ENF in the Diner

Lucy let out a restless sigh as she wiped down table 3 for the fourth time.

Drops of rain patter against the large windows in the front of the diner.

It is 10 AM, and not a customer is in sight.

Well, except for her friend Cassy sitting at the back table, she's content to sip away at her coffee silently. At least Lucy is not as bored as Kate, Lucy's friend, and coworker. Kate looks like she could fall out of her chair and die right there purely out of boredom. Though if she did, the morning would be less dreary...

This is a slow morning. Only a few customers for breakfast and a couple of hours before the lunch crowd starts to show up. Lucy gave up on cleaning tables to pass the time; it was not very time-consuming anyway. She plopped down in a nearby chair and looked over at Kate.

Kate is one of Lucy's best friends. She is the most adventurous of her friends, always the one with some exciting new ideas. If anyone could find a way to have fun in the most boring of places, it would be Kate. Given that, Kate's sense of fun usually involved dumb dares and pranks. At this point, Lucy could go for just about anything to pass the time, even if Kate did get her to do something stupid.

Lucy looked over at Cassy. Cassy is the oldest of the three, but certainly not the tallest. She is a college student at the college Lucy will soon be attending. Cassy helped her move into her new apartment the other day. Lucy appreciated her kind friend's help, even if there was not much to move into the little one-room apartment. Cassy is a sweet girl, if not a little clumsy, something her friends had fallen victim to more than once. If it came down to it, though, Cassy wouldn't mind if Lucy and Kate played a game to pass the time. If anything, she might join in...

Letting out a yawn, Lucy considered getting herself a cup of coffee. Though, she was in no hurry to use that old coffee machine again. Since Lucy started working in the diner, she had desperately hoped to see it replaced, but the owner seemed content to wait until the thing completely stopped working.

Tired of sitting in the chair, Lucy stands up and stretches. Anything would be better than this.

This story's premise and some early chapters are a branch of Yuki's Horrible Day by PhantomPen (used with consent). Names have been changed to distinguish them from their original context, and chapters have been edited for consistency. The original work of the brilliant PhantomPen, Teraton, and Bram Lueche can be read here https://www.writing.com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1851382-Yukis-Horrible-Day/cid/1736826-A-waitress

Also see PhantomPen's reboot here on CHYOA https://chyoa.com/story/Yuki%27s-Horrible-Days.31793