Overheard
Erika Mors sat alone in a coffee shop. She was a lone figure sitting at a table near the exit. She’d chosen that table because she thought she’d be able to eavesdrop on the conversation of the two men sitting to her right. It had been a flash decision, choosing those men and not the threesome in the other corner. She’d gone with this pair because of their similar appearances. Both were in their twenties; they wore toques and construction boots. She sort of hope they’d be regaling each other with stories of their wild weekends. Once her coat was off and she could no longer reasonably get up and move without drawing attention to herself, she realized that the men weren’t speaking English. She thought it was Polish, but maybe Czech. Anyway, they ended up drinking the last of their coffee before her scarf was all the way off. She didn’t even have time to imagine what they were talking about.
Unusually, the coffee shop had music playing, at a loud enough volume that Erika couldn’t concentrate. Each time she tried to focus, the music crept into her head and she found herself mentally singing along to the hits from her mom’s youth that counted as Easy Rock today. “Thunder only happens when it’s raining / Players only love you when they’re playing,” she sang, silently. Out of nowhere, she wondered if Stevie Nicks thought grammatically; would it upset her to know that most of the people Erika knew probably would write “its” for “it’s” and “their” (or, worse, “there”) for “they’re”?
The other people sitting in the coffee shop offered her little in the way of entertainment. The man sitting near the garbage can was reading the Globe and Mail. He was dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and lined sport pants, the kind that were windproof on the outside with fuzzy fleece inside. Erika knew this about his pants because he had the bottoms turned up over his boots. The fact that she had taken note of the man’s pants should give you an idea of her level of boredom. It should also explain why she proceeded to pay attention to the trousers worn by the other customers. With something to occupy her brain, she now turned her attention to the rest of the people sitting at the tables. To her left, the three older gentlemen, her initial other option for eavesdropping, all wore denim – old man’s denim, loose through the leg, worn through the knees and thighs. Standing in line, several highschool girls, their denim tight, dark, tucked into boots. When Erika turned to check out the highschool boys at the table she didn’t notice their pants. All she saw was three pairs of oversized trainers.
The influx of students meant new options for eavesdropping, Erika realized with some amount of glee. The boys that sat down beside her didn’t even seem to see her. Busy texting and ribbing one another, they seemed too young to be drinking coffee, really. Erika cocked one ear. To her shock and surprise, they began to talk about female Olympic athletes —- not just Lindsey Vonn in Sports Illustrated. They’d watched women’s hockey; they were talking about speed skating. Erika couldn’t help but thinking that somebody’s mother deserved some credit.
