What trouble would this madwoman bring me? Erica thought. Perhaps she would start appealing to the other customers for justice. Or follow Erica to the back and ask why she was taking so long. Erica could offer to work as a nanny for free in the future for the baby that would surely be born healthy. Would Cheung lift the madwoman and throw her out the door like they do on comedies? Cheung could fire Erica, or have the nervous breakdown he’s always threatened. The woman could demand free drinks for everyone in her family and her office. The other workers could force Erica to eat every cockroach that is ever found in every Spicy Tuna Wrap for the next year. Erica could be forced to return her Barista! pin. No matter what, there was no one to whom Erica could go to for help. Who would believe her? The first rule among asylum seekers is: Never tell anyone your true story.
Cheung dropped his feet off the table and tossed the phone on his crotch. He balled up the Spicy Tuna Wrap wrapping. “Just offer her a free drink coupon,” he said.
“She’s kind of mad. She wants the manager. Should I tell her you’re not here?”
“Well no, not since you already came back here to get me. I’ll come out in a sec.” He tossed the balled up wrapping at the trashcan. When it landed, it made the same sound as a stapler biting through paper, but softer.
“You left, I could say.”
“Through what, the vent?”
Erica looked up at the person-width mesh rectangle high on the wall. She had never thought of those as exits, until now.
“I’ll tell her you had left but I didn’t know, and give her your card.”
“And the whole time you’ve been back here for an eternity staring at me like a rare painting, while customers were out there waiting, what were you doing?”
“Calling you,” Erica said, impressed by her own quick thinking. She thought she saw a glimmer of the same pleasant surprise in Cheung’s small eyes. She was possible Shift Supervisor material. Erica didn’t wait for his go-ahead. She turned and walked back to the front of the store.
The madwoman had somehow squeezed herself between the condiment stand and the espresso drink delivery counter. The backlog of drinks had cleared. Orders were running smoothly again; even with the station short one Barista!.
Erica reached over the flavor shot bottles by the cash register and picked up one of Cheung’s business cards from where they were kept within easy reach of customers. She walked back to the Barista! station and offered the card to the madwoman, holding it out to her with both hands even though she knew that the respectful gesture was wasted on her.
“I’ve spoken to my manager on the phone and he is happy to resolve the matter with you on the phone,” she said. The first third of the statement was true, and the last two-thirds, the thought of Cheung happily resolving matters in any form, made her gleeful.
The woman took the card, then pulled out her cell phone from her purse and dialed the number on the card. At precisely that moment, a pocket of silence, like a lone firefly undulating through the blackness of night, threaded its way through the store. The phone at the back could clearly be heard ringing. Erica was terrified that Cheung would pick it up. She wanted to run back and warn him not to, but the madwoman’s impatience saved her. After only three rings, she tapped the red button on her screen and wagged the phone at Erica, “This is the number for here.”
Erica reached for that familiar place under the counter and pulled one, no, two Starcups free drink coupons. “I can offer you a free drink coupon,” she said. “Any drink you like, any size, any time. Take two, you can use the second for your husband.”
The last word seemed to have a calming effect on the madwoman. She accepted the two coupons, adding, “I won’t be using them here, that’s for sure.” She removed a business card from a side pocket of her purse and slapped it into Erica’s palm. “Make sure the manager calls me,” the woman said, “Make. Sure,” she repeated, digging her index finger into Erica’s palm and the card with each word, as if she wanted to impale her hand into the countertop.
Erica closed her fist around the card, “Can I offer you a snack?” she asked smilingly, “On me. The Spicy Tuna Wrap is fantastic.”
The madwoman’s eyes shrank to venomous slits. Erica heard a pained groan coming from Mark, who was behind her waiting to get at the tap to rinse dirty milk pails. At first, Erica thought it was one of those I’m staaahrving groans people here liked to make, and he was moaning because he wanted the last Spicy Tuna Wrap for himself. Little did people like him know that truly starving people don’t groan dramatically, they become as still and silent as the stones in their bellies. A second later, Erica realized that it wasn’t that kind of groan; the tone was off. This was a groan caused by a different kind of agony.
“We’re always fighting over the Spicy Tuna Wraps,” Erica continued.
“Am I a joke to you?” the madwoman screeched at Erica.
“No.”
“Have something against pregnant women?”
“No.”
“You’re bitter or something?”
“No.”
“Feel I owe you?”
“No.”
“An apology?”
What was wrong with offering the madwoman free food? Are the rich insulted by free food but not by free drinks? Erica’s heart clattered like a bus barreling downhill on a bumpy trail into a darkness unveiled only as far as the reach of its lights, the kind of motion that bounced her as if she was riding a man. The woman slammed the coupons down on the low counter – like a man does with a shot glass of liquor after knocking it back – and slid them across to Erica so fast and hard that the tips of her fingers jammed into the rim of Erica’s crotch. Erica leaped back, knocking Mark behind her off his feet and sending the dirty pails flying. The madwoman yelped with disgust. She grabbed a napkin and wiped her fingers furiously.
Erica screamed, “You fucking bitch, you touched me! You touched me you sick bitch! You touched me!” Over and over and over again she screamed,
“She touched me!” becoming louder each time. The whole store became dumbstruck spectators. Erica kept hollering out the crime, lunging at the woman but not reaching her because of some unseen force that held her back, feeling as if she would never stop telling the whole of God’s world what was done to her.
“Order! Order!” The robed judge thundered, hammering down with the gavel, a sound like staplers biting paper again, but bigger, sharper and faster. He was half rising from his seat. Erica found her throat hoarse. She had been shouting in court – she had no recollection what – and her body was being seized and restrained. She was being brought back down from where she had climbed halfway over the barrier between the public seating area and the place for members of the court.
If this were back home, she would have been clawing her way across the mud that separated the lawn from the driveway, getting scratched by the hibiscus bushes. Erica stared at the two brown-faced officers of the court who held her at bay. They seemed to her to be Brad and James, grown bigger and stronger in the years since that time of childhood, freedom and play; of secrets unearthed, punishments dealt and pardons granted.
