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Behind the counter was pretty much the same people for all those years. There was Judy, who with her partner upstairs in the office Sue, owned the shop. There was Erica and another woman the Professor knew because he was interested. She lived in North Beach, married with kids, dark, short in her forties, and had been a beatnik. She had known beatniks maybe famous ones and the Professor was always interested in that.
They were primarily food preparers. However the coffee maker changed quite often. Angie was the best and became Jeff's girlfriend. She was Italian from New York. State or city I often didn't know. She could make the foam so thick of a cappuccino, that one could with one of those little metal coffee spoons, stand it straight up in the foam and walk from the back to the front of the long table area, and it would still be standing. Now that's the way I liked it.
I think Jeff got her pregnant and she went back to New York. Jeff followed her back and we never saw him again. She was tall, long dark hair, substantial body, big round eyes that would look at me - "And so" ? And there was Steve. He worked nights and when he came in of the mornings, he was just getting off work. If he bought a beer, people thought he was an alcoholic. He shook a lot with very unsteady hands so sometimes much of his coffee, walking to our table, might end up on the floor. I think he worked somewhere really noisy. We talked him out of it and got him to quit. I think he got a job down at Stanford, care of my old Boss down there, and he would take the train. He gave me a job once plaster-painting his bathroom.
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