I didn't expect to hear back from that coffee shop application so quickly, but as soon as last Wednesday rolled around, I had an email asking me to join a virtual interview the same day.
Of course, I was shitting bricks just thinking about having to interview for a job, but I did everything in my power to seem as confident and competent as possible. And I guess I did a good job, considering they emailed me back the next day with a full job offer.
After I completed the hour of online training the same day, as well as finishing the Food Handlers course to acquire my certificate, I was finally ready to start working—and only after two days of applying. So now, not even a full week later, I'm waking up for my first day on the job. If only everything could be this easy.
Except now I'm starting to regret it since the only shifts I can really work are the ones before my late morning classes, which means I'll be spending the next year at Barington waking up at four o'clock in the morning every day. Hopefully the satisfaction, or at least toleration, from my mother will make it all worth it.
After spending thirty minutes making sure I don't look completely dead inside, despite only getting four hours of sleep, I quickly get to the coffee shop just ten minutes before five AM, where the door to get inside is locked.
I try peeking through the window to see if anyone is inside but my line of sight is incredibly limited. I try knocking on the door instead, where I thank a god I don't believe in when I hear footsteps approaching. But when the door opens to let me in, my smile falters as I see who's on the other side.
"Hey, new girl," she says with that charming, devilish smirk. Sasha. "Come on in."
She opens the door wider and steps to the side, allowing me to pass by her and into the comfort of the coffee shop. I expect to instantly smell the alluring aroma of fresh coffee beans and brewing espresso, but the scent is so light it's almost nonexistent. All of the lights aren't even on and the tables still look used from last night. My aesthetic barista dreams are crushed as soon as the idea of this picture perfect café exposes the reality that it's just another workplace.
"Welcome to your first day on the job," Sasha says behind me, reminding me that she's also here. I turn to look at her, still not believing that she, of all people, is my boss. And the only reason I know that is because of the big, bolded "Assistant Manager" typed right above her name on her metal name tag.
I'm not sure why I dislike her so much, especially since our only interactions thus far have literally been compliments to each other, but something about her rubs me the wrong way. The way Cara described her yesterday just gives me bad vibes and I am more than certain that I absolutely cannot trust her.
"Have we met before?" Sasha suddenly asks me, and I freeze as if she's caught me thinking about her. I consider telling her the truth but then I decide it's better to just shake my head.
"Well, I'm Sasha," she introduces herself confidently, reaching out to shake my hand. "You're Aspen, right?"
I take her hand, not wanting to be impolite. "Yeah." We shake hands and I pull away, yet she leaves her fingertips lingering on mine for just a second too long and it takes everything in me not to yank it away completely. It's weird but I choose not to overthink it, and instead focus on what she's trying to explain to me.
"Cool. Well let me just give you a quick tour around the place," she says, opening a bar gate near the wall and allowing me to pass by her first, quickly following after me. "This is the bar back here—the coffee kind, not the fun kind."
I can tell she's trying to be charming so I give her a pity chuckle but I've heard far better jokes than that, even in my friend group my freshman year of high school.
"Over here," she gestures to the registers across from the coffee bar, "is where you'll be taking orders. The POS system is super easy, I'll go over that with you in a minute."
She then leads me down a short, cramped walkway stacked with a couple of blenders and different plastic containers labeled with a few different tea and flavor options. Everything is placed conveniently and the small size makes the shop easy to navigate.
"This is what we call the backroom," Sasha leads me through the Employees Only door to reveal a small room with a huge double sink, mountains of product and a big metal door that I'm assuming leads to a fridge or freezer of some sort. It's about as clean as you would expect it to be but as far as I can tell, everything is looking perfectly sanitary. Thank God.
"There's a closet in the corner will all of the cleaning supplies and then all of our back-stocked product is kept in the opposite corner," she explains tediously, completely consumed by her knowledge. "The fridge has all of the milks and sandwiches in it, and then next to the bar out there we have a pantry with our pastries."
I follow her back out to the front where she starts teaching me how to work the register, which I surprisingly catch onto quite quickly. Most of it is self explanatory and if I have any questions, I can always ask someone around me, so I don't worry about messing up at all.
Then Sasha teaches me how to pull a good espresso shot, which takes me a couple of tries but I get it eventually. She quickly goes over some of the teas and lemonades with me until she informs me I'll mostly be on the register unless we have more than two people working at a time.
"Is two the average amount?" I ask out of curiosity, and possibly even incredulity. That just doesn't seem like a lot.
But she just shrugs. "I mean, including you, we're down to only five employees now, so two is almost half the entire roster."
"Five employees? Should I be worried?"
"Nah, they only left because they graduated and moved away. Working here isn't bad at all," she says, cleaning off the dining tables outside the counter. "Only during finals week when everyone's cranky and needs coffee to survive. Speaking from experience."
