The Enigma

Chapter One - Broken Plates.

Chapter One - Broken Plates.

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“Hi, my name is Frankie and I’ll be your server for this evening. Can I take your order?”

I swear, if I have to say that same stupid sentence one more time this evening I will scream. Loudly. So loud that you won’t be able to hear the crackling radio playing bad 80’s music for once. Maybe I might even crack a window or two. Hey, it would save me work in the long run. Doesn’t matter how long I spend scrubbing those things, the dirt’s ingrained.

The customer in front of me was just another trucker who seemed more interested in staring at my chest than reading the menu. 

He shot me a toothy grin, well, it would have been toothy had he not been missing half his teeth. “Naw darlin’, just give me another minute.” he winked at me, and I had to repress the urge to shudder.

“No problem,” I replied, before walking away from the table as quickly as I could without looking too suspicious.

It had, quite literally, been the day from hell. The dire lack of air conditioning in the stuffy diner meant that even something as simple as walking into the kitchen made me want to burst into flames. The immense heat had only made me sweaty, impatient and entirely more irritable.

Paul’s Roadside Diner wasn’t exactly the sort of place you’d go to if you were looking for fine dining. Food here was served hot, fast, and greasy and half of our dishes probably should have come with a cholesterol warning. Located on the very edge of town, conveniently also next to the towns one major road, Paul’s had turned into something of a mecca for truckers and exhausted families alike. 

North Carolina had an awful lot of tourist towns, but ours wasn’t one of them. Our one lone hotel shut down sometime in the early fifties, and ever since then guest houses have catered to the needs of those who might come in from out of town for a wedding, or more often than not, a funeral. People didn’t stop here, they just ate at Paul’s and passed right on through.

I sighed, and leaned against the counter. The fabric of my yellow work shirt was stuck to my back, and I could feel the beads of sweat along my hairline. I felt gross, to say the least. 

I groaned, low and quiet so none of the other diners would hear it, and rubbed my fingers over my tired eyes. Saturdays were always the worst, especially if you were crazy enough to have volunteered to work a double shift. It wasn’t as if I had anything else to do though, and the money was good. Really good.

“I’m just about ready now darlin’.” a booming voice echoed through the diner. I breathed in deeply, before placing my customary ‘I’m happy to help you’ smile on my face, and walking back over to the trucker. He rattled off his order, and I noted it all down in the small notepad that was permanently hanging off my apron. 

“I’ll get that to you as soon as I can.” I smiled, before turning away from his leering expression and marching my way back behind the counter once again. I tore the sheet from the notepad, and slapped it down on the little tiled ledge of the open window between the main part of the diner and the kitchen.

 “New order Beau,” I shouted, waiting for his distant grunt of acknowledgement before I ducked out again, leaning back against the counter.

A glance at the clock told me it was quarter to eight, only fifteen minutes until I was allowed to escape the grease-pit. Either Rebecca or Teresa, both single moms in their forties, would come in to replace me, while the other watched their kids. I liked them both, they were friendly without being nosey and most importantly for the couple of weeks I had to do shifts with the both of them, they proved themselves to be hard workers too. My old shift-partner deserted us a few weeks ago. For some reason, she decided that eloping in Las Vegas with her deadbeat of a boyfriend was a good plan. I really didn’t care all that much about her life plans, but I did care that it messed up our work schedules completely. Paul finally managed to find us a replacement the week before, but that night was my first time working with him.