*Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
*****
'School Lunch' was painted on the side of the faded yellow school bus as Bailey Cooper approached.
Walking around, the eighteen year old girl was amazed to see the line of people waiting to step up into the open buss. The side had been modified so that it flipped up, opening the entire side of the bus and providing a canopy just out of the light rain. Inside of the bus was a long counter with a long line of stools, and about five or six old wooden desks. And there wasn't a blank space anywhere. At the very front of the bus, right behind the driver's seat, a smiling man, dressed in what appeared to be the khaki uniform of a high school student stood and served the customers their food orders. He scooped their food out of stainless steel trays, piling it onto a battered plastic tray, and as soon as someone would vacate a seat, another customer would grab the empty seat.
"School lunches suck; who would want to pay for that?" Bailey asked herself and continued her journey.
The next day, she again saw the 'School Lunch' bus as it pulled up to the side of the Oakleaf County Courthouse.
She watched as the man, dressed once again in a khaki school uniform, stepped out, fumbled with some clips on the side of the bus, then raised the canopy and also flipped down the steps.
"Hi; we'll be open in about twenty minutes," the man smiled at Bailey.
"Huh? Oh, oh no, had enough of them school lunches when I was in school," Bailey said.
The man laughed and jumped back into the bus. He lighted the propane burners and then unlocked a cabinet and hefted a massive cash register and put that onto the counter at the beginning of the long Formica counter.
"Yeah, it's school lunches, but it's not like the lunches you had in school," the man agreed when he saw that Bailey was still watching him.
"What you mean?" Bailey asked, stepping up into the bus.
"Well, remember them sloppy joes?" the man asked as he uncovered a stainless steel tray.
"Ew, yeah," Bailey agreed, wrinkling up her pretty little face.
"Well, these are sloppy Joses; it's a sloppy joe with a nice little kick to it," the man explained. "All fresh ingredients. Same with the Turkey Tetrazzini, and the beef stew, and..."
"Hey, going stand around yapping or you going start serving?" a man jovially asked as he stepped up into the bus.
"Well, was going start serving, but since it's you..." the man smiled and grabbed a tray.
"Keep telling myself I'm going get one of them sloppy Joses, but damn it, that stew's just too damned good," the customer smiled and the man quickly served up the meal.
"Seven forty one," both man and customer said as the man punched the cash register.
"Uh huh, then why you don't already have it out, huh?" the man laughed.
Nah," the customer said when the man held out his change. "Give it to that girl; about time you got you some help."
The man turned and looked at Bailey. She was short, probably no taller than five feet even, with long carrot orange hair, light complexion, at least what part wasn't covered by orange freckles, and warm brown eyes. She was slender even as her breasts stretched her tee shirt, and her buttocks were a small bubble in the back of her jeans.
"Yeah?" the man asked her. "You looking for work?"
Bailey shrugged, then nodded her head.
"Okay, here, sit there and fill this out," the man said, digging a pad of pre-printed employment applications out of a cabinet. "Front and back."
She did, and then watched as a line very quickly formed. Many of the customers seemed to be regular patrons, talking and joking with Joe, the man behind the glass partition.
"My school had this goulash; why you don't make that?" one man asked.
"I'll look into it," Joe promised.
By the end of the lunch shift, Bailey had been bumped up from standing and observing to actually scooping the apple sauce and Cole slaw onto the partitioned trays.
"Oh, but I don't want that," a woman complained.
"Hey, it's the same with or without the sauce and slaw," Joe said flatly.
Bailey noticed, as the woman was putting her tray into the large bin at the edge of the steps, there wasn't a bit of the apple sauce or Cole slaw left on her tray.
"All right," Joe said as he lowered the side of the bus and locked everything down.
Bailey watched as he unlocked a cabinet underneath the stainless steel trays, then locked the cash register in the cabinet.
Then he started up the bus and drove about five miles, to a strip of Oakleaf that was just before Sweet Oak, Texas. Bailey recognized the homeless shelter, saw the sign announcing 'St. Joseph's Diner.'
She'd been here once, when her school had asked the students to volunteer a Saturday helping out.
It had been hard, grueling work, and it had depressed Bailey, looking at the men, women, and children that shuffled through.
The next time the school asked for volunteers, Bailey had not signed up.
"Carter, my son, how are you?" a young priest asked, stepping up into the bus.
"Carter? I thought your name was Joe," Bailey commented.
"No, everyone just thinks it is," Carter smiled as he pointed to the patch on his school uniform that said 'St. Joseph's.'
"Father Greg, this is Bailey Cooper; she's my new employee," Carter said and Bailey shrank back as a few grubby men crowded onto the bus.
One grabbed the large bin of dirty trays and hustled that off the bus. Other men grabbed dish towels, then hefted the food trays out of the counter top.
Then Carter, with a very nervous Bailey, followed the men into the Diner.
Already, the Turkey Tetrazzini had been transferred to another bin. The beef stew bin was now being washed by a smiling, singing toothless man.
"Buzzy, why you don't sing a song any of us know?" another man complained and Buzzy laughed.
Twenty minutes after they had arrived at St. Joseph's Diner, the cleaned bins and cleaned trays were back onto the bus and Carter waved as he started the bus again.
"I assume you live, oh, yeah, here it is," Carter said. "Oh, that's right on my way; I'll just drop you off."
The next day, Bailey was about to start walking toward the courthouse when she heard a bus horn bleating outside of her home.
Alan, Bailey's new boyfriend, had been less than impressed with Bailey's new job. In fact, he'd made several jokes about it, even singing the Adam Sandler's 'Lunch Lady Land' song.
But Bailey's mother had been happy to hear that her daughter was actually showing some initiative.
"Up and at 'em, let's go," Carter smiled and then they roared off.
Sitting on the floor next to the driver's seat, Bailey looked up at the handsome man.
He had brown hair, which he kept cut short. Bailey could see some grey flecks in the brown. His eyes were brown as well, and his broad, handsome face was bronzed by much exposure to the sun.
He was muscular; his short sleeved khaki shirt did not hide his bulging biceps. And his khaki trousers did not hide his muscled legs.
He was tall; Bailey guessed he had to be almost a foot taller than her, maybe even taller.
She didn't have time to admire him for too long; they got busy the moment he pulled up to the courthouse.
Today, she did a little bit more than just scooping the sauce and law; she also served the beef stew.
The customers talked with her, joked with her about how hard it much be to work for 'Joe.'
"Joe?" Bailey would smile. "Yeah, he's mean. I better get to the next customer before he starts beating me again."
And her pockets bulged with the tips the customers gave her.
And again, they drove the bus to St. Joseph's Diner and again the bus was cleaned out by the volunteers that came out with Father Greg.
Alan called her, made a few crude jokes about her new job, even when she told him she'd received nearly twenty dollars in tips that day.