Okay, that was kind of funny, I guess. Maybe we'd be friends if I didn't feel so skeptical of her every five minutes.
"So you're a freshman, right?" she asks me from across the room. I nod and she smirks sneakily.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing, it's just," she pauses as if she's trying to find the right words to say, "you seem so mature."
"You hardly know me," I accidentally let slip out. Or maybe it wasn't accidental.
She snickers. "No, I guess I don't. Not yet," she says, looking up to make direct eye contact with me as she smiles my way. Is she flirting with me? Or just being friendly?
I turn my attention away from her and grab a spare apron and visor from the back as my job offer email instructed. They're both a simple black color so it's not atrocious to look at, and I can make the apron work for me but the visor is a nightmare to pair with my braids. Speaking of, I should probably take those out soon.
It only takes a few more minutes until the clock hits six AM and the store is officially open, but nobody comes in for an entire hour. Then, when someone finally does waltz in, Sasha asks me to take care of the customer all on my own—take the order, make the order, and serve the order by myself.
"Um, hi," I try to say as confidently as possible, but I always forget how awkward it feels to be starting a new job. "What can I get for you?"
The customer, an older woman with deep ginger hair, almost copper, places a finger on her chin and taps it twice before saying, "I'll take a small americano."
"Hot or iced?" I ask.
"Hot, please." She smiles politely so I smile back and let her know it'll be three dollars and fifty-eight cents. A little on pricier side for a shot of espresso and some hot water but I don't control the prices.
As soon as I give her the change back from her five dollar bill, I turn around to start making the drink at the bar but I almost instantly get confused.
I pull the shot correctly, I think, and I get the right size cup out, but when I fill the cup with hot water, it's almost unbearable to touch without a sleeve.
"Hey, Sasha," I call out for Miss Assistant Manager, "Am I doing something wrong?"
Sasha takes her time coming over to me and giggles when she sees me making the drink, which absolutely pisses me off. Why laugh at me when I'm clearly trying my best?
"You have to double cup the americanos and the teas," she explains to me, grabbing another small cup from the stack and sliding next to me. Instead of just taking the cup from my hand to put the other one over it, she gestures me to bring the cup to her instead and stack mine into it. When I slide the full cup in, her fingers graze against mine, and the same thing happens when we both reach for a lid and end up putting it on together.
Okay, she is definitely flirting with me.
I quickly hand the double-cupped drink to the customer and give the bar a quick wipe down as I wait the next guest, but I can't stop thinking about Sasha flirting with me when she's actively asking Cara out on dates. I know they're not exclusive or anything, and from the looks of it, Cara's not even fully sure that she's all that into Sasha, but it's clear from today that Sasha just likes to flirt. She's a player, and I'm not sure that Cara knows that.
And speaking from experience, dating a player is the worst thing anyone can do to their self esteem. Things will only end badly, and as much as Cara gets on my nerves sometimes, that's not something I would wish upon anyone.
The next few hours are filled with moderately kind customers and only a few messed up drinks, which is really quite impressive for this only being my first day. Then the clock hits half past eight in the morning and I am practically begging Sasha to take my fifteen minute break.
"Oh, yeah, please go take it," she says honestly in response, so I take the opportunity before it leaves me.
I rip my apron off and hang it back up on the wall before grabbing my phone out of my back pocket and rushing to the bathroom. I send a quick text to my dad to let him know how I'm doing at work and then I pee as quickly as possible to make sure I can check that my discussion post was graded. Thankfully, I received full points, which I was praying for since I worked my ass off to reply to two other students with more than 150 words.
I spend another few minutes just relaxing on a couch in the student union until I only have a couple minutes left of my break, so I get up to start heading back. But when I leave the door, of course I run into the one person I've been avoiding as much as humanly possible.
"Aspen, hey!" Theo says with a wide smile, but this one has so much awkward energy behind it as opposed to his usual, genuine grins.
"Oh, um, hey Theo," I say quickly, trying to get the greeting over with.
But he persists. "Hey, can we please talk?"
"Sorry, I have to get back to work," I almost interrupt him, cutting off only the last consonant of his sentence. I push past the glass door that leads back into the coffee shop and practically run back behind the counter to throw my apron back on.
I know it's pathetic to be avoiding Theo like this but what else am I supposed to do? I was trying to kiss him when he didn't even think we were on a date. Everything was strictly platonic to him and yet here I was, convincing myself we were gonna hook up just once so that I could get over Juli and feel better about myself. How do I even recover from that?
I know we'll have to talk eventually, especially since we literally share a class together, but I will be avoiding him as much as possible until then, and then more so when that class begins.
And someone else I'll be avoiding for the time being, for a completely different reason? Sasha.