Martha paused outside the café, staring at the hand-written Help Wanted sign in the window.
Help Wanted!
Short order cook to start immediately.
Must be well presented, qualified and experienced.
Apply within.
No timewasters need apply.
Martha could barely contain herself with excitement: here, finally, a job she could apply for. She was an excellent cook, used to preparing large amounts of food. She was well qualified, to be sure, and most certainly experienced, with all the cooking she had done for as long as she could remember.
Martha peered through the windows, trying to get a sense of the café. It appeared small, and the tables and chairs were all of wood. There were metal stools alongside a bar for the coffees. Martha’s heart at once sank. I’m not a barista, she thought, chewing her lip. Still, the advertisement had not mentioned barista duties, so Martha thought there would be no harm in applying. What was the worst that could happen?
And so, with a deep breath to steady her nerves, and a silent prayer to Gott to ask for His blessing, Martha walked out of the bright sunlight and into the dim brown and green interior of the little café. A barista pointed her in the direction of a door at the back of the café, but as soon as she reached it, a smiling and plump woman burst out carrying two plates of omelets, which she at once handed over to the waitress and then looked up at Martha.
“I’m here about the job,” Martha said, noticing the woman’s eyes light up at her words.
“Come with me.”
The woman ushered Martha into a back room that appeared to double as a store room and a little office. “I’m Ava, and my husband Logan and I run this store. Our cook didn’t show up for work this morning and we just found out that she’s getting a divorce and moving interstate.” Ava sighed. “We had no idea, so it’s caused us quite some trouble. You’re qualified and experienced?”
Martha nodded.
Ava clasped her hands together in delight. “It’s mornings only, Monday through Friday. Can you start at once?”
Martha nodded again. “Yes, I can start right now. I can’t make coffee though,” she said, worried about the consequences of that admission.
Ava waved her hand at her. “No matter, we have baristas. It’s a morning cook we don’t have now. I need a cook, not a barista or a waitress. Now, we do breakfasts and lunches: sandwiches, pancakes, crepes, Belgian Waffles, eggs, omelets. Oh, can you do chicken corn chowder soup? What about creamed chipped beef or scrapple?”
“Oh, yes, I do those all the time,” Martha said.
Ava beamed, and continued. “We also go through a lot of cakes and pies, and we have a strong, passing tourist trade. Are you experienced with red velvet cake, pumpkin pie, apple dumplings, whoopie pies and Shoo-fly pies?”
“Yes, I make them all the time,” Martha said, sending a quick prayer of thanks to Gott for finding her what seemed like the ideal position. And Sheryl had said that a job would be almost impossible to find, she thought.
Ava stood up and rustled through a filing cabinet. “All right then. I’ll give you a trial. Like I said, five mornings a week, weekdays only. Start is seventy thirty in the morning promptly, and end is at one thirty in the afternoon. Here’s a slip of paper with rates of pay, and fill out this form”—she deposited the form and a pen in front of Martha—“and then I’ll give you an apron, unless you want to go home and change and then come back?”
Martha looked down at her plain black pants and matching black blouse that Sheryl had insisted she borrow to wear for job searching. “No, that will be fine. I’ll start now.”
Ava nodded. “Excellent.”
Martha could scarcely believe her luck, although it wasn’t luck, she reminded herself, but a blessing from Gott. Not only that, but her apartment was only a short walk from the café. Gott had truly blessed her.
After her first day at work, Martha hurried home, excited that Ava seemed pleased with her on her very first day in an actual job. She wished she could tell her daed, her mudder, and her schweschders, but for now her new roommate Sheryl would have to do. Martha approached the apartment building, thinking it was nothing like any building she was used to, with so many people living so closely together, and none of them related to each other. The old building looked somewhat tired and worn from the front, with peeling paint on the cream timber walls, but the brightly colored flower gardens certainly gave the place a cheerful appearance.
Martha was surprised that she was able to afford a room here, even a small second bedroom in a renovated apartment, which likely originally had one large master bedroom and was renovated for the rental market, or so she suspected. Her bedroom was tiny, but Martha was thrilled that she had finally managed to find cheap accommodation. Sheryl said that Martha had been the only suitable person to answer the newspaper advertisement, although Martha couldn’t see how that was possible. Still, she was grateful, and this new job meant that her worries were now over. She would be able to work on her chocolate business at weekends, and even afford to set it up, at least in small stages. Plus, Sheryl seemed nice, although they couldn’t be more different. Besides her bright hair, Sheryl always wore a great deal of makeup, short skirts, and had an awful lot of jewelry hanging off her.
When Martha hurried through the door and told Sheryl the happy news about her new job, Sheryl’s mouth fell open. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think you’d be able to find anywhere to take you on. So, what, you’re doing the cooking?”
“Yes.” Martha beamed. “I don’t have to make coffee, serve tables, or anything, just cook.”
Sheryl nodded her approval. “That’s amazing, well done. I’m surprised though, with you not qualified for anything.”
Martha was puzzled. “But I’m qualified for cooking.”
“You are?” Sheryl raised her eyebrows. “You have a certificate or something?”
Martha bit her lip. “Um, no, but I’ve done a lot of cooking for as long as I can remember.”
Sheryl shrugged and handed Martha a mug of coffee. “Come and sit down. I don’t mean to be a wet blanket or anything. I suppose they didn’t ask for qualifications?”
Martha felt sick to the stomach. “The advertisement in the window said they wanted someone experienced and qualified, as far as I can remember.” She sat down in the comfortable sofa opposite Sheryl.
“That means that they wanted you to have a certificate,” Sheryl explained slowly.
Martha’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, I had no idea! What have I done?”
Sheryl waved her hands at her. “Look, don’t worry about it. If they didn’t ask to see any qualifications, they won’t worry. Besides, you said they were desperate. So long as they’re happy with your work, I don’t think they’ll care.”
Martha sipped her coffee and thought for a moment. “I’ll have to tell them I don’t have qualifications, though.”
“Are you mad?” Sheryl’s voice rose in horror. “You can’t! You won’t have a job if you do that. The main thing is that they’re happy with your work. It’s not being dishonest. Just don’t tell them, and hope they don’t ask to see any certificate or anything.”
Martha nodded, and settled down to watch television with Sheryl. Her stomach was churning and her discomfort was due to several reasons. She felt she was in fact being dishonest for not declaring the fact to her employers that she had no qualifications. She had no idea that they meant a certificate when she applied, but she did know now. She also was not comfortable watching so much television with Sheryl. Martha had been brought up to be busy every minute of the day, and sitting down doing nothing made her uneasy. Television had been a big novelty for the first few days, but now it just seemed a complete waste of time.
The reality of the Englisch world was just starting to sink in. On the one hand, it was different and exciting, but on the other hand, the Englischers seemed to waste a lot of time. On the downside, there was no community help or support. There was no going down to the barn to collect eggs or to milk the goat; one went to a store and bought such items. Sheryl certainly did not make her own clothes, and seemed to own more clothes than Martha had seen collectively in her lifetime. For her dinner, Sheryl always put packets of food in a microwave and they were cooked incredibly quickly. Martha did not think she would ever be able to use the microwave, although she had adapted quickly to the electric oven.
Martha closed her eyes tightly during a particularly violent scene in Game of Thrones and sighed aloud. The Englischers sure are funny, she thought. They are in such a hurry all the time, but then they sit down for hours and watch TV and do nothing.