Lucy parked her car next to the convenience store and noticed the crowd.
"Shit," she sighed, it was going to be busy and she hadn't hand anything to eat yet. She grabbed a pack of crackers on her way around the counter and tossed her purse in the closed cabinet beneath the gas pump board.
"Hey girl," Mary was running the register. She counted out change and slammed the money drawer closed before turning and presenting her palm in expectation of Lucy paying for the pack of crackers.
"Lighten up, gramma," Lucy winked as she dropped a quarter in the older woman's hand.
Though she said it jokingly she silently added, "Ya bitchy ole bag!" Nobody liked Mary, not behind her back anyway. She'd been working there forever and therefore considered herself the queen of the register. Everyone smiled to her wrinkled old face though. She held the real power; she did the scheduling, and that made her Queen of the Time Clock at least. Everyone sighed with relief when Mary went home.
Lucy had been on midnight shift for six months. Actually she liked it, though if she admitted it, the old bag would change her to mornings, which she DID NOT want. So, she chorused with the rest of the staff and complained about the time as she signed in.
Things stayed busy for the next two hours, which was fine, it made the time go faster. Lucy hadn't noticed Rob come in and when he stepped up to the counter she smiled at the surprise.
"You got time for a break?" He winked and smiled a toothy grin as he leaned over the counter toward her.
"Well, I have to take the empty pop bottles out to the bottle-bin in a bit." She nodded toward the large wire cart filled with empty pop bottles
"Oh, ok, well I'll help you!"
"Ok, lemme tell Mike I'm going out."
Lucy turned to the tall woman stocking cigarettes, "Hey Chris, will you mind the register while I take out the bottles?"
"Yea, sure, go ahead as long as you've got help. Might as well get it done." Chris was a very "butchy" woman though she wasn't gay. Lucy had suspected that Chris shaved her face periodically, and was sure of it when one night Chris' face was smooth after being a bit stubbly the night before.
"Ok, be back in a few." She walked to the office to tell the manager then met Rob and they pushed the heavy cart out the front door and across the parking lot toward the temporary building where the bottles were stored.
The bottle-bin, or so it was called, was a chain-link structure with thin slats of aluminum threaded between the fencing so that it was almost a solid structure. There were cases of bottles stacked all along the walls virtually blocking any visibility from the outside, even thought it was only a few yards away from the gas pumps.