“Oh, Kindles are great!” Mary exclaimed over her coffee.
I had been cleaning up, getting a new pot of coffee going, prepping onions and peppers and mushrooms for the evening rush that would happen in a few hours. I hadn’t been listening to the Coffee and Pie Ladies’ conversation. Mary’s excitement caught my ear and I listened in from the kitchen.
“You can get books from the library right on your computer at home!” Janice chimed in. “I love mine.”
The other ladies at the table added their own agreements to this. I was a bit surprised to hear such unanimous support from all of them — a retired group of women from a farming town with a population of 500 didn’t strike me as Kindle-using types. I have a Kindle. But I’m not from around here.
“How do you do that?” Dorothy asked.
“Oh, it’s easy once you do it a couple times,” Mary said. “I can come over and show you sometime.”
“I would appreciate that,” Dorothy said. “My daughter got it for me for Christmas, and I don’t have the slightest idea how to use the thing.”
“Oh, it’s great, you’ll love it once you figure it out,” Geraldine told her. “We can help you.”
“Thank you, ladies,” Dorothy said. “If you all like it so much, why, I’m sure I will too.”
I smiled to myself. The coffee maker gurgled that the pot was done, so I wiped my onion-y hands on my apron and retrieved the carafe. “Warm ups?” I asked the women at the table. They were my only customers at two o’clock in the afternoon, so I took some pleasure in being chatty with them. “Did I hear you say you got a Kindle for Christmas, Dorothy? I have one, I didn’t know how to use it at first either, but I love it now. The library website is pretty easy to use, I’m sure you’ll get it figured out in no time.”
“That’s what these girls tell me,” Dorothy said. “I’ll give it a try, anyway.”
“Good!” I finished filling up everyone’s mugs and set the pot back on the burner. “I hope you enjoy it.”
As I stepped back into the kitchen to keep chopping veg, Janice piped up again.
“There’s a young couple with a baby that go for a walk every evening around town — does anyone know who they are?”
At this, all the women raised a fluster like a coop of distressed hens, exclaiming that all of them had noticed this young couple, and none of them knew these new people nor where they had come from. They sounded somehow curious, offended, and shocked all at the same time. I had to scurry to the back of the kitchen so I could laugh without offending them further.
From talking about the convenience of Kindles and library websites to small-town gossip in only a minute.
As I said, I’m not from around here.
Once I’d had my laugh, I went back to chopping veg for the evening shift. The Coffee and Pie Ladies finished their afternoon outing and thanked me as they settled up and filed out. They were stingy tippers, but they did tip. The lunch rush had left me a good pocket full of cash, so I wasn’t too put out. A couple more bucks was a couple more bucks.
At four, Sadie came in and relieved me of my shift. I had her all set up, not a dirty dish in the house, tables set, prep fridge stocked, and a fresh pot of chili on the stove waiting to be served out for supper. I went over reservations for the evening with her and wished her well, and then made my way home. The fall air was crisp and refreshing after the heat of the kitchen. I took my time strolling the six blocks home.
I had to tell John the story of the Coffee and Pie Ladies. He got a kick out of it as well, the women adapting to the twenty-first century while still clinging to the nineteen-fifties.
John? Oh, he’s my boyfriend. He’s why I moved here in the first place, out in the boonies. He got me the job at the cafe, though I daresay I keep it because I’m pretty good at it. The beautiful old Victorian we live in belongs to him. Everyone knows John.
He’s been here for centuries.
