5 AM.
The phone on the table vibrated noisily. Michael Bublé's voice loudly disrupted the morning silence.
Mary tossed around in her covers, drowsily raising her hand to stop the alarm.
The store on the window was half-opened, since Mary had always been afraid of the dark. Beams of sunlight were warming the room, turning the dull, yellowish color of the walls into a warmer shade of beige.
Mary slowly got up, with a very long, sound yawn, and fully opened the store.
The elegant beige morphed into a bright gay yellow.
Outside, Mary could see the neatly arranged brick tiles of the building across. The view was as boring as ever, but now that the reddish stones seemed to have absorbed the rays of sunshine that hit them, it looked less stifling and severe.
Well, Mary thought. Morning had worked its magic.
She happily fished out a huge strawberry white chocolate scone from a paper bag.
She had bought it yesterday, in a bakery near Darcy Cottage. The old-fashioned decoration and the delicious-looking pastries on the shelves had lured her in.
Darcy Cottage…
She could not stop memories of yesterday's events coming back to her memory. Emotions flooded her: indescribable rage towards William Collins, shame for having left in such a rush, remorse and a bit of annoyance when she remembered Elizabeth's worried and pained look.
The bread's sweet taste turned sour.
Mary could feel the start of a headache.
It was probably because she did not get a lot of sleep last night. To stop herself from replaying last night's fiasco over and over in her head, she had decided to watch an episode of a criminal TV show she had heard about. She had ended up watching five others until she grew so tired that she could not even firmly hold the remote control, and much less think about anything at all.
Goodness. What a spoiled morning.
Mary put the scone back on the table and back in its paper bag.
When she arrived at the bar in Harrogate, everyone was already busy tidying, cleaning and decorating.
"Oh crap… I'm sorry. Am I late?"
Kelly enthusiastically waved at her from the counter.
"Hi Mary! It's so sunny today, have you seen that?"
"Please", Luke, who was standing next to her, pleaded. "No more talk about the weather. Hi, Mary. Feeling good today?"
Mary wavered. Should she answer in the same tone, or say "Thank you sir, are you fine as well?"? He was the manager after all…
Just then, a towel came flying from behind her. Luke swore and removed the towel from his head.
"Excellent aim", Tim commented.
"Please, Hugh, do me a favor. Only throw clean towels, this one stinks."
"Anyway Luke", Tim continued. "I agree with you. No more small talk about the weather."
Hugh snorted.
"What?"
"Talk about smelly soap. Change it, Lester."
"I'm not the manager here, it's Kelly. Please, Kelly, do change it."
Kelly scrunched her nose. "No. Marcus's gonna be mad. I bet he likes this soap, since he keeps it."
Hugh snorted again.
"You're so funny, Kelly. Of course Marcus does not like this shitty soap. It's just cheap."
"I think you're mistaken here. It is impossible to keep a soap you do not like for so long."
"Guys", Oliver interrupted. "You're boring Mary. Mary, don't mind them. You don't have to listen."
For the first time in the morning, Mary felt her lips curving irresistibly in a genuine smile.
Working here was going to be fun.
The shopping center was about to close. Luke could tell.
There was that very particular atmosphere in shopping centers at late hours. Shops were shutting their stores half down while employees cleaned up and pushed the flashy sales racks back inside. Eventually, the stores would wholly shut down and soon not a single soul was to be seen. It felt like the end of a world, and just watching this felt exhausting.
It had been so long since Luke had last worked on the field. He had forgotten that feeling of finishing a shift and leaving work behind.
"Hey." Oliver nudged him in the ribs. "Attention please. How about eating out all together tonight?"
Sunny nodded.
"That's good. For our three rookies."
Mary laughed softly, and Sunny turned to her with a wide smile.
She was a strange one. She did not talk a lot, she did not smile a lot, and she was not very pretty. But still, she had a peculiar, very unique charm. Her words held a strange mixture of candor and sarcasm that he found entertaining, and her tentatively feminine style, which hinted at curves in her slight built silhouette, made her look adorable. And when she smiled and laughed, her whole face seemed to light up.
Kelly, he guessed, was her exact opposite. She talked a lot, laughed very loudly for nothing in particular, and she was tall, slender and curvaceous. Right now she was scrolling down the phone of her screen – carefully encased in a bright pink case – with her perfectly manicured nails. All in all, she was very much alike the socialites that could be met at his mother's fancy parties – with that little touch of innocence that astonished him.
"Hello?" Sunny waved his hand under Luke's nose. "So are you coming tonight, yes or no?"
"Huh?"
"Anyways, what are you looking at?"
Luke realized he had been staring at Kelly's fluorescent nail art.
"Kelly… your phone case is… is… disturbingly pink."
