…she followed my gaze to the back page. There, printed clearly under the bold heading “A Warm Welcome from the Owner,” was my photograph, right next to a short biography and my signature.
Her eyes darted frantically from the menu to my face, then back to the menu again. The aggressive, towering posture she had struck just moments before instantly deflated, and the smug sneer vanished, replaced by a look of absolute, soul-crushing mortification.
“You’re…” she stammered, the loud, abrasive tone completely evaporating from her voice.
“I am,” I smiled calmly, finally sliding into the window seat and placing my hands neatly on the table. “And to be perfectly honest, I don’t recall us ever being friends. Though I’m always eager to meet such passionate patrons.”
Her two children, blissfully oblivious to their mother’s catastrophic social misstep, began pulling at her designer coat. “Mom, sit down! You said we were getting the window seat!” the younger one whined, trying to squeeze past her.
The woman frantically gathered her oversized purse, her face now the shade of a boiled lobster. “We’re… we’re actually going to go somewhere else. Come on, kids,” she sputtered, her voice barely above a raspy whisper.
“Are you sure?” I asked, keeping my tone flawlessly polite but letting a hint of a smirk show. “I’d hate for you to leave before making that phone call. I’m quite curious to see how you’d go about getting me banned from my own establishment.”
She didn’t answer. She practically dragged her confused kids toward the exit, nearly tripping over a potted fern in her desperate haste to escape the café.
Just as the glass door swung shut behind her, my friend walked in from the counter, carrying two freshly brewed cappuccinos.
“Sorry I’m late,” they said, handing me a mug and dropping into the seat the woman had fought so viciously for. “It looked like that lady leaving was in a serious rush. Did I miss anything?”
I took a sip of the warm coffee, looking out the window just in time to see the woman speed-walking down the pavement, not looking back once.
“Not much,” I laughed, setting the mug down. “Just handling a little impromptu quality control.”
