Snippet number 1...

Ok, so maybe this isn't exactly a snippet, but more of an excerpt...or possibly even a whole "chapter"....enjoy anyway, tell may any grammatical errors and so forth you find. I'll correct them later. And you get a stale cake if it adds to my word count.



"Will that be all for you?” The man sniffed in an unflattering manner, mumbled something which she took as a “yes”, grunted, then handed the menu to Amy he had been gripping in his grimy, sausage-like fingers. She jotted down the last of his order, then quickly made her way to the kitchen. Men like that were unsettling. He looked like he could jump out of anywhere and slit your throat, no questions asked. Her straight, unruly, brown hair was straying from it’s bun again. Amy hated having to fix it every so often. It was always such a pain. It always wanted to escape the confines of the bun she had to keep it in when she worked. Upon arriving in the kitchen, she called out his order to the cook and clipped up the order slip.
“I need one Spanish omelet, no onions, and a side of links!” Amy yelled over the din of the kitchen’s clatters, bangs, and sizzles, while redoing her hair. Every time she went in there, she didn’t want to stay long. The noise alone would give her such a headache. After taking care of the man’s order, she walked back out to get the man his coffee. She avoided running into John with his food-laden tray and proceeded to her customer. After pouring his coffee she checked the rest of her area. No new customers yet. Upon returning to the kitchen, the noise seemed to have escalated. She definitely preferred the quiet of the actual restaurant area of Rosa’s Tambourine to the noise of the kitchen, but she liked the chaos of it all. Everything seeming to happen all at once, the uncertainty of whether or not someone would burn a dish, the moments where everything would either come together or fall completely to pieces, sometimes literally, just everything about it. The thing was, it wasn’t complete chaos, it was more like ordered chaos. Everyone had a set task and everything was done in a certain way, it wasn’t a total free-for-all. Just as she was going to make her rounds again, her manager, Kelsey, approached her.
“Amy?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember me telling you about that new employee we recently hired?”
“Um...yeah, I think I remember you mentioning something like that.”
“Well, she’s starting tomorrow and I want you to show her the ropes when she gets here, ok?”
“Sure, whatever you say Kel. Just make sure she doesn’t expect me to do every damn thing for her. I’m just there for guidance. Remember Rebecca? That girl didn’t last five minutes after training because John did everything for her. If I had trained that girl, she’d still be here. Not that I’m blaming John, that girl wasn’t cut out for waitressing.”
“That’s exactly why you’re training her, not John.”
“Someone should train him on how to train someone. It’d do us a lot of good. God knows he can’t do it to save his life.”
“Quit being so harsh on him, you were just the same as he was for a while.”
“I was never that oblivious. At least I knew when to let the trainee do something and when to interfere.” Kelsey sighed and walked off to go bug someone else about something. As much as Amy liked Kelsey, she tended to nag her about everything. It was almost like having a second mother around you at all times. But that was about where the similarities between the two stopped. If they ever met one another in real life, they’d soon find out they were complete opposites. For one, Kel was an organization freak, where as her mother could care less about where anything went. Most of the time you couldn’t even walk on the actual floors because they were so cluttered. But they were still so similar in their motherliness it was actually kind of scary.
Amy sighed again and then went to check on those orders. All of them were done. She promptly picked up a tray and put all of the dishes on it and walked out of the kitchen. She served a small family their dishes and then proceeded to the unsettling man. He was reading a tabloid of all things. From the looks of him, you would never guess he read tabloids. Although, now that she thought of it, not many people looked like much of anything at first glance. She served the man his food, asked if he needed anything else, and then as she was about to go back to the kitchen, she noticed that there was a new couple in her area. She quickly walked over to them and asked if they were ready to order. They said they were, and as she looked at the man, she immediately noticed that he was very attractive, maybe not quite handsome, but not bad either. He had shaggy brown hair, a nice, firm jaw with a softness to it, and the prettiest blue-hazel eyes you can imagine. She was awoken from her trance by his amazingly deep, soothing voice.
“I’ll have the hot cakes with bacon, please, and coffee.”
“Ok,” she finished writing his order then looked at the woman, “and what shall I get for you?”
