Chapter 9 of On Leave: A Novel

Everything was great until I met the new girl. She was from Iowa and had moved to New York City for grad school. She was fiery in temper and stomped in a bad mood.

The line was backed up. I was preparing to take out the trash.

“Natalie, we’re short on dark roast.”

“Hold on, let me take out the trash.”

She spun on me.

“THIS LADY HAS BEEN WAITING FIFTEEN FUCKING MINUTES FOR HER COFFEE! TRASH CAN WAIT!!!”

Ouch. That really stung. I smarted. A lot.

“Fine, sorry.” I rolled my eyes and brewed the coffee.

“Hey, where’s our coffee?!?” A tall angry-looking man yelled.

“Yeah, we all have to get to work!” a young mother looking like a caffeine-crazed zombie shouted at us.

The new girl, Cassidy, gave me a dirty look. When the coffee was finished, she said something real petty.

“Thank you for your patience. Sorry, my coworker is so slow. She doesn’t see the customer as important.” She flashed me a cunning wink. Jerk.

—

While I was cleaning up the countertops, I saw Cassidy put some straws in the condiment bar.

“Cassidy!”

She turned and gave me a blank look.

“Thanks for shouting at me. In the future, I will put the customer first if you don’t scream at me next time, okay?

She shrugged.

—

She showed me photos of the Black guy she was trying to find on Tinder.

“He looks a little bit too dark for my taste,” she said, not realizing that she was saying this to me, a Black woman.

“Isn’t that a bit racist?” I straight-up asked her.

She gave me a quizzical look.

“Are you calling me, of all people, racist? Just because I make a comment about someone’s skin color doesn’t mean I’m racist. I have Black friends, therefore I think I can pull the race card for once.”

What the hell? I thought. But I didn’t want to fight with this oblivious person, so I dropped the matter altogether.

—

The next day, I walked in. Cassidy was supposed to be on the schedule.

“Um, John,” I asked my coworker.

“Yeah?” he looked up from the tuna steak he was grilling for a customer’s breakfast.

“Where’s Cassidy? You know, the girl from Iowa.”

“Oh, her! Yeah, she quit.”

I couldn’t believe it. I was both immensely overjoyed and also perplexed.

“What happened?”

“She just didn’t want to show up anymore. Not surprised that she called in last minute to call it quits. You have to be a pleasant person to work here, and she was anything but pleasant.”

I couldn’t come back from that. It was pretty much true.

I got home. I was lonely, and I wanted to play my cello. So I unlocked the silver beat-up case I have had since middle school (I guess now that I have an actual job, I can save up to buy a new one) and took out my 1776 Stradivarius cello. The school loaned it to me and then at the last minute let me have it for free. Pretty sweet deal considering Stradivariuses are extremely expensive and valuable instruments.

I tried to play some Bach, but after a few measures I didn’t feel inspired. Then I just started playing random notes, kind of just fucking around on the instrument, and I realized I was straight-up improvising.

I immediately wrote down the music on some old unused pieces of blank sheet music I got from the Internet, and titled it, “F My Life.”