Lucas was the one who invited Olivia to have lunch together. It was Monday, so they both had an hour to eat before going to class.

“Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” It was a huge lie. Lucas had never had so little control over his life. “I’m just… a little scared. I’m going to work at a cafe. The new one near your lab.” Olivia was an undergraduate researcher in a lab that was near Cafe En Gard. Lucas hoped that Olivia would visit him at work some time, though he would never directly ask her to do that.

“That’s so exciting!” Olivia seemed genuinely excited for Lucas, though she did not say much else. Their lunch meeting ended without much additional discourse, and Lucas continued on with his day.

The sun was beginning to set and the city had an orange tint from the lighting. Class had ended for the day and Lucas was on his way through campus to go to Cafe En Gard, and he passed by the building that the journal club met in. Lucas felt a hint of sadness as he thought about how the previous week, he unknowingly had his last club meeting ever. It was a bit interesting, as it was also where he learned about Cafe En Gard from Irene. He didn’t know how he was going to break the news to the rest of the club leadership team, but that was a problem for later. He eventually reached the entrance of Cafe En Gard, and the dim sunlight reflected off the windows. Lucas saw his reflection in the door before going inside.

“Welcome,” Emilio said without looking towards the entrance. When he finally looked up, he let out a little “oh,” and opened up the counter gate to let Lucas in. “We have a uniform for you in the break room.” Emilio opened the door to the break room, and Valerie was inside filling out paperwork.

“You’re here!” Valerie shot up from her seat and walked over to a box on a shelf. She pulled out some clothes and shoved it in Lucas’ hands. “Put these on. We’ll go outside to give you some privacy.” Valerie and Emilio shuffled out the door, leaving Lucas standing in the room with the uniform in his hands.

It was a bit odd how Lucas was never asked his clothing size, but all the clothes he was given fit him. He changed his jeans to the black pants and wore the black dress shirt over the t-shirt he was already wearing. The white necktie took a few tries to tie to the right length, and after he put his black apron on, he headed out the door.

It seemed like Valerie and Emilio were talking, but when Lucas came out into the cafe, they immediately stopped talking and turned to him. Valerie did a “come here” gesture to Lucas and walked to the front counter.

“You’ll be taking orders from here. The customers will tell you what they want and you take note of it with this.” Valerie handed Lucas a little notepad and a pen. “When handling money, use the calculator and make sure you are giving the correct change!” Valerie put her hands on a long box that had little drawers. “This is what we use to store money.”

“You don’t have a cash register?”

“What’s that?”

“What if someone wants to use a credit card?”

“What’s that?”

Lucas was speechless. Valerie was a cafe owner, yet never heard of a cash register or a credit card. He looked at the box that held the money, and the different drawers were not labeled.

“The drawers go from highest value to lowest value going left to right, top to bottom. So the top left has the biggest bills and the bottom right has the smallest coins.” Valerie could tell Lucas was lost. Lucas opened up the bottom right drawer, and amongst pennies and nickels, he also saw coins he did not recognize. Everything seemed so unorganized and he didn’t know what to say. “After the order and payment is done, hand the note to Emilio, or me if I’m standing closer, and we’ll handle the food and drinks.” There was a pause as Valerie looked at Lucas’ blank face. “If you run into trouble, call us over and we’ll come to the rescue!” She let out a wink before heading back into the break room to resume the paperwork from earlier.

For a while, there weren’t any customers entering the cafe, and Emilio watched as Lucas stood awkwardly at the counter. Emilio thought about initiating a conversation, when someone came through the entrance door.

“Welcome,” Emilio said instinctually.

“Welcome,” Lucas’ voice followed, though he was a bit less confident.

The man who came in through the door did not immediately walk up to the counter. Instead, he was looking at the menu. Emilio walked up next to Lucas.

“Want me to show you how to do this?” Lucas initially didn’t know what Emilio meant, until the man moved towards the counter and Emilio moved in front of Lucas.

“I’d like a medium latte…hot…and with sugar added,” the man said, his eyes still looking at the chalkboard menu.

“Medium hot latte with sugar, anything else for you today?” Emilio spoke rapidly.

“Uh, that will be all.”

“Alright, your total is five dollars and fifty cents.”

The man handed Emilio a ten dollar bill, which prompted Emilio to say “Out of ten.” Lucas watched as Emilio opened and closed different drawers of the box in rapid succession, depositing and taking out money in between. Emilio looked so natural, and it seemed like he did the mental math in an instant. He could probably gather the correct change with his eyes closed.

“Four dollars and fifty cents is your change, we’ll call your order when it’s ready!” Emilio put on a bright smile for the customer. He then turned to Lucas, who looked back at him with his mouth open. Emilio let out a laugh. “For a while, Valerie and I were the only workers here. You could say that I got tons of practice doing this.” Emilio began working on the customer’s latte, and Lucas kept looking at Emilio, still in shock.

After Emilio gave the man his latte, he turned back to Lucas. The ice had already been broken, so Emilio found it easier to begin speaking.

“I’m Emilio,” Emilio said. Lucas already knew that from Valerie.

“I’m Lucas.” Lucas felt silly, as they were both wearing name tags. But it was all for the sake of proper introductions.

“Nice to meet you. You’re a student right? I think that’s what Valerie told me.”

“Yeah, I go to the University of Nascenshire. The school nearby.”

“What do you learn at school?” Emilio wasn’t all that familiar with college.