“Um, can I have the veggie omelet with hash browns and I’ll just have water.”
“You sure can, I’ll be right back with your drinks.” Amy checked up on her other tables and then went to get the couple their drinks. When she was walking back, the couple seemed to be having a heated discussion, but it abruptly stopped when she approached. The woman flashed her a very strained smile, said thank you and waited for Amy to get what she thought was out of earshot, which it was, unfortunately for Amy. She liked to hear what was going on in everyone else’s lives. She thought it made her life a bit more interesting. As she kept checking in on them and brought them their food and the check, she noticed that the discussion got more and more intense. By the time they left she thought for sure that the woman was going to throw something at the man. She was somewhat disappointed that nothing did happen, but at the same time glad nothing happened because she probably would’ve had to help break up the fight or clean up after those two. Neither of which she was willing to do that day. There was just too much going on. Between classes at the university and her job, she didn’t have time to be cleaning up someone else’s messes, let alone her own. She checked the clock and saw it was getting close to the end of her shift.
“Thank you God,” Amy uttered under her breath, “I really need to get that article done tonight.” Amy went to find Kel, no one had come to her area since the couple had left, and told her she was going home. Kel checked the schedule and then waved her off. Amy got her coat and then ran out to her car. Sweet sweet freedom. Nothing felt better than getting out of that place after being there for countless hours. For the middle of winter in the northwest, it was relatively warm. There was still snow on the ground, and seeing your breath was as normal as blinking, it was still pretty cold by anyone else’s standards, but to someone who’s never left the northwest for more than a couple days, it was almost spring-like weather. As soon as she unlocked her car, she jumped in, shut the door, started the car, and went to turn on the heat. As soon as she turned the knob for the heat, she heard an odd noise. Where had she heard that noise before? It seemed so familiar yet, she couldn’t exactly place it. It was on the tip of her tongue, where had she heard it? Now she remembered. The same thing had happened to her a couple years ago. The heater decided to have a spaz attack and break. Great, just what she needed: a broken heater in the middle of winter. Now everything was perfect. An article to write, a cruddy roommate, a job that produced more trouble than it was worth, an ex-boyfriend who she wish would quit trying to call her, and now the creme du la creme: a broken heater. Just what she always wanted for christmas.
She beat the horn of the car in frustration, screamed a few obscenities and then started to drive home to her nice, warm dorm. As she drove home, she kept yelling at people to get out of the way and honked whenever she felt it necessary. Often when Amy would get stressed out, she would mumble to herself about her problems, yell at people whether she was driving or not, and just overall be unfriendly. She tried to avoid stress as often as she possibly could, which as of late seemed almost impossible. She managed to escape every so often, but obviously not often enough. What would help her the most would be to write in her journal, she did it only when she felt it necessary, it wasn’t a daily thing, it was sporadic. Sometimes there would be months between entries, but for the past month, she had been keeping an almost daily track of her life. Everything just seemed to be thrown at her at once all of the time. There was never a break, there was always somewhere she had to be or some huge assignment or a project that had to be done. It got to be very troublesome and tiring. She wondered how anyone could survive so much stress, but then she would remember that she was still there, so she must be doing ok. But that didn’t change the fact that it was tiring.
She pulled into the student parking lot outside of her dorm and headed into the warm building. She went up to her room as fast as she could. She just wanted to go to sleep, it was already 8:53, but she needed to get that damned article done tonight. The deadline was either tomorrow or the day after, she couldn’t remember, but either way it’s always best to get your article done early so that you can stop worrying about it. Upon reaching the door, she pulled out her key and walked in. She shut the door behind her and proceeded to walk to the bedroom she and her roommate shared. She opened the door and found her roommate laying on the bed making out, she thought, with someone. Amy stared, mouth agape for a second and then shut the door quickly. She hoped that the bang had been enough to pull her roommate, Angela, from whose ever face she had latched onto so she could go in there for her laptop, which was conveniently stashed out of harm’s way under the bed. After deciding that should’ve been enough time for the two of them to detach and dress decently again, or to at least find something to cover themselves with, she knocked and opened the door, careful not to look the two of them in the eye.
