Updated for grammar & spelling and checked for continuity: March 10, 2011.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Back To Alistair's
It was another early Monday morning, and about as mundane of a Monday as could ever be asked for. This did happen now and again; after all, these cycles were the way of the world. Therefore, as she set tables in the same manner as she did every day, Nell did not begrudge the world for throwing any kinks - mundane or otherwise - into the well-practiced routine. She knew things would shake themselves up again in no time at all.
"Argh." The muttering in the bay window drew her attention. "This light sucks."
Bree and Sheryl were huddled around the tables. The curtains had been drawn as widely as they would go in an attempt to let in more light, but the late-summer downpour going on outside was not being accommodating at all. Well, thought Nell, perhaps that is a mild kink attempting to deconstruct the mundane.
"Yeah, I guess so," Bree was saying. "But I like the rain."
"Liking the rain or not is beside the point! The light still sucks."
"Although," Nell could not resist interjecting, "one could argue that it is not so much the light that sucks as it is the lack of said light. Cookies?" She offered in response to Sheryl's half-hearted groan.
"Nell," Bree admonished, though the presence of a giggle lessened the effect of the chastisement, "those are supposed to be for paying customers."
Nell shrugged. "I pay the bills. Besides, who ever said we were in this business for the money? Now do you want some or not? I added extra chocolate chips when Jen was not looking and she was so disgruntled about Alistair refusing to remove himself from inside her favorite mixing bowl she didn't even notice."
"Nell! Shame on you!"
Sheryl looked scandalized that Bree was arguing this issue as though extra chocolate chips was a bad thing. "Bree, shush. Bring those cookies over, Nell!"
Bree rolled her eyes good-naturedly before grabbing a cookie for herself. "Jen should know better than to try to move Alistair from any place he wants to be."
"That's just it. She wasn't trying to move him at all. She just stomped about being disgruntled about it." Nell fetched drinks as well before joining the other two at the table.
"Mmm... I won't complain if it means more chocolate" Sheryl sighed with pleasure. "Why didn't you move him for her? Alistair always listens to you. Darn cat."
"If I removed him, she may have noticed the excess chocolate." They all laughed. "Besides, it was her own fault for letting him inside at all."
"True," agreed Bree. "That goes against all her kitchen principles. Why did she do it?"
"Felt sorry for him, what with the rain. She didn't actually intend to let him in the kitchen, but you know Alistair. He's sneaky."
"Darn cat," Sheryl repeated.
Nell laughed again. "Oh, without a doubt."
The bells hanging on the door tinkled signaling the end of their conversation and the arrival of a customer. Whoever it was wore large Wellington boots, an oddly oversized Trilby-like hat, and a long rain slicker with the collar turned up so the face was hidden. As the outer garments were shod and hung to drip dry from one of the many coat racks brought out for that specific purpose, Katrin was revealed. For all her protective gear, she was still quite soaked.
"What did you do, you precocious child, fall in a lake on the way here?" Nell bustled her over to the table and went to make a huge mug of hot chocolate.
"In that get-up?" asked Bree. "I bet she was playing at Singing In the Rain."
Katrin laughed. "Would you believe it is just that wet outside?"
A simultaneous, "No," came from the other three, making Katrin laugh all the harder.
"Ok, ok. I was hopping in a few puddles, miscalculated one, slipped, and fell right into it."
"Ah ha! I was right!"
"What? You said 'lake' not 'puddle'," commented Sheryl.
"True, but a puddle is a lake to a bumble bee," Nell replied, bringing the cocoa over.
"Katrin is not a bumble bee."
"Not only that," observed Bree, "but if she were, the puddle that soaked her to that extent must have been an ocean."
"This is where Nell will say 'An ocean is a lake to a giant'," Sheryl stage whispered to a still laughing Katrin.
"I was actually thinking more along the lines of 'ogre', but it amounts to the same thing. I'll go get you some towels or something, Katrin."
Immediately after she disappeared up the stairs, Jen came up from the kitchens and pulled up a chair. "That cat - oh, hello Katrin - is deliberately trying to annoy me."
"Trying? Looks like he has accomplished his goal," Bree remarked, dryly.
"Hmph. I am just going to ignore you and have a cookie." After she took a bite, she frowned at it, and then proceeded to frown at the rest on the plate. "Why are there so many chocolate chips in these things?"
"Nell," Sheryl and Bree said together.
"Hmph. Used my distraction to tamper with my dough! She is probably in league with that cat."
"Nonsense," said Nell as she came down the stairs. "Cats do not form leagues. They engage in temporary alliances if, and only if, the end result will be entirely beneficial to themselves."
"Fine. You arranged a temporary alliance with that cat."
