Monday in Early June, 1996

It was lunch time. Luke's Diner was packed. Not unusual, but today it standing room only, which happened at least once a week. Not usually on a weekday though.

Luke was struggling to keep up with the orders. He just hired a new fry cook, a kid called Ceasar. He seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, but he wasn't used to having to cook so much and so fast. On top of it all, Luke was in a mood.

"Ceasar, I need those eggs!" He shouted at the kitchen.

"I'm cooking 'em, I'm cooking 'em!" Ceasar shouted back.

Kirk stepped in front of Luke as he tried to get some orders to a table by the window.

"Get out of the way Kirk." Luke growled.

Kirk didn't move. "Luke, I can see you're a little short-handed. Are you taking applications for servers at your diner?"

"No, I'm not Kirk." Luke pushed past him and set the plates on the table, then moved onto another table to take their order. "What can I get you?"

The bells on the door rang, signaling more customers. Luke groaned inwardly, and passed by the newcomer on his way to put orders in the ticket window. "I'll be with you in a minute."

Surprisingly, the woman followed him to the ticket window, talking a mile a minute. "I just need some coffee. I normally go over to Weston's, but Weston's is closed and I would have coffee at the inn but we've got a wedding there and the bride is going crazy and her mother-in-law is worse, she keeps tracking me down every five minutes to talk to me about bunting or tulle or flowers and I haven't had coffee since this morning at my house and I can't get two minutes to myself until now because this is my ten minute break and I used that ten minutes just driving around town trying to get a cup of coffee-"

The whole time, the woman had followed him around the diner as he cleared plates and delivered orders. Luke interrupted her. "Are you high?"

The woman shot him a look of indignation. "No, are you?"

"I'm not the one who's acting like she's strung out on crack." Luke retorted. "Sit down, shut up, and wait your turn."

"There's nowhere to sit." The woman said.

"Then stand, because it's not your turn yet." Luke went back to work, and the woman pouted.

"All I want is a cup of coffee. A very large cup of coffee." The woman said. "It'll take you two seconds."

"Wait your turn." Luke repeated.

The woman stood there for a few second, constantly looking around, tapping her fingers on her purse. Luke couldn't help but watch her out of the corner of his eyes. He wasn't completely convinced that she wasn't on some kind of drug. Either that, or she should be on one.

"Hey can I borrow that?" She asks one of the other customers, pointing at the paper.

"Stop bothering my customers." Luke said.

She stuck out her tongue at him. "I'm not bothering anyone."

A spot clears up at the counter, the seat closest to the register, and the woman take the paper over and sits, and starts reading the paper.

At least she's quiet, Luke thinks, and stands at the register to settle a bill.

"When's your birthday?" The woman asks suddenly.

The question takes him off-guard. "What?"

"You birthday." The woman repeated. "When is it?"

"Why the hell do you want to know my birthday?"

"I want to see what your sign is, see if there's a reason for your mood." She draws out the word mood, for comedic effect.

"There's not a reason, and I'm not in a mood." Luke snaps. "And those things are crap anyway, they're never accurate."

"But they're fun." The woman smiles at him, and that's first time he really looks at her. She has bright, genuine smile that seemed to intensify the blue of her eyes, and it almost makes him smile back.

Instead, he scowls at her. She continues talking regardless. "So if there's no reason for your mood, you're just grumpy all the time?"

"I am not grumpy. Who even says grumpy?"

"So tell me your birthday and prove me wrong." The woman said.

He huffed. "If I tell you my birthday, you'll stay quiet until I can take your order?"

She shrugs. "Sure."

"November."

"November what?"

"November seventeenth." Luke said a low tone. He didn't want other people knowing his birthday.

"November seventeenth." The woman repeated. "October November, here! You're a scorpio! You are, like, my polar opposite."

"In more ways than one." Luke said.

She's quiet for several more minutes, and Luke goes around to fill up waters and coffees. When he gets back to the counter, the woman is tearing something out to the paper. She looks up and hand the paper to him, and smiles again. He frowns at her.

"Read it." She insists. He does. It's his horoscope from the paper, and she's torn it out and written something on it.

You will meet an annoying woman today. Give her coffee and she'll go away.

Luke rolls his eyes as he sets the piece of paper on the counter, and reaches for a to go cup.

"Finally!" The woman said as he hands her the coffee. She pays and gets up to leave. When she gets to the door, however, she stops and turns to him.

"What now?" Luke asks.

"Keep it."

Now he's extremely confused. "What?"

"The horoscope. Keep it in your wallet or something."

"Why?"

The woman shrugged. "Maybe it'll bring you luck."

He was about to tell her he doesn't believe in luck, but she's gone as fast as she came in. Luke looked down at the scrap of paper on the counter, and then out the window again.

"Luke!" Caesar's voice refocused his attention. "Order up!"

"Right." Luke said. Without another thought, he took the paper and stuck it in the till, and didn't think about it for a week.