Java Joes

[lee]

(continued from "It can't already be halfway through July" Rogue's Place)

Late for work after writing the note to Lars, Lee unlocked the door and strode in, the little bell above her tinkling softly, and locked the door again behind her. One of the college dropouts, a girl named Penny, looked out of the back room and smiled, then seemed to freeze and turned the smile into a frown.

"What are you doing here, Lee?"

"Opening up," Lee replied with a short laugh. God the college kids were weird - even weirder than the high schoolers. She made her way behind the bar and swept past the girl to get to the time clock.

"But you have the day off."

"Huh? But isn't it the 18th?" Lee looked at the calendar to make sure she had seen the correct newspaper that morning. It was the eighteenth. What was Penny talking about?

"Yeah," the other girl said haughtily, "its the eighteenth, your day off. Look, it's right here on the schedual." She pointed at the sheet of paper that was taped to the wall next to the calendar.

Lee leaned in and blinked twice; Penny was right, her name was no where on the schedual for today. "But I always open on tuesdays," she said, puzzled.

"Not this tuesday. You want some coffee?" Penny tugged an apron over her head and tied the straps behind her back.

"Yeah, I guess so." Lee was still looking at the schedual. That was really weird; she could have sworn she was opening today. And not only that, but they had cut her hours for the week too! Damn, she knew the manager had been pissed at all the free coffee she'd been giving out to the residents of Rogue's Place. "Give me a danish too, I'm going to go turn the computers on."

At least she would get breakfast and check her email.

[airlock]

It was about two hours later that a very sheepish Lars wandered in through the doors. He'd been prised off the kitchen table by a couple of the other household members and he'd almost died of shame when he'd read Lee's note.

However, he'd then spent a productive half hour sorting out the car problem, which turned out to be nothing more dramatic than a flat battery, which he put on charge. After thirty minutes, the car started without any problems whatsoever and he headed down to Java Joe's.

When he arrived, Lee wasn't around. He figured, not knowing she actually had the day off that she was out back somewhere, so he ordered himself an espresso and a Danish (although he asked for a pastry, his inherent Scandinavian competitiveness kicking in) and settled down in front of one of the computers to see if he had any email.

His boss, after the initial anger, had agreed to redirect his mail for a while until he'd passed on his new email to everyone important. It was with some excitement, therefore, that he opened the email from Moira McTaggert.

The excitement died down abruptly as he read his way through her bad news and by the end, he was practically face down in the keyboard.

"Great," he muttered, and for a brief moment, the young man sitting at the computer terminal next to him felt as though the room was a lot more oppressive than it had been before. "Just what I needed to hear."