Free First Avenue by Lowen Clausen Page B

doughnuts outside and ate them beside her cart. Two men wearing hard hats squeezed past the woman at the door and came in together. Their heavy boots echoed from the hard floor. Both wore dusty blue jeans, and their hands were dirty. Their loud voices took up all the space. They gathered their doughnuts and coffee and sat at a table in the center of the room.
Maria
was glad they had come. They were like people she had seen before. They seemed to know the man at the counter.
    “Hey,
Pete
, how come you’re working alone?”
    “The boy quit.”
    “No kidding. Maybe you should pay these kids more money.”
    “How can I pay more? If I double the wage, will you pay double the price?”
    “Not unless they taste a lot better than these.” The two workers laughed together.
Pete
did not laugh.
    “They eat all the doughnuts they want.”
    “Now there’s a benefit we don’t have. We’ll have to talk to the union about that.” The two men took turns talking. They might have been brothers.
    “You hire that boy, you and your union,”
Pete
said. “You see if you make him work.”
    “Well, not much of a loss. Didn’t know how to smile.” The other man said, “Find somebody with a pretty smile like that girl who used to be here. A pretty smile, and you don’t mind what the doughnuts taste like.”
    When the construction workers finished their coffee, they left their cups and napkins on the table. They waved to the proprietor and said they would be back tomorrow. The proprietor smiled until they were outside, but he didn’t go to their table to clean it off. He stood behind the counter with his hands on his hips and watched the door.
    The old man got up to leave, wiped the table with his napkin, and dropped his cup into a wastebasket. The man who seemed to be the owner did not acknowledge his departure.
    Maria opened her milk carton and stuffed the doughnut inside. She carried the milk carton back to the counter. The owner looked toward her. She tried to present a pretty smile.
    “I heard you say that the boy quit,” she said. “I’m looking for a job. I could make doughnuts if you showed me how.”
    “I make the doughnuts,” he said. “I need somebody here at the counter.”
    “I could do that, too.”
    “Sure. It’s not hard. Sometimes it’s so easy there is time to help yourself to the money.”
    “Steal, you mean? I wouldn’t do that.”
    “So, you don’t steal. Where are you from that you don’t steal?”
    “I just got here from Alaska .”
    “Are you Indian?”
    “My mother was Indian. Is there something wrong with that?”
    “No. Nothing wrong. I am not from this country either. I am French from Quebec . If you come at six in the morning, I will show you what to do.”
    “
Six o’clock
?”
    “If that’s too early, there’s no job.”
    “It’s not too early.”
    “Somebody else comes at ten. No break until ten.”
    “I don’t need one.”
    “I pay cash, the minimum wage. Sometimes you make a tip.”
    She stood at the counter and wondered if there was anything else she needed to do. The man had not moved a single step from behind the cash register, nor had he lifted his hands from his broad hips that spread beyond the width of his shoulders. Maybe this was the way people were hired in
Seattle
. She only knew what it was like working for
Mr.
Polanski
at the drugstore at home. She was sure this would not be the same.
Mrs.
Polanski
brought freshly baked cookies every Saturday morning.
    “My name is
Maria
,” she said, thinking he should have at least that much information.
    “Yes, all right. I am
Pierre
.
Pierre
Bernard
.” He spoke his name with more emphasis than anything else he had said.
    Maria stood a moment watching his eyes and tried to think of a way to ask about the policeman, but the question was hopeless.
Pierre
seemed to have already forgotten she was there. It was better to wait, she decided—better to watch the door like
Pierre
.
    A boy in an orange cap walked in. Pierre