FAT FICTION | Chapter 16 - A Second Chance Around (Patreon)

The lunch rush had finally started to die down when the mug shattered.

The sound cracked through Rosie's Diner loud enough to turn heads from three different booths. Maggie looked up from the counter just in time to see ceramic fragments skidding across the floor beneath table seven.

Jenny stood over the wreckage with her eyes wide and one hand still extended toward empty air, as though she might somehow catch the mug after it had already hit the ground.

Maggie recognised that expression immediately.

Not embarrassment.

Panic.

The mug wasn't the problem.

The problem was that Darren had heard it too.

Right on cue, the office door slammed open.

"What the hell was that?"

A collective groan seemed to pass through the diner.

Darren emerged from his office wearing the permanent scowl that had become his default expression sometime around his third divorce. He looked around once, spotted the broken mug, then spotted Jenny standing beside it.

Jenny couldn't have been more than eighteen. She'd only been working there for a month, and every time Darren raised his voice she looked like she expected to be fired on the spot.

"I'm sorry," she started immediately. "It slipped and I…"

"My God," Darren snapped. "How hard is it to carry a mug from one table to another?"

Maggie set down the rag she'd been using to wipe the counter.

"Easy, Darren."

His head swung around.

"Stay out of it."

"Not much chance of that."

She walked over and crouched beside the broken pieces.

"My fault."

Both Jenny and Darren looked at her.

"What?" he demanded.

"I stacked the tray badly."

It wasn't a particularly convincing lie, but Maggie had discovered long ago that confidence was often more important than credibility.

Darren folded his arms.

"Funny. Everything around here always seems to be your fault."

Maggie glanced up at him while gathering shards into a dustpan.

"Occupational hazard."

A couple of regulars at the counter chuckled into their coffee.

Darren noticed.

His scowl deepened.

"You think you're funny?"

"No," Maggie replied. "If I thought I was funny, I'd charge admission."

This time even the truck driver in booth three laughed.

Darren's face darkened further.

For a moment Maggie thought he might actually continue the argument. Then he apparently decided it wasn't worth fighting a battle he was almost certainly going to lose.

"Just clean it up."

With that, he turned and disappeared back into his office.

The entire diner relaxed.

Jenny let out a breath she must have been holding for a solid minute.

"You didn't have to do that."

Maggie stood and handed her a fresh pot of coffee.

"Sure I did."

"But he was yelling at me."

"Exactly."

Jenny laughed nervously.

Maggie smiled.

"Go refill table four before he comes back and remembers you exist."

The girl hurried away as Maggie finished sweeping up the broken mug herself.

She'd gotten very good at cleaning up other people's messes.

The thought came uninvited.

Unfortunately, so did the rest of it.

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years working in this place.

Fifteen years carrying plates, pouring coffee, covering shifts, solving problems, training new hires, and keeping the place running despite never technically being in charge of anything.

When she'd started at Rosie's, she'd been seventeen and pregnant and convinced the job would last six months at most.

A year if things got difficult.

Then her daughter had arrived.

Bills had arrived shortly afterward.

Years followed.

And somehow she'd never left.

The truly irritating part was that she knew she could have done more.

A lot more.

Maggie wasn't a genius, but she was smart. Smart enough to know she'd wasted opportunities. Smart enough to recognise bad decisions after she'd made them. Smart enough to see possibilities when other people missed them.

Which only made it worse.

Because unrealised potential had a weight to it.

It sat on your shoulders year after year until eventually you stopped noticing it was there.

A voice interrupted her thoughts.

"That was a nice thing you did."

Maggie looked up.

A man in a rumpled suit sat alone at the counter, nursing a coffee.

She'd served him earlier but hadn't paid much attention. Traveling salesman, probably. The leather display case sitting beside him practically announced it.

"What was?"

"The kid."

Maggie shrugged and tossed the broken ceramic into the trash.

"No point ruining her day over a coffee mug."

The man smiled.

"You're kinder than most people."

"That's because most people haven't worked customer service."

That earned a laugh.

He raised his mug slightly in salute.

Maggie returned to wiping down the counter.

Eventually, the man nodded toward a photograph sitting beside the register.

A dark-haired teenage girl smiled back from the frame.

"Emploee of the month?"

Maggie looked up and followed his gaze to the picture. Her expression changed immediately.

“No, my daughter.” 

It wasn't obvious to Maggie, but every regular in the diner knew it. Talk about her daughter and she'd light up like somebody had flipped a switch.

"Already sixteen." she added, with a mixed tone of amazement and something teetering on sadness. 

The salesman winced.

"My condolences."

Maggie laughed despite herself.

"Yeah, that's about right."

The man smiled.

"You look proud."

"I am."

There wasn't even a moment's hesitation.

Whatever else she regretted in her life, her daughter wasn't part of it.

Not for a second.

The salesman studied the diner for a moment.

The worn booths.

The aging floor.

The faded signs.

Then he looked back at Maggie.

"You own this place?"

Maggie barked out a laugh.

"God, no."

"Manager?"

"Still no."

The man frowned.

"Then why are you doing all the work?"

For a second Maggie didn't answer.

Because it was a fair question.

The kind that became harder to answer every year.

Finally she smiled.

"Good question."

The salesman took another sip of coffee.

"You ever think about leaving?"

Maggie looked around the diner.

At the pie display.

At the booths.

At the kitchen doors.

At the same walls she'd spent nearly half her life staring at.

Then she looked back at him.

"Leaving for what?"

The salesman opened his mouth.

Closed it again.

Exactly.

That was the problem.

At eighteen she'd had options.

At thirty-two she had obligations.

