Seven in One Lunch

One thing about living on the very edge of a tiny Midwestern town: the view.

Of course, I’d been more concerned with the view inside my room, where Bridget hadn’t let either of us put on a stitch of clothing all morning. “Don’t you feel a lot less uptight now?” she asked me in the afterglow of our third roll in the sheets, tickling my chest lightly.

“Who said I ever was uptight?” I asked.

“You didn’t have to say it.” She stood up and stretched. “The way you acted so shy all this time. Sorry, I had you pegged from the very beginning, Andrew. The typical white boy from the suburbs, all ‘respect women this and respect women that’, and you didn’t even know how to have any fun. That’s why I said no clothes until you have to go to work.”

“So glad you did,” I said, also standing up. “But I do have to go in pretty soon. At least it sounds like the rain has stopped.” I got up to raise the windowshade, and told her, “I don’t think anyone could see us from outside, you know…”

“I don’t care if they do, silly!” To prove the point, she sauntered up beside me and raised the shade herself.

“Oh, that’s beautiful!” I said as a dazzling double rainbow came into view. End to end across the cornfields, the outer one seemed to reach across the whole state as far as I could tell.

“Perfect natural ending to a wonderful natural morning,” Bridget said, putting an arm around my back.

I laughed. “And with that view, no one’s going to be checking us out, are they?”

Bridget pulled back. “Andrew, if this is going to work, you’re going to have to stop that, all right? I refuse to put up with any kind of puritanical oppression or squeamishness, and that means not being ashamed of my body. I don’t want you to be ashamed of yours either!”

“Well, of course,” I said. “I just meant, if we’re going to stand naked in the window…”

“It’s not naked, it’s nude.” Bridget stepped back up to gaze at the rainbow, heedless of any farmers who might happen by on the road. “I did my time in my right-wing Christian family, and I’m proud to be liberated, and I want the same joy for you, all right?”

“You’re giving me plenty of that,” I admitted with a fond last look at her before I turned my attention to getting dressed for work. “Maybe it’ll even get me through the afternoon with Janice. Maybe.”

“Is she the crazy religious lady?” Bridget flung herself back on the bed as she watched me pull my fast food uniform on.

“I’m afraid so,” I said. “You’d think someone so wrapped up in the joy of the love of Christ wouldn’t be so grumpy.”

“No you wouldn’t, if you were from around here,” Bridget said.

I kept that thought fresh in my mind as I walked the wet streets, now alive with dazzling sunshine, into town. Halfway through a fairly brutal summer – brutal except for Bridget, of course – I’d made my peace with most of the townies at the burger place. If they didn’t like me much because I was a college boy from the city, at least I’d shown them I knew how to hold up my end behind the counter, and they respected me.

Janice did not. I was still waiting for the first time I’d arrive at work to a kind word from her. I thought the rainbow might do the trick – who wouldn’t find it beautiful?

“I’m glad you changed your clothes at home this time,” Janice sniffed without a hello when I clocked in.

“Never meant to make you uncomfortable,” I said. My first weekend with Bridget, I’d been so hopped up on her happy exhibitionism I’d changed my shirt in the storeroom, out of sight of the dining room but not the rest of the staff. I was resigned to Janice never letting me forget that one.

“Well, you did. ‘Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!’”

“Did you see the rainbow after the rain stopped?” I asked, picking up my spray bottle to take my turns at cleaning the tables. The lunch rush would be in anytime now. “It was beautiful!”

“No,” she said. “Some of us have to work all day, you know. Speaking of which, I’m due for my lunchbreak. Can I trust you to handle the register while I eat?”

“Of course.” I paused in the doorway to the dining area. “Need any help with making your lunch?”

“Not from you, I don’t.” She gathered up three burgers, and drew out a basket of fries from the deep fryer to help herself to a batch in our largest order box.

There were still fries under the heating lamp. “Are these expired?” I asked. “I can get rid of them.”

“No, they’re not expired,” she said. “I just wanted fresh ones.”

“They are a lot better when they’re fresh, aren’t they?”

Even Janice couldn’t disagree with that.

I knew better than to remind her that we weren’t really supposed to take more than one burger for ourselves, or that she never finished her third one and sometimes didn’t even get through the second. At least I had time to sneak a few fries for myself when she turned her back to retreat to the storeroom.

I wasn’t alone up front for long. Dennis and Bobby and Kristene were all on duty at the registers, and Chris and Tammy arrived for back line just in time for the first burst of lunch customers. Some of them had seen the rainbow, but there was no time to talk about it once the orders started pouring in. I welcomed it. If you’re stuck in fast food, you might as well keep busy at it. And for the next hour and a half, I did.

“You on all afternoon with Janice?” Kristene asked me from the next register during a brief lull.

“I’m afraid so,” I said with a grin.

“I’m sorry.” And we enjoyed a quick laugh before a minivan full of summer school kids poured in the front door. Some of them knew Kristene, so I ended up taking the others’ orders while her friends chatted her up. I didn’t mind.

