It was the lunch rush and the PBJ Cafe was alive with voices. Each table's conversation fed into a swelling sound, joining the hiss of the espresso machine and the tinkle of plates and cups to create an effect that made Patrick think of running water. The stream of noise carried him in nearly constant motion as he wove between tables carrying sandwiches and lattes, and he imagined that he was steering around rocks in river rapids. While he flowed about the restaurant during busy stretches like this hours would pass like minutes, as if the volume of voices and the passage of time were somehow linked.
The noise eventually ebbed as things slowed down, and with the afternoon lull setting in the staff complained about the quiet times. This was the kind of harmless shared suffering that strengthens social ties better than any team building exercise could and everyone joined in the commiserations. They would have complained about the busy times too if they didn't have so many other things to take care of during the rush. But when things slowed down the tips stopped coming, the minutes dragged by, and boredom took hold. Patrick agreed, yet he secretly enjoyed it when the cafe quieted down because the voices at the tables would once again separate into distinct conversations that he could follow. While the other staff were smoking out back or inventing elaborate games in the store room around throwing butter knives into the drywall, Patrick was collecting stories.
Sometimes he felt guilty about eavesdropping, but from the central counter it was possible to hear what was being said almost anywhere in the cafe, and the gap between hearing and listening is so small that we often cross it without realizing. Patrick first began to cross that gap unintentionally because he was worried that the people were talking about him. He was a novice waiter and felt that his inexperience must have been obvious to the customers. However, as he listened in on his tables it eventually sunk in that they were not, in fact, discussing him at all. It turned out that people spent less time thinking about and talking about him than he was prone to imagine. He came to see that paranoia was just as self-centered and deluded as narcissism, without the benefit of confidence. This realization, coupled with his growing competence at the job, helped him to stop worrying that the customers were criticizing him. But not before weeks of eavesdropping had also taught him that people said some interesting things in restaurants.
Granted, people said a lot of very boring things in restaurants. As well as a huge number of things that, lacking context, Patrick couldn't really gauge one way or the other. But there were enough intriguing moments to keep him coming back. The first was a woman with thick, dirty blonde hair discussing her nervous breakdown in such unguarded detail and with so little appeal for sympathy that Patrick fell in love with her a little bit, though she was twice his age. He was in awe of that kind of openness, especially about such a moment of weakness. But the man in glasses seated across from her did not seem impressed. Maybe he'd heard the story before, or maybe this was a first date and he was having second thoughts. He could have been her shrink as well, though he wasn’t taking notes or asking many questions.
Later that same day Patrick overheard a young white guy professing his love to a young black guy with such whispered urgency it seemed he had to keep his voice down so as not to shout. Patrick felt the urge to hug them both, and was only a little afraid that this might mean he was a homosexual. As he set their drinks down in front of them he wanted to tell them that he supported gay marriage, and interracial marriage, and any kind of marriage really if it involved a love such as theirs. All he said, though, was to just let him know if they needed anything else.
From then on he was hooked. When he had down time he would busy himself behind the counter and tune in to the different conversations going on in the restaurant around him. He justified his eavesdropping by thinking that the PBJ Cafe was clearly a public place, so people should expect to be overheard. Sometimes he took things a step further and went the righteous route: if the customers only thought of him as a server and not as a fully formed human being, capable of hearing and maybe even having opinions about what they were saying, then he had every right to listen to them with no qualms. Eavesdropping as a form of social justice was a difficult concept to hold onto on this particular afternoon, though. The problem was: she was cute.
Patrick couldn't decide if he was disappointed or relieved when the girl and her friend were seated in Sofia's section. He did a quick sweep of his tables, filled a few coffee cups, cleared a couple plates, and stationed himself behind the counter as close to the girls as he could. Her friend was pretty as well, but this girl had the short brown hair, small nose, and a certain friendliness around the eyes that set her firmly in the “cute” segment of the beauty spectrum and made her just Patrick's type. His desire to listen to their conversation had a new sense of urgency to it. It also felt a little creepy; the fact that he was attracted to this girl removed his shield of anonymity. He was no longer a waiter overhearing a patron but Patrick Ross spying on a stranger, who would probably be upset if she knew and also undoubtedly looked good naked. Patrick did his best to push all such thoughts from his mind. He could work out the ethical implications of eavesdropping and imagine this girl without clothes on later, in this moment he had to concentrate to pick her voice out against the background noise of the cafe.