Tim got back up. “We’re gonna need that,” he said, taking the last pot off the burner, loading up some cups and moving them to the table. “Take a break, Dag,” he added. “Let’s have a coffee and a chat.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we have closing to do,” Dag said, suddenly wary. “I just want to get this done and get out of here for the night. Unlike the rest of you, I have a life.”
“Now, see, that’s the part the rest of us have trouble believing,” Tim said. “Because you’re the one that’s here all the time.” Oh, god. Heathen didn’t like the way this was starting.
“It’s not my fault you all want to unload shifts—” Dag started. Then he looked like he got it. Tim’s comment was an intentional dig, not an idle observation. “Okay.” Dag stopped working and folded his arms. He eyed them all from behind the bar. “What the hell are you on about? And what are all of you doing here?” Ginette had slipped in, too. Only Maria from the staff roster wasn’t there, nor Mohammed, who, Heathen knew, wouldn’t be in the loop on this.
Heathen slipped out from behind the counter. She poured herself a big coffee and started gulping at it, for fortification, sort of off to the side, not in either camp. It was all feeling very much like a standoff: Dag against everybody else. It made her think of old westerns, like somebody was going to start slapping leather soon.
“You shouldn’t work so hard,” Derek said. It sounded like he was trying to sound friendly, without actually accomplishing the “sounding friendly” part.
“If you’re trying to sound like my mother,” Dag said, “you’re not even close. My mother believes in hard work.”
“We mean it,” Tim said. “You’re making the rest of us look bad.”
Dag would have heard variations on this before at various times from all of them, Heathen included. It was usually said as a bit of a joke. But nobody was smiling tonight. “Christ, you’re serious?” he said.
“You’re such a keener,” Ashley said. “Super-efficient Dag, super-productive Dag, the ultimate BlackArts employee. You make all the drinks better than everybody. You make them all faster than everybody.”
“You do a better job cleaning than everybody,” KateLynn chimed in and threw the rag back at him, none too gently. “Now Mohammed expects it from the rest of us. ‘Dag can do it,’ she imitated Mohammed’s accent, ‘why can’t you?’”
“Yeah,” Derek chimed in. “Nobody else can keep up. You’re like, Mr. Perfect. You gotta stop, man.” The others all nodded and chorused agreement.
“What is this, some kind of fucking intervention?” Dag said. The silence that met this question spoke volumes. “Jesus!” he said. “Are you for real? You assholes actually all came in on your off time to gang up on me and tell me off for doing my job? Like I ever get on any of your cases for not?”
He pinned Heathen with a bad look. “Are you in on this, too? You knew this was coming down? Is that why you were stalling on the cleaning?” He sounded seriously betrayed.
“Hey, I just clean slow,” she said, feeling defensive. “But they’ve got a bit of a point,” she added, hoping she could soften the whole tone in the room. “It’s not like we’re a total bunch of slackoffs. This was a pretty good staff even before you turned up.”
“And it’s not just that you came in and became the boss’s wet dream,” KateLynn said. “But then you also do all this extra shit for the customers, too. I mean, favourite mugs, for god’s sake? Now we all have to do it. Did you ever think that maybe the rest of us don’t want to?”
“Yeah,” Ashley said. “It wouldn’t kill you to think of other people. We don’t want to look bad.”
Oh, man, Heathen cringed inside. Ashley shouldn’t try to go there.
“You’re making yourselves look bad,” Dag said, “and maybe you should think of other people. Like, the customers? Maybe they’d like to have their lattes done right the first time, Ashley. Or be given the proper change, Tim. It’s not fucking rocket science,” he said. “It’s not that hard to do this job right.”
“Well, it’s not fun coming in for a shift, and all the customers are just asking for you,” Derek said. “Then they act all grumpy and bummed out when you’re not here, putting on your usual floor show. You do more than you have to for the job. I mean, you do everything but juggle for them.”
“Yeah, we have to keep a certain dignity and distance from the customers here,” Tim said. “I mean, what’s it going to be next, a fuck with every cup?” He laughed at his own wit.
Dag looked daggers at Heathen, who had been desperately and unsuccessfully trying to wave Tim off that one. Of course, Dag would think she’d been sharing her opinions with the others. Ashley giggled nervously. “I’m definitely not going to try and keep up with that,” she said, but it fell flat.
Heathen was now both alarmed and embarrassed. “Dag,” she said pleadingly, trying to salvage something, “I did not tell him to say that.”
Dag looked disgusted, and rightly so, Heathen thought miserably. “Can you hear yourselves?” he said, shaking his head at the lot of them. “Don’t you idiots know you all make better tips when you’re on with me?” He yanked off his apron. “Fucking ingrates. I don’t need to stick around here and take this shit. You want me to slack off?” he said. “Fine. The floors are all yours tonight, Heather.” He took off out the back, avoiding walking out past the others.
There was silence for a minute. “Well, that sure grumped him out,” Ashley said. “I knew it was just going to make him mad.”
“I told you,” Tim said, “we didn’t need him to agree with us. We’ve pissed him off. Now Wonder Boy is going to be all mad and pouty on the job, and not Employee of the Month. It’ll totally have the same effect.”
“Well, you’ve had an effect already,” Heathen said. “Now the rest of you can bloody well help me finish closing. Tim, you’re doing floors.”
• • •
Heathen’s phone was ringing as soon as she got in the door at home. Oh, shit. He started to rant before she even got “Hello” all the way out.
“It’s my fucking job, Heathen. How many times do I have to tell you that? It’s what I live on. This isn’t a game for me. It’s not a sport.” She heard the extra emphasis on that last word, a special dig for her.
“I chewed them out,” she said.
“You joined in with them,” Dag said. “Is this because you didn’t like your name in the blog?”
Heathen winced. Not exactly, but she could see how it looked that way to him. “I wish I hadn’t joined in.”
He wasn’t done. “Some friend you turned out to be. Don’t you know people are supposed to work hard at their jobs? Fuck,I knew that when I was five. I watched my mom.”
He was totally right. “We were tools,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She paused. “And I’m sorry I’ve been kind of pissy lately.”
“You’ve been extremely pissy,” Dag said. But he sounded like he still had some mad to get out. Sure enough: “Fucking Derek,” he went on. “‘You do everything but juggle for them,’” he mimicked. “If they don’t think they can keep up with me now, they can watch out. I’ll fucking learn to juggle now.”
• • •