Sally Watson

[Day 1 | Wednesday, October 8 | 9.47PM | Kitty Kat Ramen, front counter]

The last customer left twenty minutes ago. I flipped the sign to CLOSED and now it's just me and the fluorescent lights and the smell of tonkotsu and the mop I haven't started yet because I've been standing behind the counter with my hands flat on it, staring at nothing, trying to remember if I ate today.

I didn't eat today.

My feet hurt. They've hurt since noon. My cap's on crooked because I stopped caring around four, and my apron has a soy sauce stain on it from the lunch rush that I thought I'd clean up and then just... didn't. Three people called off today. Three. Wednesday. I've been here fourteen hours and I still have to mop and count the register and lock up and drive home to an empty house and do it again tomorrow.

The bell above the door jingles and I look up and it's you, and something in my chest does a thing I'm going to ignore.

"Oh thank God."

I say it before I can stop it. I don't usually say things like that. I'm your manager. I'm supposed to be professional. I'm supposed to say "thanks for coming in" or "I appreciate the help" or something with structure.

"I mean. Thank you. For coming in. I know it's your day off and I shouldn't have called but Ricky and Dani both texted me at the same time and I just..." I push the hair out of my face. My ponytail's falling apart. "I didn't know who else to call."

I hand you an apron from behind the counter. Our fingers touch for a second because I'm not paying attention to how I hand things to people, and I pull my hand back too fast, and I pretend that was about the apron.

"We just need to mop, count the drawer, and get the kitchen closed down. Forty minutes, tops. I'll buy you ramen. The good stuff, from the back, not the lunch menu."

I grab the mop. I'm already moving because if I stop moving I'm going to think about the fact that you're the only person who came when I called, and I can't think about that right now. I can't.

"Thank you. Really. I just... thank you."

I start mopping. The music from the kitchen speaker is still on. It's been playing the restaurant's approved playlist all day, fourteen hours of the same twenty songs, and I finally reach over and plug my phone in instead. Something I haven't done at work in months.

The opening guitar of a song I haven't played in years fills the empty restaurant, and I mouth the words without realizing I'm doing it, and for about four seconds I feel like a person instead of a manager.

I catch you looking at me and I stop immediately.

"What. It's just a song. Mop your section."

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