Ava Derby

Her obsession. Not with a person or a place per se, but with action. She walked to a row of buildings, all grey stone. Black fire escapes and windows extended seven floors up. The door was a dark green. Not enough to catch the eye randomly, but enough that once you see it, you  may never forget it. A single window next to the door read Coffee and Crepes in a faded yellow and was almost impossible to read. She sat at the same table right behind the window in the corner. Her face was shadowed, with the bright daylight on one side of her face shining through the window, and the dark interior of the cafe lit by lamps on the other side of her face. The dark oak wood table and the chair seemed to be reserved just for her. She hadn’t missed a day. A cup of coffee, a notebook, and a pencil was on the table. The notebook was faded, pages dog-eared, and the spine cracked and creased from hours of writing. She angled the chair so that she could write while looking directly out of the window.

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She felt as if she was on the outside, looking into the world of people. Walking, biking, driving, sleeping. Whatever they were doing she was merely a bystander, never involved. Her eyes followed every person that walked past the window down 7th Street. There was the businessman with a briefcase who had hair so perfect it looked like plastic. The “businessman” frantically walked down the street, tripping over his shoes that were too big and his pants fell down every 17 steps he took. The woman walked in red heels every day, not for her own sake, because if it was, she wouldn’t stare down every male she walked by.

 

The young boy’s grey sweatshirt had dirt around its cuffs and the strings on the hood were frayed. He chews on them, maybe a nervous response. The notes she wrote down were intricate. Specific. She described them as if she knew the people on a personal level. Her attention to the people that passed by helped her infer details about their lives, which may or may not have been true. She wrote thatthe man whose suit was too large was because he has been losing weight and had not found the time to get fitted for a new one. She knows he has not had enough time yet because he is always in a rush to and from work, assuming he has somewhere else to be. She wrote that the woman was single because she loved being independent and outgoing way too much to settle down. She knows the woman loves her independence so much by last night’s makeup still on her face the following morning. The people had no clue she had been watching them. They had no idea how much attention she paid to detail, assuming and collecting information about them as they walked down the street daily. To work, to school, to lunch, to their homes. She would claim to call it all innocent people watching.

She never admits to her obsession with “people watching. She would never admit it because she remembered how long it took to perfect her craft. The endless amounts of coffee shops she visited, trying to find the perfect one. The perfect cover for her actions. All the window seats she sat in, and the time she took, doing her research on the barista and others in the coffee shop. She had to spend enough time watching them in order to make sure she was a familiar face to them, but not enough to be recognizable out of her coffee shop context. They probably all thought she was a writer of some sort. She carried herself in a way that was not striking or unusual. She wore earth tones, had long hair that was well kept, always in a low ponytail. Her nails stayed short and freshly manicured. Her bag only carried her notebook. She sat in her spot and waited for her usuals to pass like clockwork. They were all puzzle pieces in her mind, fitting together and just a small piece of the bigger picture.