For nearly the rest of her shift, Cora couldn't bring herself to look across the battlefield—or rather, the food court—without cringing in embarrassment. She had no idea what had emboldened her to do such inappropriate things during lunch, but whatever the reason, it had vanished with her pride. All that remained were her memories and flushed cheeks that accompanied them.

It was easier for Cora to distract herself when Kevin left at the end of his part-time hours, and it was just Cora and Darlene handling the late afternoon rush of office workers and students. Once those customers left, though, returning home to their families and friends for dinner, it was back to cleaning and recleaning every exposed surface Cora could get her rag-gripping hands on.

She had been wiping down the steam wand for the fifth time when she finally gathered the courage to observe the enemy. While she ducked behind the relative safety of the espresso machines, Cora peered around the corner, holding a towel against the metal rod in case she was somehow caught spying.

The food court was mostly empty, save for a few customers picking up takeout orders from the neighboring restaurants, a custodian mopping the floor, and a couple mall workers waiting at the tables as they scrolled through their phones. The only sounds were chatting employees, clattering pans, and running faucets—even Angie the Orange was graciously silent.

Suddenly, the sound of motorized blades crushing ice drowned out the other noises, and Cora's eyes darted over Fruitastic's storefront. But no matter how long she stared at it, it was empty; not only were there no customers, but there were no employees either.

Before Cora could panic about either hallucinating or being surrounded by ghosts of baristas past, she finally saw movement behind Fruitastic's encased blenders. A second later, the top of Farron's black hair poked up from behind them, but the rest of her head remained hidden as the blender continued to churn. Cora squinted as if that could help her see through the blenders' clouded shields. Was Farron hiding from her too?

Suddenly, Farron's tattooed arm emerged from behind the wall of blenders and splayed across the counter, and Farron's head leaned on it shortly after, her grumpy gaze focused on the fruit being chopped to bits. She wasn't hiding, she was resting. The so-called "assistant manager" was lounging on the clock. If Cora sprawled across the countertops to rest her aching legs, Darlene would probably string her up by them. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad... It would at least draw more attention than their flimsy banner.

Farron only stood up straight when the blender stopped, and it wasn't a surprise when she took her dear time pouring the drink out into a sample cup. Before Cora could mentally criticize the woman over making samples so close to closing time, Farron did the unthinkable: she drank it. She hadn't made the smoothie for a customer—she made it for herself!

Cora clenched the steam wand, her wide eyes glued to Fruitastic. She wasn't sure what she was waiting for—it definitely wasn't to watch Farron's oversized arms swirl the blender around, nor was it to watch her sloppily lick the smoothie remnants from her lips. Maybe Cora expected an oversized Angie the Orange to swoop down from the ceiling and kick the blender out of Farron's hand. If Cora ever dared to make herself a drink at Cool Beans, she probably wouldn't have a chance to shovel ice into a blender before Darlene—

"Cordelia, if you break that, it's coming out of your paycheck," Darlene snapped from the other side of the counter.

Cora immediately released the steam wand, and the ache in her hand dissipated as soon as she noticed it.

"Sorry!" Cora exclaimed as she jumped up and stood tall, doing her best to flash her hopefully innocent smile. "I was getting a little too...into it."

As soon as Darlene raised her eyebrows, Cora realized how bad her excuse sounded, especially when Darlene's gaze shifted to the inappropriately shaped steam wand that was now sticking out at an upward angle.

"Um..." Cora's eyes darted over the overly clean espresso machines for a conversation topic, then noticed Darlene's purse on her shoulder, along with the fact that her apron and hat were nowhere in sight. "Are you heading out?"

Darlene narrowed her gaze at Cora. "Managerial business at the main office. It's still work."

Cora nodded, probably a little too aggressively. "Of course. I can close up."

"Set things up well for opening," Darlene said, already turning to leave. "I don't want to hear another complaint that the closers are slacking off."

