Second Chance

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

‘Patisseries et Sourires’ or in English, ‘Pastries and Smiles’, was a French-style café and pastry shop. The business opened just before Christmas in 1980, the owners an upstate New York couple that had worked over 15 years each in various restaurants in and around the Albany and New York City areas. It had always been their dream to have a food place of their own, and when the city’s Economic Development Commission announced low interest loans and other incentives for new small business owners, they jumped at the chance to live their dreams.

The café earned a great following by the students and faculties at Schenectady’s two colleges, Union College and Schenectady County Community College. Almost from day one, students would be lining at the doors before it opened at 6 AM, ready to indulge in the various pastries and baked goods, as well as having coffee, tea, and the area’s only made-from-actual-chocolate hot chocolate as they studied, sharing the numerous large tables and booths, leaving the smaller tables for couples and seniors. Workers discovered the speed in which the café served hot beverages and baked goods, making it the place to go when they had a break.

Her roommates a month after it opened introduced Ewa Vaughn to it. They would spend hours drinking coffee and eating croissants or muffins while studying, finding it less distracting than their apartment. She introduced her younger siblings soon afterwards, especially Micah when it started serving sandwiches on freshly baked bread and rolls. Instantly, he became a regular, eating on Saturdays when Antoinette worked and he didn’t have a sporting event to participate in or watch.

The siblings arrived downtown and luckily found a spot in the public parking lot behind Patisseries et Sourires. They rode down in silence, something they usually did, since Ewa had a habit of paying more attention to the discussion in the car and not on her driving. It scared him.

“I want a turkey salad sandwich,” she told her brother as they walked to the front door. Though the shop had a side entrance, one closer to the parking lot, they preferred to walk in through the front. It gave them a better look at which tables and booths were open and gave them an opportunity to look at any new pastries the bakers created or see what the special sandwich of the day.

“Looks like you’ll be ordering something different, Sis,” Micah said. He nudged Ewa and pointed at a chalkboard, one that announced the specials. This afternoon it showed that they were out of turkey salad. Ewa pouted comically and looked at him.

“Now what am I going to have?”

“Perhaps I can help,” a female voice spoke. “I’m Katy, and I’ll be your server today.” She picked up two menus from the host station and asked them if they preferred a table or booth. Ewa looked around and saw three booths open.

“Could we have a corner booth, please?”

The server smiled and nodded. “No problem.” She walked to the back, the Vaughns in tow, and placed the menus on the tabletop. Katy removed two place settings and asked if they knew what they wanted to drink. Ewa ordered a hot chocolate, Micah a large Dr Pepper. Katy thanked them and went to retrieve their beverages.

“I don’t know what I want now,” Ewa whined. She looked over the sandwich and other lunch selections. “I’ve not had any other sandwich.”

“Well, it’s about time you expand your culinary tastes,” he joked.

She laughed. “You sound like mom.” She sighed heavily, more for effect than in disgust. “Okay, let’s see what else they have.”

Katy returned with their drinks. “Can I make a suggestion?” she asked. She knew that Ewa was disappointed the café had no turkey salad and had mentioned she could help.

Ewa nodded. “Truthfully, I’ve not had any other sandwich when I’ve come here. I’ve had the croissants, muffins and other baked goodies, but no other sandwich.”

Katy leaned over the Vaughn sister and pointed to a sandwich with her pen. “I love the Gobbler?”

Micah quickly looked at the menu and saw what the sandwich entailed. It was a deluxe turkey sandwich: turkey slices with cranberry aioli, lettuce, tomato, and a layer of sage stuffing. It sounded good to him.

“Ooh, that sounds delicious.” Ewa cooed. “You sold me. I’ll have that, on wheat.” She noticed that it came with extra thick, freshly fried potato chips. She didn’t need to say anything more.

Katy turned to Micah and asked, “And for you sir?”

Ewa interrupted. “Let me guess, roast beef on Russian rye, lettuce, tomato, Russian dressing, chips and potato salad.”

“Is that what you would like?” Katy had her pen ready.

He looked at his sister and narrowed his eyes. “Ha, you’re wrong.” Something new had caught his eye and he wanted to try it. Micah smiled and pointed to the menu. “I’ll have the roast beef sandwich, on Russian rye, of course, with lettuce and tomato, but can I have some horseradish mayo on the side. I think that sounds good.”

