The Coffee Date
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October 1st is celebrated as International Coffee Day every year. The day is celebrated to promote coffee as a beverage. Here is a freshly brewed Coffee Story for all Story & Coffee Lovers.
The Coffee Date
‘What’s up? Where are you going, Jaya?’ Smita asked. Jaya simply smiled, did not say a word. Smita then laughed. ‘Oh, Deepak? Your Coffee-date? He is back in City?’ Jaya again smiled and picked her bag, and walked away. Smita shouted, ‘Tell him, I miss him.’ Jaya turned back, and smiled at Smita; her eyes dazzled with shyness.
Jaya came out of her office, took out her car and drove to ‘CoffeeBerrys’, NO, ‘their Coffee Shop’ as she and Deepak used to call it. They had spent many evenings over one and many Coffee Cups, just chatting and chatting. After almost a gap of a year, they were to meet today. For the Pandemic, most of the employees were asked to work from home. He left the city like many others, and moved to Pune to live with his parents. The year passed away with many ups and downs in their lives, they hardly interacted except over a few calls and WhatsApp chat.
But today early morning, she got the shock of her life, she almost dropped out of the bed when she heard his voice. He almost shouted ‘Jaya, guess what? I am back in the City. Let us meet at our meeting place, ‘CoffeeBerrys’. She could easily visualize his brightened face with a smile in his eyes. She said, ‘YESS!, I missed our Coffee-dates, I can’t wait to see you!’
Deepak was her colleague though they worked in different departments. She was in HR and he was in finance. First, it was respect for each other which when grew into fondness and slowly into love, they had no clue. She is still not sure if it is love but one fact was sure, they liked each other’s company and look forward to meeting each other.
She realized that she has reached ‘CoffeeBerrys’ when she saw the familiar red dome. She parked her car and looked for him but he was not to be seen. She went inside, took a table and ordered a Filter Coffee. Over the years coming on their Coffee-dates, she had developed taste of all flavours and variants of Coffee but filter coffee was her favourite.
She wanted to call Deepak but then remembered their agreement, that they won’t call each other if the other could not come on their date, and also will not ask the reason. Strange Agreement! She smiled, as she took a sip of Coffee.
The agreement was indeed strange but not as complicated as was their relationship. They had decided to be non-committal to each other, just meet over Coffee-dates. She did not want any troubles in her life, and he did not want her to be troubled because of him.
She looked at the watch, almost half an hour had passed yet there was no sign of him. Her coffee was finished, and she wanted to leave but a part of her wanted to hang on. Finally, she made up her mind to leave, and paid the bill.
As she was about to get up, Deepak entered. He smiled at her, and her face brightened up. She got up and almost ran towards him. He gestured her to wait, and she stopped. He went out, and again entered this time along with a woman. She was puzzled.
They came near to her, he hugged her and smiled, ‘Jaya, during lockdown I thought a lot about our relationship. I decided to move on. You are the first person whom I wanted her to meet. Meet my wife Hema!’
She froze, could not think of any answer, smiled meekly when Hema smiled at her. Suddenly her phone rang and she saw it was from ‘Home’.
‘Maa, where are you? Dad and I are waiting for you for the dinner.’
Rakhi Sunil Kumar
Photo by Chevanon Photography from Pexels