Who: Brian and Violet When: Friday, February 5th, 2010 (way backdated) Where: Mama’s Diner & Ice Cream Parlor Rating: PG-13, at most. Summary: Violet has time to kill, and Brian’s an easy target. Warnings: um. nothing but a bit of language.
It had not been a bad day at Mama’s Diner. One could even say that it had been a good day, if one were anyone but the owner of that particular diner. But even Brian’s famously dour countenance was not unaffected by how pleasant the morning had gone, or by how smoothly they’d handled the lunch and afternoon bustle. As it was, the small, limited staff currently was managing the chaos that was dinner on a Friday night with admirable competence and cheer.
So instead of wanting to drown all of his desperate, overwhelming worries in immeasurable amounts of alcohol, Brian now only wanted a one small drink. Just to brace himself for the inevitable minor incident that would no doubt fuck up what would be a wonderful day. He was in a great mood, and the anticipation was killing him.
It was such that his employees had even deemed it safe to let Brian wander around the restaurant without fear of him chasing business away by depressing the crap out of all of their customers. It was surprisingly nice to talk to his patrons without a supervising waiter or waitress, though Brian couldn’t be sure if all of those effusive compliments about the diner’s ice cream sundaes and strange flavors were actually honest or exaggerated just to toy with his emotions. Surely a pistachio ice cream milk shake didn’t warrant a happy dance. But Brian couldn’t exactly complain about that. And at least he hadn’t heard anyone bitch about the pie. Yet.
Waving goodbye to a grumpy old man sitting in at in the corner of the bar counter, Brian continued purposefully along the window booths to skirt the family tables. He eyed a pair of parents with three small children sitting at one of the main tables. They weren’t particularly disruptive or even very loud at all, but Brian was sure that something would go horribly awry and set off a chain reaction of crying and screaming, and everyone else in the diner would get annoyed and demand that he do something about it. And then Brian would be forced to say, this is a family establishment, it’s to be expected, what can you do? (despite his own lack of love for little kids and their howling), and those customers would get even more upset and so would the family at fault and they’d all leave in a huff and not pay their checks and the employees would be distraught and angry and rightly so after all their hard work and he’d have just ruined the night for everyone.
With this happy thought in mind, he made his way down the booths, dolefully inquiring people if they were enjoying their dinners. They were (or at least they said they were, maybe they were actually lying and planning to sue him later for an undercooked burger patty or a hair in the ketchup or something). Brian moved on with a melancholy smile.
A pretty looking young girl with brown, wildly curly hair and freckles was sitting alone at the last booth of the row. He offered her a glumly pleasant expression on autopilot and asked, “Are you enjoying your…“ Too late, he saw that she had not yet been served, and sighed at himself. “…menu, miss?”
Way to go, O’Connor-Cox. Not the smoothest save in the world, either.