Chapter 3 - two weeks before the key is found

Pulling drinks at Starbucks isn't anyone's dream, but after seven weeks sleeping on a kind-of friend's couch, looking for jobs all over the city under creepy, edgy managers and guys who interview you in shorts, it can feel like a rope. Save up and you can pay for the doctor, and they pay for dental cleanings.
It messes up your feet. They give you these short little shifts, if they've got enough people working, but still after four hours the little drips from the steam nozzles get down through the vents in your shoes and the skin swells and gets soft.
There's this guy working there, his name's dean. He's got no plans for college and I figure he's 19 at the oldest, but he's got this thick, fine hair and these big white teeth. It's unfortunate, thinking about a guy you'd like to have sucking your toes while you know that your feet at this moment are covered in skin like the inside of tangarine peels.
The rule is that your not supposed to keep a cell phone in your pocket at work. I guess most of the people here just graduated from high school, and people like that tend to have a lot friends around their hometown. I guess, from the scene right outside the door when they get off shift, the teenage girls I work with get hundreds of messages a day and their phone would be ringing all the time after twelve. But once in a while Anton calls me at work about picking me up, or maybe Erin calls on a friday to see if I want to play squash on Saturday, and that's about it. My boss, or supervisor, or whatever, lets me keep my phone while I'm on shift. I don't know if the fact that she's two years younger than me and that supervisors are allowed to keep their phones has any weight, but I get to keep my phone.
That meant there were no tearful voicemails, no guilt about not checking my messages sooner, no timezoned waiting till next morning to return my dad's wife's call.
No, I got the call with water dripping on my feet, and some solicitous asshole wearing a fleece vest smiling over the pastry case at me preparing his lame flirtatious comment while his wife gets their two kids settled.