Chapter 6 #2
Denny had only learned how to set one program and had stuck with it for the past few years. Instruction manuals were her kryptonite.
Her usual breakfast was a protein shake and porridge with berries and yoghurt.
When she asked Eris if she wanted to try it, the face Eris made said it all; she pushed the porridge with the berries aside and just took the bucket of yoghurt.
It wasn’t much, but the fridge was nearly empty.
Denny wasn’t overly fond of grocery shopping: she tended to avoid it until the situation got desperate.
“Do you like dark chocolate?”
Eris nodded.
Denny fetched a box of muesli bars from the pantry.
“Crumble this into the yoghurt. You can’t start the day without carbs!”
She could tell Eris only took a bar out of politeness. After the first sample of the yoghurt and muesli mix, however, Eris’ morose pout faded and her chewing became cautiously appreciative. When the bowl was empty, her eyes grudgingly lifted on Denny, met by a knowing grin.
“Seconds?”
There were seconds and thirds, much to Denny’s delight. Eris was no small girl and a simple yoghurt couldn’t have possibly got her to lunch. Denny tried asking her what she usually had for breakfast, but the answer was a lackadaisical shrug.
“You have breakfast, right?”
Shrug.
By how eagerly she’d emptied the three bowls, however, Denny inferred Eris wasn’t against the concept of breakfast. Given her money problems, it was more likely that she willingly skipped it. Or maybe she just nicked whatever she could get her hands on.
‘When she robs you in your sleep, don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ the stiff bitch had said, meaning Eris had enough of a history with theft that even her housemates knew.
Denny couldn’t imagine being so desperate that your only option was stealing.
Her family was wealthy, but her father had been born in one of the most poverty-stricken areas of Lagos and had taught her to treat other people the way she expected to be treated.
‘Be kind, be open-minded, be generous; always ask first, respect a no, if you have everything you need, consider yourself lucky; if you have more than what you need, consider yourself rich.’
Denny had never truly understood that last one until now.
Later, when they were brushing their teeth in the twin basins of the bathroom, she wondered how Eris must be feeling, fresh out of a traumatic experience, jolted from a familiar place to an unfamiliar one, living with a stranger who was far from her ideal companion.
The one thing Denny was certain of was that she couldn’t be worse than that awful girl back in Croydon.
“I’m about to head downstairs to open the shop,” she announced while Eris finished brushing her hair. It was long and thick and she had a lot of it. Perhaps the undercut had been a practical choice. “Wanna come down and see it?”
Eris stared at her through the mirror. She set the brush down, picked up the eyeliner and the mascara and held them up as if to say ‘Let me do this first.’
Denny left the bathroom with a pleasant tingle in her chest. While she waited for Eris, she texted her parents to check how they were doing in Istanbul.
Whenever possible, Mum travelled with Dad so that they’d get to make the best of his time off in between shifts and visit the countries where he touched down together.
Hey lovebirds, how’s it going?
Babasaur
Morning Chickpea!
Up already?
It’s 8 here, muppet
I’m telling your boss you failed Time Zones
Muuum!
He’s tired, we partied all night
EXCUSE ME?
The elderly should be in bed by midnight!
It was hilarious that a couple of fifty-year-olds were out there partying all night when their daughter was regularly in bed by 10.
Babasaur
Speak for yourself, G
How’s it going over there?
All good
I made a new friend
Muuum!
A new friend or a new “friend”?
FRIEND
It’s a long story, I’ll explain later
Gotta go now, work calls
Babasaur
Have a good day, kiddo
The day was rainy, so it could either be very calm or very busy, depending on how many delivery requests they were going to get.
When Denny opened the door to the shop, her lungs filled with the comforting scent of greenery that had been a constant throughout her life.
She had spent countless afternoons here with Grandma Tansy, half doing her homework, half helping her for fun.
Two decades had passed, but the scent of the shop had never changed, just like Grandma’s perfume. It smelled like home.
After flipping all the lights on and unlocking the entrance door, Denny turned to Eris with spread-out arms. “So, this is where the magic happens!”
Eris looked uncomfortable. Dwarfed in an oversized hoodie and baggy jeans, she was peering around with hands stuck low in her pockets, a deep line between her eyebrows. She had issues with lights and sounds. Maybe she also had issues with smells.
“Let’s go check the vending machine outside!”
The fresh air was a welcome change to Eris. She tipped her head back to the rain and inhaled a long, deep breath, confirming that Denny had read her right. In spite of everything, the two of them were communicating just fine.
