May 9, 2024 | FEATURES | By Anya Jones
Switchback Coffee Roasters is a hip cafe strapped with dangling plants, pleasant eggshell walls and sourdough sandwiches for the fair price of $14.50 (closer to $16 if you want avocado mash on the side). It’s never not full in this place. It attracts the likes of locals wishing to escape the peeling paint facades of the houses just outside and the streets that end in half-haunted strip malls. The service is also notable. It’s like the little leagues for Dutch Bros; unnecessarily nice comments about clothing and/or accessories that are nearly flirtatious but could also just be genuinely kind. At 10 a.m., the crowd is mixed, but most people are hunched over their computers tapping away monotonously with a vase of water and a low, round mug full of, probably, only foam.
The two people who catch my eye are near the back. They are middle-aged which is markedly older than the target audience populating the rest of the room. They are also speaking loudly enough for their conversation to be audible but softly enough that they actually don’t wish to be overheard. Their table selection – the one near the back – confirms this. The woman looks exactly like Sigourney Weaver, only 25 years younger and a bit more spritely. She is dressed in an athletic top and stretchy jeans with silver hoops and sunglasses on her head. The man’s name is Jeremey. Jeremey is sporting Converse, khaki-colored pants (definitely of athletic material) and a quarter-sleeve shirt that says ‘Drift and Amble’ across the silhouette of a van. He’s slinky and lean.
They know each other from (the aptly named) Run Club. For example, Jeremey is inviting Sigourney to run with him and Brad at 4:30 p.m. today. This timing stands out to me. I wonder immediately about Brad and Jeremey’s employment; flexible hours or stay-at-home-dads? Sigourney thanks Jeremey for the invitation but declines. She has a local soccer league game. Jeremey didn’t know this about Sigourney. He’s curiously surprised. He throws out that his wife, Janelle, is getting her hair done today, so she won’t be running until 6:30 p.m. if Sigourney wants to join her then. This all made sense –– the fact that these two were friends more than lovers. Married people don’t go to coffee at 10 in the morning.
Sigourney is actually dating or perhaps cohabitating with a man named Trey. Her age and soft demeanor means she is likely divorced, and Trey is a relatively new sidepiece. Importantly, Trey exclusively trail runs. That’s why Jeremey has never met him – he refuses to come to Run Club. She asks Jeremey if it’s ok for Trey to come to the Run Club meal they do semi-annually. Jeremey says it shouldn’t be a problem. He confirms that Trey is vegetarian, but not “fully vegan.” He says they’ll make it work. The other important thing to know about Trey is that he lived in a refugee camp somewhere near the West Bank (assume Lebanon) for over a year. It is unclear in what capacity, but one has to assume it was medical given his name and hobbies. You may be asking yourself, how did it come up that Trey lived in a refugee camp in this highly contentious area of the Middle East? I’m glad you asked.
After a brief moment of silence (a pause from only discussing the menial topic of running), Jeremey sits up a little from his relaxed posture and asks Sigourney, as a liberal Jewish woman, what her stance is on the issue right now. In this extraordinary pivot in conversation, the chemistry in the air is visibly altered. The loud pause she takes coupled with how wide her eyes get tells me she’s thinking the same thing I am: Jeremey is a man and he is way too comfortable right now. She takes time and chooses her words delicately. It becomes increasingly clear that she is selecting her words carefully because Jeremey is a fervent pro-Palestine-er. So is Sigourney, but her support is less unilateral and unfettered. She explains that she believes the indiscriminate loss of innocent lives at the hands of the IDF is unspeakably awful. She notes that people should separate the Israeli government from its people, who she insists do not all agree with their prime minister. Jeremey agrees and uses this opportunity to speak about his own identity as an American under the former Trump administration.
Jeremey then brings up Miriam. Miriam is another member of Run Club, and an outspoken liberal Jewish woman. But Miriam is also outspokenly pro-Israel. Jeremy explains to Sigourney that this is why he asked her what her stance was. In Jeremey’s brain, he couldn’t reconcile social progressiveness with the pro-Israel stance. The independent variable, he realized, was this individual’s Jewish identity. So he set out to test his hypothesis and now sits here with Sigourney trying to understand how all liberal Jewish women think. (Jeremey, oh Jeremey). Sigourney, always a good sport, offers her opinions, notes that they are explicitly different from Miriam’s, and nimbly navigates the conversation. They continue like this. In an acrobatic dance where he uses the space to freely communicate his thoughts, and she speaks with a reservation indicative of at least two power dynamics.
Jeremey does that thing again where he has something he wants to say and makes it seem like the segue is natural but it’s actually very stark and transparent. He brings up the Serial podcast. He blabs a bit randomly about it until he feels satisfied with his weekly educational conversation whereby he can confidently say he has heard multiple perspectives. The words slow. He says he better get back. They thank each other for “doing this.” Soon all that can be seen is the cordial movement of their mouths and their athleisure strutting happily out.
Loved this! Very interesting and well written. Thanks for sharing 🙂