"Was it Tim or Jim?" So asked the server in Borders as she handed me a cappuccino. "When it comes to coffee I'll answer to anything!" I quipped. "Well, thanks Bob!" She laughed.
So began my three hours in Riverhead. I dropped off Kate at a local theater for a long musical rehearsal, and headed off into the shopping metropolis - the only place, some might say thank God, where many of the big retail names come together in one place in this part of Long Island. A few definite errands to run. A new cordless drill, as mine recently died in a blue flash and wisp of smoke; a normal Target list, and maybe a little early, early Christmas shopping.
Borders is busier than the last time I sat here. Apart from browsers and shoppers, Seattles' Best has a greater variety of customers. Most are chatting noisily over their drinks, yet one man is fast asleep in a corner, head back, snoring quietly. Clearly a decaff drinker. Two nurses have been studying with latte for an approaching test, and a group of students have occupied two tables with laptops and notes.
It is one of those cool, spectacularly beautiful evenings with a pale blue cloudless sky, and a spectrum of colors in the small tress across the parking lot. Will it be difficult to fill three hours until pick-up time? Absolutely not! There's always something to do, somewhere to look at, something to think about, just around the corner. Rather I'd better keep an eye on the time.
A very, and I mean very, pregnant women has just arrived and is gingerly easing herself into a chair that is far too low for such a manouver. I wish those two nurses had stayed. Seeing her, her face slowly relaxing, reminds me of the enormous billboard near Fall River, which I passed driving back from the Cape last Friday.
"Problems having a baby? Use the left lane." (Ah.)
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