"Even more nonsense. What would Alistair gain from excess chocolate chips in the cookies?" She handed Katrin a stack of fluffy towels and a change of clothes. "You know where everything is, dear, so go get dry."
"Right. I'll be right back."
"Don't rush," Jen told her. "We aren't going anywhere." She turned back to Nell and shook the half-eaten cookie at her. "I'm on to you, you know."
"Of course you are."
"Hmph."
"Personally," interrupted Sheryl, "I think the change to the recipe is nice."
Bree laughed once again. "You would. Is Alistair still in the bowl?"
"Yes! And he had the audacity to look directly at me, twitch his tail not once but three times, and then fall asleep! I tell you, it was deliberate."
"Shall I move him for you?" asked Nell.
"Yes. And then I'll need to sanitize the kitchen. We can't sell anything cooked while a cat was sleeping in the mixing bowls."
"Why don't we just make the boys do it? That's why we keep them around, after all. To perform all the messy grunt work," said Sheryl.
Bree grinned widely. "How sexist of you."
"Well, I can't do it. I'd break a nail! And I know you all agree with me on this, too, so don't try to deny it."
"Doesn't matter, really. They are off doing messy grunt work on the farm. You know, doing what we pay them to do."
"Oh yeah," Sheryl sighed. "All right then. Bree and I will clean up here and Nell can go move the cat. Jen can enlist Katrin's aid and we'll meet downstairs in five minutes. Happy?"
"Yes," Jen replied. The four women went on their designated tasks.
Ten minutes later, everyone save Nell was waiting in the kitchen. After she convinced Alistair that it was his idea to go back outside into the rain, a customer arrived and she went back upstairs to take care of him. Jen was buzzing about trying to organize tasks for everyone that would make the endeavor go by as swiftly as possible. Sheryl and Katrin sat on the counter watching her, looking for all the world as though they were watching a tennis match. Bree sat on a stool watching them.
"Remind me again why Nell is the one who gets to do the customer service thing," Sheryl demanded.
"Because," answered Bree, "she is the only one who can work the coffee stuff correctly. It nearly explodes every time any of us do it."
"Oh yeah."
"The cat, the coffee... It's a plot, I tell you." Jen's voice was slightly muffled as her head was currently inside a cupboard.
"Everything is a plot, with you, Aunt Jen," said Katrin.
"Naturally," said Bree. "Keeps things interesting."
"What does?" Nell asked as she entered the kitchen.
"Plots."
"Ah."
"What took you so long?" asked Sheryl.
"I made a sign for the counter."
"A sign?"
"Yes. 'Kitchen is temporarily closed. Blame lies on Alistair; do not share your latté with him for a week. Ring bell for espresso and chilled beverages. Help yourself to the brewed coffee and cookies.' What do you think?"
Katrin giggled. "People still give him coffee, eh?"
Bree sighed. "Yes, it's terrible. He is addicted to the foam. Do you know, I gave him a little milk last week and he just sniffed at it? Complete disdain from whiskers to tail. I had to get Nell to froth it for him and even then he ignored me for the rest of the day."
"Ok, people, enough chit chat. Let's get to work!" Jen started handing out various rags and cleaning products. "You two, dishes. You, floor. Me, counters. We'll get to everything else as it comes!"
"Aye-aye, Captain!" Nell saluted with the mop Jen handed her. "Are you sure this is small enough? Should I go get a toothbrush instead?"
Jen glared at Nell as Bree and Sheryl tried, and failed, to hide their chortling laughter. Katrin did not bother to hide her amusement. "You had better behave, missy."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll do something to you!"
"Be nice. I know where the cat is hiding."
"You are so mean."
"Uh, Aunt Jen," Katrin interjected, attempting to stall the argument and earning herself hits from either side with towels flicked by Bree and Sheryl. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Nothing," the four answered together.
"You," Jen finished, "are supposed to sit there," she pointed at a chair, "and tell us all about Bill. It is unfair that only Nell knows anything about him at all."
"Yes," agreed Sheryl. "She refused to tell us anything on the ground that 'it isn't her story to tell'."
Katrin blushed, but grinned broadly as she filled them in on the particulars of her meeting and brief encounters with Bill. With all their interruptions and teasing, not to mention a few requests for espresso from upstairs, it took until shortly before noon for her to finish. By that time, the kitchen was sparkling to Jen's satisfaction and they made their way upstairs to have lunch together.
As they settled down with a tray of Katrin's favorite tea sandwiches that Bree had made the night before and put in the fridge specifically for this occasion ("I knew you were going to come over today," she had said), Katrin reflected on her unique friendship with the four older women. After her parents, they were the first people she turned to for guidance. They were her mentors, and her sounding boards when she needed to talk her way through a difficult problem. At the same time, she considered them her peers, able to giggle with them over the silliest and most frivolous of matters. They knew her as well as her family did, in some respects even better, though she had not told them of her 'otherworldly' heritage. To be fair, she knew very little about their lives before they took her under their wings. However, there was never the feeling that they were hiding anything from each other. Origins and the past did not matter.
