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The lunch hour was indeed over; the dregs of Ewing Diner's busiest hour (and, coincidentally, the busiest hour which also happened to be the same hour in which the tiny diner would make the mosr profit, usually out of elderly couples and businessmen and women on a lunch break) were beginning to slowly funnel out of the glass doors that led to the parking lot, burping, sighing and full belly'd, wiping the stubborn remains of the soup of the day from the corners of their mouths.

It had been a busy day. Andy's feet were still sore from marching back and forth between tables and the kitchen. Twice, Andy had spilled piping hot coffee on her hands, but that had happened so many times before, it hardly hurt. She was just getting ready to end her shift, hand over the night hours to Bette, when an old, flower-infested man shuffled in and took a seat at the counter. Oi vey, she thought.

She really wanted to go home, but Bette wouldn't be around for a while, and the man looked...like a treehugger. Well, not just a treehugger, but hungry, too. Maybe she should serve him? Hell, Mr. Leoutsacos, the owner of the diner and her boss, could chalk it up on over-time, and maybe he was a good tipper? Maybe? Heaving a sigh, Andy pulled the coffee pot off the filter, yanked a chipped white mug off the glass shelf behind the counter, and set first the mug on the counter, then the pot, in front of the man.

"Whaddya gonna have, hun?" she queeried, leaning against the counter and flipping open a small red pad of paper. She was hardly aware of the strange humor in calling a man who looked at least thirty years older than her "hun", but the lifestyle of waitresses had taken its toll on the young woman.

Unconsicence of even doing it, Andy pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose when the man desired only a cup of coffee. She smiled back and nodded, turning to swipe the pot off the filter and a mug off the shelves behind the counter, before she remembered with a tiny giggle that--hey, duh, I already did that! Silly Andy. Andrea would wheel back on the balls of her feet, eyebrows peaked when the man began speaking.

Oh, gawd. She did a mental eye roll, but forced another smile for the sake of getting tipped. If it was one thing Andy hated, it was creepy old men. Creepy old men who chattered and s**t, that was annoying. Her opinion of him probably would've changed if he wasn't decked in flowers, but hey...beggars can't be...horses. Or...something.

Moving on, Andy tipped the pot of coffee over the lip of the mug, dark black liquid spilling into the cup. She filled it up close to the top, then pulled a few packets of sugar and sweet'nr out of one of the little pockets on her apron. A cigarette was traipsing over the man's fingers, and that harnessed Andy's attention for a few seconds. The man questioned his actual ability to have a smoke in a diner--illegal in Jersey as of last week--but Andy would wave her hand and snort.

"Mister, I could'n care less. G'head. The Trenton"--she pronounced it Trent-en--"politicians can kiss my a**." She failed to glance nervously from side to side, as if anixious that such politicians would actually be hanging out in such a dining facility, and instead rumaged about in the pocket she had only used moments before to get cream and sugar, fingering out a slightly crumpled but otherwise healthy cigarette. Boss was in back, probably scraping the grease off the grill. The only others in the diner, besides Andy and the man of course, was another man, seemingly a few years older then Andy's customer, hanging out in the corner in a trucker's hat, nursing a cup of coffee surely hours old and reading an out-dated newspaper.

Andrea shrugged, neutral, then leaned against the counter one more time. "Anyways, what? If it's my number you want, I don't think so. Work is over for me'n I'm tired."

She returned his first chuckle with her own, and when he called her "sweets", Andy almost snorted out a few peals of laughter. Either this man was older than he looked, or someone was riding a high of 1950's film noirs. No matter, for when the man lit his own cigarette, Andy snatched the cheap Bic lighter out of his hand and started her own, filter dangling from her lips like a man contemplating suicide. Smoke curled around her head like fingers grasping for something only those fingers could see (or touch), and the first drag from her Newport was exhaled through her nose in under three seconds.

"Oh yeah?" she challenged, pushing herself off the counter to get a second mug of coffee. She poured her own cup of coffee, then dumped a few packets of sugar and cream into the mug, took a big gulp--mindful of her cigarette which was moved before the lip of the cup met the lip of her mouth--and finished off the chain of events with a smile. "Musta been quite a b***h for stabbin ya, huh? If I were you, I'da just...I dunno. Slapped the mess outta her. Pulled out a gat'n just bam!"

The man in the corner glanced up, once, from his paper, then returned to the article which seemed to hold his attention better than the woman who had been serving him all day, the woman who had just said she would've shot someone.

