And Then There Was Eve

There was an assortment of eclectic regulars at the coffeehouse I owned. The Hipster Café was in fact the hippest place in the East Village. Some would dare pronounce it the hippest place to down java in all of Manhattan. We had fun. Sure we worked hard, but it was always fun opening our stage to anybody who wanted to perform. Nobody who played there was ever paid, we never charged cover and we had no liquor license. Yet, we were more successful than most bars in town.

Ten years into the place and I still worked the coffee bar, and subsequently became cult-famous, thus, I had to be there most nights. Even if I did not own it lock stock and barrel, I would have been a hanger-on.

The coffee bar was set-up just as that. A bar with bar stools and a bartender; moi,. Like a tavern I was stand-in therapist for people who needed to cry into their expresses. We had regulars from every walk of life. From the mayor to the guy who plays the spoons on the subway flat form at Grand Central Station,. One person who had been coming in for almost a year was Eve.

From the second my eyes fell on her I was in rapture. New York City is over-run with gorgeous women, but there was something refreshingly different about this girl that was different in the best possible way. I assumed she was some upper-class society girl who just wanted to slum-it in the village for the night. She and her Donna Karen business suit sauntered in with the stride of a fashion model and the grace of a royal. She was the ultimate city girl with a whole lot more spit and polish. She spoke with diction so perfect it was all too obvious she had spent her life in prep schools. Although she looked like she just gradated from college, she was, as it turns out closer to forty than not. She had astonishing beauty.

"I wish I owned a place like this." She began. My place is a dump." Great I thought. She is here to steal ideas or worse. "Mr. Hipster, do you have any money?"

"A little." I said