Ringtone

Sierra was convinced that she had the worst luck. After the song played one time on the radio, she never heard it again. It had played whenever she wasn't on shift, but everyone else had forgotten to call the station for the number. And of course, they didn't take down the time when the song had played.

So the humming continued.

"Norman's usual, please," requested Anita with a slight bounce in her step as she approached the window.

"I don't know any regular orders," stated Sierra, looking up at Anita as she continued her work.

 "Oh, right, I'll write it down for you."

Anita took out her pad and pen and scribbled down the order.

"Here you go."

Sierra took the slip, looking to where Norman sat at the bar, to find he was doing a picture puzzle.

"Puzzles now?"

"Puzzles based on art pieces. He managed to find one based on Oliver's master's work," informed Anita.

Sierra nodded, clipping the note to the list of orders they needed to make.

"Can't he ever stick to one hobby?"

"But having many hobbies makes life interesting," commented Norman. Anita smiled.

"Maybe he could do it in the breakroom, so he won’t take up bar space," added Cyrus. He emerged from the back, refilling his coffee cup with tea to start the afternoon.

"Do you have the paperwork for me?" asked Norman, looking up.

"Not yet," Cyrus grumbled.

"Then I can stay here since I'm also a paying customer."

Cyrus glared. "You would turn the paperwork into a puzzle if you could too."

"Possibly."

Cyrus stormed away, the tea not improving his mood.

"Why is he always grumpy?" asked Norman, looking towards the two girls.

They both shrugged.

"Is it the same reason Shasta is grumpy," he pushed.

Anita opened her mouth, only for Sierra to interrupt. "He likes his kitchen the way he does!"

"But he even looks upset when he's not in his kitchen."

"Do you want me to start your food or not?"

Norman drew his attention back to his puzzle, leaving Anita still waiting for the order.

"Sierra?"

Sierra looked over at Anita while she stirred the curry. "Is there another reason Shasta is always grumpy?"

Sierra shrugged, pinching her lips tight.

Anita nodded, "Is it a secret?"

Sierra shrugged, her attention directed to her task. Shasta could be the one to tell Anita his “secret” though his special attention of late had been a good indicator of his feelings for her. Shasta would need to confess to her soon if he didn't want to lose to the idiot sitting at the counter.

"Norman's order. It might be a while," warned Sierra.

"It's alright; my tables are already eating. I could go ring up their orders."

Anita scampered off to prepare the receipts, leaving Sierra alone in the kitchen. Sierra began to hum again, focusing on her work. Suddenly, a louder ring reverberated, matching the tune Sierra was humming. Sierra stopped what she was doing and rushed out to the floor to search for the person with the ringing phone. She noticed someone at the bar sitting up. Norman was pulling his phone out of his pocket. Sierra dashed over, her height still shorter than the seated man.

"Just a moment, Frank, Sierra wants to talk. You want to talk to Frank?"

Norman offered Sierra the phone. Sierra heard Frank yelling about not passing around the telephone.

"That ringtone, what's it called?" she huffed.

"The ringtone?" He pulled the phone back. "Just a minute, Frank, I'll call you back."

Norman hung up the call much to Frank's protests. He opened the settings and began searching for the song, playing it out loud again.

"I changed the tune recently to this one. Kind of gets stuck in your head, ya know?"

"That's because it's my song!" 

Sierra took the phone from him to look at the name of the song. The name of the song was "Tone 4."

Norman looked to Anita for an answer as Sierra opened the web browser to search for what had inspired Tone 4. 

"That's the song Sierra is always humming," explained Anita.

"That's why it sounded familiar," Norman exclaimed with a snap of his fingers.

Sierra searched through the web browser, only to come up with a bunch of options to download various Tone 4s.

"Sierra, the food," reminded Anita. Sierra tossed the phone back to Norman before running back to the kitchen. Luckily, the curry hadn't burnt in her absence.

 "Why is the song the most common in the world, but no one knows what it is?" she moped.

Anita and Norman both shrugged before returning to work.