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Sebastian
I DON’T HEAR A word from Luke after he leaves my house that day. The day of the field trip creeps closer, but I don’t get so much as a text.
Way to be as confusing as possible, Luke.
What in the world could have happened between that moment when he asked to stay and the moment when he left in the morning? All we did was sleep, but Luke was like a different person in the morning, scared and timid and cringing away from me all over again.
I guess it’s my own fault for getting my hopes up.
I can’t do anything about it, so I go about my week as usual until the day of the field trip arrives. Henry and I get to the café bright and early. We’ll share the entire shift today, including the usual morning cleaning and coffeerush. It’s going to be a long damn day. We’ll both work longer than a normal shift, but at least we can rely on each other.
“Coffee?” Henry says after the morning rush clears out.
“God, yes. You’re a genius.”
I accept the coffee he must have made while we were dealing with customers. We both chug the caffeine, sure we’re going to need it as the day goes on.
Our boss Chloe arrives shortly after and starts preparing for Luke’s class. Maybe it’s the extra dose of caffeine, but my nerves fray as the time ticks closer. What version of Luke will I get today? How scared will he be? I promised him I could do this, and I wasn’t joking. He can be a stranger to me for the afternoon. That’s not the problem at all. It’s more that I’m pretty sure I have to be a stranger to himforeverand not just for this one afternoon.
The bus pulls up and parks down the street. Henry and I share a look.
“Ready for this?” I ask my usually bright and cheerful co-worker.
“We’ve got this,” he says. “Just make sure no one bothers the cats too much. How hard can it be?”
Very. It can be very hard.
The moment two dozen teenagers flood into the café, the noise fills every corner and crevice. Many of the cats scatter. This isn’t a quiet yoga class. There are teenagerseverywhere, and they have not yet perfected the art of the “inside voice.”
Henry and I subtly open the door marked “STAFF,” allowing the cats to retreat to the back rooms. Normally, we try to keep them out of there unless they need medication or something, but today it only seems right to give them a quieter place to hide.
Unfortunately, Henry and I can’t disappear so easily. We help the kids settle. Henry gives the usual speech about what the café is and how it operates, how to interact with the cats, all of that. I’m not sure how many of the kids actually listen.
Then I spot him.
Luke is hanging back, keeping an eye on his class. He’s hard to miss in a room like this. He’s the tallest person by far, as well as the widest, but he has a soft and gentle way with the kids, even the ones who are trying to bother the cats or sit on the windowsills. He keeps them in order while Henry explains the café to them, then helps them settle on the floor where we usually host yoga classes.
I tear my eyes away. It’s hard not to look at him when he’s right here, but I’m supposed to be a stranger. I promised I would and could do this. I simply need to stay away from him, hang back, do my job, get through the afternoon. It’ll go by in a blur if I manage to keep my head down.
“Hi, everyone. I’m Chloe. Welcome to mycafé.”
Everyone quiets down when Chloe stands in front of the class and starts talking. She has the sort of presence that could make nearly anyone shut up and pay attention. She might be less than half Luke’s size, but she commands a room like a general leading an army.
“So,” she says, “today we’re going to learn about Pride month, which starts in a few days.”
“Thought this was a cat café,” a teenager snickers.
Luke narrows his eyes at his student, but Chloe continues, unruffled.
“It is,” she says, “but my staff and I are all members of the LGBTQ community, so it’s important to me that we honor that even while running a cat café. And not just in June. If you’ve been here before, you might notice that we keep our flag up all year. Pride isn’t a parade in June for us. It’s every day. It’s our lives.”
She starts getting into the history of Pride, not merely the recent stuff like the parades and the big displays downtown in Seattle, but the real history going all the way back to the Stonewall Riots and the decades of activism that led to that moment. She talks about the activists who marched through the streets of New York in 1970, one year after the riots. She talks about how it was only in the year 2000 that Pride month officially became Pride month.
I have to admit, she is crushing it. The kids are impressively quiet as Chloe goes through the whole history of Pride. I don’t think many of them realized how recentit all is. It feels like distant history to people who were born after 2000, but it wasn’t all that long ago when there was no Pride, no big parade in downtown Seattle, no rainbow flag in every store window, none of the national celebrations we now take as a given.
My eyes drift as Chloe goes on, landing again on Luke. I let myself look for a moment. He’s standing at the back of the room, arms crossed over his chest, hands balled into fists. Tension washes off of him in waves. His eyes roam his students, likely searching for troublemakers, but I’m not sure he even sees the kids. His jaw is clenched so tightly he must be grinding his teeth into dust.
I ache to see him tormenting himself so much. Is this really worth all the secrecy? What is the point when it’s driving him crazy? It’s not like any of his kids care. They’re all sitting quietly and listening. They’re being remarkably good, in fact. Whoever the ones who spray painted the window are, they’re as attentive as the rest of the class.
