Unwelcome

If it wasn't for the breaded chicken sandwich, I'd never go near Kelly's

Kelly's is a bakery and cafe on the West Side, not far from my company. You'll find Kelly's in a funky shopping complex built around a large and sunny courtyard that opens to the parking lot. In the courtyard are big plants, outdoor tables with umbrellas for Kelly's customers, even a pond.

Kelly's is a true community gathering place, perhaps the only one on the West Side. Other than that, there are tables outside the supermarket. The West Side is home to Santa Cruz' economic and university elite -- and to many others who are just getting by.

In many ways, Kelly's is an attractive place to hang out. In other ways, it doesn't feel like home ground. Mainly the elite are able to hang at Kelly's, partly because it's not cheap at all. And yet as I said, Kelly's is about all that passes for a public square in that part of town, and one of the very few places to get a lunch that's better than mere fast food.

And they've got that heavenly sandwich: a nicely breaded breast of chicken on a fresh focaccia roll with mayo and sauteed sweet red peppers. I can't get enough of it; and I can get the sandwich for several dollars under list price if I get a pre-made version from the bakery case "cold to go." So Kelly's has seen me at lunch hour from time to time, though I don't actually stay and hang.

But my problem with Kelly's is not just about the dollar cost of eating there; it's more subtle.

The other day at lunch I approached Kelly's front door just as Gloria stormed out of it. She's a co-worker. "I've had it with this place," she declared. "It takes forever to get waited on. I don't have the time!"

I mumbled something and she flounced away. "Flounced" is a technically accurate term here, because Gloria is expecting a child. Imminently.

I've worked in the same office with the same people for almost six years, and for five of them nobody started a pregnancy. But as I write this, three women are expecting -- all in their early to mid-30s, all with their first child. And that excludes the two slightly older women who adopted this past year.

I suspect it's the way life rolls for working women these days: you get your college degree, you start a career, get married, pay down the student loans, settle into a house. And before you know it you're over 30 and your biological window of opportunity begins to slide shut… so you'd better get moving on procreation if that's your plan. And of course you keep working.

Jeez, as I write it all down, life sounds more like an obstacle course than a journey.

So that day, at that lunch hour, I perhaps understood why Gloria decide that her time was better spent on practically anything than waiting for service at Kelly's. I pushed through the door and saw: exactly what I usually see.

There was a line, all the way to the door. It inched forward slowly along the bakery cases to the cashier/order taker. There was only one of her, and she also got drinks. It's a poor system, and it does not change.

Few seem to mind. Immediately in front of me in line, a tall and slender young woman took advantage of the wait to give life lessons to her two toddlers. She described the items in the bakery cases; they asked questions, she answered them. When the woman and her children finally got the cash register, each child placed its own order as Mom prompted them. It took awhile.

Farther up the line were three young men running heavily to horn-rimmed glasses and hipster-style beard stubble. One even wore one of those little fedoras with a narrow brim -- sky blue in color. They laughed, checked messages and texts on their iPhones, and had a great time. When they reached the counter, they spent more time arguing about who'd pay, and then ordered a beer, a sandwich and a pastry apiece; which at Kelly's will run you about seventeen bucks.

At the very head of the line, a gaggle of older women placed sandwich orders. They asked for detailed descriptions of the sandwiches' ingredients, asked that particular items be left out or added, inquired whether the tea was organic. One of them decided against the sandwich she had originally ordered and started the process over from scratch.

All in all, it took ten minutes to traverse the line and ask someone to fetch me the sandwich; it would have taken as long to order a cup of coffee. And yet no one seemed to mind. The air was sweet, filtered sun streamed through the tall windows, cooking smells wafted from the kitchen. Everyone was happy to be where they were and in no hurry to be anywhere else. At 12:30 pm on a weekday.

Suddenly I hated everyone in the room and at the tables outside.

I hated the elderly parents and their adult children sitting together, dandling the grandchildren above their laps. I hated the well-kept oldsters reading thick books. I hated the lazy tables of twenty-something men and women, with and without children, who bore the tell-tale signs of the well-heeled graduate student. I hated the grinning, grungy young men dropping serious money for lunch and in no hurry.

I hated them because they were not subject to the tyranny of time and schedule and wages as I was, I and my co-workers. I hated them because they are living life slowly and well, while my co-workers try to shove life into the small spaces that remain after work and schedule and debt have taken their fill. I hated them because the older among them, many of them university people, had mostly retired on good pensions in paid-for homes. While some of my friends work past seventy. And so may I.

But mainly I hated them because they don't believe they're privileged, these West Siders who express surprise if you tell them you've never been to Europe, don't have a pension, never got a master's degree, never took that spiritual voyage of self-discovery to the Himalayas, don't have the time to scratch-cook organic meals at home, only eat grass-fed organic beef, or don't think ten bucks is too much for a raffle ticket in a vaguely good cause.

They don't think they're privileged as they eat their lunch in a bakery that was custom-designed for them -- for people who aren't in a hurry and seldom need to be in one. A bakery with no place or allowance for schedule slaves like me, yet is the community gathering place for half the town.

My anger was not healthy. It was judgmental, it was too generalized, it was not fair. But it was my true feeling. Wondrous chicken sandwich or not, I'm going to stay away from Kelly's. Kelly's symbolizes the part of Santa Cruz that appears to welcome everyone, but really only welcomes the chosen ones. The others are invisible to Kelly's denizens. I suspect that they like it that way.