May 27th, Tuesday.
"You're sitting here again?"
Natalia hadn't expected Alfred to say anything when she first approached his table. She had figured that he would greet her with his normal uninquisitive smile and start prattling about something trivial. She had chosen his table specifically because she didn't want to explain to a stranger why a waitress was sitting at their table.
The last thing she wanted was for Alfred to think she had chosen to sit with him because they knew each other, and for him to think that they had (god forbid) gotten close. If he expected her to explain herself, then she would leave.
"Uh," Natalia said, her mouth suddenly very dry. "It was a force of habit. I'll leave—good bye."
Alfred sat up in his seat. "What? Wait, Natalia, I didn't mean it in a bad way! You can totally sit with me!"
Blue eyes wide, he gestured at the chair opposite himself and nearly knocked over the carafe. Natalia stared at him. Seeing as how she didn't really have a choice (unless she wanted to sit on the floor), she took a reluctant seat.
Her tablemate seemed to be appeased by this; Alfred grinned and tucked his phone into the pocket of his red and blue baseball jacket.
"It's great to see you again," the golden man said, beaming at her. "Are you on break?"
"Obviously. Why else would I be out here?" Natalia asked. She kept her gaze on the tablecloth, firmly refusing to look Alfred in the eye.
Alfred rolled up his sleeve and checked the time on his watch. "It's already two," he said, tapping the glass screen. "That's pretty late, isn't it? I came here at half past eleven yesterday."
"What's your excuse, then? Shouldn't you be pedaling overpriced phones to teenagers?"
"I have today off," Alfred explained, rolling his sleeve back down, "so I thought that I'd just wander around. Free time is awesome. I got to pick up the newest edition of the best comic book, and I was thinking of going to Coney Island and wandering around since it's gotten warmer. Nothing beats a fun filled island dedicated to old-timey carnival gags and amusement parks! I love the roller coasters there."
Natalia snorted. "Coney Island is kitschy. Tourists always flood the place. Plus, isn't going by yourself kind of pathetic?"
"Are you kidding? Exploring alone is the best way to explore! It's just like the olden times—just me, out and about, discovering all there is to a place. There's so much to see and do, and you get so much more time if you're by yourself. Besides tourists are usually super friendly. They're just people who want to explore and ride coasters, just like you and me! What, do you always go with a bunch of people or something?"
"I...I've never been on a roller coaster," Natalia admitted, caught off guard when he suddenly flipped the focus onto her. "Or Coney Island."
"Then how do you know if it's cool or not?"
Natalia opened her mouth to snip back at him, but faltered when she realized that he had a point. He had said one of those truths that always seemed to come so easily to him; the ones that Natalia brushed off as preachy and stupidly "thought provoking."
Alfred didn't mean it as a quip or as a pretentious saying, though—he said it plainly, like it was a fact. The sky is blue. Water is wet. A person can't criticize something if they've never experienced it before.
But he clearly underestimated just how critical Natalia could be.
She sat up straighter in her chair, taking his words as a challenge. "What do you mean? I'm not allowed to dislike something if I've never experienced it? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like being burnt alive, but I've never tried that."
"I mean, I guess, but isn't being burnt alive a universally known as a bad thing?" Alfred asked. "Roller coasters are fun, not sad!"
"The lines are too long," Natalia said. She was pretty sure of that fact, but she'd never actually seen one before. There weren't any amusement parks at all in Alaska, and she'd never gotten to visit one during her brief childhood in Belarus either.
"The lines aren't so bad," Alfred said. "You can talk to people waiting with you. Or if you get a snack, you can eat it in line."
"You'd probably throw up. A roller coaster is just some metal roofless train tossing you around in the sky, and fair food seems disgusting and greasy."
"You work at a bistro that's known for its waffles and fries," Alfred pointed out. Natalia grumbled, conceding the point to him, but It didn't mean that she was any closer to ending their argument.
"Death."
Alfred blinked. "What?"