"Well", she retorted with a shrug, "yours is awfully boring."
Luke laughed.
The sky was turning to a soft shade of pink as they were walking down the streets of Harrogate to the Victoria, the night club the boys had decided to go to.
"By the way, Hugh", Tim suddenly said. "I found an interesting mathematic enigma that you could maybe help me solve."
Hugh made the snort that Mary had now grown accustomed to.
"You should know, Mary, that when this… this person says this sentence, it means the exact opposite."
"Huh?"
"It means: "I found a super difficult mathematic enigma that I spent hours solving and that you could maybe solve in less than five minutes, else I'm going to call you a moron.""
"No need to be accountable towards a med student."
"No need to show off just because you are a math student."
The two stared at each other in feigned animosity while Mary was shifting her gaze uncomfortably.
"Anyway, what do you study, Mary?" Hugh asked.
"Um… civil engineering…"
Tim rubbed his hands with an evil smile.
"Oooohhh… civil engineering. Isn't that interesting? Could the engineer and the doctor compete with the famed mathematician that I am?"
Mary felt immediately comfortable talking to Patrick. He was the oldest, the most reliable one and probably the gentlest man on Earth.
"I'm thinking about asking my girlfriend to marry me", he earnestly explained her. "Well, probably after New Year, since I'm gonna be promoted. It's really great you're studying engineering, that makes a lot of money. I'm probably gonna remain a waiter forever."
"You don't like it?"
"Well, I would like it better if I were to work in a night club, the kind we are going tonight. It's sort of cooler, you know, you get to meet a lot of people."
"A lot of drunk people."
"I guess that's true. Oh, and, thumbs up for the way you shut Tim down earlier. Time for him to fall off his high horse."
"Oh, that was not intentional", Mary said hastily. "I did not intend to…"
"What, what, what?" Sunny crashed in. "What happened? Tim got what?"
"It's just…" Mary tried explaining.
"It was just great." Patrick emphasized. "So Tim was all high and mighty, and he was like: "So, what's the formal definition of the sequence that goes like: 3, 27, 136…""
"243", Mary corrected.
"Yeah, whatever… and he said, "Well, let us see if you solve that before sunset!", and Mary just cut him off, and she said: "That's 2 power x minus 2!", and his face…"
"2 power 2x minus 1."
"Yeah, whatever… well, you should have seen his face. Looked like a fish!"
Sunny snickered and jokingly tugged at Mary's braid. Oliver, who had materialized out of nowhere, patted her on the shoulders.
"Yeah, that was cool… You should do it again. Just for Tim's face."
"There it is!"
The Victoria was a huge night club. Its flashy neon lights clashed with the building's puritan architecture, but strangely enough, this unthinkable combination managed to somehow convey elegance and energy to the atmosphere.
The inside, however, looked like the inside of any other bar.
Mary tensed up.
"Are you okay?"
She started at Luke's voice.
"Sorry, didn't mean to frighten you. You were suddenly pale, that's why I asked."
Mary let a short, unconvincing laugh.
"No, I'm fine," she said, trying very hard to banish any memories of Wickham of her mind.
When she raised her head, she was met with the sight of his concerned dark eyes.
She laughed again, a bit nervously.
"It's just that… I'm more of a morning person, you see… I'm not really used to places like this… but… but you'll teach me all about it, right?"
Luke put his arm around her shoulders.
"Of course. First… let's teach you all about the cocktails. All about the cocktails…"
Mary was sipping slowly from her glass. It was her first one, and still half empty, while the others had already moved on to their second shot.
"What are you drinking, Mary?" Kelly asked.
"Sex on the beach."
"Whoo whoo. Hot hot hot!"
"You don't like it?" Patrick asked, concernedly.
"No, I'm enjoying my first cocktail at a night club."
The seven others smiled indulgently.
"Isn't she cute", Oliver said.
"I love her already", Sunny approved.
Kelly stood up.
"I'm going to the toilet. Mary, mind coming with me?"
"Mary?"
"Mmh?"
"Which guy do you think is the hottest?"
"Wh… what?"
"Oh come on, you've got six guys available. Don't tell me you're not planning to snatch one?"
"Um…"
"Well, six minus one, since Patrick's taken."
"Well, um…"
"Luke's definitely hot. You mind if I take him?"
"Um…"
"I mean, do you guys know each other?"
"No, why?"
"You arrived together yesterday morning, and he was acting all cozy around you when he showed you the cocktail menu, so I figured…"
"No, not at all."
"So you don't mind?"
"No…"
"Oh, thank you! I'm going back inside, I'm gonna be that beguiling seductress… Lol, just joking. And you'll have to tell me which one you're gonna pick!"
Mary thought she really had had another think coming when she had imagined yesterday that he was interested in her…
Of course he would not be.