“Hi Amy, what did you need?” Angela asked, sounding especially exasperated. Apparently she felt the need to stow away her mystery lover of the day, Amy didn’t see anyone else in the room.
“Sorry, I just needed to get my laptop.”
“Ok then, make it quick.” She did not need to be told twice, she didn’t want to find out who Angela had picked for her victim. So she quickly got her laptop and as she was heading out the door called, “I’ll be at the library if you need me,” and with that, shut the door again.
“God, how many times do I have to tell her if she HAS to do something like that, she should do it at the guy’s place, not ours!” Amy sighed again and headed down to the library. As she walked along the pathways that lead to the enormous building, she heard some rather loud shouting. She looked around for the source of the noise and found that it was coming from an open grassed area of the campus, there was a couple fighting. As she walked nearer, the shouting grew louder and louder. She had to pass them to get to the library quick enough so she could stay long enough to finish her article before the library closed at 10:30. When she got closer, she could hear what was going on between the two and got a better look at them. She then realized that it was the couple from the restaurant. She could hardly believe that the two of them were still going at it. This fight seemed even more heated than what she had witnessed at Rosa’s Tambourine, if that was possible. As she came closer, she felt the impulse to sit on the nearest bench, which was facing away from them, and listen in. She turned on her laptop so as not to look suspicious.
“How could you think that I would forgive you after such a thing?!” said the woman.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about! I really don’t!” retorted the man.
“You DO know what I’m talking about, Caleb! You just don’t want to admit it! How could you do this to me? After everything we’ve been through? Did you think you would get off scot-free? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? You must think I’m pretty stupid for trying to pull this. Did you think you could pull the wool over my eyes?”
“No! Because I didn’t do anything! How can I pull the wool over your eyes if there’s nothing to pull the wool over your eyes about?!”
“Well I don't’ care what you say! Unless you do something about this, I’m going to leave you! And I mean it this time!” After finishing her enumeration of yells, the woman stormed off in a huff.
“Crystal! Crystal, come back!” Caleb watched Crystal leave, his arm slightly outstretched, reaching for her. He slumped in defeat when she didn’t even turn for a second glance at him. There was a long silence, then Amy heard the crunching of snow underneath boots coming towards her. She quickly made it look like she had been typing her article during the fight. He came and sat down on the bench next to her.
“Some fight, huh?” he asked.
“What fight?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear that whole thing, I’m sure the entire campus could. They wouldn’t even have to try very hard, we were yelling loud enough.” Amy smiled.
“More like she was yelling loud enough, you weren’t even really yelling. What was she talking about anyway? It sounded pretty serious.”
“She has this crazy idea that I’m cheating on her, when in actuality, she’s the one cheating on me. I’ve known for a while now, I just haven’t done anything about it.”
“Why not? I mean, doesn’t that just irk you to no end? Aren’t you jealous or anything at all?”
“Yeah, I guess so, but our relationship has been falling apart for a long time now. I just don’t really care enough to do anything about it, I guess.” He sighed and watched the steam from his breath curl into the winter night sky. Amy broke the brief silence.
“How did you find out she was cheating on you?”
“I just found clues that lead me to the conclusion. Clothing at her place that wasn’t mine, by the way she lives in her own apartment, people calling her whose phone numbers and names I didn’t recognize or know, canceling more and more of our dates, you know, the usual. I really don’t know why I haven’t done anything about it. Maybe I just knew that I wasn’t making her happy anymore and so I stopped caring about our relationship. I really don’t know. Oh, by the way, I’m Caleb, Caleb Regaoski.” He pulled his hand from his pocket to shake her hand, Amy took it, it was warm and she could tell his hand was very strong.
“Amy, Amy Stern.”
“Nice to meet you Amy. So what are you doing out here on this cold, winter night? I find it hard to believe you came out here in the freezing cold just to write what appears to be a newspaper article.” He gave her a knowing kind of smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back. He had such a pretty smile.
