Breakfast

Annie carefully constructs my egg and cheese muffin, muffin well done, two, three times a week.

She works silently, diligently, caringly -- toasting, then re-toasting the muffins before she wraps them tightly in crinkly wax papers and places them in paper bag, folds over the top, neatly, and takes my few dollar bills and some change.

It's not a fair trade. I can watch her cook, assemble my order, take my cash, and answer the intercom to take other orders.

I inquired civilly, and came to know that she is a single mother of two. A boy, one, and a girl, five. She hasn't missed a day of work for years. Never sick, never tardy.

Today, all alone until her shift partner arrives, she seemed a little lonely and smaller still in the big kitchen, filled with shiny stainless steel forms and surfaces. The juice machine bubbles away, the milk machine letting a few drops fall into the waste tray and the espresso machine releasing a little steam. The grill smokes from a few pieces of bacon crumb or is it a scrap of egg?

Her skin is clean and clear and her pink ears stand out like little shells stuck on her head. She wears her hair in a ponytail. Her ponytail wrap is all business. A big, red, rubber band.

I noticed today that her arms are long and lean from holding and feeding babies and reaching over the hot grill to fry my eggs. The veins show through her arms from her wrists to her upper arms. Her forearms are discolored from burns from the black, iron plates covering the gas burners.

I left her a thousand dollar tip this morning at the drive-through window. I stuffed ten, one-hundred dollar bills in the jar and drove off just after she gave me a milk bone for my dog. I didn't say anything, and will deny everything the next time I'm in for an egg and cheese muffin, muffin well done.