Whenever Eve came to Chester’s in the morning or early afternoon, the bench was empty—like those benches you’d see out on the Hoosier highways, covered in dust and dreaming of Greyhound buses. But whenever she came at 5:30 p.m., rain or shine Chester’s bench was occupied by a silver-haired banker in a Brooks Brothers suit. Seeing the old banker there on the corner of Pico and Sepulveda had always struck Eve as a little incongruous, even mystifying. But the minute she sat down, she could see why after a hard day’s work he chose to come to this spot for one last cup of coffee before heading home: It was a privileged position from which to witness the motley splendor of the commonwealth. For as narrow as the menu was at Chester’s, the clientele was just as broad.

Why, at that very moment, a pair of sleeveless Oklahomans fresh off an oil rig were sipping their coffees beside a posse of Mexicali grape pickers. And chatting up the girl at the window was a matinee idol-in-the-making even as the storefront preacher in the secondhand suit standing right behind him waited to place his order with the patience of Job. Denizens and drifters. The fabulous and the fallen. It simply livened the spirits to see so many different kinds of people dedicating a few unspoken-for minutes to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Eve leaned back against the bench and took a sip of her coffee thinking that she was certainly going to miss Chester’s when she left L.A. And just as her thoughts were shifting to trunks and tickets and the other practicalities of intercontinental travel, as if on cue a dusty black Ford with a stack of luggage strapped to its roof pulled into a parking space a few feet away. Eve watched with interest as the doors flung open and a roly-poly pair of pensioners emerged. Before he could even stretch his back, the husband put his hands on his hips and took in the giant coffee pot from its wide blue base to the tippity top where its wisp of steam trailed toward the heavens unceasingly.

—Now, I’ve seen everything, he said.

Eve took another sip of her coffee and smiled at sudden thoughts of her great Aunt Polly. Clad in black from head to toe, her needlepoint never far from reach, proper Aunt Polly from Bloomington, Indiana, also liked to let people know when she had seen everything. What was it about that phrase, mused Eve, that made it so popular with those who had no business using it?

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