I stare down at my cracked phone screen. I’m already four minutes late for work.

Snow magic, my ass.

Chapter Two

“You’re late.”

These are the words that greet me when I come huffing into Roastlandia at 10:06 a.m. Through glasses obscured by the snow-rain, I catch sight of my reflection in the coffee shop front window. My brunette braid is waterlogged, my bangs are plastered to my forehead, and my pale skin is flushed from anxiety and exertion. In short, I look like someone who’s about to get fired.

My boss, Greg, stands by the front door awaiting my arrival, his ginger-bearded face scrunched up and condescending.

All I can do at this point is grovel. “I know. I’m so, so sorry. The buses were delayed because of the snow, and I had to walk here, and—”

Greg simply tsks. “I don’t need to hear excuses, Ellie. Just clock in.”

I don’t argue with the man who holds my fate in his grubby, mustache-sculpting-wax-stained fingers, but I will draw him vindictively later—exaggerate his neck beard and his skim-milk complexion and those beady little eyes. He’s wearing his threadbare “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt, which means he’s the only person in Portland under forty being ironic unintentionally.

As if to underscore the irony, he looks me up and down and scoffs. “You look like a basset hound who got stuck in a washing machine. What are the customers going to think when they see you?”

“Sorry, Greg,” I say again as I follow him into the back. “It won’t happen again.”

He looks skeptical at best.

I want to point out that I’ve never been late before, not once in the nine months I’ve worked at Roastlandia. That I do dishes while my coworkers take their vape breaks, that I’ve worked through numerous lunches at his behest (without pay) and never once complained. But there’s no point with Greg.

When I got fired from my last job, and my ten-year plan fell apart, I was just desperate to put some of the pieces back together. So I got a job at a coffee shop in a city full of incredible coffee, and I figured it would be a great place to work while I got back on my feet.

But it turns out I’m a failure at serving coffee, just like I was a failure of an animator.

Roastlandia is in the late-morning rush, and I quickly join my coworker Ari behind the counter. She’s at the register, humming along to a Christmas song that sounds tinny through the speaker. The same speaker I’ve already threatened to rip off the wall a half-dozen times already this holiday season if it plays Michael Bublé one more time.