Chapter Two: The Week in Review

Published 20/1/2014

That was a week ago.

Since last Thursday, there hasn't been one day that we haven't seen the girls from Q. Fabray Studio and Fine Art.

It started off with small interactions.

On Friday I rode into the alley at my normal arrival time of 9 a.m. to see Quinn in front of the studio, hand painting the windowsill a pale orange to offset the red brick. It was a quirky color combination.

I waved, she waved. I said "good morning", she said it back. I pointed down the alley to my shop, she pointed at the paint can that she had balanced on a crate. I rode off awkwardly, she started to whistle. I mean seriously, who whistles?

On Saturday, the shop opened an hour later than on weekdays. I rode up to the employee entrance at 10 a.m. to find Tess sitting on the water cooler.

"I'm looking for more water, and possibly a favor."

"Well I've got the water, might have to dig around a bit for the favor. What's up?" I was proud of myself for sounding so cool and casual even though I was still intimidated by the new artsy neighbors.

Tess explained that they were getting all of their photo equipment brought in from storage since the paint had dried in all of the rooms. There was a lot of it, apparently, and only the two of them to move it in because Tina was too pregnant to really carry anything.

I told her that I might be able to rustle up some strong boys later if the business was slow. Thanks to Puck, who had seen the (attractive) female employees of the studio on his way back from lunch the day before and subsequently spread the word; there was no problem recruiting help.

There was so much whining about whose turn it was to go help out at the studio that I had to close the shop two hours early and let everyone go over there. Even Marley Rose wanted to see what all of the hype was about, and I was sure that she's as straight as they come.

Saturdays were our most profitable days, but I tacked a sign reading "closed to help the neighbors move in" to the door and headed down the alley.

Sunday was a slow day. Sundays were always slow, and my game plan was generally to help out on the floor or in the back during the morning, and spend the afternoon sleeping on the couch in my office. Usually it was only me, Jake, and Puck working, but Sebastian decided to blow off brunch with his family to hang around the shop.

When I came upstairs to take my afternoon nap, I found him sitting on the couch. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and he was hunched over his phone, grinning. He looked like a weasel.

"Guess who I'm texting?" he asked.

"The President."

"Think closer."

"The old man at the deli."

"Closer."

"Sebastian I will literally kill you."

I wasn't kidding. I was tired and hungry and the fridge wasn't stocked but the couch was calling to me.

"Chill out. I'm texting Tina from the studio."

"Why the fuck do you have Tina's number? When did you even talk to her?" I tried to imagine what Sebastian would have in common with the snappy pregnant Asian that seemed to lurk in the shadows of the studio. She and her possible vampire baby creeped me out. I couldn't understand how she worked with people who were as normal and sweet as Quinn and Tess.

"I talked to her yesterday", Sebastian sighed as if simply answering my question was a burden, "she has intel that Quinn and Tess are arguing over whether or not to invite us to lunch."

I didn't want to get caught up in Sebastian and Tina's stupid little attempt at espionage, but I was curious. "Well, what are they saying?"

Sebastian's face lit up at my interest. He went from a normal little weasel to an excited little weasel.

"Tina reports that Quinn wants to invite us over to eat dinner at the studio. Tess apparently thinks that we're already sick of them and they've been asking us for too much lately."

I felt a weird feeling in my stomach, like someone had just popped out from behind the couch and scared me. That wasn't what I had been expecting at all. I assumed that Quinn was grateful for our help and kindness, but I had thought that she was a lot less outgoing than Tess was. I'd barely talked to Quinn aside from the few times we'd said hey to each other in the alley and the group conversations we'd had on Thursday and Saturday.

She was a very intriguing woman, though. She seemed like she was super cultured and knowledgeable. I have a business degree and I've been a few places in my life, but the way Quinn spoke put her on another level.

Every word seemed to flow naturally, but if I'd been saying the same thing it would have taken at least a few seconds of calculating. I was impressed by, intimidated by, and attracted to her all at the same time. I'm pretty sure everyone realizes it now, but on Sunday I thought it was my little secret.

"Well, tell Tina that if they're willing to let all four of us come over then I'm down to have dinner there."

Sebastian squealed like a fucking fool and began to type furiously into his phone. I flopped down on the couch and put my feet in his lap. If we were going to stay at the shop until an acceptable time for dinner, we'd probably have to spend a couple of hours doing inventory between closing time and then….

I counted Sunday's dinner as a successful mission because I managed to get Quinn's number just before I left. To be fair, I also got Tina's and Tess', but I didn't really think I'd ever use those.

