struggs to func

PRIYA  ANAYA BHATIA

biography

wanted connections

starter: open to all.

location: greenwich village, coffee house

@enycstarters​

           Nadine could’ve gotten a lot done in sixteen minutes and forty-five seconds. For starters, she could’ve touched up the silver threads of hair beginning to sprout at her scalp. She could have called her landlord and given him a run-down on the paint peeling from her walls, the washing machine that caused the entire apartment building to tremble as it tossed and tattered her blouses. In sixteen minutes and forty-five seconds, Nadine could have walked – briskly – to the nail salon in Gramercy, the tweed collar of her coat itching at her wind-cut cheeks as she crossed town. Instead, she had been waiting – for exactly sixteen minutes and forty-five seconds – for an interviewee who’d made a break for the bathroom at the faintest stench of controversy. She drummed her bare nails against the table and exhaled sharply.

A Midwestern hopeful with grand ambitions of revolutionizing the city’s school system. She fished her phone from her pocketbook and exchanged the word ‘grand’ for ‘baseless.’ She’d wager the subject of her report was already halfway across the country now, still palpitating from the queries she’d lobbed at him. Her interrogative, no-nonsense approach as a reporter proceeded her, although she preferred to call herself ‘meticulous.’ Then again, there were others who opted for the colloquial ‘massive bitch.’ Either or.

Nadine lifted her gaze from the iPhone resting in her hands and eyed the crowd gathering at the barista station. Gentle waves of customers had been milling in and out of the coffeehouse – which Nadine considered one of Manhattan’s best kept secrets – for well over an hour now, surging into a noisy, impatient sea of people. “Need a seat?” She asked, noting the way another’s eyes roved throughout the café in search of an empty table, of which there were none. “I’m not selling anything, just doing my one good deed for the day. And, honestly, hoping to improve my own karmic status.”

She’d delivered five babies before seven am, and she feels like she’s delivered one hundred.  She talks to several patients, does about four exams, and has to deal with flirting from one of the residents before she’s even close to stepping out of the hospital. She loves her job, and if she wants to the best at it, she has to work the way she does, tirelessly, endlessly, efficently. When she finally does leave, pushing through the doors on her break,  it feels like a reprieve.  She doesn’t know if it’s the weather, or what, but by the time she leaves to get coffee, the exhaustion has settled into her bones.  

The smell of roasting coffee hits her as soon as she walks into the coffee house, and it smells like comfort, and like her saving grace.  She doesn’t even mind the endless chatter, the hustle and bustle of everyone around her, also trying to get their middle of the day fix.  She blocks it out as she stands in line, ordering the strongest coffee she can get when she reaches the front. 

One of the things about New York City, a downside amongst the many positives she can think of, is that there are always people around. It is rare that a store, or a coffee shop are anywhere near empty, but today it feels like there’s even more of a crowd. She stands there, coffee in hand, hoping that someone, anyone, will get up, and let her sit. The on call room, compared to this, is beginning to seem like a haven. It’s just as she’s considering heading out, to face the cold again, when someone offers up a seat. She looks at the women and lets out a relieved sigh “oh, thank you,” she begins, walking towards her, settling into the seat “you’re definitetly getting karmic points for this one, and brownie points from me. Can I buy you another of whatever you’re drinking?”