Pay It Forward

“Donna?” A female voice calls out.

Donna’s head turns toward the voice, a small smile appearing on her face. She is a twenty six year old woman with straight, short black hair and dark skin. In her beige sweater with blue jeans and her favorite brown booties, she walks toward the counter at her favorite coffee place, a local one simply called Black. It’s a small store with a modern and cozy style, dark brown wood paneling seen on the floors, with barstools of a cool gray tone around matching small tables.

The cat eyed sunglasses on Donna’s head start to fall forward, but she catches them and pushes them back up and out of her face.

“Oh, by the way, I love those sunglasses!” The barista comments as Donna arrives at the counter. Donna smiles wider.

“Oh, thank you!” Donna replies sweetly, accepting her coffee. She quickly glanced down at the barista’s name tag displayed on her black apron. “Have a good day, Erin.”

Erin blushed for a brief moment. “Thanks, you too!” She says, before attending to her next order.

Donna walks down the front steps of the coffee shop out onto the moderately busy streets of New York. Taking a cautious sip of her fresh, hot coffee, she ends up burning her tongue and makes a face.

Ugh, idiot. She thinks to herself. She’s suddenly bumped by someone passing by her. She glares at them as they continue without a word, with a quickened pace. All she can see of the offender is a dark green peacoat with the hood up. A little black book falls from the person and drops on to the street, unbeknownst to them, as they continue to hurry down the street.

“Uh,” Donna says out loud, quietly, before gaining some confidence. “Hey!” She shouts out, in an attempt to get the stranger’s attention. Several others on the street turn their heads to look as well, but continue walking. No one seems to notice the fallen notebook. “Excuse me! You with the green coat!”

Donna jogs toward the notebook and picks it up, but once she stands, she can no longer see the stranger it seemed to have come from. She looks all around her to see if maybe they changed direction, but to no avail. Curious, she begins to open the notebook, but is interrupted by her buzzing phone. She closes the book and pulls her phone out of her pocket, seeing that her friend, Isaiah, had texted her. She sends a quick response, then walks toward the subway entrance down the street. Isaiah was on his way to Donna’s apartment, which Donna needed to finish getting ready for.

While she waits for the next train, she pulls out the little black notebook. Opening it, the first page is blank. She flips a few pages to find a single Hello written on it. She flips to the next page.

You’re probably wondering how you ended up finding me on a busy street…

The next line reads

I’d like to ask you a favor…

Donna looks up, then to her left and right to see if anyone appears to be watching her for a reaction, or if she sees the person with the green coat. No one is paying attention to her, and no matching green coat to be seen. Spooked, and slightly annoyed, she walks toward a trash can, holding the notebook over it.

She pauses, hearing the screeching of the train approaching, accompanied by the sound of the PA system announcing its arrival. Donna’s curiosity seems to come back to her, as she decides to hold on to the little black book. The train comes to a stop and she boards it, and she’s thankful to find a clean empty seat to sit on. She pulls her purse onto her lap, and as the train begins to lurch forward, she flips to the next page in the notebook.

Do a favor for a stranger. Tomorrow, go to your favorite coffee shop and pay for the next person in line.

She flipped the pages, but there was nothing more to it. She thought it was a little silly, overall. Looking around the train, she noticed a lighter than usual volume of people. From one person’s earbuds seeming to be playing too loud, she could hear metal music. The listener mindlessly scrolled their phone. There was a woman sitting on the seat across from her with a boy who appeared to be her young son, who was reading a book. She gently played with his hair, her other arm around his shoulders. He looked up at her and smiled before going back to his reading. Down the train was a man standing with his back against the doors, eyes closed and head tilted back slightly. His arms were crossed against his chest. He seemed tired.

She placed the little black book into her purse. Should I do the nice favor, as the mysterious book asked? She wondered about the person who dropped it, curious to know if there was a deeper meaning to this. Is it someone I know trying to play some game with me? Contemplating if there was anyone in her life who might do something like this, she looked out the window for the rest of the ride.

…...

“Oh, hey, Donna! Same as yesterday?” Erin, the same barista from before, says with a smile as Donna steps up to the order counter at Black.

She smiles back. “Yeah! Oh, and...” Donna briefly looks behind her to catch a glimpse at a blonde girl looking to be a similar age waiting in line after her. “I’ll pay for the person behind me as well.”

Erin’s face turns to surprise and then a smile as she nods. “Sure thing! That’s sweet of you.” Donna hands her credit card over and makes her way to the order pick up area after getting her card back. As her drink is being made by another barista, The blonde woman steps forward, and after ordering her drink, looks over toward Donna, smiling. A moment later, she walks toward her.

“Hey, thank you so much for that. I feel like we don’t see a lot of that kindness these days.” The blonde comments, then holds out her hand. She’s wearing a black biker jacket with interesting looking patches all over, and blue jeans with white sneakers. Small golden hoops dangle from her ears, as Donna sees when the blonde uses her other hand to push back her long curly hair. “My name is Amelie.”

Donna shakes her hand “Pleasure to meet you, I’m Donna.” Amelie has a wide, sweet smile and bright green eyes. Her eyebrows were impeccable.

“Well, Donna, if you’re not already busy, would you like to sit down together with our coffees?”

Donna smiles brightly and accepts. They have a pleasant conversation, talking about living in New York and their favorite places to eat in the city.

......

The next day, Donna finds herself starting to doze off at work, but is awoken from her almost sleep by the buzzing of her phone.

Text message from Isaiah:

So, did you pay it forward? Were they cute?? ;)

She looks back up to her laptop to see a notification for a new email had also arrived while she was dozing off.

Subject: New Deposit Received

With confusion and curiosity, Donna clicks on the email, looking for anything suspicious. However, she verifies that it is, indeed, her bank. When she quickly logs in to see what the amount is, her jaw drops.

Electronic Deposit “PIF”

$20,000

She sat there in silence for a long moment. After taking another look at her screen, verifying again that it was real, she took a few deep breaths even though her mind still raced. After a while, she heard a ding from her laptop, signalling another new email. She noticed the address had “PIF” in the beginning of it, matching the letters from the electronic deposit. She opened it and read.

Hello Donna,

We are a society called Pay It Forward (PIF). You came across a little black book a few days ago giving you instructions to do a kind deed. This was from our society, and we greatly appreciate you going out of your way to make it happen. You may be wondering how we knew about you receiving the book and paying it forward at Black. Our associate, Amelie, noticed you at the coffee shop last week, and selected you as the next recipient. She also let us know you met her and had a very pleasant conversation after buying her coffee. That day, the coffee shop had a pay it forward chain that lasted 35 customers!

You should also have noticed that you received a large deposit. Don’t be alarmed, this is being sent from us to you with no obligation or strings attached, as a way of saying thank you. We only ask that you consider joining our society to help spread kindness to the world. We also often do fundraisers for charity. You can learn more about that and much more about our society and how it works in the website link below.

Regardless of whether or not you decide to join us, we wish you kindness and thank you for making someone’s day.

Any questions you may have, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

She read the email over again, still paranoid it was a scam. However, the more she thought about it, the more she thought about the money. So much money, all without expectations. She had so many questions, including questions for herself, like if she really enjoyed the work she did, and if a society like this might be something that would change her life.

After contemplating for a while, she navigated to the “Pay It Forward” website on her phone and started reading more. As she read, she stood up, deciding to leave the office and head towards a nearby ice cream stand. As she started to jog towards it, the little black book fell out from her purse and quietly onto the street, unnoticed from Donna as she happily left.