Every time I shifted to work in another part of the restaurant, Mac was there. He was like a virus or a bad smell, or something that just wouldn’t go away.
“Will,” I called out as I pushed my way into the kitchen area. At least Mac couldn’t follow me back there. Employees only.
Will quickly shuffled papers around on his desk and sat up straighter and started staring at his computer monitor intently as I walked in. He was doing important work. Sure, important. It looked like he had been playing video games on his phone to me and was now pretending to do the scheduling. I’ve done the scheduling before. It really wasn’t that hard.
“Mac is pestering me again. Can I please do the drive-thru window? Or put me on the grill,” I pleaded. Anything to get me out of the front of the place where Mac could see me, could talk to me. I had thought about getting a restraining order, but then guilt kicked in. Mac had been supportive and helpful after the crash. He covered the costs of the utility bills and showed me how to pay the rent on the house. Of course, I had to pay him back as soon as the insurance money had come in. But the point was, he had been there during the darkest part of my life to help. I couldn’t just make him go away. Or could I?
I certainly had tried to set boundaries. He wasn’t allowed to stop by the apartment whenever he wanted, and he was no longer allowed to pick Ruby up after school and give her rides home. At least I had asked him to stop doing that. I knew it still happened, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
But work was a public location, and unless my manager, Will, stepped up and said something to Mac, there was nothing I could do.
I felt trapped, like a mouse in a maze, and Mac was a hungry cat watching my every move, blocking all the exits.
“I don’t need you on the grill. I need you to make sure everything is clean.”
“Swap me and Latisha. She can clean. Let me do the drive-thru.”
“Latisha twisted her ankle. She can’t move around a lot. The drive-thru is the only way I can keep her on the schedule,” Will explained.
“Send her home. If she hurt her ankle, she shouldn’t be standing at all.”
Will shook his head. “She wants the hours. Tell the old guy to just order something or leave.”
I let out a choppy breath, like a fake cry. “That’s the problem, he keeps ordering stuff to stay.”
Will looked entirely too excited by that. “Good, more sales. Tell him to go away until tomorrow.”
“He won’t listen to me. You come out and tell him to go away.”
Will puffed up his cheeks and rolled his eyes. It was a normal expression on a teenager. It just looked ridiculous with his mustache and aviator glasses frames.
“Handle it, Kenzie. You have to learn to fight your own battles.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. I turned and left Will’s office. Fine, he could sit in there and play video games, so I could avoid going out front. I leaned against the tile wall across from the drive-thru nook.
Latisha looked over her shoulder at me but didn’t skip a beat when it came to taking the order.
“That will be fifteen ninety-three, pull up to the first window.” She pulled the headset off her ear, wrapped her hand over the microphone, and turned back to me. “What’s up?”
“How’s your ankle?” I asked.
“Throbbing. Let me guess, you’re staring longingly at my station because that old creep is out there again.”
I nodded.
“Welcome to Burger Jeff, go ahead with your order,” she said into the microphone. “No, I’m sorry we don’t have Happy Meals. That’s McDonalds.”
She worked smoothly, taking money from the car at her window and taking the order from the car at the menu. And she still managed to have a conversation with me. She was a pro when it came to running the drive-thru. Better at it than I was. But I desperately needed to get away from Mac.
“Go clean the bathrooms. He can’t follow you in there.”
“He’d try, saying he needed to piss while I was in the men’s room,” I complained.
“That’s easy. If he goes in and says he needs to use it, spill water all over the floor. Tell him to watch his step, and then you leave. And go hide in the women’s restroom until he leaves. If he follows you back out, tell him you can’t be in the restroom cleaning at the same time a customer is using the facilities. But spilling the water is key because he can’t deny that you need to clean that up.” She laid out a perfect plan.
“How did you figure all of that out?” I asked.
“I had an overbearing boyfriend, and one of my coworkers at the last fast-food place I worked at told me that little trick. Men can’t go into the women’s room, and they can’t be in the men’s room while a female employee is cleaning. If they insist, spilled mop water tends to keep anyone out of an area.”
