The café looked the same as usual, save for the worn red-and-white striped awning pulled out over the chairs in anticipation of the rain. Lydia briefly pondered going inside just for today, to avoid the foreboding atmosphere outside, but after standing and musing for a few seconds, she decided she could endure a little cold and gray. She didn’t take off her coat, though.
Instead, she walked straight on inside to the café, which had a few people in it today – it was always more busy on afternoons, and supposedly did quite a rousing business at night. Right now, Lydia carefully glanced around the room, looking at each person long enough to establish where they were, but nowhere near long enough to appear suspicious. Having scanned the room, eyes skittering away from anyone who looked back at her, Lydia put her head down and moved through the scattered chairs of the café. Her path was roundabout, but it brought her nowhere near any other person in the building.
It was a man behind the counter this time, with touseled dirty-blond hair and a blue t-shrit that clashed horribly with his eyes. He looked up from his magazine and smiled.
“Ah, yes. What can we do for you today, dahhh-ling?”
Lydia didn’t smile at his assumed British accent. “A double mocha, please.”
“The usual, always the usual,” Todd said good-naturedly, hopping off his stool and crossing to the espresso machine. “That’s double the coffee, or double the chocolate?”
“Which... whichever is easiest.”
Todd looked at Lydia in surprise. “Sweetie, I was joking. Though...” He looked speculative, “I suppose you could whip up a super-chocolatey single...” Musing off into the distance, he worked the machine by memory and feel.
Lydia stood patiently at the counter and waited, while Todd hummed a tune and mixed her coffee. He plucked out a black mug, ceramic ridges wrapping around the outside, and although Lydia opened her mouth to request a different one she shut it silently, too late. She looked at the mug, faintly wistful.
“That’ll be $1.50,” Todd said jovially. “Fond of mochas, are you then?”
Lydia was pulling out her money, six quarters. “Not particularly,” she answered in the same conversational tone.
Todd raised his eyebrows and watched her as she left the warm, bright building.

Outside, Lydia sat in her usual chair, her coat still on, and gazed off into the distance. The outside lights of the café were on, presumably to make up for the light lost because of the awning. It gave a strange artificiality to the area, the glow bright but at the same time weakened by the endless pallor surrounding it.
It was afternoon, and the diner wouldn’t be busy for a long time. Lydia sat, and watched the wind knock leaves to the ground; she sat, and listened to the silence between the breezes as the world slept. She shivered occasionally, unable to ward off the cold, but when it passed she just gripped her cooling mug tighter and hunched her shoulders slightly.
She was a little hungry, but she never bought food at the café. She would grab something to eat back at the diner, it wasn’t a big deal. The hunger felt good, anyway. It was gnawing slightly in her belly, a bit of pain every time she moved or thought about it or occasionally when it just decided that she needed to be reminded. It told her that she was still alive, and gave her something to think about when the landscape around her just became entirely too boring.
After thirty minutes, her coffee had long grown cold. She looked into it, the foam at the top deflated and the drink overall the picture of dejection, and gave a wry smile. Leaning farther back in her chair, Lydia waited.
Forty-five minutes, and it would be time to go soon. Sighing, Lydia wrinkled her nose and raised the mug to her lips. She drank slowly but steadily, and when the mug was half-full she set it down and stood. Carefully, she pushed her chair under the table, and left without a backward glance.