"Absolutely! I'll have everything ready, just like I would want. You won't hear any—"

But Darlene was already out of sight. Instead, the only person listening to Cora's assurances was the assistant manager of the enemy.

At the sight of Farron's cold stare on her, Cora forced her expression to remain neutral, even as her mind jumped to their inappropriate lunch, then the awkwardly positioned steam wand in front of her. With a restrained grimace, Cora slowly lowered the steam wand; Farron's smirk appeared soon after.

Before Cora could even think about being any more embarrassed, Farron ducked behind the counter, disappearing completely. For a moment, Cora could only stare at where she last saw the woman. She had expected more taunts, even if she wasn't prepared to retaliate. Fortunately, or not, her wishes were granted when the woman reappeared, smacking a small red bucket onto the countertop.

When Farron reached into the bucket, her narrowed eyes glued on Cora, Cora was more bewildered than anything. It wasn't until Farron pulled out a rag and began to ring it tightly did Cora begin to understand, and she refused to be intimidated by the way Farron's toned arms flexed with every drop of sanitizing solution she squeezed from the fabric.

Cora only broke their stare-off for long enough to grab her own bucket of cleaning solution and take it to the registers in clear view of Fruitastic. While her noodle arms weren't nearly as impressive, she only briefly squeezed the rag before slapping it against the table instead—and if some of the solution splashed onto her face, no one had to know but her.

Sure, Cora had already cleaned the store multiple times since their last customer, but she wasn't going to cut corners for the sake of victory. This was the next battle of the Coup D'é-Tea: the close-off. And she was going to make sure she won fair and square.

Farron grinned, glanced to the side, then turned back to Cora.

Nine? she mouthed.

Cora only moved her eyes to look at the large clock on the wall of the food court. The sturdy hour and minute hands were a few degrees from the nine o'clock position. The second hand had just twitched past the twelve and was quivering through its next rotation.

She turned back to Farron with a nod of her own. The battle would begin at the top of the hour, and Cora was going to emerge victorious.

As the seconds ticked by, the two women kept their focus on each other, only occasionally breaking it off to check the clock. But when Cora spotted the trembling hand hit the nine, she kept her gaze on Farron, counting down the last fifteen seconds in her head. Cora wasn't sure if Farron did the same or was just waiting for when Cora would start, but the other woman kept her narrowed eyes and subtle smile on Cora.

Then, on the fifteenth Mississippi, Cora jumped into action.

She didn't bother to see if Farron followed suit, and Cora briefly wondered if Farron only pretended to challenge her to laugh at Cora's competitiveness. Cora had already embarrassed herself enough for one day, but that's exactly why she persisted. Being passionate about her job was nothing compared to performing suggestive acts in a family-friendly environment. It was nearly impossible to embarrass herself even further.

She wiped down the counters with vigor, even grabbing a second rag from the bucket to put her other hand to work. As expected, the rags flew smoothly over the previously cleaned surfaces, but Cora pretended they were as filthy as they were at the beginning of her shift, neglected by the day's openers. When she paused at the registers, she kept wiping any surface she could find with one hand while her other closed her till. She left the money tray open while she rushed by to continue her cleaning; seconds later, she returned to grab it and deposit it in the backroom to count later, dragging her rag over everything she passed.

Briefly, Cora wondered if Farron would clean as thoroughly as she did, before concluding that she didn't care. If Farron was a fan of shoddy workmanship and health code violations, that was Fruitastic's problem. Cora, on the other hand, was going to prove she cared about quality and quantity. And if her arms ached and her mouth felt parched during the process, then so be it.

If only she could make herself a nice cold smoothie too... Cora shook the temptation from her head, scrubbing the countertops with extra vigor. Even if Darlene supposedly wasn't around, Cora wouldn't be surprised if her manager was actually hiding in the ice machine, ready to pop out from the mountain of cubes as soon as Cora took a scoop. There was no way she could risk it. All Cora needed to do was focus on closing up—the finish line. Victory.

