Beans for Breakfast

I notice the group at the table right outside the window - a girl with long tight curls chatting with two guys. I get back into my book for awhile. When I look up again, the guys are there and the girl is gone. But I see her immediately. She’s trudging up the gravel hill at the far end of the little empty parking lot across the street. Behind her there’s the fence enclosing the freeway down at the bottom of a weedy hill (and there’s a postcard view of the Space Needle). She walks through the parking lot, carrying nothing, walking directly toward her friends. She veers left at the corner to cross the street, then turns again to rejoin her friends outside the coffee shop. She stands out there for a moment, then produces a digital camera from somewhere - brand new, a label advertising the camera’s features is still attached to the front. As soon as she’s snapped separate photos of her two friends, everyone gets up and walks briskly away.