The BookShop

I work in a cafe in a book shop. I enjoy my job as I get to work indoors surrounded by lovely cakes and great smelling coffee. Also I love books and they are everywhere. Anything your heart desires is here. But the best bit about serving people in the coffee shop is meeting all sorts of people and wondering what their life is really like.
Take Tom for instance. He comes in every day without fail and orders a white coffee, no frills and certainly no cake. He is middle aged and looks respectable and clean. He wears a shirt and tie, grey trousers and a black leather jacket, oh and he also always has his briefcase. I used to think he had lost his job and didn't want to tell his wife so left for work at his usual time and just hung around the cafe until something came up for him and then she would never have to know. But turns out that that isn't his story after all. One day after work I was walking towards the bus stop to go home and I couldn't believe my eyes. There was Tom sitting in a shop doorway with one of our polystyrene cups in front of him with some change in it. He didn't look like he belonged anywhere but he kept up his standards from a life he no longer lived.
And then there was Simon. Now he really was a piece of work. He would come in every Monday morning, buy a latte grande and sit at a table. Then he would start to mutter to himself. I would catch phrases like "I can't believe it" or "Oh my God what is going on" and his tone was menacing. He would open his briefcase and get some papers out and look through them umpteen times ranting quietly to himself, he was always in a really bad mood. Some people would look at him then look away in case he stared back and said something to them or worse still took a gun out of his briefcase and shot them. I really think he was on the edge.
I used to love little Letty. She would pop in at lunchtimes and say "the usual honey" which consisted of a pot of tea and and a white chocolate muffin. She was ever so friendly, like I was her long lost daughter or something. She would talk about her children, who had grown up and lived in other cities but kept in contact via skype and such things she didn't really understand. She worked as a cleaner in a big shopping centre nearby and went home alone to her two cats, Molly and Dolly.
Yes people would fascinate me on a daily basis. Why was the lady sleeping in the leather armchair with all the shopping bags round about her.Exhausted from her life of serving everyone else maybe or overindulgence at the sales. Or why were the couple whispering in the corner, furtively checking if anyone was watching them. Was it a secret rendevous or just shy young lovers. I suppose I'll never know for sure. But at least I can be some comfort for them in this little refuge, oasis even, far away from the sometimes very real hardships that the world out there throws our way from time to time.
Long live the book shop and all who visit her.