Thanksgiving had just passed, and the bagel shop had transformed. Ok, that was a stretch, but they had the hanging icicle lights hanging down from the counter, a white christmas tree with boxes of bagels and other goodies underneath, blue and silver garland around the normal sights and blue Christmas lights lining the windows. The front doors had big plastic coverings that said Happy Holidays in blue with a three blue christmas trees below it. It looks pretty classy but really completely blocked someone from the outside looking in.
He ordered his usual bagels from his usual guy – the worker greeted him by name nowadays. He had made it on time despite the misty rain that was inter-spliced with moments of real rain and heavy downpours. He grabbed his usual table after making a stop at the drink station, decked out in more garland, for a cup of Vanilla Hazelnut coffee.
The group of middle aged women was back. He saw them here every other week it seemed. He glanced over to the left and they were all dressed in more casual clothes but still a fair amount of makeup. Even the casual clothes looked to be fairly nice and fashionable. It was no surprise – this part of town was pretty rich.
They were talking about the Thanksgiving weekend and about someone’s upcoming wedding. He walked up to get his now finished bagels from the counter, and by the time he got back they were talking about shopping. That year had been particularly crazy with Black Friday shopping – from shootings to pepper spray at Wal Mart. One was talking about an event she was organizing to support the troops. The music changes from songs he remembered from high school to Christmas music. It was an odd, discordant combination. As if they weren’t sure they wanted to talk about Christmas yet, but the music was bursting forth despite their best efforts. And decorations.
He tried not to judge. And he continued to try to not to judge as he finished his second bagel and one said “ok, we should get started.”
In unison, the women pulled out a copy of the same book. He looked at it out of the corner of his eye, googled it, and found it was a Bible Study course for women. His first thought was immediately to judge, and he hated himself for it. He claimed he was open minded about religion. But every now and then he caught himself in a moment where he was judging someone else because of their beliefs. Yes, this group of five upper class women were just talking about shopping and now currently saying that when in prayer, they’re supposed to really think of God sending his only Son to be sacrificed, and what that would feel like.
One woman began to dominate the conversation. She was talking about being a single mom and how difficult it was. He had grown up in a single mom household, his dad dying young. He could begin to feel a connection growing to this group of women, despite them only sitting next to him at a Bagel shop. She was wearing a light blue pullover that looked like she was about to go running. Go running despite the rain. Maybe running because of the rain.
She was talking about how her husband divorced her when she was six months pregnant. But one night she felt suddenly at peace, and knew God was there for her in the empty house and she wasn’t alone. It sounded wonderful to him, but his gut questioned it. She was so in to telling her story, it sounded like she had told it many times. People’s memories change over times, their stories get more embellished as time moves on. When he heard any story, he had to wonder what was truth and what was embellishment.
He took another sip of his coffee, contemplating refilling it. He overheard, “I just couldn’t put my foot on the gas. My car was on, I was going through the motions.” He wasn’t sure if she was talking in metaphor or reality – either was equally possible. And she quickly moved on to reactions from her neighborhood when she was divorced. Someone else in her neighborhood was widowed. The way her neighborhood treated her differently from the widow made her really sad apparently. She was being judged, just as he was judging her earlier. He felt the sudden urge to interrupt their story and apologize – but how would he explain it?
“Don’t dream it’s over” came on inside the store. He got lost in the music for a moment looking outside at the rain feeling a little our of sorts. When he turned his attention back to the group of women next to him, the same lady was sharing a story about meeting a guy on match.com. She joined, got her money back but would still get emails. She was out with her friends and a guy recognized her profile and called her by her profile name. She freaked out and was embarrassed because her co workers wanted to know what was going on. On the second date, he told her “This is weird. But I know I’m going to marry you someday.” And they did.
And they suddenly went back to their Bible Study. He could not figure out their process, five minutes of Bible Study and then an in depth story from one of them. This seemed like the Alpharetta version of Sex in the City – five women talking over coffee, talking about their lives, shopping, and Bible Study. The comparison made him smile. He decided to let the women talk without his eavesdropping, and looked across the store. His favorite bagel guy was on break and looking through a big pile of jewelry and bracelets. And old woman was asking him about the bags of jewelry and he overheard the old woman say that the jewelry looked like fun. He couldn’t imagine why the bagel guy was going through bags and bags of what looked to be costume jewelry but it made him smile.
The women next to him started backing up. One had to leave because it was her daughter’s sixteenth birthday tomorrow and preparations had to be made. She seemed happy talking about the plans and about the bible study recap. Who was he to judge them? Just because it wasn’t his cup of tea didn’t mean it wasn’t still a cup of tea.
Lost in his thoughts, he went up to get another cup of the Vanilla Hazlenut coffee. When he was putting the cream into the coffee, he saw out of the corner of his eyes the women were on their way out. They might not have realized it, but they had changed him, ever so sightly, this morning. The rain was still coming down outside but they had helped it turn into a mist instead of a downpour. He murmured “thanks” under he breath, and moved to add sugar to his coffee.