On a July day in 2011, Lacey Marie Cunningham was sitting in Harbor Perk Coffee Shop in Ashtabula, Ohio, when she noticed a new barista. Ms. Cunningham was a regular at Harbor Perk, where she would often read and study. She had recently graduated from Warren Wilson College outside of Asheville, N.C., and was back in her hometown working on a low-residency master’s degree in education at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt.

The new barista was Brett Logan Spencer, who was learning to pull shots and make lattes on his first day. Mr. Spencer had also grown up in Ashtabula, having recently returned home after graduating Kent State University. Although they had attended the same high school only a year apart, the two had never met before.

“His laugh was this full-fledged laugh with his whole body,” Ms. Cunningham, 30, said. “I could just tell that he just soaked up all that life had to offer.”

Mr. Spencer, 32, would often stop by Ms. Cunningham’s table on the days he was working to ask about what she was reading. They bonded over a shared love of travel and poetry, and he talked often about the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. One day, Ms. Cunningham asked Mr. Spencer to write Neruda’s name down so she could look up his work. He made sure to write his phone number down, too.

Source: New York Times

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