Stranger Shore

It all started with ketchup. I wasn't scheduled to work that night at the

diner, but one of my coworkers slipped on a packet of ketchup and

sprained her butt. That's why I was called in to fill her position that

dark and stormy night when he showed up.

It was the usual chaos around the diner, a dirty little place off the

intersection of Going and Nowhere, which, like this book, was the story of

my life. I'd worked at the small, cramped, old-fashioned rectangular

building for the last seven years and saw myself coming near the end of my

college years without any way to brake and put the car of life in reverse. I

was plump, but not fat, witty, but not mean, blond haired, but not dumb, and

made more friends than enemies with whom I met. It was a comfortable

life, other than the stress of college and work, but not one with much

prospect of becoming a millionaire and living a life of retirement at age

forty. If I kept up this pace I could retire at four hundred and spend the rest

of my days on life-support.

One of my friends, Sheila, was helping me run the diner that night. The

rush hour of regulars was over, the hour was late, and our muscles were

tired from scampering from table to table all night taking orders. Sheila, a

skinny young girl of twenty with as much ambition as a sloth, plopped

herself down in a chair beside the door to the kitchen. She glanced outside

and shook her head. "What a night," she sighed.

She wasn't kidding. A storm raged outside the windows the likes of

which I'd seen only once or twice before. I'd just washed the outside of the

windows yesterday, so that ensured that the wind blew leaves and rain

against all of them. The wind blew so hard people had trouble staying on

their feet, and I swear I even saw a cow fly by, which was strange

considering we were in the middle of the city.

"Trixie?"

"Huh? What?" That was my name, and Sheila was calling it.

"I said, do you think the power will go out? We don't have any way to

keep the burger patties frozen if the fridge dies," she pointed out.

I shrugged. "Then we'll have to take one for the team and eat them all

ourselves," I told her.