The young woman approaches the Wendy’s restaurant counter. She has already ordered and consumed her food, and her friends sit at the sticky table behind her, fingering fries and slurping Jr. Frosties.
The observant Wendy’s employee—a good-looking young man of about 15 years, with light café-colored skin, tailored eyebrows, and mischievous eyes—recognizes that her needs are likely more complex than those of the others in line, who are merely ordering their first meal. Having already eaten, she could be standing there to criticize or complain, or to passively re-order an item that he had neglected to put on the tray the first time around.
“Are you all set?” he asks.
“I was wondering if I could get a small cup of coffee.”
His face relaxes. “Sure.” He types on the boxy register. “One-oh-eight.”
She hands him exact change. “Also, your trash can is a bit full over there.” She gestures toward the door, where cups and straws and BIGGIE fries containers poke out of the container’s mouth, causing it to resemble a bloated, messy monster in the process of munching. He can't see it from where he's standing but still smiles self-consciously. “Thanks,” he says, and then dashes back to figure out where they make the coffee. He can be heard asking around.
He returns and the young woman, “It will take a couple of minutes.”
“No problem.”
Business has slowed. The line that had, minutes ago, folded around the railings, is now nonexistent, and the young man relaxes and wait for the coffee to brew.
A pale doughy boy is working the register to his right. His soft face and neck suggest a sedentary lifestyle and a diet of fast food and packaged preservatives. The waist of his khaki pants is stretched to the max, forcing the fabric around his fly open like the cover of a book, revealing a strained zipper that falters half an inch below his pants button. As he fills beverages, he talks to the customer he is serving, in the hollow, nasal voice of an adolescent with braces, which is what he is.
“I’ve been here since four o’clock and in that first hour or so hardly anyone came in. Then and all of a sudden…” He shakes his head as his voice trails off.
“Four? I’ve been here since 11 o’clock,” first server says. "Lunch time is the worse. People are crazy.”
“Oh I know. Believe me.” The doughy server finishes with his customer and makes his way out from behind the counter.
“You leavin?” the first server asks.
“I’m doing trays,” the white server says. He picks up an errant tray from a table near the window and moves toward the plastic station in the center of the room that holds the ketchup and mustard dispensers, the plastic wear, straws, salt and pepper packets, napkins, and the rest. It is flanked by three uber-full garbage cans and one green tree-like plant that sprouts oddly from center, bringing to mind an oasis in the middle of a desert.
“You want to do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“You want to take out that garbage by the door?” He grins at the girl waiting for her coffee, who is now apparently become his co-conspirator.
The white correspondent can be seen shaking his head as he gathers more trays.
“C’mon,” the first server says. “I took it out this morning.”
“I’ll tell you want. I’ll make you a deal," the doughy server says, without looking up. He is now collecting trays from the top of the garbage can in question. "I’ll take out the trash. If you do the trays.”
“Deal.” The first server shifts his weight, stands taller, and smiles.
The doughy server returns a stack of some fifteen trays and places them on a counter in the back.
“I’ll do the trays. As soon as I’m finished serving this customer,” the first server says.
“And I’ll do the trash as soon as I help my customer.” He turns to the gray-mustached man in a ball cap who has approached his register. “Welcome to Wendy’s. What can I get for you today, sir?”
A young lady returns from the back with the coffee. The server hands it to the girl who's been waiting. “Here you are, miss.” At that he turns to begin doing something to the trays.
After ambling back to the condiment station, glancing around half-heartedly for cream, and realizing that it is a dairy product and is probably kept cold, the girl returns to the counter. Her server has disappeared, and with the doughy white server still tending to his customer, she is forced to ask a heavily mascara'd girl with a too-long, too-thin strand of bangs swept to the side of her Wendy’s visor, who is chewing her gum with a sort of bovine open-mouthed mindlessness and is really just passing by the front counter on her way to do something else, for some cream.
In the depths of the Wendy’s food-prep operations, the girl seeking cream can see her adorable server being summoned by a clean-cut plump but neat 30-something-year old man, who is obviously a manager.
“Quick, quick. Get over here,” he says. “I mean it.”
“I was doin trays!”
“No, no. We gotta get that garbage out. Put these on.” He tosses him a pair of rubber gloves at his chest.
“But. . .” He wants to explain, and maybe he begins to explain, but he knows it is no use. His manager is stupid and wouldn’t understand, anyway, the immense pleasure and satisfaction of a deal struck between two gentlemen. The server doesn't fully understand it either. He just knows that fora few minutes he felt far better, far older, taller, more handsome, and more independent than he ever had while working at Wendy’s before. And he knows he feels much worse now. Surely the deal brought the two young men closer than they had ever been to one another, and probably closer than they will ever be again.
The server snaps on the gloves reluctantly and glares over the stove at the fat head of his fat, doughy white colleague, still taking orders at the front of the store.
