Taking My Daughter to Starbucks

I took my nine-year-old girl to Starbucks. Grande, decaf, black, I said. My girl ordered something much more interesting. Caramel Apple Spice with a cakey treat. I asked if we should sit or get in the car and drive. Let's sit. I don't want to spill this in the car. We can watch the cars. So she and I sat at the window. Two Verizon trucks went by. I think there's a place down that way, she pointed to our right, where the trucks live. What do you think that woman in the parking lot was doing before she came here, I ask. Oh, her, she was at the dentist's office. That's where she works. She sits behind the desk and says, it's your turn, honey. This my daughter says in a Brooklyn accent. We've never been to Brooklyn. There's a Starbucks there. I'm sure of it. And out the window of that Starbucks stare a girl and her mother. She asks her girl what the man in the brown jacket was doing before he stopped for coffee. Her daughter smiles putting on an accent her mother can't quite recognize: he’s an English teacher. He doesn't like his job. Wishes he was a poet. He's come a long way for a magical cup of coffee. An escape. Her mother smiles and asks where people talk like that. The man in the brown jacket smiles at them. It's a Syracuse accent, he says. Trust me. My daughter sounds like that almost all the time.