I still wasn't sure of what she thought of me. She'd been the perfect host, setting out folding chairs around a big light table in one of the rooms at the back of the studio and ordering enough Chinese food for everyone to go home with a full stomach. Even Sebastian looked satisfied.

I knew that she had made some comments about me being cute on Thursday when we'd just met, but that was when everyone was making jokes at my expense. I hadn't seen Quinn in such a joking mood since then, and I was pissed that it was Sebastian that usually made her laugh.

That was how I spent my Monday morning. I was so stressed out from meeting these new people and trying to get all of the summer merchandise ready for the displays that I could hardly focus.

My usual coping mechanism for stress is to clean everything until the floors shine and all surfaces are bare, so that's what I did. At one point, I even pushed Jake off of the sales counter where he was perched so that I could wipe it down with a towelette. A goddam scented towelette.

I was standing outside on the sidewalk with an old towel and a squeegee when I saw Tess coming around the corner with an iced coffee.

I wondered if I was the only person in the world who has to pee just looking at iced coffee. Then I pictured Quinn's head on Tess' body. Then I mentally slapped myself because Tess was basically still a baby as far I was concerned and that was a disgusting thought.

By the time she got to where I was standing, I must have been staring at her pretty intently because she waved her hand in front of my face.

"Yo, Earth to bike lady, anybody in there?"

I snapped out of my weird daydream.

"Yeah, yeah, just washing windows." I paused, looking up at the windows that clearly didn't really need to be washed. "Why're you here?"

She pulled a flash drive out of her back pocket and handed it to me.

"Design for the winter clearance poster. Puck asked me if I had a spare moment to do it last night. Sebastian texted me a mock-up."

"What the hell?"

I didn't even have time to filter my response to what she'd just told me, so I'd said the first thing that came to mind. That wasn't a good idea because Tess sort of just dropped the flash drive in my hands and walked around the corner.

Later, after seeing how great her design was, I felt really bad. Any art student who can make a Marvel Comic–esque devil riding a bicycle while wearing a scarf look cool deserves some recognition.

It was probably the least-cheesy poster we'd had to date, despite how stupid Sebastian's mockup had probably looked. My devil logo wearing a scarf? Really?!

That aside, I still dragged Puck and Sebastian up to my office and yelled at them for not asking me first. I was really freaking out about the collaboration between neighbors thing. I had a stupid crush on the boss from down the alley and up until the past week the only interaction I'd had with neighborhood business owners was a little bit of gossip while I waited for my food at various counters. The whole situation was disconcerting.

Sebastian apologized for not asking me first. Puck refused to apologize for his libido, but said that he was actually talking to her about graphic design for most of the time.

After they went back to the shop I sat in front of my computer and looked at the poster, wondering what to do.

It was obvious that Tess had worked pretty hard on it. They'd asked her less than 24 hours ago and the finished product was on the screen in front of me. I was filled with this sinking feeling of regret at how I had acted earlier. I wondered what had happened when Tess got back to the studio. Had she told Quinn what I'd done? Did Quinn even know that she was working on a poster for the shop? Feeling like a total shit head wasn't making my stress go away any time soon so I decided to text Tina.

I may have been afraid of her, but she was the gossip hub of the entire neighborhood after having only been working here for a week. I was sure that she knew about the poster and about my interactions with Tess on the sidewalk.

Tina responded within four minutes, and I considered changing her contact in my phone to "Social Vampire".

Apparently she'd known about the poster and had seen Tess come storming into the studio a little while ago. Tess had gone to one of the supply rooms and hadn't come back out. Also, according to her, Quinn was oblivious to everything.

That left me with a choice to make. I could either do nothing to make things right with Tess, subsequently severing my ties with the studio, or I could apologize to the poor kid and look like an idiot but save my relationship with them.

Looking back, that was dramatic, but on Monday I felt like not apologizing would cut me off from the neighbors forever.

Tuesdays was my day off.

I usually took Tuesdays off, so this was normal.

I usually avoided the shop at all costs on my day of, so that particular Tuesday was anything but normal.

Since I'd decided to apologize to Tess, there was no choice but to head over to the studio in the early afternoon and try not to make myself look like more of an ass.

Luckily, she was sitting at the front desk when I walked through the double doors. She looked up as soon as I walked in, and I winced when her blue eyes flashed with frustration.

"Hey." I leaned over the reception desk, tapping the envelope I held in my hands. "About yesterday, I was being a jackass."

She nodded, giving me silent permission to continue. I bit the inside of my mouth, obviously struggling to apologize because I am a prideful-ass-bitch.

Tess' eyes sparkled with amusement and I started talking to try and get her to stop that.

