Spotlight

09

In the morning when I woke up, the sun was already shining into the room.

Sophie was sitting by the mirror in the small room, putting eyeshadow onto her eyelids. The mirror was small, but useable.

"Morning sunshine," she smirked while closing the eye palette.

"What time is it?" I groggily asked, rising from my bed, my hair half over my face – probably looking like a birds nest was situated in my hair.

"It's nearly nine."

My eyes widened when I looked at the digital clock and saw it was eight fifty four. I had to be at my new job in six minutes.

"Oh shit!" I cried, throwing up the sheets on my bed and launching to where my clothes were. I quickly stripped and changed into some casual clothes. I brushed my teeth while going to the toilet – which was something I learnt easily as a high school student. I grabbed my phone and map and ran towards the exit of the sorority. I passed a few girls in the kitchen area at the table, and felt rude that I couldn't stop to talk to them. I ran to the other side of the campus – or it felt like I did.

I checked my phone at eight fifty nine, as I walked in the doors of the on campus café, feeling like a hot mess. I crossed across the open room to where the front counter was, walking past the plethora of different flavored muffins and cakes all sitting in a fridge on fake grass.

"Hi!"

"You must be Mae?" the young guy behind the counter asked, smiling. I nodded and he opened up the little door that was for workers only, and motioned for me to follow him.

We walked behind the customer area and into a kitchen where there were a few workers transferring plates or wrapped up food.

We turned into a small office, where he handed me a black tee shirt and jeans, which was going to be my uniform.

"Here's your name tag," the man smiled, and handed it to me to pin on once I had my uniform sorted out.

I got pushed into a sorry excuse for a room, where I quickly stripped down to my underwear and changed into the uniform they provided me with moments ago. I clipped the name badge onto the left side of my chest and opened the door of the room. I placed my clothes from before in a small pile in the corner of the room and hoped for the best.

When I walked out into the front area of the café, the same man was standing at the coffee machine.

"So my name is David, I think I heard somewhere that you're quite experienced in hospitality correct?" he asked me, pulling one of the group heads out of the coffee machine.

"I worked all last summer in a café, so I guess I'm okay at this kind of stuff," I said, thinking back to where I was this time a year ago. How times have changed.

"Okay well just to make things flow faster today, I'll go on the register, and if I can get you just to stay by the coffee machine, then that would be great." He then turned around to the register, where a line was beginning to form. I took a quick look around the café, and noticed that the window seats were full of young adults on their laptops, connected to the Wi-Fi cables that were provided. I shifted on my feet and waited impatiently for someone to order a coffee.

There was another register open and a blonde, small girl was situated next to David, also taking orders. She had her hair up in a high ponytail. I envied people that were able to do that and still look good.

A small receipt got printed off of the machine next to me, and I tore it off, placing it on the little holder above the coffee machine.

Large decaf latte. I stood by the machine and waited for the decaf to filter out so I could have put it in the machine. I placed the group head in the machine and pressed large, grabbing the large takeaway cup from the side of the machine and placed it underneath. The coffee slowly began filtering out, with a small buzzing sound. I reached under the machine to open the fridge, where the milk was. I began pouring it into a jug and heated it up, when a voice disturbed me.