Not So Three of a Kind

Chapter 1

     My weekly pondering over my life begins and ends while I stand in front of a large glass window that looks out onto the South Carolina beach of Greenville. This week I am struggling to balance school and work and a social life. Then add in sleep and I am a goner. I don't understand how anyone can do it all. As a Senior in college that is expected to graduate in a semester I honestly have no idea what I am going to do with my life or how I had managed to come this far while having a successful time balancing all of the major needs of life. I have am going to have a degree in psychology and no real experience in the field except consoling my roommates when their one night stands don't come back for the second night. No matter how many all-nighters we have pulled to get through those hard times, I have a feeling no one is willing use that as job experience to hire me. This sucks. I really don't want to be stuck in this minimum wage job trying to pay off 6 years of college. I am already head over heals in debt and am looking at no way to pay for it. I continue to watch out the glass window of the Café Rosemond a French themed restaurant that sells amazing coffee and delicious pastries. This café is about as French as a French fry. The owner Jonas Grink has a thing for the French although he has never been to France. He always says that one day he will go, but as a gentleman in his late 40s, he has been repeating that line for as long as this shop has been open, which is about 25 years. It became a favorite spot of mine to get coffee and people watch my freshman year of college when I was trying to avoid my roommate, Jenny Spriggs, a girl with a nasty problem of being quick to judge others. I was just glad she found a new roommate for my sophomore year. Not that we really saw each other anyway, it was just a hassle to try and not be there when she was. She wasn't all bad in fact she was the one to introduce me to my roommates now. I now live off campus in a tiny four bedroom house with my roommates, Kennedy Marshall, Madeline Cook, and Stephie Reeves. While the four of us are completely different we some how make the house function. The house is never without some kind of drama and man about once a month it can be a real haunted house. It has been the four of us since freshman year and honestly I don't know how we have even made it this far, but I guess it is because of our quirks that we end up fitting together so nicely. Stephie our hippie is never seen with out some kind of protest flier in her hand, while Mads is never seen with out her gym bag, and Kennedy is our go to social chair. If there is a party she makes sure we are all aware and makes sure that we show up looking fashionable without wearing the same outfit twice. Me, well I give advice. Any kind really. You name it and I have probably dealt out some kind of advise for it. My roommates have encouraged me several times to make a career out of it but I don't see that benefits. Its not like it is going to take me far in life other than further from the streets of... "CAMMIE! Earth to Cammie."

     It was my co-worker Bethann reminding me that I was not in the Café Rosemond to be people watching right now. I was here covering my 4pm shift. I shook myself out of my wonderworld to wake back up to the real one. I realized that without paying much attention I had walked over to a table of customers and had just been standing there staring out the window. I felt heat rushing to my checks as I quickly managed to stumble out the words, "What can I get for you?" What those words actually sounded like coming out of my mouth I had not idea. I just went along with it and held up my pen and order log waiting to take their orders. By that time I was able to catch a glimpse of the annoyed faces of three devilishly handsome men that stared back at me. The heat of my checks that was just starting to fade away, came rushing back for a second go around. Great.

     "I want an espresso hold the cream and the French cut turkey on rye." The snappy voice came from the gentleman who appeared to be the youngest of the three. He seemed to be my age, but I was never any good at playing the guessing game. What I assumed to be the oldest of them, was quick to share his elbow with the one who had just spoken.

     "Sorry about him, mom never did get around to fixing his manors. I will have vanilla bean iced coffee with a biscotti," he apologized. "Although I am glad that you came back from where ever you just traveled to."