Jessica Getty did not need this complication in her life right now. It had been a long weekend and she’d slept in too late, she was late for her job at Gerbert Gerbil’s. Not only was she late for her job she was late on her rent, she was a late graduate because she had to repeat a grade. For most of her life Jessica had been late at things. And she didn’t need her ex-boyfriend calling her this morning.
She was trying to sort out what little bedhead she had while tangled up in the phone cord. “I mean it Jason. Us…we’re not an us anymore. You barely pay attention to me and when you do I’m at work, I can’t have you coming to work like that.”
Her stomach rumbled. Breakfast would have to be skipped if Jason wouldn’t get off the phone. But now he was launching into one of his chauvinistic tangents.
“That has nothing to do with it!” Jessica shouted. She was reaching the end of her fuse. Jason wasn’t picking up any of her hints. “It’s not, this isn’t something out of the blue it hasn’t been fun going out with you for the past few months.”
She didn’t want to yell at him because he would yell back. Although she had reached her boiling point.
“LOOK! Just because we had the horizontal tango didn’t mean I still wanted to be with you! I thought maybe that would let us split up on a high note but clearly I was wrong. I have to go to work.”
Jessica hung up on him. And clenched down on all those bitter feelings all the way to Gerbert Gerbil’s pizza.
Although she was very late to work Jessica managed to smooth things over enough to not get a reprimand. She claimed she was feeling ill. She was feeling sick, she’d been feeling sick ever since last week although that might have been more to do with Jason. Not that Gerbert’s had much of a sick day policy so she was still expected to work.
“Girl, you look dead tired.” Her co-worker in the kitchen, Sandy, spoke up once they were back into their routine. Sandy was a few heads taller and several dozen pounds heavier than Jessica was.
Jessica was rubbing her eyes in-between mixing up frosting for the cakes. “I am tired. Sick and tired, I can’t seem to shake it.”
“Need a break?” Sandy offered. “Cool off in the freezer maybe?”
“Nah. I need my rent money too much to be caught slacking again.” Although Jessica put on an air of hardening her efforts in the kitchen her empty stomach betrayed her with a rumble.
“You need to eat something,” Sandy chided. “I know they don’t want us eating in here but,” she overturned an empty water pail in the corner for Jessica to sit on. “I’ll look away while you eat something. Here, homemade lunch.” Sandy passed Jessica her lunchbox. “Or there’s the leftover pizza. It’s…old.”
“You sure about this?” Jessica glanced nervously at the camera over by the kitchen door. She didn’t need the day shift guard reporting her.
“Relax, its fine.” Sandy lowered her voice to a half whisper. “Actually that camera hasn’t worked in ages. I think the cooking steam shorts out the visual feed. Audio might work so just be quiet about it.”
Begrudgingly Jessica sat down at the makeshift seating area Sandy had set up for her. The main pizza cook was far too kind, Jessica was feeling worthless the way her weekend had been going. To make up for missing breakfast she opened Sandy’s lunchbox.
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