Damn Elena thought. The
podcast
was getting to an interesting point. She would need to resume a few minutes before. To get the whole thing setup again. You couldn't just stop and resume at the same spot. Conversations built up to a crescendo. Climaxed.
But she was at work. The customer came first. She took her earbuds out.
"Marc! Why did you do that weird voice?"
"Just being silly, love."
They talked about nothing. That's how it was with Marc. She'd come away feeling thrilled. Later when her roomate would ask what they had spoken about Elena would be unable to describe. Her roommate would have an unremovable grin.
The two could chat for a bit. The pace was slow. When people began coming through for breakfast at the
hot bar
, then they wouldn't be able to talk like this. It would look bad. Not just to management, but to other team members as well as to the customers. Things like this mattered at a place like
Bloomingfoods
. The employees seemed to give a damn. It was different at places like
Kroger
. Probably the reason people liked to come here even though the prices were higher and the selection less.
Talking with Marc never made Elena long for the podcast. In fact after the conversation she would not feel the urge to return to listening like she would had she just got done talking to a customer. She'd be fine listening to whatever was happening in the store as she went about stocking the fridge section.
First she put 30% off stickers on the cheeses that were close to expiration date. Then she restocked new cheese, placed them towards the back. Next was the yogurt. And then kombucha. By then she was wanting to listen to her podcast again. She took out her phone. Placed earbuds into her ears. But then realized that her phone was dying. Damn, she had forgotten to charge it over night.
She did this often. Normally she would just charge the phone in the employee lounge and listen to the podcast later. But she had already waited quite some time. And she wanted an excuse to talk to Marc again.
"Marc, you never use your phone. Would you let me listen to a podcast really quick?"
"Sure."
"You have Spotify?"
He handed her his phone and she loaded up the podcast. Gave him two thumbs up and turned around to get back to the stocking the Kombucha.