My Own Mary Poppins
a warehouse 13 au in three parts
by anamatics
i.
She comes in for the first time when the rain forms thick gray sheets that pound down against the pavement outside. It's a slow, tired, curl up with a good book and waste the day away under a blanket sort of day. There is fog everywhere, fog and cold and rainy breath that catches at the back of the throat.
Myka Bering is looking particularly bedraggled today. It seems like forever since she first opened the shop at five this morning. An hour of prep by herself and then the dribs and drabs of the early morning crew had started to filter in. The line cook is named Pete. He's ex-military and has an easy smile. He always comes in first. Myka opens, Pete shows up five minutes later and the first espresso shot of the day always goes to Pete.
After Pete it's usually Claudia, the young waitress who's working her way towards some impossibly complicated-sounding degree involving computers, engineering and taking over the world. Claudia takes the chairs down from where they've been put up on top of the tables and Myka starts the first drip.
Early mornings are her paradise. She runs the counter, makes the drinks with Claudia's help, and Pete cooks the local fare that she purchases at the Saturday farmer's market. Together they are three – though sometimes they are four. Myka has been thinking of hiring a friend of Claudia's to bus and help behind the counter. His name is Steve and Claudia and he are inseparable.
She comes in with the wind and the rain, like Mary Poppins with a charming accent and a twinkle in her eye. She approaches the counter and Myka is grateful that the rain has slowed business to a crawl today, because this is a customer she wants to linger on. There's something oddly charming about this beautiful woman wrapped up in cold and wet and mystery.
"Hello," Myka says, but her breath is caught in her throat. She fidgets from foot to comfortable shoed foot and reaches over to pick up a cup and her trusty retractable sharpie. Her fingers close around it and she forces her brightest smile onto her face. "What can I get you?"
There's a loud bang and then a muffled thump from the back room and Myka's head swivels around just as she hears Pete gleefully exclaim, "THREE POINTS!"
"The cook thinks he's in the NBA," Myka explains to the woman before her with a wry smile. Her ears are burning, just a little, with the embarrassment that is Pete.
And then she hears the accent and Myka's knees go weak. "Well I hope he didn't break anything important," the customer says with a mild quirk of her eyebrow. She sounds foreign and exotic, like everything Myka loves about the books she reads mixed with something far darker, hidden just underneath the surface.
Myka sets down the cup and sharpie and shrugs, her shirt catching at her ears and the apron she's wearing digging almost painfully into the back of her neck. "It was probably just cantaloupe rind, I think he's cutting some up for fruit cups right now. So they'll be really fresh if you're interested."
The woman considers the board above Myka. The specials are written there in bright sunny chalk by the local artist whose work decorates the walls of the shop. Myka smiles, as the little frills and flourishes are not really Leena's style at all, but they're definitely fun for her to do. She remembers the hours that Leena spent with the chalk, outside in the summer sunshine one morning what feels like ages ago. Myka sprayed the boards with a fixative afterwards, and now Leena's best calligraphy is forever immortalized and mounted on the wall. Or at least, it is until Pete decides to finally make the menu changes that he's been promising for the past few months. "Do you blend your own teas here?"
"No," Myka shakes her head in the negative. "They come from the shop on Elm," and then she lowers her voice conspiratorially, "They're very good though."
"I'll take a pot of your gunpowder blend, then."
ii.
Helena, as that is the name she has given, becomes a regular. Myka has seen her writing and talking to Mr. Neilson, the retired college professor who is their only other regular. Mr. Neilson is an interesting study in curmudgeonly old man with a heart of gold, but he always pays for his refills and usually gets a Ruben at lunch. Myka likes him in the same way she likes her father, embracing the stern camaraderie and high expectations with regards to sandwiches for what it is and nothing more.
The shop is Myka's dream. She thinks that it might finally bring her the peace that she's longed for ever since leaving home. She cannot go back to her father's book store. She is not the son in Bering & Sons.
Helena is mystery to Myka wrapped up in charming smiles and lingering looks that make Myka pause, full of wonder. She's never experienced something like this before. There are always guys, the sort who come in and flirt with her, but with Helena it's different.
And Myka? Myka is endlessly intrigued. She stands behind the espresso machine and cleans it listlessly, watching Helena as discretely as she can.
Pete is whistling in the kitchen one afternoon. Claudia's been off for half an hour now. She's got school work to do, and she's curled up with her heavily customized laptop propped up on the arm of one of the shabby overstuffed armchairs that Myka's always chasing college students out of as she starts to close up for the day.
This is the slow part of the day, when the shadows grow long and sunlight streams in through the front windows, filling the front of the shop with long beams of light that are broken up by the murky black figures of the shop's patrons. Myka loves this time of day, because the bright gold light of the setting sun seems to fill the place with a sadness that she can't quite put into words. It's the sort of sadness that she likes, the kind that she always sees just barely hidden behind Helena's eyes.
"Mykes?" Pete's got his head poking out of the kitchen. Myka turns and grins at him. Her hair is frizzing and she's exhausted. "You wanna clear outta here?"
Myka sets down the rag she'd been using to clean out the drainage trough at the base of the espresso machine. "I suppose I could go," she half hides a yawn behind her hand. "I'm beat."
