“I’ll have a Double Bacon, extra cheese, no pickle.”

I looked up from the grill, where I was flipping patties. It was Wednesday afternoon and we were short staffed again.

“Give me one sec.”

I dumped a well-done patty onto a bun, loaded it with fixings, and slid it across the counter. “That’ll be $3.85.”

There was a line of people behind him: teenagers, moms with whiny kids in tow, some guys from the construction site across the street, where one of the new hotels was going up. “$3.85,” I repeated impatiently.

He pushed four bills across the counter. One of them was a fifty. That’s when I noticed his face. His eyes, which had probably been brown at some point, were a filmy white.

“Alice,” I yelled. “Could you come up front?”

I grabbed the plate with the burger and added some chili cheese fries, on the house. “Do you want to sit in here or outside?”

“Out.”

I came around the counter, gave him his change, and linked my free arm with his. People stared, but no one offered to help, and I heard one of the moms mutter something about lousy service. To open the door, I had to kick it with my foot. The heat hit us like a fist. There were picnic tables behind the parking lot, empty now because most people preferred air conditioning.

He didn’t have a cane or a guide dog and I wondered how he got here. We were three blocks from the beach, a mile from the main road, and nowhere near a bus stop.

“Care to join me?” he asked.

I glanced back. Through the plate glass windows, the line snaked past the soda station. "Sure.”

I guided him to one of the tables and set down his food. When he bit into the burger, juice dribbled down his chin. “I love summer,” he said.

“Not me. It’s our busiest season. Too many damn tourists.”

In a couple of weeks, Alice and the others would go back to college and I’d still be working at Jake’s Wayback Burger, showing new part-timers how to water down the Pepsi, reminding them not to leave ketchup packets on the tables because people took them home.

The blind man chewed his food.

I closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like to live in darkness. Maybe it was like swimming underwater. Private, closed off. After a while, you got used to the blackness and it felt normal.  I sat motionless, listening to the traffic, car doors slamming, the sounds of people hurrying through another summer day.

When I opened my eyes again the sun seemed even brighter. I was a little lightheaded, the way I get right before I realize I’ve had one too many beers.

“Good burger.”

I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me.

“You have a nice day,” I said, tucking the fifty deeper into the pocket of my uniform before heading back to work.