“It was really weird. Confusing, I guess,” I tell her, too nervous to simply say I don’t want to talk about it.
“In a way, I actually think it’d be pretty cool to have a clean slate, though. I wouldn’t mind being able to forget the majority of my high school years.” She laughs.
I clench my jaw and force a closed-lipped smile. “I’m just hoping to get back to some form of normalcy, honestly.”
“Well, I think that’s really brave of you. How are things going here on the register?” Kendra asks.
“I think I’ve got the hang of it,” I reply, feeling slightly proud of myself and also relieved not to be talking about the accident anymore.
“That’s great. It’s pretty slow now, so why don’t you switch with Cal for a bit so you can dip your toes back in.”
Cal lets out a dramatic sigh, clearly not thrilled to be giving up his designated post.
“Oh, some face-to-face with the public isn’t going to kill you, Cal.” She smiles.
“It just might,” he replies, slamming the hazelnut latte down on the pickup counter a little too aggressively.
“Okay, Stevie, let me show you a few things,” Kendra says, ignoring Cal’s attitude as he drags his feet toward the register. She directs me to the monstrous espresso machine, which looksa lotscarier up close. “You got those cards?” she asks, and I reach into my back pocket and pull out the laminated cheatsheets she gave me earlier with the different measurements of each ingredient for every drink on the menu.
She gives me a tutorial on all the knobs and levers, making sure I understand the order of operations. I watch her make the next drink and then she watches me make two, patiently guiding me in the right direction when I get lost.
“I’m going to let you do it on your own for a bit while I take some inventory in the back,” she tells me, and I look back at her with wide eyes. “Don’t be nervous, okay? Just getting you back to that normal routine you’re after.” She winks and then lowers her voice to a whisper so Cal doesn’t hear. “You’ve always been my hardest-working employee. Maybe now that you’re done with school wecanget you up to twenty hours finally. You got this down really quickly the first time around and we’ll both be here to help if you need it.”
“Okay,” I reply with a smile as she heads into the back and sends Cal a glare on her way by. I’m flattered by what she said, but it also leaves me with a question… if I wasn’t hanging out with Savannah and Rory and I wasn’t here: whatwasI doing with all my free time? Was I working somewhere else?
Pretty soon two teen girls come in and order vanilla iced coffees, forcing me to stop thinking about it.
Here we go.
I check my cheat sheet and scoop some ice into two clear plastic cups. But while I’m pumping the three squirts of vanilla in, another customer enters. And then another one.
Cups slide down the counter to me, stamped with Cal’s even more extreme shorthand. I squint, trying to read them as I set the first two on the pickup counter.
I grab the next cup and examine it closer.L2BS.What does that mean?Two lattes… latte with two… two what?
I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself to remember, butnothingcomes from my memory bank.
“What does L2BS mean?” I ask Cal as quietly as I can, but everyone still hears me. The place isn’t big by anyone’s standards.
“Latte with two pumps of brown sugar,” he says, without looking over at me. I didn’t even know brown sugar could be in liquid form.
I go back to my cheat sheet to make sure I’m getting the ratios correct. By the time I get the drink finished, though, there are four more cups lined up for me. And by the way he just picks at his nails when no one’s ordering, it’s clear that despite how gung ho he was before, Cal has no intention of helping me even though we have expectant customers waiting.
The next one is a simple Americano. No problem. Espresso and hot water.I can do this.
But after that the next plastic cup readsV ice blend.
Crap.
“Kendra never showed me how to use the blender,” I say, a sweat breaking out on my brow.
“You press blend and it blends,” Cal replies as yet another person steps up to the counter.What is up with this rush?
I take a deep breath, turn toward the back counter to figure it out myself, and get to work adding ingredients into the pitcher. It takes me a second to understand that you have to lower the outer shield, but when I do that, it finally starts up. When the ice and milk and vanilla powder are blended perfectlyinto a white puree, I dump it into the cup. A bunch of it sloshes onto the counter, but I still manage to fill it to almost the top.
I go to turn on the sink to wash my hands off andof coursethe spray bounces right off a cup and directly into my face.Fan-fucking-tastic.I towel myself off as best I can, but the top of my shirt is still soaked.
My heart just about stops when I turn around to see six more cups on the counter and impatient-looking customers lined up along the barrier separating us. I look back at the mess I made on the counter, which is now dripping onto the floor, but decide to leave it. I need to catch up first.
