The students of the college our company provided food services for didn’t want to see us anymore. So we were equipped with a cloaking device that we wore in addition to our double-breasted white coats and ball caps. We were pissed until we found ways to make the most of the situation. The twins, Scott and Tommy, would pickpocket while they brought out clean dishes. Josephine, a mousy student employee, would silently take a few minutes every time she went to the floor to sit with a boy who was about her age and that she always made goo-goo eyes at. In general, it was working for everybody. They couldn’t see us, and we could see everything. We could do anything.
When someone came into the break room just before dinner rush and asked, “Who drew a dick on one of the tables?” I naively thought they meant Cheney or Van Dyke, because I thought we were all professional and thoughtful. When we all went out and saw that it was a human penis with hair, my mind immediately went to Adeline. She was the most NSFW of us. She, like Josephine, was going to school. Unlike Josephine, she openly hated the job. She was a super senior and had a case of senioritis that might end up fatal. Adeline also enjoyed sexually suggestive conversation. Just that morning, she came in late because she and her boyfriend got into a fight over the fact she has started walking around her apartment in just a t-shirt and no underwear while singing “Winnie the Pooh.” The fight had more to do with her being upset; he didn’t like her walking around the house naked. “Why doesn’t he want to see me naked?”
Adeline was the daughter of Finn, a porter and the eldest employee we had. The only reason she hadn’t been fired yet was because of him. We were all looking at all of us in our huddle around the dick table, and I brought to everyone’s attention that Finn was the only one who wasn’t in the huddle. We went into the bathrooms. We went into every room of the student union. Eventually, our manager got out a device that could track the cloaking devices. The assumption was that he must’ve left campus. He was right in front of the soda fountains. The manager turned off his cloaking device remotely. He was unconscious but alive. It appeared he had suffered a stroke.
Adeline was quick to get on her knees to tend to her father. She pulled off Finn’s gauntlet, though she didn’t think it had anything to do with what was happening. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later. Adeline went with them. I thought that at least she was getting out of work early. She hated this job so much, maybe she could find solace in that.
Ashley Bach is a native of rural Pennsylvania, living in suburban Philadelphia. Her writing has been featured in HAD, Feels Blind Literary, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. She updates her blog Alchemical Imbalance intermittently and is a social media editor for Zoetic Press.