Page 20 of Working for the Mob

“Wash up in the back room and join me behind the counter, ladies,” Jamie said, over the noise of the café. “I’ve got aprons hanging up.”

We each washed our hands, and chose between a couple aprons with brown stains that I hoped were coffee. We came back five minutes later to the busy café storefront.

“Lucy, do you want to take orders while I show Genevieve how to work the coffee machine?” Jamie asked us.

Me? Making coffee for the entire town? This became infinitely better than ‘wiping down tables.’

“Perfect,” Lucy said. “I’m much more of a people person than Genny anyhow.”

She clomped up to the register.

“Have you ever used one of these before?” Jamie asked me, and walked me up to a tall, chrome cylinder.

The contraption looked simple compared to the espresso machines in New York, but I had used neither. I shook my head ‘no.’ I expected him to sigh or complain, but he merely shrugged.

“Luckily, it’s easy. You just open the top, put in your filter, put in the grounds, and close the lid. Then you hit this button. Savvy?”

He pointed to a large ‘on’ button. I could do this all day. I still had one question.

“Where does the water go?” I asked him, and he pointed at a jug.

“You’ve got to fill it up and pour it in the back.”

I could definitely do this.

“After you’ve made a pot, start running orders for your sister, okay?” he asked and I nodded. “Great. Let’s get to it.”

???

After two hours of steady customers and non-stop coffee orders, I needed to sit down. My Oxfords rubbed at my toes and my back hurt in places that I didn’t know existed. Every time that I thought the line would die down, three more people walked in the door at once. There was no way this many people lived in Lannington.

I had a couple slip ups over the morning; one time Jamie asked me to re-brew one pot of coffee because I hadn’t used enough grounds in one of the batches and the coffee tasted too watery. Another time I brought a pastry to the wrong table. But besides that, I thought that I did an alright job. After I got the hang of it, it almost became fun.

Although I’d take one of Jamie’s cups of coffee happily, I made a mental note to buy my own beans and grinder. The generic stuff just didn’t cut it.

Lucy did not join in on the success. She struggled running the cash register and sometimes didn’t count the change from customers correctly.

Most customers were patient with her. Most people understand when it’s your first day. However, I stopped mid-pour on a cup of coffee when an exchange became particularly heated. Two middle aged ladies were putting in an order together at the register.

“That’s not it. I know how much a coffee and a croissant cost. I’ve been coming here for years,” a slim woman scolded Lucy. She was dressed in a plain tan shirt and matching skirt that hung to her shoes.

She had a hook nose and droopy eyes, making her look like she was staring down at Lucy, even though she was the same height.

“I totally understand. Once I get this register down I’ll––” Lucy started, but was interrupted.

“You’ll what? Be able to do basic math on a calculator?” the friend asked and cackled at the joke, like a witch.

The witch had a pinched face and squat legs. She wore an equally conservative skirt as her friend.

I clenched the coffee cup I was holding so tightly that I’m surprised it didn’t break in my hand. No one treated Lucy like this. She was harmless. It was like kicking a puppy.

I scanned the café for Jamie; he would be able to put a stop to the situation. But he must have been in the back.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else from the hussy who has to sleep with a man just to have a roof over her head,” the lanky woman said.

That was it! Lucy’s reputation as a discarded girlfriend must have finally caught up to her. But the women had no right to treat her like that.

“Excuse me,” I said, unloading my coffee cup on the counter with a clink and planting my hands down firmly. “I think it’d be better if the two of you took your orders to go.”

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