She was making a lot of noise. It was just seven in the morning and, if she hadn't made a fuss trying to shower (the shower handle had slipped her hands, twice, falling loudly to the ground), she was now displaying her stealthy abilities trying to find the damn keys of the room. She didn't want to turn on the light because Emily was sleeping.
In the end, they had arrived a little late to the hotel the night before. In their return they had decided to have dinner in a café and discuss the jobs. They concluded that, since she had experience in the field, Emily would be the one going to the restaurant and Alison would have a try at the bookstore. They read conditions, rules, schedules and other details on the folders that Demetz had given them and filled a couple of forms as job applications. But they weren't still sure about it. The fact that the boy was the son of some sort of boss didn't seem enough to secure them that they already had the jobs. So they extended the dinner until eleven pm, when someone almost kicked them out of the place, trying to mentally prepare themselves for a possible fight towards those jobs.
As expected, after all the day walking down the city in heels, they arrived at the hotel totally exhausted and, just when they touched the bed, they fell fast sleep.
- Ah! – Alison exclaimed in a whisper way too loud, crashing against her nightstand and nailing the peak in her right thigh. It would leave a good bruise.
The blonde heard how Emily moved between the sheets and stood static, trying not to crash into anything else (I mean, the room was small, but in the few days they had stayed there, she had managed to hit every slightly stinging surfaces). When the brunette shifted for the last time, Alison heard a tinkling.
She run a hand through her side of the bed and, as she was reaching the foot zone, she felt the cold touch of the steel keys.
- Ali? – Emily muttered sleepily. Alison sighed. So much effort, so many careful and sneaky moves, to let the sound of those stupid keys wake her up.
- Good morning. – The blonde said softly, sitting on the mattress.
Emily turned on the lights and had to cover her eyes for a few seconds. She had been dreaming, she didn't know what, and a noise like keys had awakened her, suddenly.
- What time is it? – The brunette asked.
- Almost seven. – Alison replied.
- Do you have to go so early? – She looked at her. Her purse was hanging from her shoulder. She was wearing jeans, a shirt and a jacket, and her hair and makeup were perfection.
- It's the first day, it would be a little rude to arrive late.
Emily yawned while nodding and felt glad to have the job of the afternoon. Alison saw how she ran a hand through her tousled hair. The blanket covered her body from the waist down, but the pajama shirt had slipped in her right shoulder, revealing her dark skin.
How could she be so stunning just woken up? "Because she is beautiful", she answered herself.
- What? – The brunette asked, looking at her with sleepy eyes.
- Nothing. – Alison smiled. – I won't see you till tonight. – The blonde worked from 8 to 15 and Emily from 16 to 22, long shifts, and being the locals on opposite parts of the city, one on each side of la Seine, they wouldn't see each other during the whole day. – Now I really miss my phone. – She sighed, annoyed. – I would like to call you, at least once.
Emily swallowed imperceptibly and looked away.
- Time will go fast. It's the first day, they won't let us rest for a second.
- I guess… - Alison looked the watch on her wrist and saw that the minute's hand had exceeded the number seven. She got up from the bed and walked to the bedroom door.
- Have a nice day. – Emily wished her and Alison turned to see her shy smile, the one that gave her those dimples framing her mouth.
In a few steps the blonde stood in front of the brunette and gave her a sonorous kiss on the lips.
- You too. – Before the girl could say anything else, Alison reached the door and left the room.
She walked briskly to the subway. The streets were dark and deserted, which was completely normal, who gets up early on a Sunday morning?
This time, the line that they had only a few steps away from the hotel, the line 3, was perfect.
The wagons were almost empty, so she sat next to an exit door and waited for the transport to cross the nine stops separating Père Lachaise from the Opéra.
When Alison came to the surface (this time quietly, without crowds that threatened with crushing her), she found herself in the center of convergence of multiple avenues.
It was dawning and there were enough circulating cars to consider the roaring engines and rolling tires over the asphalt traffic. There was more movement. The people was passing by the streets and some stores were starting to open their doors.
The subway exit was like an island in that epicenter of city life. The buildings rose around her, crowned by the typical Parisian attics, hosting great coffee shops and brands in their ground floors and including that central zone full of windows that made her wonder who would be lucky enough to live there.
She turned around to enjoy the vastness of the place. Well, actually that wasn't the right adjective to describe that. No, everything in Paris was more like… wide. That was the feeling that overlooked the city, amplitude… freedom. When she completely turned around she found her reference point to get to the library: the Opéra.
It was not a particularly tall building, but it looked consistent and impressive, with the front filled with colonnades, details carved directly in stone and its most characteristic features: the French and European flags waving in the top and two gold statues crowning the corners that were at her sight.
