Your Chance (On Hold)

Chapter I

I leaned over the fake marble countertop, hopeless scrubbing at a dark stain with a brown rag almost worn to just threads by months of relentless cleaning. I remembered a time when the rag was spotless, white, square. When I was almost enthusiastic to receive it on my first day on the job, and continued to scrub at the stain with a fading vigor. Bells began to clink lightly in front of me, and I plastered a fake smile on my face.

"Hello," I called, drawing out my 'o' as all of the employees had been taught to, something our manager called 'friendliness' and all of us called 'annoying'. I stood up, shoving the rag under the counter and hastily grabbing my notepad and pen from my waist apron, pushing back a couple strands of hair from my face, and placing my forearms on the counter to steady myself.

"Hey, I'll have a vanilla milkshake, no whipped cream please," the boy ordering didn't pause once, his order memorized, and gave me a once over before smirking at me and turning to the boy beside him. "And, what did you want?"

I transferred my attention from taking down their orders to looking them over. The one ordering had a familiar face with friendly looking brown eyes, and I remembered that his name was Jacob, and that he went to my school. His blonde hair sparkled under the bright fluorescent lights overhead, but I found myself skipping over him to look at the next boy. With piercing blue eyes and dark chocolate hair, he looked almost familiar to me, but I could not place a name to his face.

He stuffed a pair of keys into his jean pocket and squinted up at the menu on the wall behind me, running a hand through his dark brown, almost black, hair. "I'll take a chocolate milkshake with oreos."

I nodded curtly and walked toward the kitchen.

Megan was waiting at the kitchen counter for me, staring over my shoulder at the two boys. She let out a low whistle, and I laughed. Megan was boy crazy, always had been and always would be.

"What do those two hotties want tonight?"

I looked down at my notepad and ripped off their order page, handing to her tiredly. "The same thing everyone wants on a Friday night. A milkshake."

She rolled her eyes at me and turned into the kitchen, leaving me to amuse myself while submerged in a never-ending boredom.

I leaned against her counter as she whisked around the kitchen grabbing whatever it was she need for their order. Megan had an aspiration to become a professional chief, an aspiration she very well could achieve. She had been wielding a chopping knife since she was four, and had dozens of kitchen cooking sets as a child. The only reason she was working at this low-paying diner at nine o'clock on a Friday night was so she could save up enough money to be able to go to college at the Culinary Institute of America, the top cooking college in the U.S. I was really proud of her for that.

Looking around, I caught the gaze of the kid who had ordered first. The smallest of smirks broke out across his face, and I felt a tug at my lip, but swallowed my smile. I glanced next to him at Chance, who was staring at me. The smallest of smiles broke out across his face as we made eye contact, and I felt my face heat up. I looked away hastily, and began to doodle on their order to make it look like I was writing something down. What began as a flower quickly turned into a meadow of them, as the entire border of the page was enveloped by the madness. I would've kept going if Megan hadn't hit the bell next to me to get my attention.

"You want to go give those guys their drinks or not?" she asked, pushing the milkshakes towards me with a friendly wink. I rolled my eyes playfully and turned sharply on my heel to swivel around.

When I approached their seats, the brown-haired boy snapped his eyes up to mine and smirked at me.

"Vanilla milkshake, no whipped cream, and a chocolate milkshake with oreos?" I looked down at Jacob for confirmation, but he was too engrossed in whatever he was toying with in his hand to pay any attention to me.

"That'd be us, angel," the brown-haired boy piped up. I locked eyes with him again and felt entranced by his intriguing blue eyes once more. His smirk widened as I looked at him, and I realized that I had stared for a moment too long.

I cleared my throat. "That'll be $4.79, here's the check."

I felt his gaze on me as I set the check down at the bar in front of them, the flowers covering the check leaving pencil smudged on my hand. My cheeks felt hot, and I turned around hastily to get out from under his stare. I practically ran back to my seat in front of Megan's window, and heard her laugh from the kitchen. I sat down with a huff, crossing my arms over my chest.

The bells twinkled at the door, and I called out a fake greeting yet again, not looking up from my chair. There was no response, so I looked up, and a real smile spread across my face.

"Good evening, Frank," I called out to the elderly man walking through the door with mild discomfort.

Frank was an 76 year old retired man who used to work for an architectural designing company before he fell of off a 12-foot scaffolding and broke his back and part of his left leg. He told me he then was asked to leave the company, but always vehemently denied he was fired. He had a slight limp in his shuffle, and wore a faded green John Deer hat over his balding white hair. He was a regular, a man, albeit old, of routine, and came to the diner every Friday around this time to order a cup of decaf coffee with one cube of sugar and as much creamer as I would dare to give him. And he always sat in the chair Chance was currently sitting in.

Frank shuffled over to me with a slight frown on his face and sat three chairs down from the boys. "Good evening, Vienna," he said, and opening his mouth to speak again before dissolving into a fit of coughs. Pulling out a small grey handkerchief out of his pocket, he coughed into it, turning his head away from me politely.

"Same thing as usual tonight?" I asked, a soft smile lingering on my face.

He nodded and I turned away from him to walk towards Megan. She was waiting for me at the counter with his coffee, and smiled sadly at me. "What are we going to do when he stops showing up?" she asked me quietly.

I shook my head in response, looking back at him, still submerged in his coughing fit. His wife, a sweet little lady that wore bright colored, pastel clothing and matching lipstick, and had come into the diner last week during my shift. She had told me that she and Frank would be retiring to a nearby nursing home in two weeks, so that I would not be alarmed when he stopping showing up to the diner. This was his last coffee from us. Frank had been coming here since the diner was opened, 26 years ago. No one really ordered coffee much these days except him, and since he was such a frequent customer, our boss had bought one of the best and most expensive coffee machines three years ago, just for him. Frank had a place in the diner.

I shook my head again to clear my thoughts and took the coffee over to Frank. He smiled up at me as I set the coffee down in front of him, and shook his head. "Don't be sad, Vienna."

I looked at him in shock. His wife had said she had kept their retirement a secret from him, and I had never breathed a word about it.

"I may be old, but I can still put things together," he whispered, and then chuckled. "I'll try to sneak onto the phones and order, you know."

At this, I laughed. "I know. And we'll get it to you, whatever the cost."

His eyes twinkled, and he wrapped his hands around the mug slowly, sighing with happiness. His hands were always cold, and had once told me that he enjoyed the small moments when they were warm immensely. I grabbed a newspaper from beside me and set it in front of him, and turned around before I heard the soft jingling of bells. I saw that the boys had left, and walked over to their seats to grab their payment. I lifted the order to reveal a ten dollar bill, a smiling dancing on my face as I read the words, sprawled in gracefully gorgeous handwriting at the bottom of their order.

'Keep the change, beautiful.'