She is comforted at her seated perch by Jen, who respects the ideology behind elitist coffee shops but would not say she relates to it. To be fair, of all the bathrooms in the city, the bathroom at this cafe does feel the most sanctified, and the hand-painted floor and antler chandelier could intimidate the most experienced of defecators. Nonetheless, it is a bathroom – a room of defined purpose.

I think you’re overreacting, says Jen. Boys don’t think about this stuff the same way we do, it’s girls that make a big deal out of it.

Jen, says Anje, Jen. First impressions are final impressions, and the relationship with my former future longterm boyfriend just died in a co-ed toilet.

Jen sighs. Anywhere else, this conversation would be unworth the having. But Four Barrel – Four Barrel is what it would look like if a hipster orgasmed and a coffee shop came out. She knows what this place means to Anje, and furthermore what the man behind the counter means to her, so she replies: He went in after you went out. Just people being people.

Exactly – people being people. Girls should never be people when they first meet boys. They should be marshmallows and tulip petals. Anje puts her head in her hands; she’ll need to be finding a new coffee shop.

Jen will now begin a male dissection. She is known for this; she can pick apart all of her friends’ attractions with the skill of an exoskeleton disassemblist: ANJE, she says, he is WEARING HIS PAJAMAS. He has four days of hair and two nights of hangover on his face; he lives in the Mission. He doesn’t strike me as the I Only Date Girls Who Pee type. Be progressive, Anje.

Now the rebuttal, which from Anje will dependably pull nothing from science yet sound far more realistic than the mystical basics of DNA: Listen Jen. You’re left brained. You think in statistics, in facts. I’m an artist, I think in intuitions, in innate human tendency. Humans are not wired to exchange emotional reactions for factual, logical ones; that is a fact. The fact that he has a meme tattoo and is steaming lattes further proves my point; he is most certainly an artist. He is an artist who experiences situations situationally, and that was a horrible situation.

He did make a nice fleur de lis in my foam.

See?

So he definitely is the artsy type.

Yes.

But since when have straight guys been successfully drawing fleur de lis in latte foam? I can’t think of anything less homosexual.

It’s called progress, Jen. It’s called being in tune with the significance of small wonders. It comes with the same heightened awareness that makes first impressions so impressionistic. I can’t talk about this anymore; I’m too mortified. How long do you think it will take him to forget me so I can come back?

And ask him on a date?

No, so I can come back and order coffee. I like it here. Fuck, do you think he’ll tell his friends?

What, like, Hey man, that hot girl over there, she poops like a vegan. Just make sure one of you is already in the bathroom if she ever comes back, probably best if we guard it. You’re going to cut out the best coffee in San Francisco because of that?

I don’t know, just for a few weeks maybe. Do you think that’s enough?

I think you’re crazy.

Jen, I’m telling you. This poop was—Anje looks around, then lowers her voice—this poop was stinky.

Would you still care if you weren’t attracted to him?

Anje and Jen both look in the direction of the baristo. He’s tall, scrawny, and clearly hasn’t showered since Friday. He does have that dark, virile something though, that stoic quiet that brown-eyed men sometimes reserve for weekends and evenings with books. Some people call it pot. But some guys just have it.

No, no way. Well, a little. I don’t like the idea of anyone going into the bathroom after I poop. I don’t like going into a bathroom after other people poop. I just don’t like poop.

Fair enough. You do realize that—had this guy actually become your longterm boyfriend—you could have wound up having a kid together. In which case poop would be everywhere, cause that’s just what babies do. And then your relationship would have come full circle.

Anje procures a sad effort at a laugh, held in check by a large mouthful of Four Barrel’s special of the day: The Honey Soaked Proscuitto Donut. Amid her baby diaper daydreams, Jen fails to notice when one of Anje’s laughter recovery inhalations results in a quick cessation of giggles, but when Anje’s eyes grow wide Jen smells a hint of something amiss.

What. What?

Anje says nothing, just stares at Jen, a panic of gross proportions pouring from her bulging eyeballs.

Jen scans the room, searching for the source of her best friend’s shock, but finding nothing turns back to Anje. Anje’s hands are on the table, then on her throat, then she is racing for the broad doors of Four Barrel, making a confident yet decidedly rushed beeline for a dreary Valencia. Jen, being of enviably sound mind, has begun to suspect that Anje is choking, and rises to follow her at the exact moment that Anje collapses to the floor.

As tends to be the case before tragedies of yet unbeknownst proportions, a paralyzing silence sweeps through Four Barrel, swallowing its wide walls with the stunned pre-immediacy of threat. Steaming milk stalls in the frozen hands of baristas, espresso grounds drift quietly towards the floor, and tablefuls of unwashed hair rotate towards the center of the room where Anje is swaying on all fours, making gagging, gasping sounds she can only hope are louder to her own ears than to those of the tattooed barista. Even Van Halen, trickling steadily from the shop’s in-house turntable, slides into a series of E chords, infusing the air with a morbid wisp of legging-clad foreboding.

Jen, temporarily frozen by a mix of adrenaline and despair, springs into motion at the exact moment that Anje’s former love interest jumps deftly over the concrete countertop, and together they carve though air thick with pretense.

Mortified to death and uncomfortably close to it, Anje watches through trails of white light as her best friend and boy lover sprint towards her swaying frame. Terrifyingly aware of the side effects of extended unconsciousness, she is fighting the enveloping darkness with all the caffeine she has in her. Please God, she prays, don’t let me seizure, don’t let me pass out with my eyes open, that would be so creepy God, and were you there when I pooped, God? I just did that, it cant happen again, peeing either, please help me pass out prettily, Jesus, and–

Jen and the baristo reach Anje side just as her body wilts to the ground, fully prey to the premature swallowing of an exotic donut. Jen is searching her memory for the correct sub-scenario of the Heimlich maneuver, desperately seeking the appropriate steps to account for a victim already unconscious, but the baristo moves quickly, pulling the oblivious Anje into a half-seated position.

…Cont