“Kenzie! Leave Latisha alone and get back to your assigned task,” Will growled as he stepped out of his office and saw me loitering.
I pushed off the wall and walked toward the front area.
“Remember to put up the wet floor signs,” Latisha called out after me.
I went straight to the mop closet. I liked her idea and had a plan to hide out in the bathrooms. If I did a thorough cleaning, top to bottom, that could buy me thirty minutes of time without Mac pestering me.
I pushed the bright yellow cart through the Employees Only door. I swear, Mac had to have been waiting at the closest table. He was right there next to me immediately.
“I was beginning to think you’re trying to avoid me.” He chuckled, like it was a joke.
“I am.” I didn’t smile, I didn’t even look at him. “I have to clean the bathrooms. Excuse me.”
I knocked on the men’s room door and pushed it open. “Anyone in here?”
When I got no answer, I pushed the door open with my back and dragged the cart in after me. Mac was right there, trying to follow the cart in.
I stopped, completely blocking the door. “Do you need to use the facilities?”
“I’m trying to talk to you, Kenzie.”
“And I have to work. You can’t come in here while I’m cleaning. If you need to use it, let me step out.”
“Why are you being so difficult today?” Mac asked.
“Mac, I have to clean the bathrooms. It’s not something I want to do, and I would like to get it over with.”
“Fine.” He backed away.
It was a minor victory, and I knew that as soon as I was done, I would have to face him again. I set up the Restroom Closed for Cleaning sign and the yellow wet floor hazard A-frame in front of the door.
I always cleaned the men’s room first. It was the grossest of the two restrooms, and I wanted to get it done. It was an internal tug-of-war between my need to avoid Mac and my need to get the work done and get out of the restroom as soon as possible.
Avoiding Mac won, and I did a thorough job, even washing down the walls behind the urinals. Men were so gross. Mac was still waiting for me when I transferred the cart into the other restroom. After cleaning the women’s room, I took my uniform shirt off and scrubbed my face, neck, and arms. I needed to be cleaned after all that yucky work.
After putting my shirt back on, I folded all of the cleaning hazard signs up and slotted them away into their spaces on the mop cart. I pushed the cart back into the wet closet and poured the dirty mop bucket water down the drain. I did everything deliberately, meticulously, and took my time. I wasn’t in a rush to get back out to where Mac had access to me again.
I couldn’t avoid cleaning the tables anymore. I grabbed the spray bottle of disinfectant cleaner and a wipe cloth. Too bad I couldn’t spritz Mac with the cleaning fluid.
“Now, Kenzie, I’m not going to take no from you again. I’ve got something to say, and you’re going to listen,” he said as I stepped into the front of the restaurant.
“You can talk, but I have to work. I’ll get into trouble if Will comes out here and sees me chatting away with you. You get me into enough trouble as it is.” Maybe if he thought I got in trouble with my boss, he would leave me alone. I had tried it before, but it never seemed to make a difference.
I tried to ignore him as I climbed into the first empty booth and began spraying down the plastic seats and table.
“This would be easier if you would look at me,” Mac hemmed and hawed. Why wouldn’t he just say what he needed to say and be done with it?
“I can hear you and wipe down a table at the same time.”
“I’ve been thinking, we need to stop playing around. I want you to be my Valentine this year. I know—”
“She can’t be your Valentine. She’s already agreed to be mine,” a deep, familiar voice said from behind me.
The hairs on the back of my neck shivered as tingles danced up and down my spine. I dropped the spray bottle. Tate was here.
I couldn’t believe my ears. And when I turned around, I could barely believe my eyes. The other day, he had simply walked away without saying goodbye. I hadn’t told him where I worked. But he was here.
“You need to back off there, mister. This is none of your business.” Mac had lowered his voice and was trying to sound like an angry bear.
“Tate!” I launched out of the booth and hugged him. It might have been an overreaction, but I was so happy to see him.