Much to Denny’s satisfaction, all the slots were empty.
The machine was huge and had cost a small fortune. Installing it had required an awful lot of paperwork and overpriced permits, but now that it was operational it was quickly paying itself back: it could host up to thirty bouquets and could also be used for out of hours pickups.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” Denny preened. “I named her Mira, because she’s a miracle worker.”
Eris didn’t seem to get the hype.
“Sorry, girl.” Denny patted the side of the machine. “You’re not Eris’ type.”
Back inside, she got to work making room in the cut flowers display for the supplies that would be delivered any moment. Eris loitered by, observing, her calm aura rubbing off on Denny, whose intrinsic haste slowly cooled down to an almost human pace she wouldn’t have thought herself capable of.
The door burst open.
“Buongiorno, principessa! Your favourite boy has arrived!”
Eris brought her hands to her ears at the unnecessary loudness of Rocco’s entrance. It was a typically Italian quality that Brits weren’t overly fond of, but Rocco was a charmer and knew how to make people like him, one way or another.
When he saw Eris, the helmet almost slipped from under his arm. He froze in the middle of the room, jaw hanging open.
“Boss, there’s a vampire in our shop.”
There was a long staredown between Rocco and Eris. He was a whole head taller than her, but looked intimidated by her.
Denny wiped her hands in her skirt and stood up with a sigh.
“Rocco, meet my new friend Eris. Eris, this is Rocco, my right hand and social media manager extraordinaire.”
Rocco’s eyes darted suspiciously to Denny at the word friend.
“Of course she has a cool, villainish name,” he said, taking Eris in from head to toe. He gave Denny an even more suspicious look. “Which one of your romantasy books did you conjure her out of?”
Denny swatted his chest with the back of her hand, hot around her ears.
He took a step back when Eris narrowed her eyes at him.
“Please, don’t hurt me, it was a compliment!”
“She will and she should, if you keep talking about her like that.”
Eris’ lips took a subtle curl, an implicit promise that Rocco didn’t fail to pick up on.
“Not a woman of many words, are you?”
“She doesn’t speak,” Denny informed him. “Long story short: I got her out of a sticky situation and now she’s moved in with me.”
Rocco’s head snapped in her direction. “Like, overnight? Because when I left you on Saturday you weren’t planning to get a flatmate.”
“I met her on my way back from the wedding venue.”
Rocco clicked his tongue. “Typical: hitching the U-Haul to the Subaru after one date.”
“You consume too much American fiction. It wasn’t a date, alright? She was in trouble, I intervened.”
Rocco wasn’t convinced. He scrutinised Eris’ cuts and bruises as if trying to expose a prank, but it would have been an extremely distasteful prank to pull and that wasn’t Denny’s style at all.
A customer came in. Rocco rushed to the back to drop off his things.
Eris found herself an isolated corner and sat down on an ornamental crate with her phone.
Denny caught a glimpse of a logo that looked like Indeed.
She wanted to say: You should be focusing on healing, finding a job can wait.
But she imagined Eris wasn’t planning to depend on her for longer than strictly necessary.
Rocco wrapped up the gentleman’s daisies while Denny took the payment. When the man left, Rocco sneaked behind the counter.
“I hate to be that guy, but are you really sure you can trust her? Girl looks like she cuts throats for a living.”
“I know for a fact that she does not, because she’s unemployed at the moment.”
“That’s even worse!”
Denny groaned. She couldn’t explain why she trusted Eris so blindly, especially when all evidence pointed against it. There was something fragile about her, buried deep under the aggressive look and aloof demeanour.
Rocco ran a hand through his mussed curls.
“Denny, let’s be real for a sec, okay? You can’t possibly believe you can domesticate that!
” His hand branched out in Eris’ direction.
She was still slouched on the crate, leaning back to the wall, a deep frown darkening her features.
And yes, she did look a bit feral, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“I like her.”
“You’re not allowed to like anyone! Not after what went down with—”
Denny stomped a foot. “Enough! Off to work, Mira won’t refill herself!”
Defeated, Rocco went outside to check that Mira’s shelves were clean and ready for a fresh restock.
Denny went to the work table to prepare the new bouquets.
Just a couple of feet away, Eris peeked at her from time to time, not really curious, but interested enough to let her screen go black a few times, if only to snicker at Denny dropping stuff every other minute.