Disclaimer: This has been re-typed on my iPhone because I don't have Internet at my home to copy and paste. I've read it about a thousand times, but typos are probable.
This is the first part of the first chapter, book's working title being Realm i — that's "one" because this is a two-book series. It has a subtitle but I'm not willing to share because I'm not happy with it at all, lol.
Hope you enjoy, and I really hope you comment. :)
Laughter and love,
Meg
• • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Excerpt from Chapter One
Realm i
by m.k. grey
"I need an Adam'n'Eve on a raft, two chicks on a raft, wreck 'em, two cups of mud, and a cup if moo juice! Stat!"
Meredith Royale leaned against the smooth, green-marbled counter of the diner, shoving the thick pad she'd just read her order off of into the pocket of her ketchup-smeared, formerly white apron. She took a moment to grab a breath, looking around at the packed-full diner — Grandma Rosie's, the best in Brooklyn! — before making eye contact with the cook through the window behind the counter.
"Did you get that, Tony?" she asked, tucking back a strand of auburn hair that was, unfortunately, too short to fit into her ponytail.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," he grumbled. "Gimme a minute, will ya'?"
Rolling her eyes, Meredith said, "fine," and decided to use her 'minute' to take a bathroom break. She waded through the crowded diner, packed with firemen having just gotten off the night shift, cops in for a cup of mud (that would be coffee in diner language) and a newspaper, the occasional businessman irritably typing away at his laptop as though angry at the other patrons for being so noisy, and a fair sprinkling of other regulars that liked the nitty-gritty feel of Grandma Rosie's. The dining room always smelled like a vat of oil intermingled with an assortment of other scents: coffee, onions for burgers that dripped with grease and cheese, beef stew and chili for those colder days, and, on occasion, fish, for when a random yuppie found their way in and ordered the salmon.
Meredith stepped through the swinging door to the restroom that was overdone in rosy pink and red tones. When she finished washing her hands, she reached up to readjust her ponytail, tugging the elastic out of her hair and allowing waves of auburn to fall over her shoulders. Her left shoulder gave a quick, painful spasm and she rolled it to try and work the muscle.
"Ah," she murmured to her reflection, wincing.
Meredith remembered only then that she had fallen out of bed the night before, her misfortune caused by a dream that she could no longer remember. All she knew was she had woken up twisted in the white sheets of her bed, half lying on the cold hardwood floor of her bedroom. Shaking her head as though it would rid her of the eerie, anxious feeling crawling on her skin, she splashed some water on her lightly freckled face and tried to wipe the fatigue from her hazel eyes. With ginger movements, she pulled her hair back with practiced ease, tugged the elastic tightly into place and went out of the restroom to brave the storm of the dining room.
"Honestly, Mer, how the heck do you handle him?" Tina said as soon as she reached the counter.
Meredith shrugged. "He's not so bad," she replied. A wry smile curved upon her lips as she glanced back through the counter's window into the kitchen, watching the fat, balding, and generally displeased man plating her order. Tony slid the two plates across the window sill and rang the silver bell before heading back to the grill. "Order up," he grumbled, muttering under his breath as he dipped some challa bread in egg.
"Thanks!" Meredith snorted and grabbed the two plates, passing Tina again as she was on her way out to the floor, offering her coworker an eye roll.
"Gave 'em their drinks already, they're gonna need some refills though," Tina said, slightly out of breath as she balanced three plates on her left arm. "When are we getting our bus boys back?!"
"When they finally get their green cards."
Meredith brought her order to a table where an elderly couple sat — named Adam and Eve, if you could believe it, devout regulars — and immediately returned for the coffee pot.
"So, what're you doing later?" Tina asked, counting her tips while leaning against the back counter. "Wanna go to the mall or something?"
"Can't," Meredith replied, hurrying around the customers' counter as she glanced at the cracked glass clock hanging on the wall, "I'm meeting my friends out on the Island. We're going upstate for a couple of weeks."
"Ah, well," Tina said, stuffing the wad of bills back into her apron (coffee stained), "have fun!"
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