FOAM

She liked the sound of her voice. She was calm quiet. Sort of hoarse, in a good way. She was happy with the way it carried an unintentional pitch in correlating constrictions of the larynx, which vibrated her palate and stimulated her pituitary gland. To her ears, at that moment, she would have said she “spoke saucily”. A ripple of excitement scrolled up her spine and sat beating behind her right lobe, as a warm wave flushed along the back of her arm, out to her fingertips.

“So that’s one sausage, egg and cheese muff-in…” She paused breathlessly before ejaculating her tongue to touch the ridge between her most medial incisors. “…'N’ Kay, that’ll be two-oh seven at the next window…” Her voice stopped. Dialogue paused.

Someone developed a franchise, where instead of the stressed hook being in the beginning of the menus items, as a prefix, put it at the end and made everything more ridiculous. Some thing’s were easy to get away with, like hamburger “N” Fries.
The last thing “N” Franchise employees were trained to say to a customer while processing an intercom order went “N, that’ll be all for you?”
The “N” was at the end of all the food items, it was meant as an automatic suggestive sell. Like you would say “I would like a Double, Hamburger “N” Fry “N” a large Orange Shake “N”. Though most people left off the final “N” to save face, for it was clearly the end of their order when they lowered their heads to rearrange the cards in their wallet. It was sub noted in training manuals that any sort of banter, colluding or sarcasm outside of “N that’ll be all for you?” was seriously frowned upon, regardless of how easy a target the person might have left themselves.

Sounds of a chugging engine and choking exhaust being belched from the rear end of the auto were muffled and demonic over the headsets as the car in the drive-thru advanced around the corner of Menu Sign and Enter Only, to window number one. It was a slow progression as the serpentine belt squealed from beneath the hood in front of the empty passenger’s seat. The carbon monoxide and burning oil was difficult to discern from the mid-morning fog lifting, until the vehicle was nearer to the transparent sliding unit that was -the first window.

Just beyond this apperception, taped to the other side of the glass, was the bottom of a Styrofoam cup that had been severed from the greater rest of the portion affixed to face customers reading “We Accept Tips”. Beyond the informative decoration was a kid balling his hand in a fist up by his head. He is looking down examining the back of his arm and elbow skin but looked up when the clunker pulled into view. Neither driver nor window man, moved their bodies. An odd moment occurred as the two stared at one another, as if both expected the other to do something first. As the seconds ticked by and eyebrows fell into boredom, the kid beyond the window dropped his head once again, redirecting his attention to pick at the skin on his arm. The jalopy advanced towards the next window.

As she listened through the chunky plastic box over her right ear, to the sounds of some guy, who she clearly said “muff” to, coming at her in his hoopty hot rod, she couldn't help getting a little wet.

She really hated the morning shift. It was always cold standing on the tile by the order window. She wore the company jacket, but because she had a cash-register and till to manage, there were no company gloves. The only other thing she could really do on her shift, while crammed in a tiny corner, was operate the beverage machine. It was a huge metal ice box, stainless steel piece of crap that sat on the only counter space in her nook. This was meant to be the quick solution for the multi-tasking automated soda machine operator, her job was to place the desired sized container into the fore-finger-thumb tongs and push a button and when the liquid receptacle was filled the machine would shut off. It hadn’t failed yet, with its laser eye, stopping fill at the right time, but the tongs that held the rolled wax covered cardboard into place were too tight for the thin sides. So, every beverage removed had a bit of a squeeze, lid or no lid, she couldn’t help getting a little wet.

Now usually in the morning you would think coffee or orange juice. Most people still ordered a giant soda. Or an extra-large, it was forty ounces, but nobody asked for a “forty-ounce beverage of orange flavor”.

The cups occupied the overhead space. If it was a full sleeve, Miranda had to be wary of bopping her head or knocking off the clumsy heavy headset when she turned to get an order to hand out the window. The sleeves were delivered to the store in giant boxes. Those were kept on big shelves in a closet room beyond the front counters, beyond station one and the kitchen, prep and dishes. It was in the very back of the store. Each box contained twelve plastic sleeves of cups. Each sleeve contained enough cups that when stacked one inside another, turned horizontally and stuck on top the beverage machine of the future, Miranda would hit her head or knock off her headset.

As the window closed, sending a gush of morning chill across her collar, the morning manager stepped away from her position of stuffing wax paper wrapped orders from a heated chute into a paper bag with a receipt, and walked out the side door.
The headsets fuzzed and the new guy in window one could be heard, “Need more straws for window one, Vickie, we need more straws back here for one, are you there?” Pause. “Miranda, I don’t think, Vickie is on headset.”

