This morning was that morning for me. I decided it was time to visit Drift Caffeine Emporium on Ocean Isle Beach. The morning was bright and fair. The Intracoastal Waterway was bright and blue as I crossed the bridge to the island. I could hear the surf stirring the sandy beach as I made my way to the cafe.
Imagine my surprise when I entered and found Lupe, accompanied by Claudia, talking to a seated group in a circle. My first thought was seance, you know how the mind does turn to these ideas, but when I saw no table, I realized that a seance isn't possible without the ethereal knocking trick.
Lupe was talking to a young woman at the moment I entered and I noticed a bit of a start on her part when she first saw me. I refer to Lupe and not the young woman. It was only a quick glance but it had the look one gives when you realize the cat is drinking from your glass of soda.
"You must be firm, Stevie." she was saying as I waited on my Americano. "You can't waiver. If you show any weakness, he will exploit it."
"I don't think he would ever do that," said Stevie. "He's not that kind of guy and even if he did, I believe it would happen only because he cares so much for me."
"No," Stevie. "He has an untreated addiction and is unable to control himself. He will do anything necessary to feed the monkey."
"But it's so hard to say no to him," Steve said.
"That's why you must ignore his calls, his texts, and reach out to others in the group," said Lupe. "And keep coming to these meetings. We can only recover from our addiction when we rely on others. No one can do it alone."
Stevie seemed to see the truth in her statements. She nodded, sighed deeply, and remained silent.
"Ok," said Lupe, "let's take five."
With those words, she rose and walked my way.
"What are you doing here?" she said to me.
"I would ask the same of you," I said. "I've been coming to this coffee house for years and I've never seen you here before."
She didn't reply but nodded and took on the look of an American who is about to try speaking Cantonese.
"What I'm really interested in," I said, "is how you came to be counceling people with substance addictions."
"Not substance addictions," she said. "Love."
"Love?" I said. "Did you say love?"
"Yes, I did. Love. Lust. Twitter-pated. It's all the same disease."
"You think love is a disease? An addiction? Lupe! This is just not right. There ought to be a law."
"There isn't," said Claudia who had finally joined us at the order-here counter. "We checked."
"Lupe, this must stop immediately," I said.
"Genome," she said, "as though addressing a student in her class, "each of us must be the change we want to see in the world and this," she said with a flourish of the heand, "is it for me."
"This can't possibly work out well," I said.
"Never undestimate the power of the individual to bring change to the world," she said. "Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."