Rachel's Habit

         A few years ago I worked at a little coffee shop in my hometown; it was the best job anyone could want. Not because you have regulars who, come around the counter to get their own coffee’s or help clear off tables for you, but because their was just so much drama in that place amongst the workers.
           For now I am going to stick with one worker who stands out the most in my mind. Her name shall be for this story Rachel. Rachel was about 5’6 kind of pudgy, blonde hair blue eyes. She went to school with and was best friends with Pink, who she calls by her real name, Alicia. She would always brag about them cutting class and what not, and bring in pictures as proof that she knew Alicia—Pink.
If you look at Rachel you have never guess that she was model. She was only 23 at the time but look like she was 29. Her eyes were droopy, and had heavy bags under them. Her nose looked as if it didn’t belong on her face. When she showed her glamour pictures from back in the day, everyone would wonder what the heck happened to Rachel?
Drugs happened to Rachel.
She was into everything. Pharmaceutical drugs because her mother worked at Merck, Pot, heroine, and cocaine. She had a habit that she could barely feed. She was also in denial of this. I remember one conversation we had about how she wasn’t into drugs but just like to try them,
“Latia, guess what the dentist told me.”
“What Rachel,” I said not paying attention to her because there was something always new occurring in her life.
“He told me has to pull out all of my teeth.”
“What!”
“Yeah. He said my teeth are all rotten, and from how they look it’s from drugs.”
“Oh,” I said trying to sound concerned. I could have told her that.
“I mean I don’t use drugs…well a lot. And I only tried coke once. I swear,” she said as if she was trying to convince me, but I knew she was really trying to convince herself.
As time went on and the storeowner was never around, always traveling the world doing secret missions, that he never wanted to discuss. Rachel would begin to steal money from the store. But she was always so kind to leave a note in the deposit box, so I guess in her mind it wasn’t stealing.
Rachel owes the safe $350.
Her drug habit was getting out of control. One time she took $150 to go and buy some blow-pops for our candy display from Sam’s Club. It took her three hours to come back, and when she did her eyes were rolling in the back of her head, and in her hands was four blow-pops and $5.
Rachel also had an obsession with whip-it shots. Whip it shots are when you waste the entire whip cream in the can to get the last bit that contains Helium in it.
Imagine it’s Friday night and you have 35 customers asking for café mocha with extra whip cream. You go to the mini fridge and there is no whip cream. So you go to the main fridge and there you see Rachel passed out with about 30-50 cans of whip cream lying all around the floor. Whip cream around her nose and apron and the only thing she can say to you is,
“What the hell do you want, I’m on break.”
Rachel was always on break. She never worked, but yet somehow she was always nominated the best worker.
“And the hardest worker award goes to…Rachel,” Said the storeowner in his heavy Italian accent, as he presented her with a printed out paper award and a $50 gift card to any place of her choice.
We just didn’t get it. She was bringing the store down yet she was getting rewards. What were we doing wrong?
Some customers who seen her actions would take us to the side and say,
“Why, don’t you call the cops on Rachel when she is in backroom doing God knows what. Maybe then she will get the help she needs. I like her, but I don’t want to see you all get in trouble for her.”
Calling the cops would be a good thing if she weren’t a friend with all of them. One officer would come in all the time his name Officer Hacker. He would always ask where Rachel was and we would point to the back. He knew what that means. One time he asked us to go back and get her, and when one of us open the back door a big mushroom cloud of smoke escaped from the back giving everyone in the store an instant high.
Rachel was in the back feet kicked up on the desk. Bong in one hand lighter in the other.
“I thought I told you not to bother me when I am doing the dishes.”
“Officer Hacker wants to see.”
“Be out in a minute. Go! Leave!”
Five minutes later she would come out as if she just stepped out of the shower her hair wet and slick back and she smelled as if she rolled in five different types of coffee beans to hide the smell of her habit. But you could look in her eyes and see in her walk that was gone from reality.
“Rachel, what are you doing back there?” questioned Officer Hacker.
“You know the crap work that nobody wants to do.”
“Oh really so what was all the smoke back there from?”
