Afternoon Tea I

Kavita was tired of serving tea. She did enjoy working at the teashop, but she felt like she had been stuck there ever since he happened. She needed to find a way to move on with her life. In other words, it was a regular slow afternoon for her. That’s when the little bell above the door jingled.

Harmeet had recently moved to the city in hope of bigger and better things. He was tired of doing software in a cubicle all the time, so he was walking around a few blocks from his apartment in search of a new and interesting place to write some code. In other words, it was a regular slow afternoon for him. That’s when he discovered the quaint teashop.

Kavita was too busy prepping the next teapot to look over at the new customer that stepped in. When she stepped out from behind the counter she noticed him. He appeared to be looking around on the floor for something. After serving the tea that she was carrying, she walked over to the new customer while brushing her hair back. When he saw her approaching, he got up with a start, almost knocking over the laptop that was on the table. She ventured, “Welcome to Tea Stop, here’s a menu.”

Harmeet fished out his Mac from his messenger bag and opened it. Ugh. Low battery. He started looking around for a power outlet on the bottom of the wall next to his table. A pair of shapely legs coming toward him distracted him and he looked up to see a flourish of long brown hair. It was the waitress. He hastily stood up and offered a weak smile. She said something which he didn’t understand because he was still recovering from the hair. She left a menu on the table, but Harmeet didn’t notice it since he was too busy watching her walk back to the counter.

Kavita went back to the new guy’s table after a few minutes. From the clean cut look, the slightly awkward smile and the Macbook, he had ‘nerd’ written all over him. But she realized that he was still kind of cute. “Are you ready to order?” she asked. “I’ll have the Darjeeling Chai Tea”. “Will that be all?” “Yup thanks!” Kavita started back to the counter. “Wait!” he said. “Yes?” Kavita turned around. “Is there a power outlet somewhere?”

With the waitress’ help, Harmeet finally plugged in his computer and opened up a programming interface. He fished out his design notes in a separate window. For the next 10 minutes, Harmeet couldn’t write a single line of code because he kept looking up hoping to see the waitress. A couple of tables over, a couple was arguing about whether Creed was a good band or not. ‘Seriously, With Arms Wide Open is a deep and meaningful song!’ one of them was pressing loudly. At that moment, Harmeet caught the waitress’ eye. They both looked at the couple and then back at each other, simultaneously stifling their laughter.

The slow afternoon was slowly turning into the evening – more and more customers walked into Tea Stop, and Kavita got busier and busier, the place became noisier and noisier. She glanced over at the laptop-guy and realized that he was waiting for the check. She hurriedly wrote it up and went over to his table, when she noticed his “The Killers” t-shirt. “I love The Killers!”. “Really? Because Somebody Told Me is a deep and meaningful song!” he replied. Kavita laughed. “Do visit again!” she said as he started walking to the door.