Dark Direction

Chapter 4:Simon and Amy at the Café

As he grabs his keys, wallet, MacBook and phone he takes a quick glance in the mirror before heading out the door. It was another busy Monday for Simon Cowell. Barely leaving enough time to stop off for a cup of coffee was his usual routine. This time he had a morning meeting and couldn't spare the time to be late.

He pulled into the Daily Perks Café drive thru until he saw it was bumper to bumper and around the building. "Oh Bloody Hell, of all days" thought Simon to himself. "Guess I'm going in to grab my coffee and doughnut today." He mumbled under his breath. He was glad to find a parking space without having to wait for a spot to open. As he put the car in park and turned it off he heard a loud clap of thunder and big fat raindrops. "Oh absolutely wonderful! Could this day get any better?" Simon said to himself sarcastically grabbing his morning paper and using it as an umbrella.

He quickly ran towards the entrance dodging puddles that started to form. Quickly entering the café he was blown away by the unusual crowd of people waiting in line. "Oh this is not happening to me." He said under his breath as he saw the "please take your ticket here" sign. "Oh great, when did they start this?" He mumbled to himself reluctantly taking the next ticket while standing behind the next person in line.

On his ticket in black bold was the number 47. When he looked up at the digital "now serving" machine in big red dots the number 35 was forming, Deciding whether to step out of line or not to get to work on time Simon heard "Good morning Simon" breaking through his thoughts. He looked up to see the Manager squeezing through the crowd to the registers.

"Hey Sadie, what's with the ticket system this morning?" Shouted Simon to the manager of the café.

"Today is the buy one get one free promotion in today's paper." She said.

"I'm late and I..." Simon is cut off by Sadie.

"It's covered Simon, Amy at the middle register has your usual waiting. Oh and it's on the house today, my treat!"

It's about time something went right. Simon thought to himself as he pushes through the crowd towards the middle register where a young blond in her early twenties is busily finishing up with a customer. In a hurry he darts to the counter before the next ticket number is called out.

"Hi" he says to the young woman, she must be new here he thought as he had never seen her before. "Um hi, I'm Simon, Sadie said my order is ready for pickup." She looked up at him and smiled politely.

"Oh yes, morning." She greeted him. "I guess I won't be needing this." He said as he handed his ticket to her. With his coffee and donut in one hand and taking his ticket with the other she had an overwhelming expression on her face, a loud gasp followed by a sudden jolt as she dropped the hot coffee on the counter, it tumbled and splashed all over Simon's suit with the most shocked expression on his face. The first thing that came to his mind is I spoke too soon! This day is going nowhere fast!

"Oh my god I'm so sorry! Are you okay? I'm so clumsy! Let me clean this up I don't know what came over me!" Said the cashier completely horrified at what just happened.

Quickly rushing over "Oh, oh dear!" gasped Sadie at the unfortunate mishap helping the cashier clean coffee off Simon's clothes and shoes while calming the cashier down. After the mess was cleaned up and a thousand apologies were given to Simon, he decided a conference call and a change of clothes were needed before heading into work that day.

Before heading out of the coffee shopan embarrassed cashier offered to pay the dry cleaning bill and gave Simon her number. She also felt the need to explain what caused her to drop the coffee in the first place. What Simon didn't know was that Amy had a gift, well that's how she saw it as. She had visions or small glimpses sometimes. It depended on the person or the place. In this case it was the person and it was Simon. She was determined to let him know of what she saw when she took his ticket from him. He had a destiny to fulfill. One that would take him on a journey of a lifetime.