“Good choice. The owners just created it last month and everyone that’s had it loves it. Would you like chips or a salad on the side?”

He closed his menu and held it up. “My sister was right on the sides: chips and potato salad.”

She laughed as she collected the menus. “I’ll this right in for you.” Katy turned and walked quickly to the kitchen.

The siblings were alone; no other customer was around them. ‘Patisseries et Sourires’ had a reputation of being very busy on the weekends: table waits could be an hour or longer. Today, the place had very few people dining in, though the bakery counter was hopping with customers ordering loaves of bread, dozens of cookies, muffins, and croissants. Micah took a sip of his cold drink before looking around. Ewa noticed her younger brother’s action.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” She was very perceptive with her younger siblings, more so than their parents. She was the one that noticed youngest sister Stephanie had a difficult time with her sight. Ewa brought it to her parents’ attention and within a week, Stephanie was wearing glasses. She was the one that figured out Veronica had a problem with boys, more specifically, was being harassed by a group of them. Ewa confronted her sister, asked point blankly who the boys were and went to the school to inform the administration of it.

“What makes you say that?” He was shocked: she knew something was not right. The problem was, which problem did she know? Was it the nervousness over the prom, or that he felt someone or something in his mind or soul? He wanted to know, didn’t want to make a fool of himself, make her think he was crazy when he told of the Presence.

She leaned forward and whispered. “You might think I’m crazy, but earlier, I thought I saw another pair of eyes looking at me, when you looked at me.”

He tried to stay calm, tried to act natural, but it wasn’t going to happen. She knew, she could always sense when something wasn’t right with him. He closed his eyes and mentally asked the voice what he should do. He received no answer. Micah felt the silence was a sign for him to do what he felt was right. He took a deep breath and told her.

“This morning, I had a life-like dream, one where I was older, and a private investigator or something. I was somewhere in the Adirondacks. I had to come to this old cabin to meet with an evil person. Some men ambushed me, shot a few times, though I got the people that shot me.

“I was walking back to my car when someone, a third person, shot me in the back. I crawled into my car trying to get away. I fell on some prom pictures. Someone opened the passenger side door. I couldn’t see his face. I heard a shot. That’s when I woke up.”

“That sounds like one of your dreams you’ve had before. You know the ones we’ve had you write down so you can make them into stories.” She was going to continue, to ask why he hadn’t turned his written dreams into short stories, when he raised his hand to stop her.

“The dream was freaky. I’ll admit that, but that’s not the problem.” He looked around the café to make sure no one could overhear him. “After I woke up, I heard someone in my head, told me something, something like that the dream wasn’t really a dream. The really strange thing is I feel like there’s something or someone in my mind now.”

Ewa’s eyes widened. This sounded like something she heard in one of her classes the past week. Professor DeMuth spent a class discussing the Multiverse theory, how there were layers of realities occupying the same space and time. She never heard of it before, but it fascinated her. She had wanted to discuss it in further detail with him later, but never had the chance. From what her brother had confessed, he appeared to be experiencing a Multiverse occurrence: a person or another Micah from another universe/reality was occupying him.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I just heard about something like this in physics,” she added. She was going to tell him about DeMuth’s discussion, but stopped short. Katy was back with their lunches.

“That looks yummy,” Ewa said, looking at her sandwich.

“You won’t be disappointed.” Katy smiled and asked if they needed, wanted, anything more. Both shook their heads. Ewa waited until the server was out of earshot before continuing.

“I understand,” she began. She took his hands into hers. She gently squeezed. “We had a physics class discussion on something called the Multiverse. I don’t have all the information about it, but from what I learned and from what you told me, it seems that you’re experiencing a Multiverse incursion.” She let go of his hands and held up one of her own, stopping him from speaking.

“I’ll bring you to a professor of mine on Monday. You should tell him exactly what you told me and leave nothing out. He’ll probably come to the same conclusion as me, and he’ll explain it to you better.”

“Should I be worried?” His heart was racing; there was an explanation to what he was suffering. He also wasn’t going crazy, at least in his big sister’s eyes.

“No, you’ll be fine.” She patted his hand in comfort and smiled. He returned the expression. She sighed heavily and looked at the plate. “Well, here it goes.” She picked up the Gobbler, looked at it, and took a small bite. “Oh my God, Katy’s right,” she mumbled through the food. “It is good.”