Night Life {Watty Awards Finalist 2012}

Chapter 10

I walked into Steve's diner. It was 9:30 at night and Steve had called me saying that he was holding a meeting for all of the employees. I pulled my coat tightly around me as the chilly late November air bit at my face.

Life had slowed down for me in the past month or so. Classes had kicked into full gear and I found my exams and projects creeping up on me. On top of that, Steve had let off a couple more employees, which meant that I got more hours at the diner. This was a good thing because I was now able to make my tuition payments on time as well as hand in my rent before the apartment tenant shut off my hot water and electricity. It was a bad thing, though, because I was falling behind in my school work. Additionally, my insomnia had been getting worse and worse. I found myself writhing in the few hours of sleep I did manage to get, jolting awake because of another nightmare.

But I now had a source of income, even if it was just minimum wage. At least it was consistent. And with Jaime's help, I was always able to scrap up enough tips to keep me going.

Steve's Diner, though, wasn't doing so well all of a sudden. The new cafe that had opened up, the rival to La Bonne, called The Bean Scene, was attracting a lot of customers. I had been in there a few times and even I had to admit, it was trendy. The walls were painted in bright oranges and lime greens and the floors were a slick and shiny dark brown. There were geometric designs all over and the place exuded an aura of homeliness. This was a bad thing, though.

Because The Bean Scene was doing so well, the owners expanded their services beyond just coffee and tea snacks. They began making sandwiches and salads, wraps and burgers. Since this place was new and the latest thing, people were more intrigued to go there and try out some new food, which, word on the street was, was amazing.

The lunch and dinner rushes at Steve's Diner had slowly gone down to a couple dozen loyal customers like Oliver and Reese and Caleb. So Steve had no other choice but to get rid of a few employees that didn't work too often.

Among the full-timers were our dishwasher Gavin, our second-chef Jimmy, Jaime, and Luke. The only part-timers that were left were me and Randy. All of these people were in the diner when I walked in.

"Hey, Nicole. Thanks for coming," Steve said when I walked inside.

The tables had been pushed aside and some of the chairs were stacked on top of them. The rest of the chairs were used by the employees. I took a seat next to Jaime at the bar, who smiled meekly at me.

"What's going on?" I asked in a low whisper.

"Beats me, but whatever it is is bad news," she said. I frowned and looked at Steve, who was looking around the room.

"Ok, I think everyone's here, so we can start," he said. "First of all, I'd like to thank all of you for coming, or staying late if you were working," he said, looking at all of us. "I'll try to be as brief as I can, but I think you all need to know what's been going on in the past few months and what's going to happen in the future," he said.

"First off, you may or may not know this, but there's a new place that opened up a few blocks down from here called The Bean Scene. According to Nicole and Jaime who went there, it's a pretty trendy and popular place, so it's attracting a lot of people," he explained. "At first, this didn't affect us because we serve food and they only served coffee and tea snacks. But now, they've expanded and they're selling food, too. This is a problem because instead of coming here, or to other older restaraunts, people are going to The Bean Scene," he continued.

"Word on the street is that the food is pretty good, too," Luke piped in. Jaime and I nodded.

"So the problem for us is that they're taking our customers, which is an issue for the restaurant. That's the reason that I had to let go of so many people. We're down to two full-time waiters and two part-time," Steve said.