I was sitting there trying to decide whether I wanted to go with the blueberry syrup or the pecan syrup when I heard a voice that immediately brightened my day.
“You could always mix them all together,” she said.
I looked up to see her standing with her fists at her hips and smiling down at me.
“Says Wonder Woman?” I joked.
She didn’t get it at first but then realized how she was standing and rolled her eyes.
“Yes, hurry up and eat and we’ll head out to my invisible jet.”
I looked out the window to the parking lot.
“I don’t see it.”
“Funny.”
“No, really it wasn’t,” I admitted. “It was really cheesy.”
I held out my hand for her to shake.
“Nick,” I said.
“Marlena,” she replied.
“That’s not what it says on your nametag, Stan.”
She laughed and her face turned red. She fumbled with the name tag, trying to remove it as quickly as possible and pricking her finger in the process. She shook off the finger and sucked on it.
“I’m so not a Stan,” she said as she removed her finger from her mouth. “The boss was here when I arrived and I left my nametag at home so I searched all over the back and found this one.”
“So you’d get in trouble if you weren’t wearing one?” I asked.
I wondered how my elves would feel about wearing nametags. It would definitely help me out but I didn’t think they’d like it. Then again, they liked just about everything. The Venti elves would complain about it though.
“Yeah, we’re supposed to wear ‘em.”
“Ok, Stan,” I said.
“Marlena,” she corrected me. “Mr…”
She looked closely at my shirt and the logo in the corner.
“Mr…Izod.”
I liked this girl right away. Her sarcasm was refreshing.
“Marlena, which syrup would you choose?”
“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “How about you close your eyes, I move them all around on the table, and you reach out and grab one? Whichever one you grab, you pour on your pancakes.”
“Oh that’s scary,” I said.
I looked around the dining room and saw that we were mostly alone. One old man read a newspaper in the far corner and a woman sat with her son doing the word search on the back of the kiddie menu. It seemed we had plenty of time to chat.
“Are you telling me you’re chicken?” she said with her hands again on her hips.
“You’re killing me with the…”