Sea of Stars

Chapter Seven: Raillery

Spring 2011, 19 March, 0109

Life was like a toast sandwich, Rosemary surmised as she slipped Toast Sandwich's toast sandwich into the brown paper bag. It was utterly pointless, self-mocking and deceptive. She couldn't fathom why she held such a strong aversion to toast sandwiches, which presented themselves as a paradox to her mind.

"Order 6130." For some odd reason, Toast Sandwich always came in time to be given order number 6130. Anna had taken to calling him 6130, while Rosemary had internally dubbed him after the idiotic waste-of-time sandwich he ordered on the dot every 1.07 a.m.

"Hey." Anna nudged Rosemary to look at the guy. "Look."

Rosemary raised her gaze and saw Toast Sandwich looking around the interior of Waffles and Co. He was whistling some frustratingly cheerful song. She felt her insides harden with bitterness and she rang the call bell cacophonously. For once in a long, long while, Rosemary felt a distinct sense of anger. Anger at the world, anger at having to be on shift at freaking one a.m. while some daft idiot wasted precious money and her time by ordering something as stupid as three pieces of bread slapped on top of each other. Rosemary knew why he came to Waffles and Co. for his stupid sandwich. It was because Waffles and Co. was the cheapest around Maelstrom, and allowed orders as measly as a single piece of bread. Though she wasn't directly disadvantaged by this, she felt taken advantage of in some sense, like she needed to defend Waffles and Co. against the blundering fool who ordered toast sandwiches every. Single. Day.

As Toast Sandwich came up to the counter to receive his order, Rosemary fixed him with a withering glare and asked, trying to keep her tone cordial, "Excuse me. Why do you order toast sandwiches?" She didn't bother with a friendly forgive me for intruding, because who the hell would care about someone intruding on their personal space if they had the guts to order something as useless as a toast sandwich every day?

"Because they're a paradox, and I happen to like paradoxes. Also, they taste better than you think. Credit to you, of course, for buttering it so nicely." He took a bite of the toast sandwich in front of her eyes and chomped, as if to illustrate his point. Rosemary felt anger flare up in her - she didn't know exactly why, but watching him eat his toast sandwich so obliviously made her seethe with rage - and she waved him away, turning her back to him so she wouldn't have to see his stupid face devouring the dumb sandwich. She used all her energy to keep from rolling her eyes and instead busied herself with preparing the next order.

"Hey." Anna nudged her teasingly. "What did 6130 say to you, huh? Got your face all red like that." Curse her redhead genes, Rosemary thought, that caused her emotions to be written all over her face in the form of a bright red flush. If Anna thought she'd turned red because she was somehow smitten with Mr. Pointless Toast Sandwich, she was sorely mistaken.

"Don't be daft, Anastasia," she snorted, rolling her eyes at Anna. Anna kept her distance but smiled knowingly, irritating Rosemary to no end. If she wanted to think Rosemary had fallen head over heels for Idiot Toast Sandwich, then whatever. She had no say whatsoever and didn't want to waste an ounce of energy caring.

It was only after the third, fourth and fifth toast sandwich she had made that she began to question if Waffles and Co. was really the right place for her. The honeymoon period seemed to be waning, and the stress of working as a food preparer was slowly getting to her. Having very legally gotten her food preparation certification last year in the job before the convenience store, at least she hadn't been completely inexperienced, but preparing the orders in such a short period of time was really rather stressful. It didn't help that she froze up every single time someone ordered earl grey tea and cinnamon rolls, a combination popular in Waffles and Co. This was the very reason she had been hesitant to join Waffles and Co., besides knowing this was one of Violet's regular hangout spots.