"You're working twelve-hour days Mykes. This is why you gotta hire Steve so that you can work normal hours." Pete shakes his head. "You're running ragged."
She supposed that she is, but she loves the two worst times of the day. The early mornings before anyone's around and the growing afternoons, when the sun is casting long shadows and everything just seems so otherworldly.
Perhaps she missed her calling as a writer.
Myka hangs up her apron and gives Pete a high five as he continues to break down and clean the kitchen. He smiles playfully at her and Myka changes out of her coffee-stained t-shirt and pants in the bathroom before rolling them up and tucking them into her bag.
"Headed out?" Myka jumps, startled by the question. She'd been preoccupied with zipping up her messenger bag and attempting to collect her hair into a more manageable ponytail. She's got a bit of bike ride to get home.
She looks up to see Helena leaning against the add-ins bar, her ankles crossed over rolled up pants and an intriguing scarf around her neck. Now that Myka's closer to her, she can see how the sunlight plays through Helena's hair, and how she has deep, dark circles under her eyes.
"Yeah," Myka says, lifting her bag up and over her chest. She settles it across her body and adjusts the strap slightly as it slides more comfortably into place. "It's been a long day."
Helena spins the ring that's on her right ring finger almost distractedly as she smiles, slow and easy at Myka. "I don't suppose I could buy you a coffee?"
Myka's heart catches in her throat and her hands shake as she reaches out to rest it on the wall in what she hopes looks casual and not completely and utterly taken aback. She steadies herself and brings her foot up as if she's adjusting her sock. "Sorry?"
The sly smile that spreads across Helena's face tells Myka that her ploy has been noticed and she feels her cheeks color in the late afternoon sunlight.
"I want to buy you a coffee," the smile plays across Helena's lips is playful. Myka can see something in her that sets her almost ill at ease. There's an unknown quality to Helena in this light, at this time of day. She seems cloaked in melancholy; it shrouds her even in the bright late afternoon sunlight.
Myka tries to think of a response that isn't that she spends her life surrounded by coffee and tea and is rather sick of it by the end of the day. She smiles back at Helena, eyebrow raised in challenge. "Care to make it something stronger?"
"It would be my pleasure."
iii.
Helena's last name is Wells. Apparently her parents have sick senses of humor, and her initials match the author of old. Myka sits in the growing evening; her jeans rolled up just once, cuffed high, and listens to Helena's tales. She is out of place here, she's just the coffee shop girl, she has reason at all to be taken out by one of her patrons.
And yet she's oddly grateful for the attention. It's been long, so long, since anyone's looked at her twice. Myka bites her lip, scuffing the toe of her oxford in the dirt, trying not to think of Sam and the accident. It's been years, she has to try and move on.
No one blames her for retreating from the promising career that she'd left behind upon the death of her lover. Myka knows this and knows this well. She's just Myka now. Not detective and the degrees she has from some of the best schools in the country carry little weight as she tries to make her way in the world. She has to be strong, keep her chin up. She's got another family now.
"Why did you come here?" Myka asks at length. Her beer is dewing, as the evening is still warm, and she traces patterns on the battered outdoor table with the water that's run off the glass. "This isn't exactly a booming metropolis."
The city really isn't, either. It's growing, yes, expanding with imported industry and offices from national corporations, but at its heart, it's still a small town. This isn't the place for someone like Helena, who seems far too worldly for this sort of thing.
"The same reason I suppose everyone else goes someplace new," Helena shrugs, and the earrings that are glittering in the setting sun seem to sparkle. "I wanted to get away from the things I knew."
Myka thinks about this for a long time, fingers tracing out the future in splotches of water and finally nods her understanding. "This city is a crossroads," she says at length and Helena's head dips to agree.
"A crossroads with both excellent coffee and beer," Helena tips her glass and takes a sip as Myka's cheeks flush and she shifts uncomfortably in her chair. The bar's lights have started to come on and they're trapped in this strange sort of twilight that does little to ease Myka's spirits.
Everyone knows dusk is when things start to change, Myka doesn't like the darkness. She likes the light and the mornings. She likes the misty cold and growing steadily warmer as the sun advances across the sky.
"You're flattering me," Myka says.
"Perhaps I am," Helena replies, not quite meeting Myka's eyes.
"Why?"
It's the question that's been bothering her since Helena first came into the shop, all wrapped up in the East Wind's embrace. She doesn't belong here, like a Mary Poppins of a different time and place. Yet it is here that she's chosen to linger and Myka cannot help but wonder as to the why.
Helena folds her fingers together and rests her elbows on the table and her chin on her fingers. Her hair spills down over her shoulders and seems to shine in the lamp light. "You intrigue me, Myka."
Well, that makes two of them.
Myka sips her beer with unhurried ease and leans back in her chair. She crosses one leg over the other and rests her hands in her lap. "The same could be said for you," she knows that it's tactless and maybe a little stupid, but Helena has been good for them, good for business, for quite some time now. Myka wants to know more about her.
"Do you care for puzzles?" Helena asks her then, tone mild but clearly meant to be inviting. Myka certainly feels invited, at any case. "I have one I need to solve."