Miranda was warming her skin beneath the heat lamps, watching a receipt turn black as it flicked on the metal chute. She walked to the window. There was the junker, cozied up to five-by-four frame and split in the head by a center bar, marking the division, which warranted the separation for sliding action, rendering this –window two. Miranda looked beyond the customer and car with its gaseous cloud. She watched outside as Vickie was gesturing beneath a tree in the slick grassy median of the sidewalk and parking lot, talking to her baby daddy. Then slowly she rotated her head to stare dead on into the customers eyes.

He was a young guy, handsome, good skin, probably a college graduate and seemingly completely unaware that his vehicle is a complete piece of shit. He smiled, closed lipped over a sucker stick and narrowed his lids. He was wearing a plain white V-neck T-shirt and a pair of sunglasses on his head.

Miranda was warmer as she opened the window this time. She leaned forward against the bar and the glass perception shushed back, letting in the heinous smell of exhaust and burning oil. Miranda nearly died. She forgot this was the customer she had deliberately said “muff” to, as she angled backward with her tongue hanging out, coughing, gagging, she remembered. Half-way out the window she could hear, both over her headset and from the order box, Derek, the new guy from window one, “Miranda, when you get a chance to run some straws to one?”

The guy in the white V-neck watched Miranda’s eyes fill with water as they looked beyond him, now avoiding direct contact with his. They were two red little globes, roving to focus on the couple beneath the tree. Quickly he raised his arm to hand her a ten dollar bill, nearly shoving it in her navel. He could see her rib line and tone beneath a thin white thermal and polo work shirt. He said the first thing that came to him. “What time do you start serving lunch?”

Miranda knew she had lost the sexy rasp in her voice. She cleared her throat to say “eleven” but found it difficult to inspire even a negligible amount of air into her lungs. So she just smiled and pointed to a sign "Lunch at Eleven" on the window, as she closed it to keep smoke from getting inside while continuing to hack. She decided that she would give him his change when his order was ready.

Moving away from the window Miranda conked her head on the medium cups jutting from above the metal beverage machine and knocked her chunky headset from her ear. “Straws,” she remembers and regains her composure. “Fuck it. There is no difference for me or him to get them, he probably just forgot where they are and needs to be shown or he is just being lazy.” She doesn’t say anything. As she bends down to pick up her headset the guy from window one comes on to say something. “Hey, Miranda…”

As she is adjusting her position and microphone back into place, “Yeah I know Derek about your straws.” She tilts her head up and looks back out the drive-thru window beneath the tree. She sees Vickie holding her temples and looking down. She was pacing or walking in mini circles. “I’ve deliberated with the greater syndicate and we believe that the distance between the two windows is of equal proportions, thus you should be responsible for obtaining your own stock of individually wrapped plastic drinking devices.”

“But I don’t remember where they are.” Derek was below mellow. He was dead pan, but still needed to draw in a large breath before continuing. “Hey that’s a pretty HOTT muff ‘N’ your giving that guy.”

Miranda had said what she needed and wasn’t listening to respond. She watched the couple beneath the bare tree argue, the wet grass glisten and the fog lift from the wood. She shuddered and moved closer to station one, where she would wait for the order to be dropped and warm herself again under the lamps.

“So what about tonight after work? Do you want to do something then?” Derek had somehow gone from antagonizing her to asking her out on a date.

Miranda was leaning on the warm metal counter with her occiput on the chute. She responded with a long and ponderous mMm? Which she hummed and tickled her nose. The sound grew into and “N” like she might just say M&M’s which would be better than
“No”, however, not quite as bad as the sound that emitted from her mouth, following a complete 180 rotation of her body from the counter, as she grew louder with a half yawn and a squeal that sounded like the approving satisfaction from post coitus finale, mixed with the franchise “N” hook. It went; mMm..nnn…no…nigh-ee…no…nnnommm.

The order came down a long metal chute lit with light bulbs. It was wrapped in wax paper and tagged with a sticker “SEC”. The girl pauses and thought about how she always thinks about a “sec” being a “second” and how every time she thinks of it she has lost a second of her life and would sometimes tally the hours she has devoted to the abbreviation of second. She thought of the hours burned, searing those letters into her memory, she thought of the books she could have read for every time she looked at that word, the education she could have by now.

She puts the sandwich in a bag and notes the recycle sticker and then thinks of how many bags she has shoved out this very window. She hands the bag to the man in the stinky car.

“Um, my change..."

"Oh yeah, hold on." She closes the window again and opens it with bills and some change.

“I was going to order a coffee before you closed the window the first time. The guy in the back told me not to order drinks because he had no straws or something…? Would it be possible to get one now?”

“Um, sure.” She turns and looks at the burnt pot that Vickie was going to change before her boy showed up. “Turns out there’s no fresh coffee. If you do not mind waiting another few minutes I can make it fresh for you.” She smiles, but only because she knows she is supposed to. He nods in approval.

“You could pull your car off to the side and someone will bring it out to you.” She closes the window.