I started setting up my stations, hearing the boredom in Nic’s voice as he took the newb through the process of clocking on and off and ordering a staff meal.

‘Rachel’s the supervisor on today,’ he said. ‘She’s running late—puppy emergency, apparently.’

I sighed. Rachel was my least favourite staff member—or at least she had been, until ten minutes ago.

‘She’ll be here soon.’ Nic glanced at me. ‘I’m in the office all afternoon, come see me when you finish.’

‘Okay,’ Tara said. I could feel her watching me clean out my milk jugs. ‘And until then?’ She cleared her throat. ‘Until my food is ready?’ He shrugged. ‘Just, like … tidy stuff up.’ Nic hated training people, which was why he always rostered newbs on for shifts he wasn’t working, and why he always told them to ask me questions.

If you’re going to be a supervisor, he told me once, during what I thought were after-work drinks and he thought was a job interview, you’ve got to deal with the newbs.

I hate the newbs, I’d said, shaking my head. And I don’t want to be a supervisor.

Yeah, you do. Everybody does eventually.

No they don’t. They just tell you that so you’ll think they have initiative and aren’t planning on quitting the second they find something better.

He’d laughed. You do, though. You’re always bossing everyone around as it is.

We’d had this conversation a lot, over and over since not long after I’d started; me telling Nic this was just an in-between job, just a break from my real career, and Nic telling me I should think about making it more, and me rolling my eyes because waitressing was not something you did for the rest of your life—no matter how short that life was going to be—and that was the whole point.

You’re good at this, Cait. You actually care, he said. He always said. Nobody else in this place does.

I’d given him a look, hopefully scathing.

You do. You just have to be nicer to the newbs. Maybe start by remembering their names.

Yeah, right.

You’ll change your mind, he’d said confidently, and I’d finished my beer and changed the subject, knowing he was wrong, and that even if he wasn’t, it didn’t matter. This was all temporary.

‘You okay?’ he asked, when the newb had wandered off. He sighed, pressed a button under the register. From behind me, I heard a soft, brushy drumbeat, a piano.

I looked up from the frothing wand I’d been scrubbing. Whoever had been making coffee for the prep cooks had left it covered with a fine web of hardened milk froth. I thought about pointing it out, but it was probably him.

‘Of course,’ I said, smiling. ‘Always.’