Free Backtracker by Robert T. Jeschonek Page B

on the yellow plastic trays at the assemblers ' station, he turned and snatched three more platters from the lip of the broiler. " Get these out fast as you can, " he instructed the two girls working as assemblers. " They ' re late enough as it is. " Chucking the three platters onto one of the huge trays, he swung back to the broiler and snapped his tongs from the lip, resumed flipping steaks.
    Hustling back over to the fry station, Dave jerked a wire basket from the vat of bubbling grease there. As the hot, dark grease drained from the basket, he let out a sigh of relief; he'd almost forgotten about the two breaded fish filets he'd been cooking, but he'd gotten them out of the fryer in the nick of time. Though the filets were just a shade too brown, they hadn ' t burned, and he could still serve them.
    As he pulled the fish from the basket with a pair of metal tongs, then dropped the filets onto platters, he heard one of the assemblers shouting at him. Her voice was strident, her tone sharp enough to make him wince.
    " Dave ! " she blurted. " We ' re out of rolls again! We need rolls! "
    " All right, all right, " he answered, popping potatoes from the drawer onto the platters of fish. " You ' ll have them in a minute. "
    " We need them now ! " blasted the assembler, her voice quavering between anger and desperation. " I ' ve got a party of four that wants their meals, and they ' ve been asking me about them every five minutes , and I don ' t have any rolls! "
    " All right, I said ! " hollered Dave, rushing over to fling the fish dinners onto one of the assemblers ' yellow trays. " Gimme ' a minute, okay? "
    " I don ' t have a minute ! " she snarled. " These people ' re getting pissed! "
    " I ' m sure they can wait one more minute, " he huffed, jumping back to the fry station, grabbing a bag of rolls and a metal tray from the counter.
    " You don ' t have to deal with these people ! " she griped. " I ' m the one they bitch at when they don ' t get their dinners fast enough! "
    Grimly, Dave ripped open the bag of rolls and plunked them onto the tray. He had to fight to restrain his temper as the assembler continued to bark at him; his whole day so far had been terrible, and he was in no mood to take any guff.
    The hectic steakhouse shift was just the latest of the day ' s difficulties, unfortunately. First he'd awakened that morning with a severe hangover, the result of his heavy drinking with Billy and Larry the night before. As if the pain of the hangover hadn ' t been bad enough, Dave had slept so late that he'd missed his first class at Orchard College...and he'd missed half his second class, too. On top of all that, his statistics professor had given a surprise quiz...a quiz covering material that Dave had planned to study the night before, but which he'd ended up not even skimming. After botching the quiz, he'd learned that final projects for his Auditing class would be due in two days; the deadline had been moved up a full week...and since he'd barely begun his project, he had no idea how he could finish it in time. The rest of his classes had been similarly disastrous.
    All in all, it had been a lousy day. Dave had hoped that work would go smoothly, but the entire shift at Wild West had been awful. At this point, with the rush in full gear and the assembler in a rage, he just wanted to go home.
    " Oh my God ! " yapped the assembler. " You don ' t even have any rolls i n the oven? What the hell ' ve you been doing all afternoon? "
    " Hey ! " hurled Dave, shooting around to glare at her. " I said you ' ll get your damn rolls, so shut the hell up! "
    The force of his anger surprised her, made her back off just a bit. " If you ' re just puttin ' them in now, " she growled, " I won ' t get them for another ten minutes! "
    " So tell the people they ' ll just have to wait ! " cracked Dave, swinging open the top oven. " Take them their meals and tell them the rolls will be out in a minute! "
    " Easy for you to say, " jabbed the