Natalia :: Jamba Juice :: April 2007
“Working here,” I explained to the girl at the counter, who was tapping a pen and smacking her gum. “I don’t know, it’s a job.”
“But, like, is it hard?” she pressed me, now adding hair-twirling into the mix of annoying habits.
“Hard? I don’t know if I would say that, but..”
I looked at this girl, a face I’d seen probably more times than I could count. Little variations here and there, but basically she was the same as all the rest.
I imagined her waiting on people, trying to score impossible tips, attempting to remember the million different kinds of smoothies you can get. I imagined myself, working late, trying to train her, struggling to remember when I was ever this bad .
I could especially imagine her in the uniform. Talking about it with her friends, describing the bagginess and the ugliness of the whole get-up. Or she’d turn it into a fashion statement.
We’d had a few of those too.
She popped her gum again. Definitely the complaining type.
But she would get hired anyways.
Always hiring, always looking for “fresh faces!” and “enthusiastic personas!” How anyone could be enthusiastic about serving blended fruit shakes to the masses of Philadelphia was beyond me. Especially when everyone was all “no this” and “no that” and “make sure you don’t..”
It made you wonder if anyone ever orders anything the way it’s supposed to come.
“Alright,” I started, looking up from to the blonde girl’s application. “Danica. We will, let you know soon. Thanks for coming by.”
“Mmhmm. Yeah. Kay,” she mumbled as if it were a coherent statement. She flipped her hair over her shoulder along with her massive Dooney and Bourke purse and off she went.
And I went back, from my little diversion, to making smoothies.
I piled some bananas and strawberries into a blender, contemplating.
Is the job difficult?
The satisfying whirring of ice chips and the like was the sound that kept me awake at night, and that was no joke. Five days a week and endless hoards of customers really got me thinking about the meaning of life and what the hell I was going to do with myself when I graduated college.
First, I had to pick a major.
I had already ruled out three things:
Doctor. No bloodiness policy.
A Teacher. No patience with kids policy.
Someone who made smoothies at Jamba Juice. (Though I don’t think you can go to school for that, anyways.)
Is the job difficult?
“Umm, yeah. I think I will have the, uh. Wait, no I change my mind. I will have the uh. No, no. Ew. No. Definitely not that. I will take a large.. no, small..”
Is the job difficult?
“Natalia, what on Earth are you doing? We’re like, backed up through outerspace here? And you’re sitting here, humming the Beatles and looking like you don’t give a shit about working, huh?”
Is the job difficult?
“Hello, I’m Rick Wendell. I would just love to buy some stock in your company and if you would be willing to so kindly show me the direction in which the manager would be. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.”
Is the job difficult?
“Maggie, your blah blah blah blah blah smoothie is ready, come get it.” “Maggie?”
“Maggie?”
“Oh, hell, I’ll just drink it myself.”
Yeah, sometimes. It could be pretty difficult.
I fell into place with the rush one Saturday, and just in time to go on my break when we started to thin out.
I sat down with my brought-from-home PB&J and baby carrots and no smoothie in sight. I couldn’t even stand to look at one.
The new girl, Danica (the manager, some 18-year-old named Quinley, had been impressed with her 2.3 GPA at Heatherland Heights) was all set to work while I took a nice, leisurely lunch.
I taught her everything I knew, and probably most things she wouldn’t be able to use until much further in her Smoothie Career. Like how to deal with arguing couples or people who yell at you for making them something too fattening for them.
Halfway through my lunch, the first customer came in. Philly’s Jamba Juice saw all kinds of of people through the doors, daily. But even I had to admit, I’d never seen anything like this.
“Jim, you have never had a smoothie before?” the girl asked him. They were holding hands and the girl was smiling broadly.
“Karen,” Jim started back, “I think you asked me once already. Or maybe seven times. I dunno.”
He smiled at her but she couldn’t resist. “How? I mean, what? What did your mom feed you growing up?”
“Uh, pretty much everything but smoothies, apparently. And radishes. I hate those.”
“You lead such a sheltered life. You know, I am glad we took this opportunity of going to Philly to broaden your--”
“It’s not like I haven’t heard of one before,” he said calmly, interrupting her. “I just haven’t had one.”
“Okay, then. Now we will try. And you will fall in--”
Jim stepped up to the counter and surveyed the menu, quickly.
“What’s the closest thing you have to mixed berries?”
Danica went on and on and rattled off all the kinds I’d told her to memorize, screwing up a few but getting them mostly all right.
He ended up getting a Razzmatazz and she got her claimed favorite, Citrus Squeeze with a shot of Wheatgrass. She said to Danica how she’d been trying to go vegetarian.
Danica seemed interested. But I was only interested in Jim as he drank his Razzmatazz smoothie and looked like he was holding back a couple tears, or something.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Karen asked him, stepping into a booth and flinging down her things. “Much better than the stupid football thing we came for--”
“Yeah,” Jim said, “The smoothies are good.”
Karen grinned affectionately and kissed him on the lips.
“So, I was thinking, we could start at--”
“Something to write home about,” Jim said aloud. I wasn’t sure if he’d meant to or if it had just slipped out instinctively.
Jim gave Danica and I each a dollar and I was very impressed, because he seemed so weird. And weird people usually don’t tip.
When Karen spoke, he watched her and made little jokes and things she didn’t really pay much attention to. She was busy focusing on their trip home and the sightseeing they still had left to do. “You’re not driving home, Halpert. You drive like my grandma.”
Jim was busy focusing on his Razzmatazz smoothie, and he drank it down to the very last drop.
He tossed it in the trash with Karen’s almost still-full one.
Danica asked me if I thought they were married.
I couldn’t tell if she was being serious.
Author's Chapter Notes:
jim and karen.. on a road trip to philly
Chapter End Notes:
hope you enjoyed :)
