Double decaf mocha latte
Ordering at Starbucks makes me think of Julie. In the shared yearbook/newspaper computer lab, Julie had recorded a sing-song "DouBLEdeCAFMO-CHAlatte" to replace the usual "ding" that comes with an error message. It was an upperclassman joke, one of the few times Julie allowed class to be a factor. And to be fair, it was the disembodied voice of Julie making a joke, not the actual girl by the time I heard it. Sometimes I'd make an error just to hear it. Julie was some kind of perfect. She treated everybody like an all-star. She had this enormous smile framed beneath her short bowlish haircut. I've never met anyone else who could make that haircut scream style. Julie could do it. She could sit and talk about anything or nothing and her words would hypnotize. I can't remember more than a handful of conversations we actually shared, and yet I always felt included, and more than that, special in her presence. I couldn't have been alone. Her senior year she was voted queen. Somehow in that time when Julie seemed to be looming ever larger, I got to be closer than before. She moved away, but we stayed in touch. Popping in and out of lives, she came and went like a warm hug and a meaningful wink. Even then it seemed fleeting. When the physical distance between us shrank, Julie disappeared from my life. I'd never understood how our lives fit together anyway. Sometimes I get sad that I just let her disappear. I wonder if the universe made a mistake, or worse that I made a mistake, but whenever I step up to the counter "Double decaf mocha latte" doesn't leave my lips.

I can only assume the universe knows what it's doing.