"Anyywayy, what I'm trying to say is Puck and Seb didn't bother to tell me you were doing the poster, or even ask me before they asked you to do it. But I really liked it! I did! You made my boring logo look festive and you're much better at fonts and curving type than any of us could ever hope to be."

She nodded at that. I took a mental note that art students were cocky.

"So basically, here's a check for the work you did. Accept it as my olive branch. And stay away from Puck because he may be eight years older than you, but he definitely will still try to get in your pants and that's upsetting, like, majorly."

Tess laughed at my last comment and took the envelope. I had no idea how much they were paying her at the studio, but I was glad to support her freelance career.

"Thanks for paying me. I'm already over what happened yesterday. I didn't even mean to speed off that quickly, I think it was just because I stayed up super late working on the design. I got a little excited."

That helped me relax, and I pushed my sunglasses over my eyes to add effect. "Phew."

"About Puck, I already turned down his attempt to get in my pants. The younger brother, on the other hand, is more my ballpark. If you really wanna make it up to me you'll get me the in on that one."

I made a fake gagging noise, but agreed to help her out with Jake. He was single, and he was nice, and I wouldn't mind a little cross-alley romance to offset my crush on Quinn.

"Hey you, stop flirting with my receptionist!"

Speak of the devil.

Quinn emerged from the back. She was wearing a dirty white apron over a striped shirt and simple black shorts, but she looked amazing. I could see Tina lurking around the corner, her baby bump giving her away.

I shivered, not sure if it was due to the presence of the proprietor or the lingering social vampire.

"Hey there, Quinn." I tried to sound super cool and casual, but I sort of felt like the scrappy underdog in a John Hughes film. Socially awkward and desperate for attention.

But hey, those guys usually had a happy ending, didn't they?

Quinn glided across the room to behind the desk, grabbing a clipboard and giving Tess a pat on the head.

"Nice to see you, Santana. Glad that you and Tess are all squared off. Catch ya later."

I shot a death glare towards the baby bump sticking out from the back corner. That was the last time I'd trust Tina to help me out with anything. Tess giggled loudly as I left the studio.

Wednesday morning was a rough one.

Puck had moved into a new apartment and Sebastian had used his connections to throw an elaborate housewarming party.

Before Tuesday night I'd thought my tolerance was pretty high, but whatever Sebastian had poured down my throat had knocked me on my ass. Despite getting me blackout drunk on a random Tuesday, he was still the greatest wingman of all time.

I'd gone home with two of the many girls that had filled Puck's new place and woken up alone this morning. If I could bag two girls and wake up with nobody to take care of, it was an awesome night. The less mess to deal with in the morning, the better.

Due to the massive hangover and my general dizziness from lack of sleep, I'd opted to walk to work. I didn't trust myself on any number of wheels that morning. I got to the door and found nobody waiting outside for me to let them in.

Half an hour later, all of my employees were still late. I unboxed the posters that had been delivered from a local printer the day before and set them out on a clean workbench. Upstairs in the kitchen, I made a bucket of soapy water and grabbed a few rags from a basket under the sink.

If those fuckers were going to be late, they were going to have to scrub the alley wall and put up the posters for winter clearance. More bums had been peeing there lately and I needed to get rid of last season's warm gloves, balaclavas, foot warmers and jackets to make room for the summer riding jerseys and shorts.

I also needed to make space on the floor for the new Gary Fisher Trek Transport. I hadn't had a cargo bike like it the year before, and after getting loads of questions all summer from local bike commuters, I decided to put in an order. I hung most of the non-cruiser or fixed-gear bikes from the ceiling to make room for other merchandise, but these bikes couldn't be hung and even a display of two of them would take up a lot of space.

It was a gamble to stock them because people either loved or hated cargo bikes like this, but I was hoping the fourteen-hundred dollar commuter cycles would be a hit this summer.

Personally, I couldn't stand most commuter bikes. I had some Felt, Electra, and Trek models on display, but Diablo mostly specialized in obscure fixies and high-end road bikes. We made a killing off of the local hipsters who wanted brightly-colored, easily customizable bikes, and local rich dads who wanted to re-live their days of athletic glory.

Despite making fun of them, I enjoyed helping customers pick out colored rims, wheels, and hubs for their fixed-gear beauties. The bikes were easy to build, easy to repair, and fun to personalize. Every season I would let my employees meet to design a couple of them to put on display in the windows. Marley was especially good at doing custom spray-jobs on the frames. I wondered if maybe I could ask Tess to help her out. They seemed to get along pretty well.

I was just about to send out a mass-text to my employees when I heard a few pairs of feet stumble through the back door.

