California Café

I watched the way her eyes lit up as she was talking and the way she smiled in admiration while she listened to each word her company across from her spoke. The sunlight shining through the large glass windows beside her penetrated through her eyes and I noted the rarity of the color, but which color I wasn’t quite sure. I noticed how her eyes concentrated on an object elsewhere and how she played with her bottom lip when she was at loss for words. I could see her being the center of attention in a crowded room just by watching her laugh, a genuine expression. I observed her even as she caught me staring. With her pale pink painted fingertips, she tucked her blonde waves behind her ear and the slightest shade of pink formed across her cheeks and nose; I felt my face heat up a little as well, but not enough so that I terminated my obsession over this woman sitting across from me in the California café.

She focused her attention back on the two at her table, but snuck glances my way at me occasionally. I wondered what was going on in her mind. I wondered if she thought my intense gaze was too much. She gave no hints for me to think negatively as she gave a shy smile at the last glimpse.

She stood up from the wooden chair after she paid for the table’s check and the black cloth fabric of her dress clung perfectly along her body from the start of her breasts down to the brown tiles on the floor. She straightened out her short jean jacket as she walked out without another look my way.

I looked down at my half eaten sandwich, which I no longer had the desire for.

“Did she leave?”

“What?” I looked up at Matt, a friend I had been sitting with.

“The girl you were staring at. Is she gone now?”

“Oh, yeah,” I chuckled when I realized I made my interest quite obvious. I looked back to the spot she was previously at, along the glass pained wall and saw her short blonde hair standing outside with one of the people she had been to lunch with moments before. I felt relief drain through my gut when I saw her still on the property. This time I couldn’t see her eyes, only the bronze aviator shades placed over them. She talked, her arms whipping through and abusing the Los Angeles air, with the woman with such strong emotion. I watched as she bid her friend a final goodbye, a tight hug and a light kiss on the cheek. Her friend got in the passenger seat of a black Toyota after a timid wave and the blonde woman, whom I was interested in, was left on the sidewalk. The early January wind blew through her waves as she attempted to keep her hair in place. She tucked the hairs that were obstructing her view back behind her ear and started walking up the street. I eyed her loose black dress until I could not see her anymore. I wanted to run after her and catch her name, her number, see her up close; instead, I just sat in my seat in that small California café.

Notes

xo.