Naugatuck Valley Community College
EXACT CHANGE Kerry Heverling She knew help wasn’t coming. She came in, as always and started the routine. The coffee streaming into pots, the pad tucked in her back pocket, the huge overhead fan, sucking all the warmth from the room, muffling voices, in and out. She turned to see the people filling in and willed herself to begin. Her customer was already here, at the far corner table, a young couple at the one next to his, three locals on counter stools, already hungry enough from plowing snow through the night to bypass her and start begging food from the cook. The bell on the door jingled as a family stomped in, a trail of brown slush in their wake, making a dark path up the center aisle, slippery now. The local guys were easy- drop three coffees- they knew the menu, over-ordered to prove how hard they’d been working and went back to their chatter, bravado about allnighters and overtime. She set a coffee and water on his corner table as she passed, feigning eye contact with the girl half of the couple so the customer wouldn’t start to talk yet. The couple was having a hard time deciding what they felt like. They were busy holding hands across the table and giggling about their own things.Their deal was clearly new. She could sense the family had settled in on the other end and were now waiting. Her customer’s cane, as always, let go of the crook in the wall and met the floor with a lash. She felt it, but kept here focus on the girl. They were trying to eat healthy she said, but they saw the butter going into the potatoes on the grill. It seemed a deadly amount. He wanted to try the homemade hash, but were there onions in it? He liked onions, he said, but they didn’t like him. She could hear the kids at the far table, telling the parents they were hungry- a dragged-out announcement. The couple couldn’t commit yet, so they ordered drinks and asked her to come back. 9
