[hr][center][h1][color=SpringGreen]H E L E N[/color][/h1][/center][hr]

From the school lot, Helen turned onto 14th Street and drove down a few blocks to merge onto Summers Boulevard. From there, it was a few blocks, past Summer Park and the skate ramp, and the well-manicured lawns of suburbia gave way to the bustling crowds and bumper-to-bumper traffic of Main Street. Main Street was the spot where most of the town's businesses congregated, six blocks of restaurants, bookshops, and kitschy boutiques. At the head of the street, where it collided into Summers Boulevard, sat AMC Leesburgh, its neon marquee reminiscent of an old-timey jukebox. Playing this weekend: The Town, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Easy A, The Last Exorcist.

"Great, another exorcist movie," Helen mumbled to Willow. "Because I guess that old cow still had some milk in it." Nonetheless, Helen knew she'd probably end up seeing it and inevitably dragging Willow along. Or maybe she'd text Elle- they hadn't hung out in a while, though Elle sometimes came on a little strong for Helen's liking (though being friends with Willow made everyone seem like they came on strong). Beyond the two of them, Helen didn't have many friends in Leesburgh... or beyond. There were the people from the Spore forum, but...eh. Maybe she should just stick with ghost girl. 

After a while in traffic, Helen came to her destination: Mooncash Coffee. It sat on the corner of Main Street and Gaiman Way. It was a modern-looking place, with wide-open windows and a tasteful metal and concrete façade. The symbol of the company, a golden Chinese coin half-sunk into a stereotypical coffee cup, was inscribed above the door with a glowing golden silhouette. Inside and out, people bustled, from businessmen on coffee breaks to kids off school lining up for their daily shot of caffeinated iced sugar. Helen didn't mind working at Mooncash- the hours were flexible and the staff was fun to work with, but gods could she do without the existence of the Frappuccino. She pulled Doug around the side of the store where there was some employee-only parking. Doug ground to a halt (Helen wondered if this would be the time the brakes would fail and send her putting a new hole in the break room) and Helen got out. Before she hit the door, she had her golden Mooncash apron on, and she elbowed her way through the crowd, Willow close behind. 

[hider=Gypsy Jazz in Paris, 1935][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Ha8GCMHWc[/youtube][/hider]

Inside, the store was dark wood and grey brick. A line had made its way back to the front door, and Helen had to practically wrestle her way through the crowd. She considered drawing an eye on an old Italian man's briefcase, just to give her something to do during work, but then decided against it. Helen made it over the bar dropped her bag off in the back. The store's manager, a middle-aged gay man with blue hair named Billy Morehouse, waved to her from the computer, where he was intently watching a mandatory video conference on coffee bean sourcing from Central America. Helen waved back and shoved her things into her locker in the back, one of several rammed up against the back wall behind the pastry racks. 

The moment Helen came out from the back, she was directed onto the espresso machine closest to the crowd and confronted a mountain of empty cups. She had been working at Mooncash for about 4 months, and by now she had mastered the codes the cashiers wrote on the sides of the cups in Sharpie. She steamed a mocha and blended a frappuccino simultaneously, served four extra hot chai lattes to a school of businesspeople at the same time, tossed a whipped cream canister through the air like a baton and nearly knocked Billy's teeth out (though he caught it without looking and handed it to the barista it was intended to). This would be Helen's life for the next four hours: slinging coffee, beating back the horde of elementary schoolers desperate for trendy milkshakes with the lightest bit of coffee in it, joking with similarly-overworked employees about their [i]surprisingly[/i] intricate sex lives and who was sleeping with whom on the staff now. It was a chaotic frenzy, and she loved it.