The only hiccup occurred at the sink. The thing about washing dishes was that it was mindless work, and there was nothing to distract Cora from wanting to chance a peek at the enemy's progress. But perhaps that had been her mistake during the blend-off. Perhaps if she had remained focused on her own fight, rather than the one across the battlefield, she could have won. With that in mind, Cora kept her eyes in the steel basin, strategizing the best way to rotate the items to maximize the efficiency of the water spewing over the soap suds.

After that, it was easy for Cora to maintain her concentration, even as she extracted the expiring pastries from the display case, and the front of Fruitastic was in clear view through the freshly cleaned glass. In fact, that was the easiest hurdle, and Cora was busy planning how she could incorporate the plain bagel, blueberry muffin, and cinnamon roll into her meal plan. While the last of the three was a little too sweet for her liking, she grabbed it anyway for her bus driver. It was against company policy to give leftovers to non-employees, and Cora was too nervous to rebel right outside the mall, but the driver was used to Cora "accidentally" dropping pastry packages on her way out.

Eventually, all that was left was the most important step: counting her till. In her eight years of employment, Cora had never made a mistake with her register, and she didn't intend to do so for the sake of war. The fight against Angie the Orange meant nothing if Cora was fired for incorrect funds, and that would lead to not only her loss of the food court, but to her defeat in life. Cora would never let it come to that.

Thus, she counted her till three times, and each time, it was just as perfect as she expected it to be.

By the time she was ready to lock up, she fully expected to see Fruitastic's rolling security door inches from the ground, with Farron waiting for Cora to witness the killing blow with her infuriating smirk. If that was the case, then Cora would just have to hold her head high and endure the taunts. She was an adult. She didn't care about some immature competition in a mall food court. There were more important things to worry about: working towards a promotion, affording her rent, saving up for retirement, making up for her mistakes. In the long run, closing shop faster on one occasion was insignificant, and Cora couldn't care less if she lost.

But when she left the backroom and finally faced enemy territory, she froze. The doors in front of Fruitastic were nowhere to be seen. While the TV with Angie the Orange was blessedly off, smothering the citrus in hopefully an eternal sleep of darkness, all of the lights were still on. The only sound was water gushing from the sink faucet and the clanking of blenders against the metal basin.

Standing at the sink was Farron, vigorously scrubbing the dishes with a deep glare, as if any lasers shooting from her eyes could help get rid of the grime. When she shifted that look to Cora, she paused, and her frown deepened even more.

Cora was smirking before she knew it, and she almost skipped to the security door controls in her excitement. While she managed to resist, she couldn't help but give Farron a small wave as the grille of metal creeped down, grinning wider when Farron aggressively turned the faucet off. Cora was even bold enough to attempt a wink, and while it came out as more of a blink, Cora liked to think of it as two winks for the price of one.

With Farron's glare following her every move, Cora didn't hold back as she skipped to the backroom and clocked out, almost dancing by the time she emerged from the backdoor. She gave Farron another wave as she scurried by, even lifting up her bag of pastries as if it was a trophy.

At last, she had won a battle. The victory of the close-off was hers.

Outside, the cool night air felt better than normal. For once, it didn't smell like residual car exhaust lingering in the parking lot or the dumpster fumes from around the corner—well, not just those things. At that moment, there was a hint of victory in the air. That was the sweet smell of success.

Or maybe...yeah, there was a puddle of melted ice cream on the sidewalk next to her.

Regardless, she ended the shift triumphant. The first day of the Coup D'é-Tea may have started off on the wrong fruit—foot—and the subsequent stand-off was more like a draw, but at the end of the day, she was the clear victor. She was one step closer to defeating Farron, and Angie the Orange, once and for all.

Cora's pride lasted all of five minutes. That was the time it took her to walk to her bus stop on the other end of the parking lot and begin glancing around at the quiet, empty street. While the road was illuminated by the lights lining it, the sidewalks were hidden in the shadows. The only exception was the bus stop, but Cora would've preferred the privacy of darkness over the exposure of the spotlight.