“Well, to be totally honest, I was heading to the library, but when I heard you fighting, I just kind of decided to sit down and listen. I saw you guys fighting earlier at Rosa’s and was just curious as to what you could possibly be fighting about for so long. Sorry, that wasn’t an appropriate thing to do. I shouldn’t have violated your privacy like that. It’s none of my business.” Amy started getting up to leave, but she felt a hand grabbing her arm gently.
“It’s fine, I actually really appreciate it. I think it’s helping me deal with all of this a bit calmer than what I normally would.” He gave her that smile that she thought could possibly reduce steel to nothing more than a puddle. She sat back down next to him, and just studied his face for a minute. Then she turned forward and just stared down at her hands, which were holding her laptop. After a bit, they started talking again. They talked for what seemed like hours, but was, in actuality not very long. Maybe an hour, or an hour and a half. Neither of them were sure how long it was, but it was good conversation. When Amy finally realized what time it was, she gave Caleb her phone and dorm room numbers and he gave her his. As they parted ways, she felt really good about what had happened and was glad she hadn’t gone to the library, she wouldn’t have gotten anything done anyway.
She finally arrived back in the dorm room, with no sign of Angela, or her mystery man anywhere. Which was just what she needed. A nice quiet place to sit and write her newspaper article. Amy had to write an article about the necessity of the arts in public schools, which was due in about two days, not counting today. It wasn’t a story that would be on the front page, but it was an article none the less. Being a journalist major, you took whatever was thrown your way and glad you had anything to write about at all. Sometimes you’d be the unlucky one without an article to write, which of course was not a good thing if you were trying to get hired by a newspaper that reached a large scale of people.
As she wrote her article she noticed that her mind tended to wander more than usual. She kept thinking about the insane accusations made by Crystal, how badly it all seemed to hurt Caleb and why he would possibly want to stay with her. Even if he said it didn’t hurt him, she could see that in one way or another he was hurting. There was no way anyone could be completely fine after finding out their significant other was cheating on them. It just wasn’t possible. She tried getting back on task when she realized she was off-task again, but not long after she would start to think of Caleb again. He seemed to be at the foremost part of her mind. After trying to write for about another hour or so, she decided bed was in order. So she changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, and washed her face. As she was walking to bed, she noticed that Angela was asleep, alone, on her bed. She must have come in at some point while Amy was trying to write her article. She looked at her a moment longer and then crawled into her own bed. She fell asleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes.
Amy was walking with her best friend, Romy, and friends from high school down the street Romy’s house was located on. For some reason, Caleb was there, walking with them. No one seemed to find this odd or out of place, so Amy went along with it. They were walking back from the park near Romy’s house, and upon reaching her house, someone’s cell phone started ringing from the porch. Caleb said it was his and went to answer it. After he answered, Amy could somehow hear what the person on the other line was saying, it sounded like Crystal.
“Hey sweetie! What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m hanging out with Amy, Romy, and some of their friends.” Amy got the feeling that Crystal was out of town.
“Why?”
“Because it’s Amy’s last day in town.” After that, Amy couldn’t hear what Crystal said, but it didn’t seem good. Caleb hung up, looked at his phone angrily and then walked back down to where Amy and Romy were. The number of people that had been with them previously increased from 4 to 6, and one of the original people had been replaced with someone else. Everyone had decided to go back to the park to bug someone whom everyone knew. As they walked down the street, everyone talked and laughed with each other. Caleb seemed to fit right in with everyone. Near the end of the street, Caleb turned to Amy and hugged her. She was so caught off gaurd she had to ask why.
“Because, I don’t want to let you go.” They hugged again, this time though, his shirt was missing. As they hugged, Amy had her eyes closed and she inhaled his scent, it was a nice cologne. It was a very comforting smell, something she knew she’d love smelling when she was scared so she would feel safe. She could feel his body heat through her clothes, he was so warm. They hugged whilst they walked and all the while, everyone else was making little remarks about it, nothing rude, just teasing. Finally, Romy turned to her and asked, “Are you ever going to let him go?”
Amy seemed to contemplate this for a second and then replied, “No, he’s warm.”


That concludes the first "chapter" of my story. I think I'm going to end most if not all of my "chapters" with a dream sequence...at least that's how it's been working out so far...ish....so yeah...tell me mistakes and what not...