Laura's too fat to be a Barista

"So... in other words, you have no kitchen experience, no customer service experience, and you have no reliable mode of transportation." two sharp green eyes narrowed in on the applicant, blissfully unaware of the seething frustration hiding behind the crinkled copy of her resume, "And your references aaare...?"

"My aunt and uncle." the applicant said cheerfully, "I've done some babysitting for them. I didn't really know who else to put, since I was told I shouldn't put down my parents. I've never had a real job before soo..."

"Uh-huh." the manager said sharply, "We'll, uh... we'll keep your resume on file."



"Lemme get two Caramel Ribbon Crunches, venti size extra whipped cream!"

Kaye's dark-skinned hand plopped the twofer stack of cups down on the counter, rattling slightly in place as they teetered into position. Slowly, Laura extended one pillowy arm and wrapped her meaty fingers around them. She brought the cups up to eye level, reading off the shorthand. Her warm, moist breath fogged up the clear plastic slightly, and the heat from her overly insulated fingers left foggy prints alongside the lettering.

Two CRCFs, X-WC--were those back on the menu?

"Hey Kaye?" Laura puffed thickly, "Do we have the heavy caramel sauce? I-I thought that the Caramel Ribbon was just a one-time thing?"

"No, Laura, it's a seasonal thing." Kaye correctly quickly over her shoulder, "The heavy caramel is right next to the frappe roast."

"Oh." Laura blinked, "Sorry. Right on it."

Beads of sweat were already beginning to form underneath the beige ballcap propped atop her blonde locks. She reached around her back, struggling with the obstructive meatiness of her own arms. They were spilling out of her sleeves, bulging out of the insufficient space provided for them in her over-packed black polo t-short. She managed, somehow, to reach the hem and pull it down over the damp quivering rolls of her girth, leaving her back just a bit more covered. Laura lumbered clumsily towards the frappe center, and began making the drinks.

It started with a dreadful descent towards the frappe fridge, located under the countertop where the blenders were. Laura had so much trouble with this, the bending over part. She leaned down, barely able to crest the swell of her bloated stomach, and threw the door open with one doughy arm. She struggled to lean further down to put herself within grasping range of the milk. She could feel the resistance met by her own greedy gut as it hung uselessly between her torso and her hips, actively pushing against her at every instance. It was a truly herculean effort on her part, one that exacerbated the sweat on her forehead and caused her underused muscles to ache and burn with exertion. Finally, she rose with the milk in hand, chubby fingers sandwiched between the handle and the main body of the gallon. With one quivering arm bracing her ascension, Laura pushed her enormous heft up and resumed making the drinks.

Her pace was slow, and uneasy. The great volume of her stomach jutting out in front of her, combined with the limited range of arm movements caused by the sheer girth of her breasts, meant that Laura had to take her time in making drinks. She filled the cups up to the first green line with milk, pumped five or six shots of frappe roast into them, and then set them down so she could get the freshly cleaned blending cups out of the sink, and poured the twin concoctions into them respectively. Then she took both handles and slowly, with great unease, shimmied herself sideways in an awkward waddle towards the other ingredients.

She felt, among other things, her belly brushing against the counter. It oozed onto the surface, contained just barely by the enormous green smock that was her apron. As she came to the ice dispenser, she felt the lip of the cold metal wedged underneath her gut. Doing her best to ignore it, Laura gathered venti-sized amounts of ice with the red scooper, and plopped them noisily into the blending cups. She pumped in six, seven, maybe eight shots of caramel, before going side-waddling back to the blenders to put in the frappe base.

"Hey now, watch it, friendly!"

The big girl blushed as she felt Kaye's perky round ass cheeks brush against hers, even from this close to the counter. Laura's chubby cheeks grew a bright red, and her jaw dropped in surprise, squishing her swaddling double chin into jowls. Surely her butt hadn't gotten that big, had it? Trip said...

"Hey, Laura, come on!" Kaye urged her, "We're kind of accumulating a lot of cups over here!"

"R-Right!" Laura shook her head, cheeks swaying with the motion, "Sorry!"

Right, where was she...

Frappe base!

Laura scooched past Kaye's pert rear-end, dragging her belly across the counter, and placed one of the blending cups underneath the nozzle. With her huge, formless arms she pressed down four times, sending her entire upper body into a jiggling frenzy. And then another four, for the other cup. The monotonous action made her arm sore, almost too sore to pick up the cups and put them in the blender. She stood there, trying to catch her breath underneath the angry whirring of the blender, and leaned against the counter uselessly. It felt like an entirely too short period of rest, as she was still huffing and puffing by the time the drinks were good and blended. She popped the top off the blender, poured the drinks into their cups, and pumped about four or five heavy caramel shots over the drink, then gave them both fluffy white wigs of whipped creme, drowned them in caramel drizzle, and sprinkled more than enough cookies onto each one.

"Two... Two caramel ribbons, venti for... Megan and Ronnie?" Laura puffed pathetically, sliding the drinks onto the counter with the remainder of her strength, then retreating to the area over the hand-washing sink to recouperate.