Taking another sip of her coffee, Andy shrugged. She tapped the butt of her cigarette on the sides of her fingers, calloused from spilling hot java on herself and carrying even hotter plates of food all day. Ashes would land on the edge of the counter, and there, Andy would wipe them away, where they would spill to the floor and disappear in the sea of dim gray carpets. "What were you sayin? Now I wanna know, I'm all curious'n s**t."

Hell, Andy didn't even know this guy, and already he had her waiting on bated breath. Or something like that.

Andy forced another shrug, then another sip of her coffee, then another hit on her cigarette. She combed her fingers through her hair and sucked her teeth when they hit a snag: a messy knot on the nape of her neck. Dammit. She watched the man speak, watched him brush petals off his jacket, watched him watch her, and she smiled.

"Welp," she began, clicking her teeth together in thought, "first off...people are assholes. People can hold grudges, y'know, grudges more solid'n a rock dipped in cement and painted with diamonds. Yanno what'm sayin?" Probably not. "The point is..." Andy frowned, turning her back on the man for a few moments to spit in the sink behind her. She was at a loss for words...the man here, he seemed pretty upset over something. Probably just got faced by his long-time crush or something, and him coming in here, looking like he just got gang raped by the Daffodil Kings, it probably didn't end so hot.

"The olive branch is pretty pointy, mister," she concluded, shrugging for, hopefully, the final time. She pitched her cigarette in the sink, then turned on the faucet to wash the cancer stick down the drain. A few moments of silence passed from Andy, so to remedy that, she reached through the gap between the waitress and the sad old man to pluck a flower him his hair.

"I like lilies," Andy murmured, almost too quiet for anyone to hear. She studied the little purple petals, frowning, suddenly, and unexplicably, distraught. The trucker only a few steps away grunted and shifted in his seat.

Andy glanced up from the flower, tucking it behind her ear with a smile. "Nuffin, mister!" she chirruped, digging around her pockets. The sound of jangling change sprang through the air, and when Andy pulled her hand back out of her pocket, her fingers were locked around a pair of car keys. Work was over, time to go the hell home. Probably get high. What a boring life.

"Wanna walk out, if you're thinkin about leavin? I tell ya, s'n'awful long walk from the counter ere to the parkin lot. Awful long." Oh, Andy, stop lying. You just want company to your car, admit it. The trucker over there was mighty creepy looking, and if somebody doesn't want to be raped and/or killed, it's definately you. Stop beating around the bush. The dude at the counter may look like some disgruntled hippie, but that's about it.

She was close to the door, her long fingers wrapping around the cool metal bar on the glass, but when a hookup was mentioned, Andy nearly fell out of the diner all together. She snickered and snorted, then wheeled around on the thick heels of her shoes, tastefully (and falsely) indignant.

"Pretty ******** sleazy," she spat, one hand resting on her hip while the other was raised high in the air, perhaps ready to come down in an arc fit only for three snaps in Z formation, "gonna try'n snag ya some young snatch? What a shame, dude, what a shaaaame!" Andy looped her fingers into the belt of her apron, mindful of not pulling too hard and suffer the consequences of ripping her only work uniform.

A moment of silence passed, and then she smiled once more, the hand raised in the air indeed coming down in an arc, although it isn't sassy so much as it's reassuring: she waved it once in the air, pfft'ing. "Just leave it there. I'll just say tomorrow that I had two cups'a coffee'n junk. Too lazy to use my original mug, whatever."

She glanced to the trucker in the corner, who had climbed to his feet, rolling the old newspaper up and tucking it under his arm. He hitched his dirty jeans up, up, up over his a**, thumbing out a few crumpled ones. Cheap b*****d, Andy thought bitterly, but inched a bit closer to the table in the corner.

Andy held back a giggle. She curtsied, difficult when you're wearing pants, and skittered over to the table, snatched the money, and shoved it into the front of her apron. She smiled a little, and said, "Thank you for eatin here, hope you come again, kay bye."

And with that, she dashed out of the diner, grabbing Sid by the arm on the way. She remembered to pull not so hard, seeing as how this dude here was older than God, but hard enough so he got the picture to get the hell out. If he compromised, the two would be across the small parking lot in less than three seconds, and there Andy's car would sit: the very definition of ugly. A Buick.

She coughed into her hand and jingled the keys some more. "Where ya headin?" seemed the appropriate question, but a "what's your name?" seemed good too, which she failed to ask. For the time being, at least.