Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
A long, turquoise padded bench ran the length of the back wall, two- and four-top tables in front of it, mismatched chairs in front of those.
A huge mural was painted on the wall, which had a softly abstract, Mona-Lisa-smiling woman in the top corner. Instead of hair, though, she had dots and squishes that resembled flowers in varying shades of pinks and yellows against a background of greens and blues that flowed across the wall. In the middle of that space, painted into the flowers was the word Live!
The rest of the floor space was taken randomly with tables or seating areas that had armchairs and couches and beanbags. There were standing floor lamps that looked like they came from vintage stores dotted here and there, and some tables had small lamps on top of them.
A pothos plant sat in another corner and it had to be prehistoric, because the trails of its foliage were so long, tracking up and out so far, they were tacked to the walls and even the ceiling. There were string of pearls plants sprinkled around the space, hanging with vines dangling five feet.
The Surf Club was a coffee and cocktail bar on Indian School Road, which also served food, that Tito had opened sometime in the aughts.
So there was a long, curved bar made of a highly polished ash at the front, which had stools with backs and seats covered in marine blue. The bar back was filled with bottles of liquor and a wide, double-filter, cream-colored espresso machine.
There was exceptional Wi-Fi, and outlets and USB jacks everywhere, some even embedded in the tables or the wood floors, so people could charge while they hung.
And hang they did.
It was only now, early morning, when the parking lot wasn’t jammed with cars of people who came, drank copious amounts of the ridiculously good Guatemalan, Ethiopian or Columbian blends Tito sourced from mysterious suppliers, and tapped on their keyboards for hours, sucking up Tito’s electricity. Or folks who drank Jessie’s, our mixologist, riotously inventive cocktails with lunch or dinner from Lucia’s ever-changing menu of fusion food.
And Lucia didn’t discriminate with her fusions. It could be Asian-Italian. It could be traditional fish and chips with a chipotle tartar sauce. It could be French-Mexican. You never knew with Lucia. You just knew it’d be good.
Also, around the corner from the bar, just in from the front door, for those who wanted to drink and dash, there was a strictly coffee cubby that had our second espresso machine, shelves filled with bags of the coffee we brewed that you could buy and take home, and a display of muffins, cookies, brownies, Danish and macarons we got from Willow’s Good Stuff. Willow being a talented baker who didn’t have a storefront, she just supplied us and had pop-ups at farmer’s markets around the Valley on weekends.
Our fare was amazing, but the place was weird and eclectic, personified by who was in the back corner on the bench seat right then, and nearly all the time.
Tito.
His name wasn’t actually Tito. No one knew his real name. Luna and I guessed he called himself Tito since he drank so much of that brand of vodka (including tipping it in his coffee in the mornings).
He had lots of white hair, a white beard, and a pudgy body that rose, at best, to five foot four. Thus, he looked like a demented Santa Claus who’d gone astray in his efforts to go incognito on vacation.
In other words, he was always in Hawaiian shirts, and even inside, he wore sunglasses.
But that, and the fact he silently sat in the back corner booth most of the time (no one but Tito sat there—ever—partly because his butt was usually in that seat, partly because his stuff was jammed all around, making it look like an open office, but mostly because everyone knew that was Tito’s space).
If you came to SC, you’d see Tito ensconced in his nook, surrounded by books, tapping on his iPad, or writing in copious journals.
But that was the only thing (visually) with Tito you could count on.
He had flip-flop days. Then red Keds days. There were checkerboard Vans days. There were slides with tube socks days.
There were also Panama hat days. And bandana days. Not to mention fedora days. Also Life is Good baseball hat days. Though, always, his long, fluffy white hair poofed out at the sides of whatever he put on his head.
There were days when his sunglasses had bright red frames, then the next day he’d switch to white, or yellow, or Wayfarers, or aviators. Honest to God, I didn’t know the color of the man’s eyes, since I’d never seen them. I also couldn’t count the number of sunglasses he owned, there were so many of them.
He was always in shorts, but these could be Madras (and those clashed with the Hawaiian shirts, big time), or cargo shorts, Bermudas, sometimes even boardshorts.