The diner was still quiet when she got there, and Lydia sat in her chair in the corner. It was a little cold, wearing only her short-sleeved shirt and her skirt that, though longer than the other waitresses, still didn’t pass the knees, but Lydia rubbed her arms and didn’t move for her coat. She lay back in her chair, eyes half-closed, and half-listened to the conversations swirling around her. Two women sat in a nearby booth, chatting and gossipping, sometimes amicably, over their rich desserts, and five grumpy men grunted by the bar. Farther away, a mother and her three young kids sat in a booth, the women patient but exhausted, and two teenage lovebirds made out in a booth despite the many glares cast in their direction.
Lydia didn’t care to follow any particular conversation, but snippets floated by her whether she wanted them to or not.
“And then Bobby said that he never did, the lying bastard, and I told him if that’s the way it was, then that’s...”
“Nope. No reason.”
“Stop that, dear.”
“Ooooh, don’t stop, baby, don’t stop...”
“Damn kids.”
“Kids.”
“Bummer.”
“Can you believe the nerd of the bastard! That’s when I told him that if it wasn’t for Diane and her insistence, he would have been gone a long...”
“After fifteen years! Ye’d think that’d mean something!”
“Mommmmy!”
“Jacob, come back.”
“And I told him, don’t you dare come back.”
“They don’t want me back.”
“Mmmmmmm”
“Bummer.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Joey, stop that.”
“Oy! You two, quiet down!”
“Damn kids.”
“We were kids once, remember, Joanna? We were kids, you and I – you and me and Bobby and Joe we’d go out on double dates, just teenagers, young...”
“What do I do now, eh, what do I do now?”
“He punched me!”
“Damn waitresses, come on babe.”
“I remember, I remember... we were young, yes, we were young. Bless our souls, but we were young too...”
“Please, Joey, sit down and don’t punch your sister.”
“Joe would get his check from the lame job of his and take us all out to eat, so proud of his money, and he’d smile so very wide...”
“Let’s go somewhere a little more quiet, eh dollface?”
“Oh, he was so sweet, he’d call me doll and we’d...”
“Don’t think about it, not much you can do now.”
“Ignore him, Amanda.”
“Oh, don’t think about him, Joanna, it’s long gone, it’s in the past.”
“It was my life, the bastards, it was my life!”
“He was my life for so long, I can remember it...”
“Sit down, Joey. Please, Joey. Sit down, Joey.”
“It’s happened to all of us, Jake, it’s happened to all of us.”
“... like it was yesterday.”
“It’s not helping, Mommy.”
“Is that supposed to help, Jim? Is that supposed to help?”
“Never really moved on, I suppose,”
“Because it’s not helping, okay? It’s not helping.”
“I tried, I really did.”
“Please try, Jacob, try to sit down.”
“Let me pay the tab, just this once.”
“But it didn’t help.”
“Babe, don’t worry ‘bout it. That’s what I’m here for, right?”
“But...”
“I know, Jo, I know...”
“It’ll be okay, honest it will.”
“I’ll be good, Mommy.”
“God, but I’m so very tired.”
“Mommy?”
“Not that I’m not good for other things as well...”
“How? How will it be okay?”
“Shouldn’t we tip?”
“You have the wife, and the kids.”
“Please, just drink your juice... don’t spill it...”
“More mouths to feed.”
“Always so generous with my money... all right, we can. You’re sweet, I ever tell you that?”
“He was always there for me, you know?”
“They’ll stand by you, Bob, they’ll stand by you.”
“Please, don’t. Please, I can’t do it all at once.”
“You’ll get through this.”
“I know, I know...”

Lydia sighed and leaned her head back farther, leaning it against the pink-painted cinder blocks that made up the back wall of the dining room. Her pad and pen lay loosely in her lap.
Two other waitresses stood in sight, one chatting amicably with one of the men. Another filed her nails against the wall. The conversation was quiet, broken – at mealtimes it would be a flood, swelling and rising like waves against the sand, but during the pauses words were disconnected and Lydia didn’t so much let it wash over her as she watched it trickle by. She no longer found it fascinating – mildly interesting, at times, but not fascinating.
Always the same – different names, different faces, but the same story – how could it be fascinating any more?
Lydia looked through her lashes and watched the emotions limp through the diner, trying to find their way in the midst of the web of human interactions and walls. Distantly, she marked its progress.

When the bell had chimed five times, and the Sally had stopped filing her nails, Lydia stood without a sound, opening her eyes completely, and walked to a table recently filled.
“Hello,” she said softly, no smile plastered on her face but a gentle expression in her eyes, “Welcome to S and D’s Diner. How may I help you this afternoon?”

Lydia hated leaving the diner – not because she wanted to stay, which she didn’t, or because she particularly wanted to work. It was the timing, that was all – when the restaurant was beginning to fill and stress lines were starting to show on the faces of all the workers. It felt like she was abandoning them, leaving them to bear the brunt of the work themselves. Rationally, she knew that the evening shift would come in soon and there would be more people than usual – still, it felt like abandonment.
She stood by the door, putting on her coat, her brow furrowed. She was tired, yes, and allowed to go now – but if she stayed and helped they wouldn’t turn her down. They’d appreciate it, she knew, the extra hands and Lydia’s own particular carefulness that kept the whole diner in order. The evening would have a little less chaos in it.
The noise from the first of the dinner crowd, a tiny bunch compared to what would come, bounced from the dining room to behind the bar and into the kitchen. Lights moved and glasses chinked, a dozen mouths chewing in unison, and waitresses boistrously hollered.
Lydia left.