“I’m a plant biology major.” Lucas didn’t care to elaborate, since he knew if he went in depth about the science, Emilio probably wouldn’t understand anything he said. Emilio didn’t ask any further, since he also knew he probably wouldn’t understand.

“Why did you choose to work here?” Emilio wanted to shift the conversation to something they could both engage in. “If you’re a student, you must be busy. Valerie told me your schedule and it’s basically like you’ll be working full time.”

“Well, I’m in my last year so there aren’t that many more classes for me to take. So, I have enough time to pick up a job.” Lucas didn’t want to think about how he got into his financial position. “Do you know why Valerie hired me? It seemed strange. We negotiated everything so fast.”

“Well, Valerie is a strange person.” Emilio smiled.

“Why did you start working here?” Lucas asked. Emilio was thrown off guard. He did not expect Lucas to also be asking questions. He took a moment to think about his response.

“Well, I guess I always loved food.” Emilio spoke in a way that made it sound like he was making things up. He looked at Lucas and saw that Lucas had furrowed his eyebrows and had a sense of disbelief. “And, well, I needed money. We all have to make a living somehow, right? One day this cafe came into my life and I just took the opportunity. Valerie helped me when I was at a tough point in my life.”

Lucas thought about what Emilio just said. He appreciated his honesty.

Lucas noticed that it was completely dark outside. The man who ordered the latte from Emilio was the last customer who had entered, and slowly, all the customers who were sitting in the cafe had got up and left to go home. Lucas checked his phone and it wasn’t even eight P.M. yet. Why even keep the cafe open so late if no one comes this late, he thought.

Valerie came out of the break room looking a little exhausted. She walked over to Emilio, and they talked too quietly for Lucas to hear. Valerie walked over to the entrance door and began wiping down the glass, as well as the sign posted at the door. It seemed like she was fidgeting with the door knob. She walked back to the counter, pulled out a ladder, and made her way up to the chalkboard menu and began wiping it down. Lucas was confused. There were still around four more hours left in his shift for the day, yet it looked like Valerie was preparing to close for the night.

Valerie made her way down the ladder, and as she was folding up the ladder, she shot a glance at Lucas. Lucas noticed a slight smile to her lips. Valerie put the ladder away and stood with Emilio at where all the equipment and the pastry case was. She looked at the watch on her left hand.

An old woman came in through the door. It was as if she came out of a black and white movie; she wore a monochrome ensemble that matched her graying hair. She narrowed her eyes at Lucas before approaching him at the counter.

“Set A.” Her voice was low and grumbly.

“What?” Lucas didn’t know what she was talking about. The old woman quickly grew impatient.

“SET A.” The lady was pointing up towards the chalkboards. Lucas turned around and looked up. It initially looked like the chalkboards had been switched, with the empty one now on the right. Upon closer reading, he realized that the left chalkboard had completely different things written on it compared to what Lucas had read earlier. Some of the menu items were similar, like tea and coffee. But there were also “sets,” and they were lettered A through E. Lucas saw one of the items just said “newt.”

“SET. A.” The old lady’s voice brought Lucas’ attention back to her. She held out a red bank note that had “10” written on it. Lucas turned to look back at the menu. Set A was listed as eight dollars.

Lucas’ hands quivered as he took the red ten dollar note. It looked completely different from a regular ten dollar bill. He started opening up a drawer from the money box, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking for. 

“Look for either red notes or octagonal coins. Count them up to the right change,” said Valerie, who had suddenly appeared next to Lucas. As Lucas searched and gathered for the old lady’s change, he could only think about how he was taking an embarrassingly long time and how the lady and Valerie were closely watching him. When Lucas held out the old lady’s change, she snatched it from his hand and began making her way towards a table. Lucas frowned and his ears turned red.

“We’ll call your order when it’s ready,” Valerie called out to the lady. Her voice was too cheery. She turned to look at Lucas, and Lucas expected her to yell at him over how bad of a job he did. But Valerie didn’t say anything and immediately turned around and prepared the lady’s order with Emilio.

The entrance door swung open and a frail little boy walked in. His clothes were tattered and fraying with countless loose threads. He walked up to the counter and stared at Lucas with soulless eyes. There was a long moment of silence and Lucas began to feel scared.

“One croissant please.” The boy spoke softly but it startled Lucas.

“Will that be all?” Lucas turned to the menu as he spoke.

“Yes.”

“That will be two dollars.”

The boy handed a crumpled note to Lucas and began walking away. Lucas flattened out the note to see that the boy had paid the exact amount. The boy sat down at the table, looking at Lucas and occasionally looking at Emilio and Valerie.

Lucas didn’t pay attention to the time as he stood at the counter. No one else was coming into the cafe, but he stared at the entrance door as if he was expecting someone to show up at any minute. Valerie’s voice broke his focus.

“It’s time for you to go home,” Valerie said. “Bring the uniform with you.”

Lucas went into the break room to get his backpack and regular clothes, and when he came back out, he saw Valerie wiping the handle of the entrance door and wiggling a key in the door lock. Lucas walked over to the door and she didn’t get out of the way.

“You ready?” Valerie turned and looked at him. Lucas gave her a confused look back, and she laughed and opened the door for him. He continued to look at her, and she shouted “hurry up!” Lucas walked out of the cafe and the door shut behind him.

As Lucas walked back to his apartment, he thought about his first day of work. How strange.