I was going to work in the kitchen to start with. I'm not a great cook, but cooking breakfast is mostly about eggs, bacon and toast. Even I can manage that. All things considered, we didn't do too badly. Craig was a big help, and must have wondered how his bosses forgot how to do basic things in the last month. We're getting the hang of though, and I'm sure we'll be fine within a few weeks.
The cafe opens at 7am every morning and closes at 2pm, 7 days a week. We only really need 2 people working every day. The weekends are a little busier, but can still be handled by just 2 people. Craig normally works on Friday and the weekends, which allows me and Shane to alternate between working 5 and 6 days a week. It's not difficult work, but we have to get up by 5am, to get to the cafe by 6:30am. We clean and do as much prep after we close, or we'd have to arrive even earlier.
At first, Shane was even getting up much earlier, at around 4am, because he needed extra time for his hair and make-up. It wasn't like he was really styling himself, but even the basics took him a long time. He's quickly gotten better, though, so he's now getting up only around 10 minutes before me.
We asked Craig to come in for the whole of the first week, which he was happy to do after having no shifts for several weeks. I told him that we just needed him to get back into the groove of things after being closed for so long. It was a terrible reason, but he didn't say anything. This last week, we went back to the usual schedule. I think we can handle it.
Today after work, Shane brought something up that was very obvious, but I was hoping he would not notice, or ignore: "Why are all our customers gay?" "They're not all gay", I responded "and anyway, why does it make a difference? We're in San Francisco, and there are a lot more gay people than Indy." "No" he said "pretty much every customer is gay, or trans or something. Look at Craig, even he's gay, and I'm fairly certain that Cindy used to be a man. We...well Chris and Sylvia are a straight couple. Why would they have a gay cafe and so many gay friends? Can you explain it?" I just looked at him sheepishly. "You know why" he said "I can tell by the look on your face. Tell me."
So I did. I didn't have much of a choice really. I told him about how Sylvia is bisexual and how she was in a gay relationship with Chris, before Chris came out as trans. I told him about the scars and not having a penis, and weekly hormone injections. Once I finished, Shane got up and walked towards his room, without saying a word. When he got to the door, he turned around and said: "I'm not pissed with you because you don't have a cock. That's not your fault. But I've been 100% honest with you so far, and told you everything, and you kept this from me for weeks. Why?" I couldn't say why. He was right, so I just stammered an apology. He said "I need you to be completely honest and open about everything from now on. So....is there anything else I need to know?" I told him there wasn't.
The trouble is, that that's not true, and it's something that feels much bigger than this was....
1 comment:
Shane didn't know? I'd assumed you told him at some point over the last month, or he figured out when y'all watched the video from your bodies original owners. I guess Shane doesn't read the blog, huh?
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