Big Coffee Drinker
Starting a new job sucks. Luckily for me, I’m not really starting a new job. I’ve actually worked here, on and off, for about three years. However, it’s been almost exactly two years since I left, and back then, I was doing a completely different job. In fact, being a barista in the coffee shop is just about the only job in this bookstore that I haven’t done. I was hired as a sales person, quit and moved to Utah, hated it, moved back, worked in shipping and receiving, quit and moved to Utah, hated it, and now here I am - the newest barista at the Tattered Cover Coffee Shop. It’s interesting how I got here, really. Working in a coffee shop, I mean. You know, given that I’m 23 and I only just started drinking coffee about a year ago. That was my first real act of rebellion against the teachings of my childhood. Taking the first sip of that slightly burned tasting white chocolate mocha was my first tug on the loose thread in the bindings around my own curiosity and independence. That’s right, I’m telling you that I’m a closeted lesbian, clinging to the last breaths of my Mormon upbringing by my fingernails, and I’m blaming the coffee, which incidentally, I hated that first time around.
I can’t actually say for certain that my starting to drink coffee, and figuring out that I was gay were at all related. To be honest, I was on my way out of the Church well before I knew I liked girls. I can tell you, however, that they share the commonality of both being things that I discovered, ironically enough, in Utah, surrounded by Mormons. My family, all of my friends, all of my coworkers, everyone I knew - Mormon. Which, as you can probably imagine, made those discoveries a touch uncomfortable for me. Which is why I moved back to Colorado, and came back to work at the liberally minded bookstore that I’ve come to call my second home. Although, I’m still not out. But I’m working on it! I mean, I did the whole closeted thing in Utah. I would make the occasional, but well timed comment about how cute some male customer was. And then I would go home from work, pop in an “L Word” DVD, cry my big-gay-self to sleep. But things are different now! Sure, I still live with my Mormon family, and I’m still going to church, and I haven’t told a living soul that I’m...you know...that. I’m getting to it though.
That’s all just background information though. Now that I’m back, I’m living in the here and the now. I’m back in Colorado, and I’m back at work with old friends, and there are some new people, but they seem pretty great too. Except for one of my new coworkers. Maybe it’s the fact that her name is Lauren, and I have never met a Lauren that I liked, or maybe it’s how genuinely good-natured and kind she seems, but there is something about this girl that I do not like. She’s really talkative, and is always asking me questions about myself - what I’m majoring in, what I like to do in my free time, what kind of music do I like, do I need help washing those dishes, can she get me something to eat while she’s out on her lunch break, etc. And, she seems legitimately interested in my answers. I mean, what’s her game? I guess it’s pretty cool that she’s a Women’s Studies major, and that she likes Tegan and Sara, but there is just something about her. She just makes me nervous all the time. No other person in this entire world has ever made me feel this off balance before. Oh, and she watches me. How creepy is that? I get that she’s training me, but she watches me while I make drinks and just smiles. All the time, this girl is smiling at me! On a side note, her smile is incredible. She gets these little crinkles around her big blue eyes - which are constantly sparkling, by the way. I’m not going to lie, her smile kind of makes me a little weak in the...wait! Do I have a crush on this weirdo? Oh crap.
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