Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer

Author:Z.Z. Packer [Packer, Z.Z.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Contemporary, Short Stories, Adult, Fiction
ISBN: 9781598955651
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 2003-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE DISHWASHERS always closed down the dining hall. One night, after everyone else had punched out, Heidi and I took a break, and though I wasn’t a smoker, we set two milk crates upside down on the floor and smoked cigarettes.

The dishwashing machines were off, but steam still rose from them like a jungle mist. Outside in the winter air, students were singing carols in their groomed and tailored singing-group voices. The Whiffenpoofs were back in New Haven after a tour around the world, and I guess their return was a huge deal. Heidi and I craned our necks to watch the year’s first snow through an open window.

“What are you going to do when you’re finished?” Heidi asked. Sexy question marks of smoke drifted up to the windows before vanishing.

“Take a bath.”

She swatted me with her free hand. “No, silly. Three years from now. When you leave Yale.”

“I don’t know. Open up a library. Somewhere where no one comes in for books. A library in a desert.”

She looked at me as though she’d expected this sort of answer and didn’t know why she’d asked in the first place.

“What are you going to do?” I asked her.

“Open up a psych clinic. In a desert. And my only patient will be some wacko who runs a library.”

“Ha,” I said. “Whatever you do, don’t work in a dish room ever again. You’re no good.” I got up from the crate. “C’mon. Let’s hose the place down.”

We put out our cigarettes on the floor, since it was our job to clean it anyway. We held squirt guns in one hand and used the other to douse the floors with the standard-issue, eye-burning cleaning solution. We hosed the dish room, the kitchen, the serving line, sending the water and crud and suds into the drains. Then we hosed them again so the solution wouldn’t eat holes in our shoes as we left. Then I had an idea. I unbuckled my belt.

“What the hell are you doing?” Heidi said.

“Listen, it’s too cold to go outside with our uniforms all wet. We could just take a shower right here. There’s nobody but us.”

“What the fuck, eh?”

I let my pants drop, then took off my shirt and panties. I didn’t wear a bra, since I didn’t have much to fill one. I took off my shoes and hung my clothes on the stepladder.

“You’ve flipped,” Heidi said. “I mean, really, psych-ward flipped.”

I soaped up with the liquid hand soap until I felt as glazed as a ham. “Stand back and spray me.”

“Oh, my God,” she said. I didn’t know whether she was confused or delighted, but she picked up the squirt gun and sprayed me. She was laughing. Then she got too close and the water started to sting.

“God damn it!” I said. “That hurt!”

“I was wondering what it would take to make you say that.”

When all the soap had been rinsed off, I put on my regular clothes and said, “O.K. You’re up next.”

“No way,” she said.

“Yes way.

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