The Diner

01: Job Wanted

[a/n]: so here is the diner v 2.0. i doubt anyone still active on wattpad remembers when this was a thing on my second account like two years ago, but i found this chapter finished like half an hour ago so i'm putting it up. apparently i've also planned it all out, too?? so this should be nine chapters and quite possibly the fluffiest thing you can expect for me to ever write. enjoy X

01 | JOB WANTED

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Remi gets fired on a Thursday afternoon.

The hustle and bustle of the lunchtime rush sweeps all of the baristas in the almost-Starbucks-but-not-quite-there off of their feet, leaving Remi behind the counter rushing to complete orders—TWO SHOTS OF ESPRESSO! NO CREAM, REMI!—so she can pause and catch her breath. Brushing her hair out of her face, she pulls down a lever—after six months, not knowing the real purpose of it—into the metal container underneath it, before turning around to finish the order in the to-go cup for an O'Connor—Remi's hatred for double-barrels and abbreviations in names will transcend—listening to Gina, her manager—if she did any work over than barking orders, then Remi would believe it—shout some more for them to hurry up because a group of goddamn teens have just gotten off the bus and are heading this way for their super chic iced teas and caramel lattes.

She barely has time to put the cup on the side for it be handed to the customer before the next order comes rolling in—REMI, CARAMEL FRAP WITH CREAM. PRONTO—the cycle restarting again. Grumbling obscenities under her breath, she goes through the motions, and is putting the cream on top when Gina says, "I said no cream, Remi!" It is the final straw, after having to come close to breaking her back heaving a bag of coffee seeds up two flights of stairs—apparently, there's not that much money to consider delivery drop off at the front door rather than the back one downstairs—and then having her rightful lunch break forgotten as three employees conveniently all called in sick on the same day that some rock band was performing in Madison Square Garden.

In short, Remi is pissed, sweaty, tired, and swears on her life, if she hears one more person come in here to list a bunch of ingredients in the hopes of getting one of those secret drinks they've heard about online, she will jump over the counter and show them her fists as a way to make them feel hip. So—when Gina—undeserving manager with the bad highlights—decides that Remi must start an order again due to her fault in her reading skills, she flips.

And that's how Remi is pulled into the office in the back—with pictures of this same building on opening day thirty years ago—sitting in a sticky brown leather chair, facing her boss—Mr Swanson—told that her attitude does not fit in with the morals of the business, and they can't continue to give her bypasses when she gets pissed with Gina throwing her weight around, and other people taking time off and her having to pick up the slack, so she's fired.

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Dinner at her mother's house is never truly enjoyable.

Other than for Remi's fifteen year old brother, Wesley, then the night would be nothing more than her pregnant and engaged—oh, what a fabulous ring—elder sister, Cora, gushing about how pregnancy agrees with her and her fiancé, Amal, is just perfect, which would then result in loaded questions of when Remi is planning to get her life in order, because writing isn't a real career—she'll remember that listening to her Mom talk about 50 Shades—and because Cora had met Amal at seventeen, Remi is expected to have already met her life partner. Sadly, due to Remi's line of work—currently non-existent and consisting of various waitressing jobs—the only single people she's ever met are all looking for manic-pixie-dream-girls in result of some craze by some random young-adult author.