Laura was coated in a light, sticky film of sweat. Her enormous body was already beat by two drinks, and she had only been behind the counter for a few minutes now. She had never been particularly fast before, but her speed and stamina behind the counter were taking a definite nose-dive lately. She was always hot, squeezed into black clothing and surrounded by ovens all day in the Summer would do that, and she just felt useless and winded. Why Kaye didn't just let her work the register was a mystery.

"Laura!" Kaye called out again, "Come on girl, get'cher head out of the clouds!"

The big blonde let out a slow stream of defeated air, and tottered back into place. A VBF with Raspberry, two WCMocha Frappes grande, six tall hot drinks varying between sugarfree hot chocolates and mochas with extra espresso, it all just sort of blended together. It seemed to take hours, but Laura managed to knock the long line of cups down to a manageable level with Kaye's help. By the end, when their rush died down, Laura could not have been more tired. She had just pushed herself off of the counter, after a long Kaye-sanctioned minute of relief, than the office door exploded in a loud clammor.

"We will not be calling her." a tallish woman in a pencil skirt shouted a wee bit louder than she probably should have, given the acoustics in the kitchen, "Nobody is that desperate!"

"Who?" Kaye poked her head out of the bake case, delivering a fresh batch of muffins, "The new girl?"

"Yes the-- No, she is not the new girl, you do not start addressing her like that!" the tall brunette pointed a correctional finger at Kaye, "That girl you called me in here to interview was a complete joke! There's no way I'm letting that ditz behind the counter!"

The woman was Liz, their actual manager. Kaye's boss. She was a tall, slender woman who tended to dress somewhat professionally when not on the job. Blouses and the aforementioned pencil skirts, mostly. She kept her hair up in a bun, and her strong features were accentuated nicely by a pair of sharp black glasses. Laura had only seen her a few times, given that the two often worked opposing shifts. But Liz was the last step in the interviewing process, and was the one who gave Laura the OK to start working at the coffee shop. That didn't mean the two were exactly amicable, but that was mostly Liz's fault.

"Hey, she's the only applicant we've had." Kaye shrugged her shoulders, fiddling with the bill of her cap, "I figured that, you know, since no one else has shown up..."

"Well you figured wrong." Liz crossed her arms over the clipboard, "We definitely don't have the numbers to support some prepubescent little slip who's never had a job before."

Laura always felt awkward around Liz, mainly because of how high her expectations were. Morning shifts with her were the worst, because of how hard she made her work. Laura never sweat so much as she did when she was put on table-wiping duty--the bum job given to newbies to keep them busy until another customer shows up. Liz usually had her walk all the way around the cafeteria and wipe down every single table (even the bar!) before she could come back. And then she'd usually get stuck on dish duty. Laura had gone on for hours to Trip, or anyone who would (or could) listen really, about how much she hated working with Liz.

"Laurel?" Liz turned to the huffing and puffing hippo, splayed out on the counter belly-first, "Would you mind watching the register for a bit? Kaye and I are going to go discuss managerial business."

But that didn't mean Laura would look a gift horse in the mouth.

"S-Sure." she said almost excitedly, practically pushing Kaye out of the way in order to get a nice steady place to stand at the counter, "Just, uh, let me know if you need me!"

"Don't worry, it will only be a minute." Liz pushed up her glasses along the bridge of her nose

"Thanks a lot Laura." Kaye shot the big blonde a nasty look as she followed the tallish woman into the back offices. Their two respective shapes disappeared behind the heavy wooden door, the little metal sign that said 'EMPLOYEES ONLY' glistening in the fluorescent lighting, and left the entirety of the kitchen at Laura's mercy.

You see, the best part about working register was the more sedentary positioning. If there were two, or even three people behind the bar, then that meant that whoever wasn't working register (usually Laura) had to run all around the cafe and put stuff in cups and mash buttons and cook sandwiches and pull sweets from the bake case. But the register-worker? They just got to stand there and take people's orders, write stuff on the cups, and talk to people. It was way better than having to run around and get all sweaty.

Laura's gut pressed deeply against the cash register. The great width of her belly oozed over the sharp gray corners of the till drawer, and the overhang of her apron swallowed the lip of the counter. Her feet hurt, still, but it was so nice to get to stand in one place. She took off her hat, brushed the sweat from her brow with one massive arm, and put it back on, tucking the moist blond bangs back underneath. It might have been a bit counter-intuitive, but as long as she could remain customer-free until Liz and Kaye were done in there, there was a good chance she might actually get to relax a little...

Suddenly though, as if it existed to be the bane of her existence, the chime above the door began to ring as a customer entered, leaving Laura's thoughts of slacking off while her boss(es) weren't looking a moot point.

"Hey Lori." came a familiarly indifferent, though perfectly contented tone, "How's it hangin'?"

"It's..." Laura began tersely as she prepared to correct Emily (again), only to sigh and lose momentum halfway through, "It's going alright."