"People die on roller coasters all the time. All you have between you and the ground is a tiny belt of rope thousands of people use every day. Coney Island's burnt down more times than anyone can count. And it floods, too. You might die."
"That won't happen. I wouldn't ever let a rollercoaster kill me," Alfred said. "The only way that I'm dying is at the age of ninety-five, after I've successfully become the most popular President in the world. After a long day of cave diving, I'll suddenly turn to my favorite kid—I'll have three kids and a dog in this scenario—and I'll say 'It's been a good run, but I think it's your turn now, sport. Go out there and bring pride to my legacy.'"
He said this second part in a deep baritone, pretending to be a much older man, but sounding more like he had something lodged in his throat.
"Then, my kid will say, 'What do you mean, dad? I can't possibly achieve world peace, because you already did it!' And I'll laugh and pat them on the back before diving into the cave."
Alfred put his palms flat together, mimed diving forward and nearly poked Natalia in the eye.
"My family will search for me because they love me and I love them, of course, but they won't be able to find my body. Only my glasses, still somehow uncracked and spotless at the bottom of the cave. Eventually they give up. But sometimes, in the cities around the cave, people report sightings of a tall and handsome masked crusader, saving them from villainy…"
He ended his story with slight jazz hands and a wide grin, looking expectantly at Natalia. When she responded with only incredulous silence, Alfred tilted his head.
"The tall and handsome masked crusader is me," he clarified.
"Surprisingly enough, I got that part," Natalia said sardonically. "What I don't get is everything else in your dream. How are you still 'crusading' if you're, what, a thousand years old? How would you become President? How in hell would you survive a drop from the top of a cave to the bottom? Alfred, you can die anywhere. At any time."
"That's true. But it's so gloomy to think that way! I'd rather believe that you can receive the best news of your life at anytime. Like, what if the next person you meet is your soulmate?"
Natalia shook her head. Talking to Alfred was going nowhere, and he seemed to be getting more exasperating by the second.
Sighing, she slumped back into her seat and turned towards the window. The starchy collar of her shirt was beginning to irritate her neck, and the sun was in full force. They were sitting at Alfred's usual windowside table, which meant that their entire area was flooded with sun. Natalia sorely regretted not wearing sunscreen.
Nothing worth watching was going on outside, so she faced Alfred once again. He had copied her, and was now peering at the passing people with interest, his gaze flitting from place to place. Bathed in sunlight, his already golden hair turned brilliant, and he looked more alive than ever. Natalia realized that she had never seen him under anything other than fluorescent bulbs; she had met him where he worked, in that ultra-modern, ultra-claustrophobic tech store, and she had talked to him in the restaurant before, but never in natural light.
Natalia knew plenty of people who weren't pleasant to look at, even if they had attractive hereditary features. Sometimes they dressed terribly. Sometimes they were so irritating and snobby that nothing could make them agreeable. Or, in Natalia's case, sometimes people scowled. A lot. (It was a miracle that she hadn't developed wrinkles yet.)
Alfred wasn't one of those people. Upsettingly, he was both classically handsome and genetically blessed. If pressed, Natalia would probably admit that he was a person of above-average facial features. If interrogated, she might confess that she would consider him attractive or dazzling or whatever. Any flowery word she could come up with would probably describe him fairly. He was interesting to look at.
His peripheral vision also seemed to be lacking (Alfred wore glasses for a reason), and so he hadn't noticed her shift her attention away from the window and towards him. He stared out the window. Natalia stared at him.
Just because she thought he was attractive didn't mean she was attracted to him. Alfred was still irritatingly cheery, and she didn't know him very much at all. Besides, there were plenty of people she knew well that she disliked very much, and plenty of things she found pretty that she wasn't in love with. He was in good shape. He had an interesting profile. He had—
"Oh my god," Natalia said, bolting up in her chair, visually shocked for what was probably the third time in her life. "Are your ears pierced? Multiple times?"
