It was a bright, beautiful Friday morning. Lisa had the day off because the instructors were all having some big intercollegiate conference or something, so she was spending it having coffee - alone. She had no boyfriend, after all - no fiance or husband. She had no real friends as the only really close friend she'd had ran off with her boyfriend in high school a few years earlier. She didn't know anyone at the college yet, though she wouldn't mind getting to know a couple of the cuter boys in her classes. Maybe they'd be willing to help out with her math homework; boys were easy to manipulate into doing that kind of thing for a pretty girl.

She sighed as she took another drink of her blazing-hot Almond Joy coffee. She'd always been weird like that - able to stand boiling water without even blinking. What she wasn't getting used to very fast was being a single girl in a town full of couples. She was watching a couple of boys talking about some video game or something a few tables over, but they were like half her age - and she was only twenty-one. She rolled her eyes as they started getting into an argument over something stupid.

Children.

Nechelle walked into the coffee shop with the look of a warrior worn from battle. Though looking worn after a long shift, she still maintained her elegance and crisp, professional look.

’18 hours on my feet and I still don’t know if that surgery will make the difference for that little girl,’ she thought to herself as the bell clanked hard against the wood of the door as it closed behind her.

Looking around briefly she noted that it was empty enough that she would not mind staying here to consume her pick me up.

She walked up to the counter ordering a large coffee black and cherry scone and stood patiently at the end of the counter waiting for her order. A couple of kids were nearby talking about games and as she absent mindedly looked around the room her eye locked briefly with a young college aged woman before the server broke the conversation, “Here you go Doc, hope you like it.”

Nechelle smiled and picked up her order, “thank you Tommy,” she said before moving off to a small nearby table she had eyed when she walked in. Slowly she put the coffee to her mouth and smiled as it crossed her lips without pause.

Hot coffee was just what the doctor ordered.

Now why can't I be more like her? Lisa thought to herself sullenly, eyeing the doc that had just walked in. She looks tired but she still walks with an air of confidence. She looks like she could go out and grab a man easy. Me? I'm sitting here like a bump on a log because there's no class today and I have no girlfriends. And I can't just approach a total stranger and talk up a storm.

So she sat there drinking her coffee, looking either thoroughly displeased or thoroughly bored - it was hard to tell with her.

Plus, she's better looking.

Putting her coffee down she wanted to take a bite of her scone but there did not appear to be a napkin anywhere.

There were some in a dispenser on the table where that young woman she had locked eyes with earlier was sitting.

Standing up she took a couple of steps to the girls table, painfully aware of how tall she was in relation to the seated girl. Nechelle looked at her admiring how lovely she was, but still too young to appreciate it or take advantage of it from the look of her body language.

Nevertheless, she was not standing there to admire this girl’s looks.

“Pardon me, darling. Would you mind if I took a couple of napkins from your table? I do not appear to have any.” Nechelle’s southern accent, though softened from years of distance from the region, surrounded each of her words as they left her lips.

She turned to the woman, who'd just dropped about ten popularity points in Lisa's book.

"As long as you don't call me 'darling' again."

Then, pursing her lips and trying to be polite, she said, "It's Lisa."

‘What a rough piece of work this one is,’ Nechelle thought to herself as she maintained her poise through tired smiling lips.

“My apologies, Lisa, I sometimes forget that I am living in Canada now.” Reaching down she took two napkins from the dispenser. “Thank you for the napkins.”

With that, Nechelle went back to her table and took a bite of the waiting scone. Using the newly acquired napkins, she wiped the crumb from the edge of her mouth and set it down on the table. Again, she looked at Lisa with a smile and nodded her thanks for the napkin one last time before taking up her hot cup of coffee and taking a drink as she turned her attention to the activity on the street.

She went back to drinking her coffee. The girl sure had nerve...but she seemed like she wasn't from around here, though. Her accent was weird...and she was far too nice. Oh, well. Wasn't her deal. Besides, she looked older. Anyway, back to her thoughts of hell on earth...

And she really wished those damn kids would quit making so much noise. She pulled her laptop out of her bag and turned it on. It was an old laptop, so it wasn't very fast, but at least she could surf the net with it...

Nechelle sat there drinking her coffee.

The girl sat there with the body language of someone offended and annoyed by her surroundings, troubled. Eventually, she pulled out a laptop and booted it up.

‘Well being tired is never an excuse for bad manners,’ she told herself. The fact she had inadvertently insulted this young woman began to move forward from her sub-conscience to her conscience thoughts.