"So," Jen set down a pitcher of fresh squeezed juice, interrupting Katrin's musings, "when will you see Bill again?"
Katrin could not prevent a flicker of disappointment from crossing her features. "That's the thing; I don't know."
"Well why not?" asked Sheryl.
"Uh, maybe because he's in England?"
"And?"
She looked back and forth at their expectant faces. "And what? He's in England; I'm not. And when I last heard from him, he seemed to be fairly busy with work. I doubt he'll be able to get away for the rest of his vacation any time soon."
"Job security, that." Nell gave the aside to Jen, who nodded in mock seriousness.
"You mean, so he can come here," said Bree, ignoring Nell's comment.
"Well, yeah, of course."
"Mm." Bree nodded, knowingly.
"You do like him, don't you? Interested enough to want to pursue something beyond mere acquaintance or friendship?" Sheryl asked.
Katrin blushed for the umpteenth time that day. "Well, yeah."
"And you aren't going to be satisfied with mere correspondence for long, are you?" put in Jen.
"No, probably not."
"So... why wait for him to come here? Why don't you go to him?" Nell suggested this as though it was the most obvious of solutions.
Katrin blinked. "What, to England?" She watched as they exchanged glances then nodded as one. "But... but... isn't that a bit... forward?"
"Oh, don't be so old fashioned," chastised Jen.
"After all," added Bree, "nothing ventured, nothing gained!"
"True," agreed Nell. "Sitting around here isn't going to get you anywhere except frustrated."
"I grant you, it might be considered 'improper' by some," Sheryl put in.
"Also true, and the 'some' will most likely be your parents. Granted, I've never met them so I could be wrong about that. Either way, it really is your life and your decision to make. They have to let you grow up some time."
"Besides," concluded Sheryl as she nodded to agree with Nell, "it isn't as though you never wanted to go to England anyway. This way, you'll have a friend to show you all the best sites!"
"Ooh, good point. Natives really do make the best tour guides."
Still surprised by the turn of conversation, Katrin shook her head. "But... what if he doesn't actually want to see me again and is just using work as an excuse?"
Jen sighed. "Has he given you any indication of a lack of interest?"
"Well, no. But I haven't actually heard from him in a few days and-"
"You said yourself that he's busy with work. You can't let a little thing like the chance that it might not work out the way you want stop you from taking a chance or two."
"Well... I guess that's true," she paused, before coming up with another justifiable excuse. "But it doesn't matter, does it? I'm contracted for weekend gigs for the rest of this month and the better part of September. I can't just back out of them for what may prove to be a wild goose chase."
Nell clicked her tongue. "No one said you should go now. It will take a while for you plan it all out in any case."
"And airfare rates should go down once summer is over," Sheryl interjected.
Katrin slumped in her chair and just stared at her four eccentric friends as they debated the other benefits of traveling to England in the fall as opposed to the summer. She ran the idea over in her head again, finding herself growing steadily accustomed to the idea. I can't exactly complain that I cannot afford it, she thought, because that isn't exactly an issue. Nell's right about my parents' disapproval, though I would wager Mother would understand and probably make suggestions on what to pack. Dad, however... She sighed. And I am supposed to go Home at the end of the Season; I always do... Of course, Dad did seem rather intent on keeping me out of the Underground when he visited yesterday. And while that makes me curious as to why, I might as well be the agreeable child for once... She shook her head once more and grinned when she realized the others had stopped talking and were watching her, waiting for her to finish thinking it over.
"So?" asked Bree, breaking the silence.
"I never knew you four were such matchmakers," Katrin said, shaking her head with a dry laugh.
"Matchmakers?" Sheryl blinked in mock offense. "Us? Never. We're just offering our opinions."
Katrin laughed again. "Offering opinions, was it? That's reassuring. I thought you had teamed to come at me from all sides in order to convince me that your 'opinions' were the only ones worth having."
"Can we help it that we are right?" asked Nell.
"Not only that, but if you didn't think it was a good idea in the first place you would not have given up so easily," Sheryl added.
"Hey now! Who said I've given up?"
"Oh, we can tell, dear. It's a knack." Bree patted Katrin's knee reassuringly. "But don't worry. You don't have to admit it just yet if you don't want to. Now, I will go get a calendar so we can start thinking about dates!"
As Bree got up, Katrin threw her hands up in defeat. "If this is how you handle the people you consider friends, I pity those engaging in such futile stupidity as to be your enemies."
"They never get very far," confirmed Nell. Turning to Jen once more she asked, "So is there anything exciting downstairs for dessert?"