Alfred immediately jerked away from the window and covered his ears with his hands. "What? Pfft, Natalia, you're hilarious."
The surprise didn't come from the piercings themselves; half of Natalia's favorite singers probably had more metal on their body than clothing. No, the shock came from who the piercings were on, and frankly, that alone made all of her time at the bistro worth it.
Alfred, with his preppy blue polo shirts and his dorky red horn-rimmed glasses, was probably the last person that Natalia expected to have piercings—but there was tell-tale flush creeping up his neck that told her that she hadn't been imagining it.
It was the first time that Natalia had managed to phase him, and she found herself smug at his embarrassment.
"Why do you have piercings? Did you do it for a dare at a some golf country club? Did you have to get them pierced for a Boy Scouts' badge?" This was the most invested that Natalia had ever been in a conversation with Alfred.
Alfred had pulled up the collar of his jacket and was trying to cover his ears with the fabric, to no avail. "Y'know, it's entirely possible that if I had piercings—hypothetically—I could just get them because they look cool?" He paused. "Again, hypothetically."
"I'd believe that for anyone but you. Have you ever met yourself?" Natalia asked, gesturing pointedly at him. "You look like someone took Captain America and dip-dyed him in Bomb Pops."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're so quintessentially 'wholesome American.' Let me guess: you were raised by your parents in a nice, white-picket suburb. You attended church every Sunday with your—I'm going to guess brother, your mom bakes cherry pies and meatloaf, and your dad calls you 'old sport.' Am I right?" Natalia asked, raising an eyebrow.
Alfred was silent for a long while, hands still pressed against the sides of his head. A storm of emotions crossed his face, each one of them gone too fast for her to read, finally settling on a blank expression. There was a long, unquiet silence before Alfred spoke.
"I actually have a sister, not a brother. So, you're wrong on one part, Nats."
He was grinning again.
Natalia almost wanted to scream. She had gotten so close to actually seeing something other than cheery smiles on his face, but it slipped out of her grasp so. It was like Alfred had two settings: "Happy," and "Nauseatingly Happy."
"How are you so optimistic all the time?" Natalia groused. Alfred shrugged.
"I guess I've learned that there's really nothing good that comes out of berating everything. There's so much more to people than you can give them credit for," Alfred said.
Before Natalia could think of anything to say as a reply, he lowered his hands. "Here, you can look at the piercings if you want to. I think there are five of them? I mean, I haven't actually worn earrings in years."
"You haven't managed to convince me that there isn't some backstory behind your piercings."
"I'm a very enchanting and fascinating person," Alfred quipped. "Maybe there's some super dramatic, movie-worthy adventure behind my life. I mean, I am pretty cool."
Natalia responded with a vague noise of dissent. The euphoria of almost exasperating him was gone now that he seemed so relaxed about it, and so she had retreated back into silent hostility. Alfred seemed just as content with this as he did with everything, turning back to his phone and playing some game with too many sound effects and annoying chiptune music.
As she was silently bemoaning the annoying cellphone sound effects, her own phone rang. Natalia frowned slightly when she saw that the call was from Mathias. Wordlessly, she stood up from her chair and stepped out of the restaurant and into the street. She tapped the "answer" button.
"Hello?" Natalia said.
"Natalia! I don't have a lot of time before I have to go back into the meeting room, so I'll make this quick," Mathias said, his voice somewhat out of breath over the receiver. "But Lucia from Eosos agreed to work with Mr. Beilschmidt again, and she's agreed to pay us more than the full amount."
"How'd that happen?" Natalia asked, stunned. Lucia Bianchi had been stubborn, and it was no secret in the office that Ludwig didn't like her. It was an important case, though; it was the most high-profile case that their firm had gotten (and that was including the one where a Congressman had been hit by a car driven by the opposition party), and it was also the most engrossing. If there was anything appealing about being a paralegal, it was getting to read court cases. They were like real-life soap operas.
Mathias answered her.
