A character in the wrong cafe

Today I saw a woman who I want to be a character in one of my future books. She was incredible.

The immediate distraction from my magazine in the Barnes & Noble Cafe was her hat. It was not a normal hat that you would see a person wearing, nor an abnormal one that was unfitting. It was simply perfect- for her. This hat was roughly 17 inches in diameter and looked like a porcupine was sent to the chopping block so it could be used in its next life as a hat. This tan fur-like, spiky fuzz protruded as a 4-inch wide band around the circumference of the hat, which was black on the crown of her head.

The minx fur coat fell straight from the middle of the back of her neck to her skinny ankles. It was coat in an array of brown shades of the fur. I can only imagine what it feels like to wear a coat like that; I do believe she liked how it felt like someone was constantly close to you and hugging you, due to its weight and thickness.

Her black shoes of a 4-inch block heel had her tiny feet tucked neatly into their thick strap that wound itself around her foot. Striking away from the black-brown theme, her toenails were the color of pinky salmon mixed into the orange guts of a pumpkin. It was marvelous. If nails could ever say anything, her nails did. The chic of her outerwear, minus the heels reminiscent of the 90's, created a dichotomy in her nature simply from the color of her toenails. From there, I had to check her fingers, just to see. I wasn't disappointed. The same sunset-orange-gone-wrong color poked out in dots from the folds of her heavy minx coat as she poured sugar into her Starbucks take-out cup.

As she picked her way across the cafe in a stilt-like, careful manner, she shimmied past a man bent over at the magazine rack as she carried her hot drink and magazine over to a round table by the picture window. I expected her to meet a man. I was disappointed when she didn't. After she sat down, I nonchalantly morphed my flabbergasted gaze into a curious inspection of my Writer's Digest magazine as she looked around for a moment. I felt bad for meticulously observing her as if she were in a fish tank.

I did have to look up again in the next few seconds, and my eyes widened as my head tilted a bit. She was reading some fashion and gossip magazine, and made the motions as if she were becoming very hot. She then proceeded to open her hugging coat and push it towards the back of her shoulders instead of just taking it off. She had on a dazzly, strapless dress of some sort! I couldn't believe it. God love her, this lady had to be in her late 60's, and she had these tiny collarbones and shoulder sockets that her tired skin stretched over. She continued browsing her juicy magazine with teal-eyelined eyes. At times she would purse her delicately-lipsticked and lined lips in a dramatic reading of an especially interesting piece of news.

This lady would have been perfect sipping a glass of Bordeaux wine at 6 am outside a sleepy cafe on a strip club and motel-lined street in Paris. She was unbelieveably out of place at 5:00 on a Monday night at Barnes & Noble cafe in Reading, Pennsylvania. Yet, she made my night. What a strange lady. How perfect for a writer.