She smiled, and for a second, the blonde imagined herself ascending the stairs leading to the elegant doors of the building, wearing a spectacular dress, ready to enjoy her first opera… and with the brunette, dazzling, walking beside her.
The beep of a horn took her away from her reverie. Before she can dress for the opera she would need a good salary and she won't get it if she was delayed the very first day.
She took the avenue that was to the left of the Opéra and just has to walk a little until she was facing the bookstore.
The showcase was quite simple: two large windows that allowed the view of the interior and a sliding door, also made of glass. Black panels framed the whole structure, decorated with what will surely be famous passages from novels written in italics and in a silver tone. At the top of the entrance, there was a rectangular black sign containing the name of the place, Turn the page, written in white and stylized letters, together with an open book that showed a page in motion, also in white.
The bookstore was between a tailor and a restaurant, and faced directly into one side of the Opéra.
She stepped closer to the door and saw the sign fermé. However, when it sensed her presence, the glass sheet slipped to the left and allowed her entry.
The light on the inside was of a very low intensity, but as the entrance was just behind her, and the sun was almost completely peeking on the outside, the outer area of the store was clearly visible. Upon entering, there were two large tables half filled, covered with books. To the left, stood a counter including the typical cash registers. And the walls, all of them, were filled with books, with shelves full of novels.
- Pardon. – She was startled by the voice of a tan guy carrying a huge, and probably heavy, box in his arms. – Nous sommes fermés.
- I know. – Alison said in English, and took out of her purse the form she had filled. – I'm here for the job.
The boy put the box on the floor and approached her. He was tall, very tall, with dark hair and skin, as his eyes, and he also had a firm body. She saw how he frowned as he took the paper from her hands and began to read it. For a moment, the blonde thought he hadn't understood a word of what she had said and that Demetz had deceived them about the language thing. A few seconds later, he looked up from the sheet to look into her eyes and raised his eyebrows.
- Estella. – He said and the blonde nodded. The boy smiled a lopsided grin, squinting, it was not exactly a friendly gesture. – We have fresh meat on the menu! – He exclaimed all of a sudden, and Alison couldn't stop jumping. – Well, well, well… so you know the chiefs, don't you, blondie? – Blondie? Was he trying to make fun of her or what? – Not everybody can have this form… I bet you know them very, very good. – He came closer than necessary to her, scrutinizing her figure. He wasn't trying to make fun of her, he was just an asshole.
Alison stood rooted to the spot, arms crossed and eyes hardened. If only he knew who he was dealing with.
- Where is the manager? – The girl demanded, and that impertinent just grinned, moving even closer till he was standing a few inches from her, forcing her to raise her head to keep holding his haughty look.
- You're so lucky, you have him right in front of you.
- Charlie, where are the…? – Another boy had appeared from nowhere, lower than the previous one, with brown curly hair and skin a little less dark than the other. The boy slowed his steps when both of them turned to look at him.
- Look John, fresh meat! – The Jerk, as Alison had decided to name him in her mind, pointed at her and the girl had to bite her tongue to not say some barbarity, would really her salary depend on that?
- You're scaring her. – John said, looking at her with pity.
- No, I'm not. Am I scaring you? – He asked directly to Alison. The blonde pursed her lips and looked away. He wasn't scaring her, he was disgusting her, and she was trying to make it as clear as possible.
- And you still don't know why you can't get a decent girlfriend… - John commented, shaking his head with disapproval.
- Hey! I was being kind… hadn't I be kind? – He asked to the blonde again and she just added a raised eyebrow at her expression of disgust. John laughed. Alison was dying to tell this guy that if that was his kindness, he could shove it on his…
- Apparently. – Commented the other boy, looking at the girl, funny, almost as if he was reading her mind. – Do you know where is the fluorescent's replacement?
- No, that is up to Kevin.
- Actually, it's up to you, you're supposed to be responsible of it, as the manager.
- And I am, that's why I ordered Kevin the maintenance stuff.
- Very clever of you.
Alison watched the conversation without saying anything, trying to understand how things worked. For what seemed, Charlie hadn't been in charge for too long and John looked a thousand times more capable, or at least a thousand times more normal.
- Did you show her the place? Does she know what she has to do? – John asked.
- Hey man, easy there. – Charlie said. – The girl has just arrived, and by the front door, why isn't it blocked?
- Oh, I don't know, you are the one in charge. – John emphasized the last word and raised his hands as he shrugged, walking away with a smile.
Charlie turned his hands into fists and scowled at the provocation of the other boy. Definitely, he hadn't been in charge of anything for too long. He turned to Alison.