Sure enough, Puck, Sebastian, Marley, Jake, Ryder, and Sam stumbled through the door. It was obvious that all of them had spent the night on some (hopefully) soft surface at Pucks' new apartment. They looked disheveled and were wearing essentially the same clothing as the night before.

When I pointed to the posters and the cleaning supplies, everyone groaned. Ryder and Sam looked confused.

Those two were relatively recent hires. Ryder was Marley's boyfriend who had recently quit a job at an auto shop and was looking for work. Puck and Sebastian had showed him the ropes and he'd gotten a handle on fixing bikes pretty quickly. We liked to make fun of him by calling him names like "Walker" or "Biker" or "Jogger" because I thought his name was dumb.

Sam was an old friend I'd known since Puck and I were in high school. He was trying to make it as an actor and had asked me for a job when his various impersonator gigs weren't paying the bills. He was great as a salesman, not so good as a mechanic. Still, I was happy to have him working for me.

"Beautiful morning, isn't it boys?" I was going to run in their obviously rough state as much as possible.

"Ughhhh, shuddup Sat'ana." Puck was an obvious hung-over mess.

"Yeah, just because you got some last night doesn't mean all of us were so lucky."

Sam belched after making his complaint and immediately made a grab for his stomach and his head.

"Motherfucker if you puke in that bucket of soapy water I'm going to fire you, then kick your ass." I wasn't kidding, either. For a group that probably had a hangover about as bad as me, they were being pitiful.

I sent them outside to complete their punishment in groups of three while I let the other half rest and do their actual jobs. Because I knew that most of my employees genuinely needed the money I was paying them, I never docked their pay if they were late. There were no timecards to punch at Diablo Cycles, but if you were late you had to pay with a punishment.

In the early afternoon, I texted Tess to let her know that the posters were up for the sale and that she should come by to see her work.

She arrived a half hour later with Tina and Quinn in tow. I met them out front for a little chat, and was amused by Tess' excitement to see her work hanging in public. Even though it was just a silly poster and graphic design wasn't going to be her concentration in school, she seemed to take a lot of pride in making money for her art.

Jake lingered on the sidewalk as we chatted. I nudged Tess.

"Psst, artsy girl. Invite him to join y'all for lunch. She blushed and nudged me back.

"Only if you come, too. My boss is totally gonna intimidate him but if you're there she'll be distracted. Come on, just join us."

I gulped. I remember that it felt like Tess had just tickled my sides for like fifteen minutes because everything in my stomach felt all weird. What did she mean by "distracted"? I'd spent so much of my time in Quinn's presence actively avoiding staring at her that I didn't know if she was staring in my direction.

Until then, I was trying to suppress my crush on the studio owner as much as possible. After Tess suggested that, though, I decided I'd test the waters during lunch.

Sure enough, lunch had gone as Tess predicted. After the young blonde woman had invited me and Jake to join the trio from the studio, she'd spent the whole walk to lunch talking to Jake. I walked with Quinn. She told me stories about random mishaps as they'd set up equipment in the studio and the horrors of spilled dark room chemicals. I reciprocated with tales of bad bicycle repairs and the explosion of a can of WD-40 after Sebastian had misplaced a cigarette in the dumpster while taking a smoke-break.

Tina lurked behind us, probably texting her mystery fiancée.

Lunch had gone as well as tacos and Mexican beer ever goes on a warm Wednesday afternoon. We all walked back to the alley together. Jake, Tess, and Tina walked ahead of me and Quinn. My short-haired companion had slipped her sunglasses back over her hazel eyes. Her smile was more relaxed than it had been on the way to lunch.

We'd spent the meal trying to come up with more ways for our two businesses to collaborate. Most of them were far-fetched jokes, but a few seemed like good ideas. I got the general impression that Quinn liked me, if only on a basic level of acquaintance.

She was as impressive as ever with her choice of words and taste in, well, everything, but she didn't intimidate me quite as much. I liked that we had a similar taste in fashion, food, and opinions on how to run a small business. She also wore a lot of loose-fitting shirts and shorts, and tended towards more basic colors. I sort of wanted to raid her closet.

That afternoon, I found myself sitting in my office just thinking about the woman down the alley. I was spending a lot more time thinking about Quinn than I had been during the couple of days before. I thought about the way her voice could go from high to low, how her hair always seemed to fall in her eyes completely on purpose, and the way she seemed to glide along almost every surface.

I wondered how she even saw through a camera lens with those jagged bangs and how a person could glide along a cobblestone alley when I usually tripped over my own feet.

Closing time came and went, and I found myself walking slowly past the brightly painted windows of the studio in the alley, thinking about when I'd see its owner next.

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading! If anybody wants to see more of anything, leave a review.

I aim to please.