will be okay after all.

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