"Well, she insisted on a personal chauffeur, so Mr. Beilschmidt let me borrow his car and sent me to the airport at six AM—she didn't even land until ten, so I was there for hours. Then she and Mr. Beilschmidt had their meeting, and you know what? She was actually kind of prepared! She had papers and checks and everything. And then they argued for like an hour, and then Beilschmidt took her case back."
Natalia's grip on the phone tightened. "Does that mean that I can return to the office?"
"Yeah. He wants you and Leon back at work tomorrow. What have you been up to, anyways?"
She didn't feel like answering him, so she simply responded with a nondescript answer before saying a quick goodbye.
Natalia felt like collapsing out of relief; her life could finally go back to normal again, with the coworkers she was used to and the paperwork she was comfortable with. She could finally have a boss who knew what he was doing.
As the pale-haired woman walked back into the restaurant, she realized that out of everything, she missed the order and the regularity of working for Ludwig the most. There were no unexpected lunch breaks, no dealing with people who tried to chat her up, and the boss actually knew how to handle responsibility.
Manon. She was one of Natalia's oldest acquaintances in the city—someone that Natalia thought she understood, even if Natalia wasn't particularly invested in her life. Working at the bistro had changed all of that. Manon, up until this point in Natalia's life, had always been consistently confident and hard-working. Even the bistro had been running smoothly for as long as she could remember, prior to this week. What had turned that all upside down?
Whatever it was, it didn't matter now. She was leaving this job behind and returning to normalcy.
Natalia glanced back at the table where Alfred was still sitting with distaste. He was still on his phone, but he looked up and waved at Natalia when she stopped at the table again.
"Hey, where'd you go?" he asked.
"None of your business," Natalia said, reaching for her jacket. "I'm leaving."
Alfred raised his eyebrows. "What?"
"I'm going to quit. If this all goes well, then I doubt I'll ever see you again. Which won't be much of a pity," she said, focusing more on organizing her pockets than on Alfred.
"Well, I don't want that. You're an awesome person," Alfred said. He looked disappointed. "Maybe I'll see you around. Do you want my number?"
Natalia stared at him incredulously, rolled her eyes, and left him at the table. In her opinion, it was good riddance that she could finally leave.
She thrust the door to the kitchen open. Francis both looked up from where they were in the back, both dressed in normal clothing instead of their uniforms. Roderich gave Francis a pointed look before muttering a goodbye to Natalia and walking out.
"What's going on?" Natalia asked, glancing at the hangers that held the aprons. "Why aren't you working?"
"Oh darling, there you are," Francis said, adjusting the cuffs on his shirt. "Our dear boss is closing the restaurant for the day, so we're going home. Feliciano's already left. I was just about to go looking for you, but you looked like you were having such a good time with that—"
Natalia made a noise of disgust before Francis could finish his sentence.
"So she's just closing the place down? What about the people waiting out there?" Natalia asked, jabbing her thumb in the direction of the dining area. "With the way that Manon handles her bistro, I would think that she spends more time trying to run the place into the ground than actually working."
Francis sighed. "I tried to talk to her, but I don't know where she is now. You can try your luck, if you can find her. Now, I've got things to do, so I can't be bothered to waste too much of my free time—so ta, dear."
He waved his fingers at Natalia before breezily walking out the back door, leaving a trail of cologne and confusion. Natalia shook her head.
Well, if Manon was gone, she'd just email her a resignation later. Or she'd just never show up. Manon probably wouldn't notice either way, if her treatment of Lovino's absences were anything to go by.
Natalia slipped into her jacket and was about to leave as well before remembering that she had left her purse in the pantry. She reached for the pantry door handle, and turned the knob.
Her eyes widened when the door swung fully open, and she took an unsettled step back. There was a sob.
"Manon?" Natalia asked.
I wonder what'll happen next? I hope none of you mind the cliffhanger. :)
Thanks again to the amazing Resistant Raisin once again for beta-ing.
Please review! Your comments and feedback drive me.