“Oh, I was dusting.”
“Dusting, huh…well I am going to warn you, because I like you, but someone else might come in here and arrest you and your co-workers.”
“Yes. I will take heed of that warning sir.” She would say in a military tone.
She would then fix Officer Hacker his drink of choice; give him some pastries to take home to his wife and kids. Once he left she would glare at us and mumble,
“Do not bother me when I am dusting or washing the dishes, and if you must, call my cell first!” and she would disappear back into the drug abyss.
It seems as though this whole story is about Rachel and her drugs, but that is all she is known for. Getting high and doing drug shady transitions in the store, putting everyone’s life in danger, just for a quick fix, no one else mattered.
There was one period in her the time I worked with her that she stopped, and I kind of wished she still were using.
She was found in her blue 2002 mustang, she O.D., her brother called the ambulance and they came out and took care of her.
She vowed never to drugs--well at least for two weeks she wouldn’t.
And within those two weeks she could not function. She was pouring coffee beans into their appropriate containers, when she slipped on an invisible banana. The only thing that was available for her to grab was the shelf with all the beans. It broke and it rained espresso beans all over the place. Rachel thought it was a riot. She laid on the floor and began to play in it.
“Look, I am making coffee bean angels.”
I paid her no mind and swept up the mess she made. She became irate with me for spoiling her fun and drove off for an hour.
Her being off of drugs was more damage then her being on them. She was take the salt and pepper shakes and place salt on the bottom and pepper on the top. She said it saved a step for people, so they didn’t have to use both shakers. She would clean the bathrooms and not place toilet paper in them.
“I want to see how many of these people actually wipe their butts.”
Needless to say she got back on drugs and I was the first one she told. It was three of us closing that night, Rachel, Emily, and myself.
Normally Emily would take me home, but Rachel insisted on taking me this night.
“So, I hear you’re a good listener Latia, and I need you to listen. You know I’ve been clean for two weeks right?”
“Yeah”
“Well, my dealer he isn’t too happy about that. He called me the other night and said he wanted me over for dinner. Which means he probably wants to know what is going on with his best client? So I go, and his place is like an hour away, this huge estate he inherited from his Dad who was a lawyer. Anyway, there was dinner a wall length mirror of cocaine in lines. He told me not to be a bad guest. How does that make a host look? So I did it and it made me feel good, like I was alive again. You know I was like why the hell did I stop doing these things. You know.”
“Sure.”
“Well what I want to know from you is, do you think I should go back to my old ways or should I just continue to be good, so I can go to heaven, because I hear its nice up there.”
I am at this point confused as anything. What do I tell her that she wants to hear? Do drugs it makes you seem sane, or don’t do drugs their bad for. I can’t help her.
“What should I do Latia?”
“I truthfully do not know.”
“What the hell are you good for”
“Rachel, watch the road,” I said. She’s angry and the car was switching lanes on 611. I was afraid we were going to be pulled over by the cops since it’s the burbs and they have nothing else to do.
“I can see the road! But you are not helping me!”
“What do you want me to say? Do whatever makes you happy.”
She stopped the car and looked over to me, her eyes filled with rage and hurt.
“Get out of my car.”
“Rachel!”
“Get out of my car.”
“Before I do, I just want to say, I truly in all honesty think you should leave drugs alone, but you are not if you stay around here with these people. That’s why I feel as though my words are useless. Words can’t help, you need change.”
“What I need is for you to get out the God dam car.”
I got out; it was a mile from my house but in the dark. I was confused. What just happened? Did I do the right thing? This seems like a movie, but I know its not. What the heck.
It wasn’t until two days later when I had work that I saw Rachel. She was a zombie, just doing what she had to do. She didn’t speak to anyone. We closed that night, and when Emily and I were signing our timesheets she yelled to the back,
“Latia, I think there are some papers in your cubby about the new coffees. Take them home, and lock up!”
I took the papers and in between was a ripped yellow piece of paper off a steno pad with the words, you are right. I need change. Sorry for kicking you out the car—Rachel.
I read this note over and over I still have it in my keepsake box, but was I right?