Those weren't remotely the same thing.

The man seemed to realise he'd wandered into deeper water than he'd intended.

"Sorry."

"No, it's fine."

Maggie folded the rag neatly and set it aside.

"What about you? What do you sell?"

That brightened him considerably.

"Watches."

She blinked.

"Watches?"

"Can I show you something?’

The man pulled his leather case onto the counter.

“I’m not in the market,” she said. 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

When he opened it, Maggie found herself leaning closer despite her skepticism.

The watches inside ranged from elegant to downright bizarre.

One in particular caught her eye.

It looked more like a stopwatch than a wristwatch. Large. Silver. More like a gadget than a watch.

The salesman saw her looking. 

“You have a good eye. That’s the one I wanted to show you.”

He took it out so Maggie could get a better look. 

“Something I’ve been working on.” 

“You made this?” Maggie was impressed. 

“It’s a…” he chose his next word carefully. “Prototype.” 

"What makes it so different from the clothes?"

The salesman glanced down at the watch, then back at her.

A strange little smile touched his lips.

"That one gives people a second chance."

Maggie rolled her eyes.

"Oh, one of those sales pitches."

"Maybe."

The salesman rested his elbows on the counter.

"Tell me something. If you could go back and change one day in your life, what would it be?"

The question hit harder than she expected.

Maggie looked away.

Toward the kitchen.

Toward the office.

Toward a memory she'd spent ten years repeatedly pushing to the back of her mind every time Darren yelled at her or another unfortunate employee.

She thought of Rosie.

"There was a woman who used to own this place."

The salesman listened without interrupting.

"She offered me a chance once."

"What kind of chance?"

Maggie laughed softly.

"Well, you see, where I am now, didn’t happen all at once. I was good at high-school. But I got pregnant. Then the arsehole who got me pregnant ran off with the prom queen. My family, well… let’s say they were never very supportive. Rosie, gave me a chance here, but also, she kinda took me in. She looked after me. And that first five years here, it went by happily. Then came the day she told me she was retiring, selling up. Only, she’d a;ready had an offer. She’d rather I took over, but that required me finding $20,000. I had a day to find it. Can you tell how this story ends yet?"

The salesman nodded.

“There’s not a lot of people who can find that kind of scratch in that sort of time. Not legally anyway.”

Maggie nodded solemnly.

"And if you had that day again?"

Maggie's jaw tightened.

"If I had that day again," she said, "I'd find the money somehow."

"How?"

She met his eyes.

For the first time all afternoon, she wasn't joking.

"Well, you said it yourself. I'd rob a bank if I had to."

The salesman looked at her for a long moment. He lay the watch on the counter gently between them.

Its display glowed softly.

24:00:00

"Mister, I already told you I wasn’t in the market…" 

The salesman smiled.

"This is a free trial. I’ll pick it up tomorrow."

An hour later, Maggie was wiping down the counter when she noticed the watch again.

The salesman had gone.

She hadn’t actually seen him leave. One moment he’d been sitting at the counter drinking coffee and talking about second chances. The next he’d simply… wasn’t.

The half-finished coffee remained.

And a  generous tip too.

Maggie picked up the watch.

The thing was heavier than it looked. Not expensive exactly. There was no gold plating or polished luxury to it. It looked more like something built in a workshop than a factory. A piece of equipment rather than jewellery.

The display glowed softly.

23:11:42

It has started ticking down. Maggie frowned.

“Well that’s odd.”

Turning it over, inspecting it.

No company logo.

No serial number.

No instructions.

Something of a prototype 

A single button was set into the side.

That alone should have warned her.

Every machine she’d ever encountered with only one button had eventually caused problems.

She was still examining it when Jenny appeared from the kitchen.

“I left my purse.”

“Again?”

Jenny grinned sheepishly.

“Again.”

Maggie held up the watch.

“You ever see this guy leave?”

“The salesman?”

Jenny shook her head.

“Nope.”

“He left it here as a free trial.”

Jenny barely glanced at it.

“Looks expensive.”

“Looks weird.”

“Same thing.”

Maggie laughed.

The watch sat comfortably in her palm. Warm. Not hot. Just warm enough to feel as though somebody had been holding it moments ago.

Almost absentmindedly she pressed the button.

The display flickered.

The countdown vanished.

Then reappeared.

24:00:00

“Huh.”

“What does it do?”

“No idea.”

Jenny moved past her.

Unfortunately, so did the tray she was carrying.

The corner clipped Maggie’s elbow.

Not hard.

Just enough.

The watch slipped.

Maggie grabbed for it instinctively.

Her thumb struck the button again.

The countdown started.

23:59:59

For one strange second nothing happened.

Then every light in the diner seemed to stretch.

The room bent.

Not physically.

But visually.

As though reality had suddenly become reflected in a warped mirror.

The coffee machine elongated.

The pie display twisted.

The floor dropped away beneath her.

Maggie didn’t scream.

There wasn’t time.

The world simply folded in half.

Then SNAP! 

The first thing she noticed was the smell.

Coffee.

Fresh coffee.

Not Darren’s cheap stuff either.

Rosie’s blend.

For years Maggie had sworn she could tell the difference blindfolded.

The second thing she noticed was the mug.

A blue ceramic mug sitting on the table in front of her.

Chipped handle.

The hairline crack near the rim.

Rosie’s favourite.

Maggie stared at it.

A cold feeling spread through her chest.

No.

Slowly, she raised her eyes.

The hand wrapped around the mug looked familiar.

The gold bracelet and the wedding ring Rosie had never removed were present.

Maggie’s breath caught.

Rosie smiled.

“There you are.”