Chapter 114: Stuck In A Fantasy
The thing about the diner was that it was predictable in its unpredictability. Not in terms of what she had to do. No, that was the easy part. Greet customers, take their orders, serve them. Then clean up their messes once they were gone.
That was easy. What was not easy however, was dealing with the customer’s moods.
While most people were alright on most days. There were some people that were just difficult by nature. And in Emily’s experience the police fell under the category of being difficult by nature
That night when the doorbell jingled and Emily saw what looked to be half the police station walking in to the diner her heart plummeted. It was bad enough when she had to deal with just a few at a time. So many police officers coming in all at once could not lead to anything good.
And so Emily braced herself.
She put on her most plastic smile, and got her dish cloth ready, in case she needed to snap it at an unruly police officer.
Most of the time, that was enough to do the trick and remind them that she was not to be messed with.
"What will it be today ladies and gentleman?" Even as she asked the question, Emily was already dreading the reply. No doubt it would contain something along the lines of
"I will have fries with a side of you sugar," Or something like "How about you serve yourself to me on a platter," Or, the worst one she’d heard so far " How about I wine, and dine you instead?" That time the words had been followed by a wink and a truly revolting slow run of the tongue against lips. Emily shuddered just thinking about it. No matter which police officers came through there was always that one crude officer who just said the rudest things, and their fellow officers either laughed or stayed quiet. Emily did not like it one bit, but she always managed to keep her cool under such situations, and that night she was expecting no different.
But instead of the expected crude remarks, there was a bit of silence and then one of them answered sounding weary.
"Just give us what you have, that has a lot of sugar, grease, and salt. Oh, and keep the coffee coming," and so Emily did just that, and as she moved back and forth from the table, she was finally able to piece together why they seemed so sombre. They were working a case, something particularly difficult and nasty. Which was never a good thing in any profession. But for police to be calling something difficult, and nasty, she knew it had to be something pretty bad.