Head Above Water

Working at a Yogurtland wasn’t anything special. You watch people take a cup, pour yogurt into it, pile on toppings, and then ring them up. You answer questions, fix serving spoons, and clean tables. For the most part, it was mediocre. It was a summer job. What more could I say about it?

Sometimes, though, you got customers who took their yogurt much too seriously. The lady standing in front of me was one of them.

“How could you not have birthday cupcake batter?” she asked me in a condescending tone.

As if she was the expert in frozen yogurt. By all means, she could claim her expertise in yogurt and I wouldn’t protest. I just sold it. But if you ask me, birthday cupcake batter was not a flavor to get in a hissy fit over. It was colored bright yellow and tasted like chemicals. Not my favorite.

All I could muster was, “I’m sorry, ma’am, we just don’t have it in the store right now. I can write a note to my supervisor, and she can make sure to order it this week, if you’d like. Would you like some sample cups so you can try some of the other flavors we have?”

We had sixteen flavors. There had to be at least one that she’d like. But instead of answering, the customer rolled her eyes at me, threw her hands up in frustration and walked over to the cups anyway. I just shrugged and switched my eyes over to the next customer in line.

He had curly brown hair and a wide grin plastered right on his face as he set his cup down on the scale. His square jaw was all I took note of before I stopped myself from ogling at him, or else it would have had turned into a stare and I’d make things extremely awkward for myself and for him.

I just smiled, my eyebrows knitted together in confusion as he kept smiling, looking directly at me. I opened my mouth to greet him, but before I could get a word out, he said, “Plain tart isn’t a bad flavor, don’t know why she’s gone and started a ruckus.”

He chuckled and continued to look at me. I almost had to physically stop my jaw from unhinging, just slightly. I hadn’t expected his voice to be so low, or his accent to be so – British? And he talked so slow, it was almost excruciating.

I took a breath and responded, “I bet if she tried it, she’d stop freaking out over Birthday Cupcake Batter. It would change her life.”

My smile widened as he chuckled once more. It was always nice to have customers who seemed to read your mind and understand your pain.

As I asked him if he was going to take his cup to go or eat inside the store, I took a quick look at what was inside his cup. I always liked to look at peoples’ cups to see what they had gotten, because I believed it said something about their personalities.

Usually, kids piled on the candy and chocolate, so I never bothered deducing anything about them. Adults and people my age, on the other hand, I was much more curious about. If they got fruit and granola, they were usually more conscious about their bodies and cared more about how they appeared. If they got mostly candy, they probably didn’t care as much about what they were eating. And, depending on how much candy they had gotten, it told me whether they were serious people, or more easygoing ones. If they mixed the two, then they probably just really, really liked frozen yogurt. Those people were professionals. Of course, nine times out of ten, I was most likely wrong. It was just a guessing game that made the time go by faster.

This guy, however, had nothing on his yogurt save a small smattering of strawberries right on the top of it. I looked at him curiously before he answered, “I’ll just take it to go, if you don’t mind.”

I nodded and secured a lid on top of his cup, handing him a green spoon. He smiled and I told him his total. He handed me a card and usually, this was the point when customers busied themselves with double checking the lid on their cup, or looking around at the store in order to avoid keeping eye contact with me while I silently waited for their transaction to approve.

This guy, however, turned his head around and chuckled again. I followed his stare and met it at Birthday Cupcake Batter Lady, as I had named her lamely in my head. She was still standing in front of the yogurt, looking at what to get. She looked exhausted, as if picking a flavor was draining the life from her soul.

“I guess sixteen flavors is too much to bear,” he almost whispered. I almost didn’t hear it over the music playing in the store and the chattering of the customers sitting at the tables. “I kind of wanna go over there and guide her towards the plain tart.”

I laughed. This guy, Four Strawberries On Plain Tart Guy, was a riot. I had never seen him before, but I hoped he would become a regular. His sarcasm and humor were making my entire day. I rarely ever got customers like him. If anything, they would shoot a knowing chuckle my way, or roll their eyes if they were standing behind a difficult customer. But they never, ever made jokes with me, let alone start entire conversations. My smile widened at the thought.

“Plain tart really is an unbeatable flavor.”

It was almost as if she heard us, because she started walking back towards the register with a red face and lips that were pinched up. I sighed, predicting that she was probably going to yell at me again.

Right as the receipt machine started to whir and spit out Four Strawberries’ receipt, she stepped up to him, facing me. Her voice low, Birthday Cupcake Batter Lady sputtered, “Can I have some sample cups?”

I tried to keep my sigh in as I remembered that she had left my question unanswered and walked away rudely. Four Strawberries chuckled again, and said, “See you later.” He leaned forward, squinted at something under my gaze, and added, “Kennedy.”

Before I could say anything else, he turned around and walked out of the store.

Birthday Cupcake Batter Lady coughed and said, “Excuse me? Hello?”

I whipped my gaze back over to her and handed her four sample cups.

I looked at the clock as she walked away and realized that only 15 minutes had passed since the beginning of what was going to be a long shift. I sighed, then smiled and looked at the next customer, not forgetting the curly head of hair that had just walked out of the store a few minutes prior.

Working at Yogurtland was a mediocre summer job, but sometimes, some people made it tolerable.