Page 4 of Cream & Sugar
I turn to greet the next person in the queue and recognise her immediately. She’s a regular. She’ll want a soy cappuccino, extra hot. I mime her order to her and she nods with a sympathetic grimace. Behind her, half a dozen zombies glare impatiently, ready to rip me apart if they don’t get their morning caffeine fix soon.
I duck behind the counter and forage for soy milk in the fridge.
“Kyle, unless you’re sick, you can’t just not come in.”
“Yeah, no, I know,” Kyle drawls. “But remember that audition I had last week? Well, turns out I got it, and they want me to start rehearsals straight away, so…”
I grit my teeth. “So what?”
“So, uh, I guess I quit?”
Like the grim reaper, I rise up from the floor, anger boiling inside me. Slamming the carton down, I rip the cap off the soy milk, spraying my face with droplets in the process. In my head, a dull ache pulses.
Breathe in, breathe out.
“You need to give two weeks' notice, Kyle. It’s in your contract.” I pour the soy into a jug and fire up the steamer.
“Yeah, sure.” There isn’t even a hint of remorse in his voice. “It’s just, like, a really big opportunity. Panto is really in right now and they want me to play Jack. That’s like themainpart. I can’t really say no to them, can I? Not for a café job.”
I’m so mad I could ram my steaming wand right up Kyle’s beanstalk. I should tell him to jog on, but I’ve got an audience of potential TripAdvisor trolls in front of me, so I’m forced to bite my tongue.
“I suppose not,” I say, heating the soy milk to within an inch of its life.
“Thanks Shaun, I knew you’d understand.” I’m about to tell Kyle that he isn’t giving me much choice, but he cuts me off. “Oh, one more thing. I’m moving to Glasgow to be closer to rehearsals. Can you give me a reference for my landlord?”
The steam wand starts to scream and I hastily remove it from the scalding milk jug.Piss off, Kyleis what I want to say. “No problemo,” is what I settle for.
“Cheers Shaun, you’re the best. Listen, I’ve got to run, but good luck with the whole café thing.”
His condescension crackles through the phone line, leaving my temper simmering. I’m being talked down to by a nineteen-year-old.
“Break a leg,” I say, entirely in the literal sense, before hanging up the phone and pouring out the soy cappuccino. It’s only once I’ve handed it to the lady and she’s walked off, that I realise I forgot to put any espresso in the cup. Bollocks! That’ll be another disappointed customer. If I was working in Starbucks, it wouldn’t matter so much. They have enough footfall to make up for the odd bit of poor service. But word travels fast in a small town and there are plenty of other places in West Marbank she can go to get her coffee. Or, in this case, her cup of boiling soy milk.
I close my eyes, indulging in a split second of rest before I have to serve the next customer.
Stupid Kyle. Stupid actors! I can’t believe he just quit without notice. After the amount of shifts I covered so he could go to all those auditions! This is the price I pay for my generosity.
The prospect of working another full day alone rises like a mountain in front of me.
So many blogs warned me against hiring too many creative types.You’ll spend half your time covering their shifts for auditions then they’ll up and leave the second they find other work.I thought I was safe with Kyle. After seeing him hamfist his way throughDeath ofa Salesmanat the West Marbank community theatre a few weeks back, I didn’t hold much hope for him making it in “the biz.” Guess he’s proven me wrong.
I could call Anna, my keyholder, to cover the afternoon, but she’s been working almost as hard as me lately and has a five-year-old to look after. I swore I’d never be the kind of boss who begs or guilt-trips his staff to come to work, especially not on a Saturday they’d specifically booked off to be with their kid.
Right now, that’s a hard promise to keep.
The bell above the door jingles again. This time a gaggle of ladies peer inside, see the size of the queue and promptly do an about turn and leave. At the same time, someone mutters something about “crap service” and abandons their place in line, storming out the door behind them. From the kitchen behind me, the oven beeps, telling me the brownies I put in twenty minutes ago are ready to be taken out. So much to do.
A lump forms in my throat but I take the next two orders and start making them simultaneously, keenly aware my heart is pinballing around my chest. Try though they might, my lungs don’t seem to be getting enough air.
No. No no no.
I feel it coming. The urge to run, to lock myself in the office, turn off the lights, and hide. My hands tremble as I steam the next jug of milk.
I remind myself to keep breathing, to focus on each breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the—
The sting of heat burns my fingers as the jug grows too hot to touch. Shit! I turn off the steam and examine the clouds of dry milk foam I’ve concocted.
Come on, Shaun. Concentrate, or you’ll never have another customer again.
