The lunch lady of hollow ridge playthrough

Turn 32 of 32

Fetch with the other 2 tammy's for what the line calls for as the students come in for breakfast. you notice how 3 tammy's work at each station like yours.

The students come in on the bell — a tide of them through the cafeteria doors, chattering, backpacks thumping, a hundred or more in two lines along the serving rail. 'Good mornin', sweetheart,' the Tammys at the line say, all of them, all the same voice, and the children say good morning right back like it's the most ordinary thing in the world. 'Blue or pink cup, hon?' 'Tray up, darlin', let's see those hands.' You watch from the walk-in door a second before your next run, and there's something in your chest that swells up warm and full at the sight of them all coming through.

The line calls and you fetch. 'Eggs, hon, we're short on eggs.' 'More sausage to the griddle, darlin'.' You haul the tins from the deep cold of the walk-in, the two Tammys beside you running the same circuit, passing at the door with nods and 'scuse me, hon's, three of you moving like one body split in three. And as you run it you start to see the shape of the whole kitchen: three Tammys at the griddle, three at the ovens, three on the serving line's long stretch, three at the trays and milk coolers. Three at every station, just like the three of you at the fetcher door. Twenty-four women in the room, every one identical, and the work flows through them like water through a pipe.

'They run it three to a station,' the Tammy beside you says, sliding a case of juice cups onto the dolly, watching the same thing you're watching. 'Reckon that's how she likes it. Never alone at her work.' She says it easy, settled, like she's been here years instead of an hour.

The children eat, and the noise of a hundred of them is like nothing the mountain building ever held — laughter, milk straws squeaking, chairs scraping. A little girl at the end of the line waves up at the serving Tammy and the Tammy waves back with her gloved hand, and the girl beams like she's waved at her a hundred mornings before this one. 'Mornin', Mrs. Tammy!' the girl calls, and the whole serving line answers, warm and together, 'Mornin', sweetheart.'

You stand a moment with a case of eggs in your broad gloved arms, watching them, and the drawl comes up from somewhere deep and easy. 'Mornin', baby,' you say to a boy waiting by the walk-in door for his milk, and he grins and takes it from you, and it is very good.