Janice did. “Kristene, this is not the social hour,” she called out from the back line.

“That’s right, kids,” said the man who’d come in with them. “Order and pay, and go have a seat.”

“Well, hello!” I turned to see Janice’s face finally lighting up, as she stepped up to the counter. “I didn’t know you were with them, Bill.”

“Got them all day,” Bill said. “Remedial algebra.”

“I could use that myself,” I joked.

Bill laughed. “You at the college, are you?”

“Yes, and there’s a reason why I’m an English major,” I said.

“Oh, shoot!” Kristene snapped. We all turned to see her clutching a $20 bill in her hand. “Sorry, I rang it up wrong. It’s $10.41 and they gave me a twenty, but I entered exact change by mistake. What’s the change?”

“Go get a calculator,” Janice ordered her.

“It’s $9.59,” I said.

“Thank you!” Kristene set about getting the change.

“It’d better be,” Janice huffed. “If her drawer is one dollar off, it’s coming out of your paycheck, Andrew. Do I make myself clear?”

“As always,” I said.

“Damn college kids think they know everything,” she grumbled. “You know the type, don’t you, Bill?”

“He’s right, it is $9.59,” Bill said, taking his tray.

“If you say so,” Janice said. “You off tonight?”

“Yes, but so is my wife.” Bill turned away hastily without another word.

As Janice stomped off back to her post, Kristene said, “Thanks, Andrew. Don’t mind her.”

“Just tell me one thing,” I said. “The reason why she wanted to know if he’s free after work…”

“Exactly what you think, that’s why he mentioned his wife. Mr. McKernan - Bill - lives on my block, and we see her car outside his house every weekend her husband’s on duty.”

I figured that explained Janice’s even worse disposition when the lunch team clocked out and it was just us for the afternoon. “I suppose you and that little harlot of yours are spending the weekend indoors all you can,” she grumbled as she tossed out the remnants of her lunch once the coast was clear. Sure enough, there was only one bite out of the third burger and nearly half the fries were left to get cold.

“Well, it did rain all morning,” I reminded her. “Besides, what did you do when you were young and in love?”

“It’s none of your business what I did!”

“And it’s none of your business if my girlfriend is a harlot.”

“Watch your mouth, unless you want to get written up! Look at me, Andrew!” Reluctantly, I did, and I saw tears in her eyes. “You know nothing about my past, do you understand? You don’t know a single thing about what I went without, and probably no one at that pricey college of yours with all your book learning ever can understand it! Do I make myself clear?”

“You’re the one who used that word, Janice, not me.”

“Oh, you little…and that reminds me, don’t ever correct me in front of a customer again, do you understand?”

“I didn’t correct you. You told Kristene to get a calculator, so I told you what the calculator would say.”

“Yes, and the silly fool would’ve never known if I’d told her to give a few dollars less. My electric bill is due this week, and you know what this job pays!”

“You thought you’d get away with that in front of a math teacher?”

“Bill would have let me get away with it. You don’t need to know why.”

Thanks to Kristene, I knew why. I turned the other cheek so she wouldn’t see me smile, and busied myself wiping the counter.

We didn’t get very many Black customers. Just then, we did get one, or rather five – a family from the look of it. As I smiled welcome at them, I heard Janice say, “You can make their lunch, Andrew.”

“You on break?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Nope.” She retreated to the chair just inside the storeroom door, and plopped down in it.

The Black family were a friendly bunch, with lots of small talk and questions about the menu. After they’d paid and I stepped over to the empty back line to make their sandwiches, the father asked me, “There a Greyhound station in town?”

“No station, but there’s a bus stop outside the bank on High Street,” I said.

“And how much does it cost to get on?”

“It’s $21.50 to Hager City,” I said. “Pick up’s at four thirty every day.” Bridget lived there, so I knew the price and the schedule by heart. “And you can get just about anywhere from there.”

“Thank you, my man,” he said.

Since I didn’t envy their waiting three hours for the bus, I slipped in an extra order of fries for free. Janice didn’t notice. She sat rooted to her chair until the family had retreated to the dining area.

“Clean up time back here,” she declared, taking no notice that I was already busy doing just that. When I said nothing, she began singing a tune I didn’t know. I joined in with my best harmony. I thought it sounded pretty good considering I didn’t know the song.

At least that got a laugh out of Janice. “You don’t know that song!” she squealed.

“Well, keep singing,” I said. “I’m sure I can pick it up.”

“I’m sure you can too, but you don’t know it. That’s not a rock and roll song.”

“I don’t only listen to rock.”

“What else do you listen to?”

“Folk, blues, some show tunes, a little jazz.”

“It’s none of those either. It’s a contemporary Christian song we learned at church last week.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help myself. I roared with laughter, loud enough for the family at lunch to take note, and I welcomed their attention.

“What’s so funny about going to church?” Janice demanded. “If you ever did, you might learn something!”

I shook my head in disbelief. “My thoughts exactly.”