Eggs - Katie Burke

We sat down to our eggs, toast, and coffee. I loved our ritual, and I felt grateful to Jan that we’d kept it going for so long.

Lots of people say, “We should get together sometime!” But then they don’t follow up. I know; I always follow up. In Jan, I found the unlikely, perfect partner for once-monthly Saturday chats. The bookkeeper at the last firm where I’d worked before launching my practice, Jan and I had first indulged in our exciting talks on alternate Fridays, when she’d come in to the bookkeeping.

She was a grandmother, with a solid, longstanding bookkeeping business, and a wife with a beautiful San Francisco home. I was a 30-year-old single woman, with stories of men that caused her to nod, laugh, and sometimes, warn me away from someone. I had a fledgling legal practice, a cheap, homey San Francisco one-bedroom apartment rental, and a life of who-knew-what ahead of me.

We both loved books. Jan and I could talk endlessly about books. She found my synopses of the ones I’d read fascinating, and she’d usually tell me she’d just picked up the one I’d told her about the last time we’d seen each other. My to-read list grew wings with each talk Jan and I had; I sat rapt as she described her favorites, and I knew I’d read them all one day, when I had more time. As it was, I was slowly working through my to-read list from before Jan and I met.

When I left the firm, we said it: “We should get together sometime!” The magical part is that we did. We got together. One Saturday, we ordered eggs, toast, and coffee at Savor in Noe Valley, and then we walked up and down 24th Street to window shop and keep the conversation going.

Our first stop: Phoenix Books and Records, where I bought a hard cover, spiral bound, lime green, journal with wide-ruled pages. I would look five years old carrying it, except that its exquisite texture suggested it was for serious diarists. I loved it, and I had fun pulling titles off shelves, finding Jan, and saying, “Have you read this one?” She did the same, and my to-read list grew some more.

Next stop: Richard Donnelly Chocolates, for some Belgian pieces to eat as we sit in the Starbuck’s windowsill up the street with our lattes. Five hours of talk hadn’t been enough, we decided after coffee and chocolate. There was a knitting store further up the street, and Jan was a hard-core knitter on a hunt for some baby blue yarn. There were baby blankets to be made. I admired and touched several of the store’s soft yarns and fabrics, listening as Jan explained how it all worked, both of us knowing I’d never take up knitting myself, but that I loved to learn about anything, especially when Jan talked about it with such passion.

We continued like that, one Saturday per month, always meeting in a cute breakfast place on one of San Francisco’s most beloved neighborhoods: Fillmore Street, Hayes Valley, Fisherman’s Wharf, Cole Valley, West Portal – all starting with breakfast, then wandering over to a bookstore, then off to find chocolate, which we’d always eat in a coffee shop. The days were long and, at once, too short.

She was the greatest, and she still is, even though she moved a year ago to Bellingham, Washington, where I can’t meet her for food, books, chocolate, coffee, and great conversation. Since then, my San Francisco Saturdays haven’t been the same.