She was a pale-skinned girl working at a coffee shop like all the other pale-skinned girls working at coffee shops, her light brown hair parted in the middle and tied back into a short ponytail.
She wore small hoop earrings and a gray hoodie and jeans and she moved in an efficient way, making lattes and Americanos for customers at the counter and for others in cars pulling up to the drive-up window beside her.
Her expression was all business but her demeanor said she might be enjoying herself in the way people enjoy such jobs, being on their feet, using their hands, seeing and talking with strangers, moving around. It can be like dance. The sun was out in Sitka. Maybe that helped, too.
The girl signaled a dark-skinned boy driving a silver coupe to pull ahead and park so she could serve the car behind his. A few minutes later, to deliver an order to the young man in the silver coupe, she asked a co-worker to cover the drive-up window. She walked out of the building.
The boy in the silver coupe had short-cropped dreads and an easy smile. He looked about her age.
She held out the bag containing his order to his car window, then pulled it back when he reached for it. He smiled and said something. She held it up to him again, and again she pulled it back. She said something and he said something back.
Then she handed him the sack and turned quickly away from him so he wouldn’t see her wince and then shiver right down to her toes, blushing like only a pale-skinned girl working at a coffee shop on a sunny day in a rainy city could ever blush.
Watching her trip to the coupe was a great indulgence.
This is what we missed during COVID-19. Seeing people acting like people at close range. People like us, doing things that we might do. Moments we need every day to show us and tell us and remind us who we are.