One was at Subway. Call her Kelly, which may actually.have been her name. She was at least 15 years older than the rest of us. Raspy voice, smoked. Chatty, but fun, not annoying. Slightly broken teeth, like she’d seen some shit. Had this theory that if you buy a new car you have to take it on the highway and really gun it to “blow out the system” and thus extend the car’s life? Not sure.
The main thing about our relationship was that one day I was doing the job where you take cash out of the register, record how much is in the envelope, and then put it in the safe in the back. It was an extremely busy lunch rush with a line way out the door and I was trying to do 3 things at once so Kelly offered to take the envelope back to the safe for me. Amazing! Thank you. The next day the boss said there was a problem, the cash inside the envelope didn’t match the record, so it had to come out of my paycheck.
Did I make an addition error. Did Kelly slip some of the cash out on her way to the safe, thinking “This kid will bounce back fine”. I don’t even remember how much money it was. How much could it have been? My parents said I should quit, but I didn’t, because I felt like that would make me look more guilty. I don’t remember much else about her, except that she gave me a big hug on my last day before I went back to school, like she was actually sad to see me go.
Later I was a temp at a university. I had a bunch of quick placements in different departments, a few weeks here and there. My manager at one job was a woman who in my brain now looks exactly the same as Kelly, has the same height, hair, mannerisms, and voice but with a midwestern accent. Whenever she would leave the office for lunch or to run an errand, she would announce to everyone “I’ll be back after a bit.” I only worked with her for a few weeks, almost 30 years ago, but that’s still the phrase I reach for first when I need to tell someone I’m leaving but I’m coming back.