The tires meet the gravel with a grumble as I enter the parking lot of the cafe. It’s little and cute, quite frankly I’m surprised by the parking space to seating space ratio. It looks as though no more than twenty people could comfortably sit in the cafe yet thirty could park. Maybe there’s some fun underground part of the cafe where they auction off stolen art. Maybe, because that would be fun.

I step out of my car, a bit nervous. My head tried to sink down to hide myself but I catch it and then reposition my shoulders to try and convey a sense of self-confidence. Awkwardly making eye contact with everyone as I look for my date, I walk towards the cafe. I see a couple laughing while taking turns sipping out of a  funky glass of lemonade. The cup has many small bumps, like a golf-ball, causing the sun to reflect in some ways I had never seen before. 

“Charming, right?” A voice says from behind me. I twist around, a bit too fast causing my lanky arms to fling out. A man meets me at eye level with a smile on his face. His hair waves hello at me in the wind. Wearing khaki pants, a flannel, and a Star Wars shirt this man is drop dead gorgeous. I’m too stunned for words, I hope I don’t say anything stupid.

“The cafe, do you like it?” I realize I hadn’t quite answered the first time. I nod and wave my hands around as if to gesture to the place's entire essence. I want to point out the funky glass but he’s already wheeling me inside excited to show me more. It smells like a bookstore mixed with cinnamon. He picked the perfect place and all I could do was gesture at it with my string arms. 

In the most attractive of manners, he orders a Pumpkin Spice Latte. He doesn’t flinch or flounder his words when he asks for no whipped cream. Yet, I flounder every word as I try to ask for the lemonade with the funky glass. When the employee doesn’t understand I give up and apologize. I end up getting what he’s having. How embarrassing.

“Do you like it?” I’m asked mid-sip. I look up at him, looking like a goof, with my lips still on the normal glass. I nod my head excitedly. While I may prefer a funky glass with some refreshing lemonade this drink is still pretty good. Now that drinks have been gotten he’ll probably initiate some sort of conversation. Lucky for me, I prepared for this in the mirror this morning. 

“So what do you do for a living?” I nearly spit out my drink. I was not prepared for this question. An artist living off of their parents' money should’ve expected such a question yet somehow I didn’t. Words slip and slide off my tongue as I try to find the right way to explain how I’m financially stable and would gladly raise a family with such an amazing man. Apparently I hate myself more than usual today because when my hurricane of words is over it ends with “I love you”.

Now it was his turn to stare at me. This is like “How I Met Your Mother” all over again except this guy was going to leave forever and I was going to become Marshall but from the beginning of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”. Oh boy, this is bad because now I’m telling him these things. For some reason my body thinks all the movie references in the world will save me. I only dig a deeper grave. He walks away without saying a word. I fall into my grave.

Like in the end of “Lion King”, it rains on the ride home.

Soaking from the five second walk into my house I slump onto the floor. After a minute of trying to self-coach myself out of this slump I finally have the willpower to take off my shoes, hang up my coat, and get myself some lemonade from the fridge. Setting up my art station, glass in hand, I grab all the colors from today. Lots of brown and gray for the cafe and a variety of bright colors for the glass of lemonade. It will be an adventure figuring out how to replicate the sun reflecting off of the glass.

I play the next movie on my list, “The Big Short”, and begin to paint. I always paint the background first so I let myself go. Paint brushes dance like trees in the wind. They reach up to the sky and draw streaks in the clouds. After the storm, calming colors rest on the paper and set in. Next is the cafe. My pencil walks on the sky as it forms shapes within shapes to create more shapes. Then I paint over those lines, fill them in, and admire my work. It’s a simple painting lacking a main focus, so I add it! I start by making an elongated golf ball. When it’s time to fill it in with my paint I use all the bright colors. Every last bit of paint goes into the funky glass of lemonade. 

It’s gorgeous. Maybe someone will actually pay me good money for it, but I don't want to sell it. I feel too much of a connection to it. Plus no one would truly understand its meaning. No one ever understands what I mean, in art and in life. It shows the world through my lens; no humans, no questions, no extra parking, just the funky glass of lemonade.