Daphne suddenly raised her head and sniffed a few times, turning from side to side. She barked and started to make for the kitchen. Pete stood, restraining her with her leash, and he said, "Apparently the coffee is ready."
"Let's go help out," Jan said, levering herself erect with her cane. "There's no reason Roger has to serve us."
Ms. Tumolo stood also, and she and one or two of the other students followed us into the kitchen.
There was a big coffee urn behind the counter, but it appeared to be broken. A couple of the tubes on the front were bent out of position, and one was cracked.
On the side of the small, L-shaped room, there was a stove, and water had obviously been boiled in the new coffee pot. Roger was pouring it over the grounds in the basket in the battered aluminum coffeemaker, and I decided not to ask the next question, which was whether it had been washed recently.
"Make a note," my employer said to me, gesturing at the broken urn. "It must be possible to fix that."
With Roger and the other students behind the counter, and the rest of us on the other side, I had the urge to get a tray and put it on the tracks so I could slide it along and load it up with food. There was no food, of course, but it did make me realize that I was getting hungry. I hoped that lunch was going to be on the schedule at some point.
Jan and I poured mugs of coffee for ourselves, Pete poured two, then Ms. Tumolo poured her own, and by then the pot was nearly empty.
"I'll make more," Roger said, "and then I'll be right out."
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