Amurehna

I've followed my boyfriend C into a tiny restaurant, it has a single prep bar in the middle of the establishment and a second, separate room with tables. I have never been here but once I go inside I suddenly work there. I don't know where anything is, what we sell, or how they sell it. C is nowhere in sight. Of course.

The restaurant has a garage door that takes up an entire wall, and they open to let it know they are ready to take business. But all the other workers are so placid and lacking urgency that it's hard to tell we're open. I go to help a woman who insists that she just wants 2lbs of ice cream. No one will listen to me, so I can't figure out where it is, and when I final see someone prepping the ice cream bar, I ask her if what's prepped is for my customer or someone else?? And she doesn't acknowledge me.
All the other employees talk around me instead of to me. I start to scoop the weird oblong chocolate ice cream onto....a plate, when someone says "That's not even ready yet."
"What do you mean?"
They don't answer me. I set the plate down. She picks it up and scrapes all the ice cream from the plate and the bar onto a flat tray with some milk, sugar, and butter and mixes it all together. She sets it down on the counter and I weigh the ice cream...it's 1.7lbs, plus a literal ice cream sandwich? Some shavings of ice cream on a bun. And a super weird mashed potato and ham biscuit thing.
I'm so confused, but I take it. It's they're 'standard plate' apparently. I take it to the woman and I try to ask if it's okay but she won't talk to me either, but also somehow makes me feel completely worthless.

Finally the work day is over and we're all trying to leave at once in a tidal rush for the side exit. I feel like I should have asked more people what I should have been doing. Maybe tomorrow will be better. There's a tallish, pale man with a cap of black curls, and big black-brown eyes. He's wearing a navy blue sweater over a sky blue button up. As we're leaving he looks down at me. Right into my eyes. And I can tell he really really sees me. I'm not forgotten or invisible, or talked over. He offers me his hand in a casual gesture, and I take it, wondering what my boyfriend will think if he sees me holding hands with another man.
But he's a hypocrite in these matters anyway. Should I care?
The hand is comforting and the man only means to be companionable, he's not coming onto me.
"It was a rough first day. Will you be back tomorrow?" He asks. I pull my hand free as we move out onto the patio, 7-8 other employees streaming past us.
"I think so."
"Good. See you then."

He leaves me behind and I spot my boyfriend C across the way. He's a distant figure and doesn't appear to consider me directly, though he raises a hand to let me know he's seen me...he still gets in his truck and leaves.
Which incites a dull sort of panic in me, because for a second I'm certain we rode here together. Did he just leave me to walk?
No...that isn't right. I dimly remember parking.
Right?
Where the fuck is the parking lot?

Uncertain, I go down the stairs to the fine gravel driveway. It's long and hooks toward the highway. I get almost to the end when I see the lot, on the other side. So of course, now that I'm trying to cross, there are a bunch of cars turning into the driveway.
Well. Not all of them are cars.
Some people are on bikes.
One woman is on a motorized tricycle? I only barely avoid her when I rush across the street, and she nearly hits another person on a bike...but she revs the tricycle, pops a wheelie and swerves out of the way.
It's so unnecessary and bloody stupid that I can't stand it. All of this pisses me off.
"Yeah, Karen! Rev your stupid tricycle, it's super intimidating!" I yell, disproportionately irate. Then I start laughing. It's so stupid that it strikes me as funny. I want to tell C about it so badly but he's not anywhere.
I my heart sinks back to its regular place in the hollow of my stomach, sad and cautious, and I find my car.

There's a lapse and I'm with C, I try to tell him about the funny thing that happened but he's not really listening, and when I tell the story again I know he doesn't believe I shouted at a stranger.

I'm having an argument with Jess Day from New girl in a weird little kitchen. She's supposed to be me, and I'm supposed to be C.
"Well yeah! that's how things would be if they were balanced! But they aren't, are they!" I snap.
"What do you mean not balanced?!" She cries.
"You really want me to bring this up here, in front of our FRIENDS? our TWO FRIENDS?" Who won't leave the fucking room.
I move around to the far side of a tiny, oddly shapped island that has a cork bulletin board running down the center with all sorts of maps and notices pinned to it. K, someone I haven't seen in forever is loudly observing a map and trying to throw thumb tacks at the board to make them stick.

I really want to get into it, so we can have a fight about something that bothers me, but the others won't leave the room and it's too personal to discuss in present company.