Looking at the girl again, Nechelle realized that she had seen her before. This girl was becoming a regular at the White Mice, though their paths had never crossed Nechelle knew her club and took note of those around her. Well that is to say, she was always looking for someone new to take home on those self-destructive nights when the alcohol was not enough.

She smiled to herself and returned her gaze out the window as she realized that it was Friday and despite her best judgment, she was going to end up drunk, in the arms of new lover that would most likely reject her again, with a fuck-buddy or even now in the embrace of a vampire. God how she had come to loathe and love her weekends as much as herself.

Oh well, there was no fighting what she was.

Picking up her bag and coffee, she moved over to Lisa’s table. “Excuse me Lisa, I cannot get past the fact that I offended you and I would like to offer you my apology once again. I am a bit tired from surgery all night and unfortunately, I found myself expressing a bit of my Georgia upbringing when I approached you. May I have your forgiveness?”

Nechelle stood there with all the appropriate graciousness and patience necessary to compliment the words she had just expressed.

She stared at her for a moment...and then she burst out laughing.

"Lady, either you're coming on to me or you're definitely not from around here."

She finally settled into chuckles and said, "Apology accepted."

“Charming,” Nechelle said with a smile.

“No, I am not originally from around here. I have been a resident only a couple of years and I must tell you that the particular charms of your generation never cease to amaze me.”

Taking a seat in the booth across the table from Lisa she continued, “Now in fairness I have made my apology, may I have yours?”

She cocked an eyebrow.

"The charms of my generation?"

She rolled her eyes. Anyway, she had been kinda rude.

"Fine. Sorry," she said. She didn't sound it, but it was the best she could do. She wasn't exactly feeling peach-keen right now, after all.

"So I gave you my name. I never did you catch yours, though."

“My name is Nechelle.”

Leaning back in the booth, “I have seen you around before, you know. I have seen you in my club from time to time, of course I don’t look anything like I do now when I go so you might not place me, but I have seen you.”

Placing her bag on the table, “You really are quite lovely, I have seen it. Why do you hide it?”

"Your club? You own the White Mice?"

That was the only club she visited, so it made sense that it was the one Nechelle was talking about. Still, if she owned the club, then Lisa wasn't just talking to some lady having a coffee in a clubhouse.

The laptop was finally booting up, so she clicked the Firefox icon and waited. Nechelle was talking again.

This time she cocked both eyebrows. Lovely her? Was Nechelle blind?

"I'm not hiding anything," she said coolly. "There's nothing to hide." This last was in a dry tone.

Nechelle laughed, “No silly, I don’t own it, it’s just what I call it. I have so much time invested there that I might as well have stock.”

She shook her head as the girl sunk behind her laptop denying that she was attractive, “Oh Lisa, I know we just met girl, but honey you have plenty going on.”

“Why do you think that?”

Lisa looked at Nechelle and then glanced about the room. She nodded to a guy on the other side of the room first.

"See him?"

She turned back to Nechelle.

"He's been checking you out ever since you walked in. He glanced at me once and hasn't looked back. And the guy by the window? He probably knows the entire anatomy of every girl in here but me. His eyes rolled over me like the ocean over a beach. Nobody gives me a second look. You want attractive, read Cosmo. Me? I'll sink back into the closet, thanks; the dark's probably the only place I look better than Brittney on crack."

“Look I don’t have time to convince you right now, but you start believing you are it, then you will become it. Trust me this is something I know.”

Grabbing her bag and stepping up from the table, she pulled out a card and set it on the table. “Give me a call tonight, we are going out and you are going to understand just what a package you are.”

Holding her hand out to Lisa, “I hope you call me, you seem like a good girl to know. Oh I need some sleep so call around 5 and I will tell you where to meet me for the makeovers I am scheduling for tonight.”

Nechelle’s tone was dead serious and left no room to suspect she was messing with this girl in the coffee shop.

“My treat.”

She looked at the card for a moment before picking it up and taking a look at it. She pocketed it as Nechelle offered her hand. She shook it.

"Yeah, okay. I'm not doing much more than cold pizza and James Bond anyway. Sean Connery was sexy as Bond."

In truth, she had no intention of calling her - but she had a feeling she'd end up doing it anyway just to get out of watching the same damn thing she'd watched a thousand times before and knew by heart as a result. She sipped her coffee.

After shaking her hand, Nechelle shouldered her bag and walked out the door, stepped into her car and drove away.

She watched her drive away.

Nice car for a party girl.

She went back to drinking her coffee and started checking her Lycos e-mail account...