The coffee shop

We cling to the high paying job like clams to a rock, but wouldn't you like to feel like a dolphin playing in the ocean...

My father worked as a civil engineer his entire life... and ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be just like him, and do all the fun things he did at construction sites. I never got to be a real engineer though, as I ended up working in boring offices most of the time. So, no field work, just me sitting at a cubicle with a computer performing irrelevant tasks. I felt offices were more like mausoleums than working spaces. People get up in the morning, put their working face, and show up trying to look their best. You don't know really what's going on inside, you don't know what kind of human contact these people desire. All this pretension and repression can make any corpse cringe in a grave.

So, at some point, I decided to stop the office charade. After all I had a good excuse... I got laid off from a good position at a prestigious firm going through difficult times, and headed home with a severance package wondering what to do next to make a living. Of course I took some deserved time off to release all the stress created by the uncertainty of whether I was going to make the cut; but after that initial period, I found myself trying to look for something to do.

For a change, I did things that I never had the time to do while working in the corporate world. I started cooking my own meals, I wrote to friends I hadn't been in contact with for years, I dressed casually and started running in the park when days were nice. One day, I was walking on the street and saw a little hole in the wall with a "For Rent" sign. I scribbled the phone number in a bank machine receipt, and called the landlord when I got home. In less than a week, I had signed a lease, and sooner than expected, I found myself operating a small café.

It turned out that my newly opened establishment was relatively close to a university campus. I never thought I was going to get as many students, since the location seemed a little out of the way, but there was a health store nearby, and a few fringe stores catering to their taste; clients came and went fast, and very quickly, I saw myself extremely busy making sandwiches and serving drinks to my newly acquired clientele.

True, this new job was like nothing I had done before, but there was a feeling of liberation to it. No furtive glances to my cleavage even though now I could wear the most revealing low necks I had ever wore in my entire working life. No stupid women commenting on my looks and demeanor, no more expensive dress code. I also rebelled on the discrete makeup I put on every morning... so I changed my lipstick to a bright red, added eyeliner to my lids, and a little mascara.

Yes, I was enjoying my new line of work very much. The physicality of it was extenuating at times, but I never felt like complaining. My clients were nice, polite, and quite attractive... both men and women, no matter their age; although they seemed to be younger in general; the term younger, of course, relative to my own age; and very likely a natural consequence of having so many students coming to my shop.

Very soon I found myself busy enough to hire some help. I didn't require major skills except a friendly disposition and a good attitude, so I placed a "Help wanted" add on the window, and didn't have to wait long before a young Mexican girl came through the door asking about the position. She was in her mid 20's and although she looked very much Latina, she had an unusual exoticism, and the most alluring lips. "Yeah," I thought, "she's going to be perfect here..."