- Let's see. I'll give you the uniform and a section. Today is an inventory day. You have to go looking for codes to know what books we have and what we lack. Got it?
He began to walk over the pale flagstones towards the depths of the store and Alison followed him.
As they advanced the store expanded more and more, getting darker. There were small ramps leading to lower levels and stairs guiding to upper hallways. Overall, it seemed that there were three connected big rooms: the entrance, a wide intermediate area and the most internal zone, where the local ended in another room, isolated from the rest of the place by a glass that made the function of a wall and was, like the entrance, decorated with paragraphs of novels, this time written in different colors. Inside, you could see a platform and multiple chairs, as a real gray wall made of stone, covered in creepers, surely it was a conference room.
Charlie led her to a small room of the innermost area. It was like a little warehouse, tightly packed with boxes placed in metal racks. The light there was even worse than in the rest of the store.
He gave her a black t-shirt with the name of the place written in white letters on the chest, emulating the sign at the entrance, and said that, at the last minute, before she'll leave the place, he would give her a vest and a couple more of t-shirts. That, regardless of what she would wear from the waist down, would be her daily uniform. Then he gave her a device to read the book codes.
- … and that. When you finish with the economy section, you call me and I'll give you another one. – Then he left, leaving her with the reader and the shirt in her hands. The blonde sighed, it was going to be a long morning.
Alison was reading codes of dull and heavy books for what seemed like hours. Silently. Full, suffocating and disturbing silence. When she finished with the economy section she went looking for Charlie, and in the way, she bumped into the corner of one of the low tables that were scattered about the place, hitting her right at the same spot where she had harmed herself at the beginning of the morning, while trying to leave the hotel.
- Damn it! – She complained.
- The "renewable light" is awful, right? – Said a voice in the shadows created by the strange lighting and the girl tensed, despite how calm had sounded the tone of that voice. – Guess it happens when you work with odd companies. – When he approached her, Alison saw that it was the same guy from before, the one that had unnerved Charlie.
- Is this always like this? – The blonde asked, it seemed kind of ironic that, precisely a bookstore, had such a crappy lighting system.
- No, only when there are no customers, we are very thrifty. – The boy answered. – By the way, I'm John.
- Estella. – Alison introduced herself.
- How's going the first day?
- Fine, I guess. – It was being a real boredom and, in another time, she would have done everything possible to get rid of that martyrdom… but not now, not when Emily's life and her own depended on her being able to behave and keep the job. – I've loaded the codes from one section into this. – She showed the reader, who had changed the green light of its screen to a red light, which wasn't inspiring much confidence to her. – But I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.
- It's a shame you arrived just as they put Charlie in charge, the girl we had before would have taught you all in 15 minutes. But follow me, I'll help you.
Throughout the store, there were small desks with computers that were like little information points. John led her to one of them and showed her how to download the data from the reader to the computer, so that a program could compare it with a previous database and update the inventory.
- So… there are only three of us working? – Alison wanted to know.
- No, actually we are seven in each turn. – He replied, while fluently typing on the computer. – You've already known Charlie, as you may have noticed, he is the smart one.
- Yeah, no doubt about that.
In the silence of the place, interrupted only by the sound of the keyboard keys that were being pressed, they could hear a muffled melody, as if someone had put the radio on and then covered it with a jacket so the sound won't be too loud. Soon they saw a shadow move near them. Alison felt he mouth go dry.
- That's Kevin, he doesn't separate from that Walkman, ever. – John explained and the blonde relaxed, it was just another worker.
- Walkman? – She asked puzzled, do those things still exist?
- Yeah, he's a romantic with music stuff, he has a group of… rock, I think. He is always in his world. If he talks with you someday, you might consider yourself very lucky.
- I can't understand why you didn't tell me sooner!
- It doesn't matter!
Suddenly, a door that the blonde hadn't even seen banged open and a guy came out, striding across the room, stepping hard on the ground. Behind him, a girl hurried her pace to keep up with his rhythm.
- And those are Bruce and Ann, our happy couple. – John said, stopping the typing and leaning on the counter, making himself comfortable, as if he was about to watch a show.
- We agreed to no lies, Ann. – The boy stopped and turned to the girl, pointing an accusing finger to her.
- I hadn't lied to you! Ever! – She defended herself.
- And how do you call what you just told me?
- A… part of my life? – The boy snorted, frustrated, and made the move to get away from her. – Bruce, it happened years ago, it doesn't matter.
- If it doesn't matter, why did you hide it from me? – He demanded.
- I didn't hide it! Just… - She took an exasperated breath, pushing her hair from her face. – It has never been a topic of conversation.
- Oh, and it was now a topic of conversation? – He laughed sarcastically. – I thought we were talking about going to see my parents.
