Leila shows Joe a poem she wrote, even though she doesn't think it's worthy...
"Hey."
Leila looked up as Joe took a seat in the chair across from her. She smiled and snapped her notebook closed.
"Hi Joe. You on break?"
He nodded. "Danika's on KP duty." He smiled, almost chuckled to himself, but refrained. "She hates KP."
"I can imagine. She hates washing dishes at home, too."
Joe took a sip of some of his own java, the thickness of which was comparable to maple syrup. "That's Danika for you." He glanced at her notebook. "What's in that?"
She looked down at the notebook she held clutched in her hands. "In this? Nothing. Nothing at all. Just little pieces of my mind..."
"That's not nothing..." Joe said, raising his eyebrows. Leila smiled and shook her head. She had half-expected him to say something in return to her comment, but not exactly those words.
"Well?"
"Well what?" she asked.
Joe smiled and took another sip of his coffee. "Which pieces of your mind are in there? This I hafta see."
She fixed him with a teasingly vexed look. "No! I don't let anyone see my notebook."
His eyebrows rose slightly again. "No one?"
She chewed her bottom lip. "Well, I did show Danika one thing."
"What was it?"
"A picture of her. It had turned out really well and I couldn't not show her..."Joe nodded. Leila dropped her gaze.
"So you draw in there?"
"And write. Mostly poetry. It's just silly stuff, really..."
"Couldn't be worse than some of this haiku," Joe mused, jerking a thumb towards the stage in the caf�. "Most of it's good, but lately we've had some really flat ones."
Leila smiled. "I can never tell. Haiku is just...it's haiku. I don't understand it."
"So what do you write?"
Her hands shifted nervously on the book. "Um...just..whatever comes into my head. Sometimes I do structured poems, but...not often..."
Joe was staring in mild fascination. He didn't even need to say anything. His expression said all Leila needed to know. She rolled her eyes.
"All right, all right. One. You can read one."
Joe smiled and leaned forward to rest on his elbows as Leila dug through the notebook, looking for something safe to show him. Finally, shooting him a warning look, she handed him the notebook.
"That page only. And I told you it's just some silly stuff I wrote..."
He waved away her cautions, and began to read. She sat in silence, fingers fidgeting with her pencil and the edge of the table. All she could do was watch Joe's eyes go back and forth as he read her scrawlings.
Finally, he set the notebook down, leaned back in his chair, and gave a long whistle. Leila snatched up the notebook and closed it.
"I told you it's just a bunch of fluff that I wrote on the spur of the moment. I know it's really cheesy and bad-"
"No no no. It's not bad at all." He took a long sip of coffee. "Man, you could read that stuff."
For a moment, she didn't understand his meaning. Then she looked to her left toward the stage. "Y-you mean...up there?"
He nodded and finished off his coffee.
"That's crazy, Joe. I-I can't read this up there...it's...it's not weird enough for this place. It's..."
"Emotional? Inspiring? Coherent?"
She stared at him.
"It's good, Leila. I mean it."
She looked at the table and blushed a shade shy of crimson. "Thanks, I think."
Joe allowed himself a little smile and checked his watch. "Man, break's over. Danika's gonna gut me if I don't do my time in KP..."
He rose from the table, pushed in his chair, and started his unhurried walk back to the caf�'s kitchen.
"Joe?"
He turned. Leila was looking at him, eyes wide with curiosity. She still clutched the notebook to her chest.
"Did you really think it was...good?"
Joe pushed his sunglasses up for a moment. "You have official beatnik approval, Leila."
He gave her a thumbs-up and shuffled off. Leila sat at her table, suddenly contemplative. Picking up her pencil, she flipped open her notebook and began putting another piece of her mind on paper.
