His aged black Camaro pulled into the parking lot.

The sunlight hit the windshield at just the right angle to catch my eye through the coffee shop’s windows and alert me to look up. He was alone today. I finished filling the sugar shaker in front of me and wiped my suddenly clammy hands on my shirt. It was time to act—this was my chance.

“Sandy,” I hollered toward the back of the shop. “I’m taking a break.”

A few weeks earlier, a beat-up pickup truck teeming with junkyard workers stopped by just past noon on a Sunday afternoon. The shop was busy, full of Sunday morning late-sleepers picking up a dozen donuts and the regulars grabbing coffee before heading to the OTB next door. I always worked alone after noon on Sundays, and I was trying to be in three places at once—pouring (and spilling) coffee, making change, and boxing donuts. I was too frantic to notice the three leftover guys from the pickup truck when they seated themselves at the counter. They waited until the rush had cleared, and I served them one soda and two coffees, quickly tallied their bill and got them their change, and retreated into the back room to give myself a break.

I liked filling and decorating the donut shells; it was methodical, quiet, and satisfying, and I often found it to be the favorite of my behind-the-scenes job duties. When I had some down time, especially after a hard rush of customers, I used donut filling as an excuse to escape. I made half a tray of jelly-filled donuts with icing and headed back into the shop. I was refilling donut trays when I looked up.

All three men were watching me. Silent. And their eyes didn’t stray even as I stared back.

Immediate chills unnerved me.

They asked for more coffee, the end of what I had already made. As I refilled the machine right across the counter from them, they watched me without blinking.

One of them, playing the role of leader, with small dark eyes, dirty fingernails, and hair that hung over his brow, spoke up.

“Look, guys. We’re making her nervous.”

I walked away, heading toward a mop, when one of them knocked his soda over the counter and onto the floor on my side.

“See what you did, dumb ass? Now she has to clean up your mess,” the leader said.

“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. I had to mop eventually—”

“Girl,” he interrupted. “Are you married?”

I stared at him. It’s none of your business, I thought. I’m just here to collect your money, I thought. But nothing of the kind came out of my mouth.

“No, I’m not,” I said, turning my eyes to the floor, where I was mopping over the same small area again and again.

“How old are you?”

Obviously half your age, I thought. Old enough to know you’re a creep, I thought.

“Old enough,” I said.

“Seventeen? Eighteen.”

“Sure,” I said. I turned my back to them, walked the mop back to its bucket, poured myself a cup of the fresh coffee, and listened to them chuckle as I spilled it on my hands. One of the regulars walked in just then, and I was relieved to head to the other side of the shop to wait on him.

“Small coffee with cream and no lid,” he said. “Like usual.”

As I turned to fill his order, the leader spoke to him. “Jim, how’s your dad doing? He still coming in here with you?”

I bristled when I realized they knew each other.

“Yeah,” Jim said. “He’s next door now. He and Bob were over here a while ago. You just missed them. How’s work?”

They talked a few minutes more, and I was happy to have the chance to stay out of the way. I waited at the register to check Jim out, cleaning the counter and rearranging the trays that were still amiss from the earlier rush.

When Jim left a few minutes later, I stayed at the register to finish the cleaning. The three men finally seemed ready to leave, but on his way out, the leader told them to wait at the truck. He turned to the counter and asked for a black coffee to go.

“Girl, what did you say your name was?” he asked as I poured his drink.

“I didn’t.”

“So you’re eighteen and not married? Are you in school?”

“Yes.”

“And you work on Sundays, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, listen, I have been coming here a long time. And you have got the be the prettiest donut girl that’s been here in a while. I’ll see you soon,” he said.

He smiled, slapped a five on the counter, and left. His bill for the coffee to go was just eighty-one cents.

He came back many times over the next few weeks, always calling me “girl.” Always leaving a five for his eighty-one cent coffee to go. Always staring while I worked.

He asked me questions I didn’t want to answer. He commented on my appearance every time I saw him. He joked with his friends about me if he came in with them. And he did all of this in front of Sandy, in front of the regulars, and, one day, in front of my boss, Mr. Becker.

No one ever told him to leave me alone. And neither did I.

On this last Sunday, I was done. I was ready to say something when I asked Sandy to cover my break. She came up to the counter to swap places with me, and as I headed to the back of the shop, I took a deep breath. My hands were still clammy, despite wiping them on my shirt, and my stomach was full of rocks.

When I got to Mr. Becker’s office door, it was open. I knocked anyway, peeking my head around the door frame. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.

He looked up from his books, and I hesitated. What words should I use? How would I even say this?

“Of course,” he said. “Have a seat.”

As I sat down, I realized what I was going to do. I said it as fast as I could.

“I don’t think I can work here anymore.”

I fumbled to explain my reasons. I could’ve told the truth. I could have said I wasn’t comfortable working alone in the shop. I could have said I was afraid. I could have said it didn’t matter that this guy had never threatened me. I could have asked him to do something—to put me on an earlier shift, to make sure I had someone else with me when I worked, or to at least tell his customers to leave the teenage girls who work for him alone.

I could have said that my dignity was worth more than a $4.19 tip.

But I didn’t. Instead I said that my job—my 10-hour per week, all-on-the-weekend job that was located less than a mile from my house and paid me both minimum wage and tips—was “interfering with my school schedule.”

He said he felt disappointed, but he understood. I felt relieved. I felt the rocks in my stomach soften.

But later that day, I felt disappointed, too.

Instead of saying what needed to be said, I quit. My quitting was the same as my silence, the same as my coworkers’ silence.

I felt like a coward.

Twenty-five years later, I can still see that black Camaro in my head. I can still feel my skin light up with goosebumps as it pulls into the parking lot and the sun reflects off its windshield. I can still feel my clammy hands.

I still feel disappointment, too. I’m disappointed in a world that made a sixteen-year-old girl feel like quitting was her only option. I’m disappointed in a current world that I think hasn’t changed enough since 1993.

And I’m disappointed in me for being so hard on that sixteen-year-old girl who just didn’t understand yet the power of her own voice.