- I shouldn't have said anything. – She murmured, looking away.
- Now everything would be different. – He sentenced, shaking his head.
- What? Why?
- Because you're… different.
- What the hell are you saying? I am exactly the same girl you've been dating for the last year…
- A year! Damn, don't you see it?
- What?
- You've been fooling me for a whole year! How could I be so stupid? – He slapped his head, hard.
- Fooling you? I haven't… Bruce, you're taking things out of proportion, this doesn't…
- Ejem… - John cleared his throat loudly and they both turned to him and Alison, but with the faulty light the blonde could only discern their silhouettes. – Do you know Estella? From now on she'll work with us.
Bruce grunted "welcome" and went away, walking towards the exit door. Ann struggled for a few seconds, trying to decide between being polite and greet the new girl or follow her boyfriend. She chose the second option, saying a quick "hi" and going after the boy.
- Well, that's it. – John said, who had returned his attention to the computer screen, where the data was already saved and updated. He disconnected the reader and handed it to the blonde, who was still looking at the direction the couple had taken, thinking.
- There is someone missing. – Alison commented.
- What did you say? – The boy asked.
- You said that there were seven people per turn, but we are only six.
- Ah, yes. Heather is the one that's missing. She is on vacation, she'll be back on a week. – The boy turned off the computer and Alison focused her eyes on him.
- So… if Charlie is a moron, Kevin an artist, Heather the invisible girl and those two the almost married couple, who are you?
- Me? – He looked up at her, his eyes were green. – Well… I'm the good guy, who else?
He smiled from ear to ear, and the blonde smiled back, carried away by his charm, at least for the moment. She had learned over the years, in the worst possible ways, that everyone hides something, and that something doesn't use to be very nice.
Instead of going to Charlie, Alison let John guide her through the store and explain the various tasks she had to do while telling anecdotes from customers, preparing her for the day by day. He didn't do a single personal question, neither he told any details about his life, and the blonde was thankful for that, because she was able to relax a bit and almost enjoy those first hours of work.
When the clock on the front counter marked 15:00 everything was neat and classified (at least the sections they had to take care of, the rest would be done by the afternoon turn).
- Do you wanna have lunch with us? – John asked her as he closed and locked the depot's door, which was next to the room where Charlie had given her the shirt she was wearing now.
- Do you eat together? – The blonde was surprised.
- Yes, every day. – Alison imagined the scene and suppressed a laugh. John laughed, probably thinking the same as her. – It's not as bad as it seems. We always go to the same place. I don't know if you've seen it coming. It is a Brasserie at the beginning of the street. The owner knows us and makes us discounts.
- Maybe tomorrow. I have plans for today. – Alison said, with the jacket on, ready to leave the place.
- As you wish, but be aware that you will miss the best garlic soup in the world.
- Mmmm, what a shame… - She hated garlic soup, with all her might.
- Hey! – She turned and saw Charlie, who was approaching her with three huge files and a plastic bag. – Here.
- Do I have to take that? – The girl asked, horrified, she felt her arms heavy because of all the book manipulation, they would fall from her body if she took that amount of papers, she knew it.
- You need to study this. Those are the mayor authors of three of our sections. This week you'll work on them, so you'll need to learn them soon.
- You are such a beast. – John said, watching how wide the blonde's eyes were. – She can't walk through the entire city with that, or learn it in just one afternoon. – The boy chose one file and passed it to Alison. – Classics, they're not the easiest, but you'll already know a lot of them and I can tell you, from experience, that the sooner you start with them, the better. – Then he took the plastic bag that Charlie had fastened with a single finger. He looked inside and nodded. – Yep, your uniform, don't forget it tomorrow.
Charlie was turning redder just as John was taking control of the situation.
- I. Am. The manager! – He shouted, clutching tight the files he was still holding. – I say what has to be done and what hasn't!
- Come on, Charlie. The files? Really? Since when do we give the files to a novice, the first day?
- Since I say so!
- You're acting like a real asshole.
- Don't you…!
- I'm leaving. – Alison announced, tired of stupid fights.
She turned and walked out the front door, shaking her blond hair, leaving the two of them with the word in the mouth.
- Don't forget to study! – She heard Charlie yelling and shook her head. In the end, either she wanted it or not, it seemed like she was going to be very entertained.
Hello people :) It took me a while to update and I'm really sorry for that. I had a couple of rough weeks but, for those who asked, my intention is to update once a week (more or less).
I know this chapter didn't have a lot of Emison, but I wanted to introduce some new characters!
I hope to not have any more delays with the updates and that you are still enjoying the reading; again, thanks for the reviews, follows, favourites and, the most important, just for reading! ;)