In one hand, she clutched the key to her old house, the jagged edge protruding between her clenched fingers. In her other hand was the bag of pastries; the bagel was harder than it looked.

Every time a breeze blew by, Cora held her breath, straining her ears to hear through the rustling leaves around her. When a vehicle passed, Cora followed it with her eyes, waiting to see if it would slow unexpectedly.

Cora stayed as still and silent as she could, not daring to give anyone the chance to sneak up on her. Sure, nothing had happened to her after all of the closing shifts she had done, but thinking like that would be her first mistake, and she wasn't about to be caught off guard.

Suddenly, something scuffed against the sidewalk behind her, and Cora spun around, thrusting out her key and raising the bag of pastries like a medieval weapon to finish the job.

But that was all she could do before fear froze her. She wanted to scream—even though the roads were empty, she could at least make her attacker go deaf—but her voice caught in her throat. She wanted to swing her bag of pastries around, but her arm refused to move from where it was stuck above her head. She wanted to lunge at the person with her key, but her legs were barely keeping her upright.

Perhaps it was a good thing Cora was incapacitated because the person behind her only attacked with a grimace and furrowed brows. Neon green fabric, vibrant in the darkness, hung from their crossbody purse. One hand clutched a set of keys; the other held a smoothie cup. A dragon tattoo, partially hidden under muscular shadows, laughed at Cora.

Cora blinked. Farron was staring at her, but it was unclear whether it was out of concern for Cora's sanity or Farron's own safety. And Cora didn't feel too threatening brandishing her key and a bag of pastries like a drunken fencer.

Farron scoffed, her trademark smirk sliding into place. "How much free coffee did you drink?"

At her words, Cora glanced down at the smoothie cup, and the pieces clicked together in her head. She had heard rumors that Fruitastic employees received three free drinks for every shift. Had Farron simply been making her post-work smoothie and not actually stealing company property?

Before she could mentally un-incriminate Farron, at least from that offense, a second realization came to her: Cora hadn't moved since she nearly attacked—or thought about attacking—Farron, nor had she responded to Farron's question in any way. Instead, Cora was just standing there, alone, and brandishing a useless key and semi-stale baked goods.

Suddenly, Farron's smoothie looked real good—good enough for Cora to pour over her own head and cool the heat creeping up her neck.

Thankfully, she was saved from further embarrassment when an engine whirred behind her, and after a brief hiss of air, her bus's doors squeaked open.

"Hey, Cora!" the driver called out. "Need a lift?"

For a moment, Cora remained frozen, her key and pastry bag still aimed at Farron. A second later, she was scrambling onto the bus, muttering a quick thanks to the driver before rushing to her usual seat. Unfortunately, the bus stop was right outside her window, so Cora kept her gaze focused on the key and pastries in her lap, refusing to see how Farron was reacting to Cora's escape.

But why should she care what Farron thought? Cora had no reason to be embarrassed. She was a spindly woman who had been alone on the side of the street in the middle of the night. Of course she would be spooked if someone snuck up on her. Not everyone could have Farron's toned arms and broad shoulders. Besides, not long ago, Cora had dominated the close-off. If anything, she should be sitting tall and rubbing that victory in Farron's smirking face, not hunching over in shame and ruining her back. So, with renewed confidence, Cora straightened her posture and looked out the window, ready to throw Farron's smirk right back at her.

But Farron wasn't smirking. In fact, Cora could barely see her through the scratched and smudged windows, especially when the interior lights showed Cora's own reflection clearer than the outdoors.

Just then, the lights dimmed, and Cora could clearly see Farron staring back at her, her expression impassive with her smirk gone.

Before Cora could interpret the sudden change, the bus pulled away. Even as they drove further and further, Farron's eyes followed, never leaving Cora's until she was out of sight.