Correction: the door chime was not the bane of Laura's existence. Emily was the bane of Laura's existence. Every day, unfailingly, she'd come in with complicated orders that held up the line and forced her to walk all over the kitchen in a ridiculous effort to squeeze as many calories into a single drink as possible, and still somehow remained almost impossibly thin. And after almost a year, with her trips to the coffee shop becoming more and more frequent, Emily still managed to get Laura's name wrong.

"Are you... the only one working today?" she asked with this really worried look on her face, "I can, um... I can wait until Kaye gets back."

"What? No, Kaye and Liz are in the back..." Laura puffed, an ounce of begrudgement in her normally very sweet tone, "I can take care of you though."

"Nnnnnnno, it's okay." the runway-ready redhead said with a crinkle of her nose, "I'll just wait til Kaye gets out."

"Well it might be a while..." Laura began getting a little irritated, "She's talking with our manager."

"Ugh. Fine." Emily rolled her eyes and dragged herself closer to the counter, "I guess."

"Is there a problem?" Laura asked almost incredulously, "Come on Emily, I’ve been making drinks for a while now…"

"No, no, I know you can. It's just..." Emily winced, "You know... you’ve kinda been… slipping lately. Is all."

Slipping?

Slipping?!

Laura had been a barista for almost a year now! She had been making Emily's, and plenty of other people's drinks since she had started here almost three hundred and sixty five days ago, with only maybe a handful of complaints since she had started. And Emily decided to tell her, now, to her face, that she didn't like the way Laura made coffee? After sucking down probably her body weight in salted caramel mochas, caramel ribbon crunches, vanilla bean frappes, and pumpkin spice-flavored everything, she just now had a problem with the way Laura made coffee?!

"Wh...What?" Laura blanked, losing herself in a sea of inner monologue and images of strangling Emily's scrawny neck

"Yeaaaah it's just... you know." normally oblivious Emily even managed to see that her comment might have been just a touch bit bitchy, "You don't really... I don't know, Kaye and Becky have been doing it for a long time, I guess. You just don’t really… get what I like, is all."

"Uh...huh." Laura gripped the register tightly, her fatigue forgotten, "Well I'll, uh, try to keep that in mind. What did you want to drink today, Emily?"

Emily loaded up like always. She was on a Caramel Ribbon Crunch kick lately; always extra caramel, always breve. She got two of those, both ventis, and a hot white chocolate mocha with two pumps of the Classic sweetener that they used to make the teas, grande. All that, plus two triple chocolate chunk cookies and a blondie blast to stuff down her throat while she drowned herself in sugar and empty calories.

The main difference, this time, was Laura. Despite her great fatigue and being the only barista on duty (and not getting bitched at by Liz), she went out of her way to appease the starving redhead. Ever since that other coffee shop opened up down the road, business had been slow. No harm in taking a little extra time to make sure her brattiest customer was satisfied, right?

This would show her to tell Laura she was slipping.

Oh, what’s that Emily? You like the caramel drizzle that comes with the CRCFs? Well BOOM—caramel wall all along the inside of the cup. Who cares if it made Laura’s arm wobble and jiggle uncomfortably? The customer’s always right, right? Those crunchies you get on top? How about a whole freakin’ mountain of them, you skinny little trust fund baby? Yeah, that’s right. Suck down those through your straw! Drown that stuff in heavy caramel sauce, and then put on a big wig of the marshmallow whipped cream from the S’mores frappe!

Who’s slipping now, Emily? Who’s slipping now?!

“Mmm…” Emily took the first sip into Laura’s calorific franken Frappuccino, “Now this is more like it, Lori.”

Yeah, that’s more like it.

“Hap... Happy to be of service.” Laura gasped, left defeated from all the exertion that her little spin through the kitchen, her chest rising and falling like a doughy white tide, “It’s… It’s Laura by the w—“

“Now that looks like an impressive drink you have there.” A sudden, sharp interjection came from behind her, making Laura’s blonde blobbiness tense indiscriminately as she pooled on the countertop, “You obviously know your way around a Frappuccino.”

Laura turned around slowly to come face to chest with Liz, who stood in the doorway of the manager’s office. God knows how long she’d been standing there, watching Laura flounder around the kitchen in an attempt to impress Emily’s spoiled appetite; hopefully she hadn’t seen the part where Emily hadn’t actually paid for all the extra frills Laura had dumped into her frappe out of spite. That wouldn’t have gone over well, considering that their numbers hadn’t been doing so well in the past few weeks…

“What? Oh, yeah, right.” Emily said with a little tilt of her nose as she drank in Laura’s delicious concoction, “I’m kind’ve a pro I guess.”

“Really now?” Liz arched an eyebrow, “So, if you had to, do you think you could… sell me that drink?”

“Like, yeah, of course.” Emily made it sound like it were the easiest thing in the world to sell expensive coffee, “Who wouldn’t want to buy this?”

“Good answer.” Liz’s lips tugged slightly to the side in a little smile, “How would you like a job?”