“Grande Strawberry-Banana Vivanno!” Sydney called, anxiety breaking into her voice. I grabbed the sharpie and marked one of the plastic cups that would have to wait its fill like the others in the little cup line before me. I could only move so fast. The only other person on duty tonight was Robert Truman, who was essentially useless in a coffee shop – 23 years old and clutzier than anyone I’d ever met. We had at least 4 spills each shift he was on. Sydney tried putting him on the register once, but as it turned out, in order to correctly count change, he needed twice the time of a normal worker, given that a vast majority of the change would end up on the floor. After that, she put him in charge of making simple teas and coffees. All of the fancy stuff was left up to me.  “Robbie, help Spencer” She called to a confused looking Robert. Oh, great. I thought. With his clumsy hands, he began to work at my direction.

            Though there were two of us now, drinks were getting processed no faster. The fact that I had to keep a peeled eye for falling cups was not something that helped my production rate.

            “Excuse me, I’m sorry, but is my White Hot Chocolate coming up? I’ve been waiting for almost ten minutes.” I didn’t look up to greet the source of the irritating voice. The very same voice I’d heard order what couldn’t be more than four minutes ago.

            “We’re going as fast as we can, your drink will be ready momentarily.” I said, pushing aside other cups that were in line first to retrieve the annoying woman’s cup.

            All of the noises of the Starbucks had settled into a noisy and discordant song – though ugly and obnoxious, I was used to it and I wasn’t distracted by particular sounds or voices. Robbie still struggled alongside me, but we had relaxed into somewhat of a rhythm. Well, that is until about 8:13.

            A great number of things happened at once.

            “Good evening, could I get a grande three pump caramel white mocha?” If it weren’t for the fact that the voice was velvety, I would have been annoyed at such a particular order. Being as it was, though, the voice was as if made of velvet, and one I knew very well.

            “Ash?” I looked up from my furiously working hands and caught her eye. Simultaneously, in the instant I looked away, an iced drink became unbalanced in Robbie’s hands, and in an effort to save the drink, it ended up all over me and the floor. “Shit!” I hissed. One look at Robbie’s wide and nervous eyes calmed me, though. “No, it’s okay, really. Just be careful, okay?” I said in as soft a voice as I could muster. Meanwhile, Sydney took down Ashley’s order.

            I was wiping myself off when I heard her again, this time from the area where people waited.

            “Spence, I had no idea you worked at Starbucks!”

            “Yeah” I mumbled, wishing I could pay her more attention. Unfortunately, the crowd wasn’t thinning quite yet.

            “Oh, I’m sorry if I made things awkward last night – I really didn’t mean to.”

            “It’s fine.” I wished I could go further into it without slowing down. In this instant, I resented Starbucks, and the entire coffee industry for forcing my focus away from her.

            “You seem ticked.” She said, just as another full cup fell and added another sticky layer to the floor. I groaned very loud internally, as Robbie whispered his frantic apologies.