Mercer woke with a ravenous hunger. Three days she had stayed curled up in her bed.

Three days she had cried over Sally Parks.

Sally ruined everything. She always had a way of trumping everyone else. Well, no more. No more could Sally Parks win every hand and it was time Mercer stood up and took control of her own life now she was free of guilt and pain. She'd had enough. There would be no more torture for Mercer Kennedy. Sally's death was the end of it and today she was going to step out into the sunshine and look at the sky.

But first she needed to eat.

When Mercer stepped into Ruby's Café, she knew something was different. The few times she'd been there it was always buzzing. Not necessarily with people but with atmosphere.

Today the patrons were huddled in their booths clasping cups of coffee to their chests.

Mercer took a seat. The waitress was slowly wiping down the counter and hadn't looked up when the bell on the door had rung. The dark lady who owned the place was whispering to a couple of men in the corner booth. Mercer put up her hand like a school kid. "Excuse me!"

No reaction so she called again. "Excuse me, but is anyone going to come and serve me!"

The waitress lifted her head. Mercer huffed. Had someone died? Someone other than Sally Parks that is. Mercer tried to remember the girl's name. What was it? God... she should remember. After all Sally had spat it out so often it had sounded like a curse.

"What can I get you?"

Mercer stared up at the girl. Ah... yes. Annie. Okay. "You need a lesson in customer service."

"Sorry?"

Mercer huffed. "Your service. It sucks. I've been sitting here for a good five minutes. Then you drag your sorry arse over here to ask me what I want. Where's your pep or better still your fiery spirit."

"Sorry...?"

"Jesus Christ! You don't remember me. There's nothing worse than not being remembered even if it is for a bad reason." Mercer studied Annie. She sure had something going on all right, because she definitely wasn't with it. "I'm a new person today and I'm not going to let anyone ruin it for me. Serve me properly because I'm starving. Just because your day has obviously started out shitty don't ruin mine." She lifted the menu and quickly scanned it. "I'll have the Big Breakfast with a cup of coffee. White with two." Mercer sat up straighter, closed the menu with conviction, put it on the table and looked at Annie. She was staring at her wide-eyed but hadn't written a thing. "What the hell is your problem?"

"I... I'm sorry. What did you want?"

"Bloody hell." Mercer stood up and steered Annie into the seat opposite. She took the order book from Annie's hand, wrote what she wanted, and then went to the counter and put it on the spike. "Order!" Then she took her seat opposite Annie. "Like I said I'm not going to let you ruin my day but I guess God has decided one of my first new life deeds is to kick start your day so, what's your problem?"

"You work at Sykes?"

"Yes."

"You were here with... with... Sally."

"Yes."

"Why are you here now?"

Mercer shook her head and laughed. "Because I'm hungry." She watched Annie frown, looked at her curiously and said, "Are you on drugs or something?"

"But she's dead."

"Yeah... so... a person still has to eat."

"Are you here to make fun of Rohan?"

"Hey...?" Mercer held up her hands in defence. "That was Sally, not me. She always made fun of him. Sometimes I helped her but that was because I wanted her to love me." Mercer dusted off her hands and grinned at Annie. "And like you said she's dead so in a way Rohan and I are both free of her and a good thing I say."

"You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"Rohan's been arrested. They say he killed her."

Mercer cocked her head and grinned. "You're kidding right?"

Annie shook her head. Tears crawled down her face as she gasped for air. "He didn't do it. I just know he wouldn't."

"Well, I know that." Mercer laughed. "Man, I wonder if this day can get any better."

"It's not funny!" Annie slammed her hands on the table. "What sort of bitch are you?"

Mercer jerked backwards. She watched Annie clench her fists and thought, she wants to hit me. Something in her brain clicked. She asked herself was she being a bitch. In the past she'd have never asked herself that because most of the time she didn't care what people thought of her. She looked at Annie's upset face, reached across the table and put her hand on Annie's. "I'm sorry. I wasn't laughing at him being arrested. Well... in a way I was but not because of the way you think. What I'm trying to say is I know he wouldn't have killed Sally. He couldn't. God... anyone who remotely knows him would know that. I'm laughing because it's ridiculous. That man is scared of his own shadow. It takes a lot of courage to kill someone and he doesn't have any."

"He does. He does have courage. He's kind hearted and if you knew him, knew him properly you would never say he didn't have courage."

"Look." Mercer sighed. "Let's start again." She held out her hand. "Hello. I'm Mercer Kennedy. I work at Sykes and today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm trying to make it a positive one. I'm sorry if I've offended you. I'm sorry your boyfriend has been arrested for Sally's murder. I've been sick for three days so I didn't know and I only laughed because if the police think he's capable of murdering Sally, then they'd probably believe I'm Mother Theresa and you and I both know that's not true."

Annie laughed. She couldn't help it and she didn't understand why, other than she needed to laugh or she was going to scream. Through her blurred vision she looked at the girl across the table. Maybe she needed to laugh too because she was holding her stomach and chuckling so loudly that everyone in the café was looking at them.

Perhaps Mercer Kennedy wasn't so bad after all.

Has Mercer changed your opinion of her?

I wonder if there's a good person in there somewhere.

Photo - Dreamtime.com