AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Isaac Alexander
***
Seattle, Washington
May
Isaac had a long, epic, unusual dream, and he woke up feeling dazed and confused by it. He was still rattled when he went to work. Isaac rarely dreamed as vividly as he did last night, and he spent his morning in a totally different state of mind because of it. He was the general manager and part-owner at his family's large restaurant in downtown Seattle. He had to work today, and the last thing he needed to be was disoriented.
But it was a long, real dream of Biblical proportions. There were scenes in the dream that actually felt Biblical. He dreamed of war and horses. He dreamed of ships and storms and everything seemed to be set in historical times even though he couldn't remember an exact historical event.
There were so many horses. Trampling horses. There was one whole scene where Isaac seemed to be carried away with a pack of wild horses. They were kicking up dust, but Isaac wasn't riding one of them. It was more like he was running along with them. He couldn't see himself in the dream, but he wasn't scared of the horses or being hurt by them.
"There was a loud rumbling noise… the trampling of hooves. I can still hear it," Isaac explained to his sister who blinked at him.
"Yeah, you lost me way back the first time you were talking about the horses. Then you went to the thing about the boat." She was staring at him like she was lost and hadn't even heard his story. "Dreams are so out there. My brain went to other things while you were talking about it."
Isaac stared at his sister. "So, you're telling me you're not listening?"
"Basically," she agreed, cringing at the sound of her response. "I'm so sorry. I'm notnotinterested. I'm just kind of thinking about this huge lot of boxes I have to go through next door."
"It's fine," Isaac said. He was out of it from the dream, and it didn't bother him that his sister didn't want to hear about it.
Isaac was a full-time server and restaurant manager at Jimmy's on 2nd, and today he was working the counter. Claire had been working at her thrift store next door, and she walked over to eat lunch. Claire wasn't the least bit interested in Isaac's dream, which was no big deal since he was busy and didn't have much time to talk anyway.
"I've got some size eleven leather casual shoes in that stuff from the estate sale last weekend. They look like you. There are several good shoes in your size, and most of the men's clothes look like your size, too. You should come check it out. That stuff looks like it hasn't been worn. Some of it hasn't. It still has tags. I'll set some things aside for you and call you to come look before I price it."
"Thank you," Isaac said.
"I'm sorry I don't care about dreams. Just tell me later if you want. Mom's making a big soup tonight."
"What kind?" he asked absentmindedly.
"Black bean, I think," Claire answered.
Isaac nodded at her and went about his business. He was still thinking about his dream. He could hardly get his mind off of it.
Claire didn't think anything about their short conversation. She had grown up in the restaurant. Her great grandparents started Jimmy's, and her grandparents built it into what it was today. Claire had worked there for four years. She stayed on even after she started her store and had only recently stopped waiting tables part-time. She still came in multiple times a week. That was the main way she saw her brother. Half of their conversations took place in that restaurant.
Isaac went to check on his other customers, and with how busy and fast-paced the restaurant was, before he knew it, the lunch rush was over. He went through the motions, and just like that, he was down to two customers at the bar. They were a couple of Isaac's regulars, and they didn't need his attention, so Isaac decided to make a trip to the front door to fix it from dragging. It was something that had been bothering him all morning. Fixing it was a simple matter of tightening the screw on a hinge, and he carried a screwdriver with him as he walked that way.
Isaac had been managing the restaurant full-time since he was eighteen years old, which unbelievably, was eight years. He was already working there part-time in high school, but the tipping point was when his grandmother, Rita, went through a medical procedure that made her unable to work for an extended period of time. Business would have continued if Isaac hadn't stepped in for his grandmother, but he was the only one who could come close to replacing her in presence and personality.
Isaac had worked hard all these years and he now owned a percentage of the restaurant. He had saved a lot of money and made some investments. At this point, he could choose to do something different with his time than continue to manage the day-to-day operations at the restaurant. But it was a rewarding daily routine, and it was a known fact that Jimmy's would not be the same without Isaac there. He was the next generation of his grandmother, and that was saying a lot.
Isaac's grandparents owned the entire five-story building. The restaurant took up the whole first floor and there were high-end apartments above that. Papa Jim and Rita had given the second floor to their younger son, Samuel, and the third floor to their oldest son, Jim. Each floor had eight apartments, and Isaac's dad, Samuel, had given all three of his children their own unit.
Isaac had lived upstairs until a year ago when he decided he spent enough of his time in this building. He would always own the apartment upstairs, though. It was written into his contract that if he ever did sell, it had to be to family. But Isaac would never sell his apartment in the Alexander building. In fact, if he ever stopped working at the restaurant, he would probably move back.
He walked toward the skidding door, smiling and thinking about how much this small task was going to change something that had been bugging him all morning. His mind went back to the dream during those seconds as he headed toward the door. He saw and heard those trampling horses.
"Hey, Jill, how's it going?" he distractedly asked the lady coming in the door.
Jill Phillips was a novelist who had come into the restaurant several times a week for the last month.
"Everything's great. I'm meeting Sherman today."
