At the Sign of Trouble

Chapter Nine

Chapter 9: A Bit of a Situation

The following morning, everyone working at the coffee house was hastily preparing for a birthday celebration that was going to be held on the second floor. Estimated number of guests were ninety as agreed but Eric, Galiana’s manager, wanted to make sure the place was ready just in case they might have unexpected additional guests. So far, it was the biggest event to be held at Galiana’s but lo and behold, both the owners Frank and Henry were both missing in action and they were still short of workers.

Earlier, Eric received a text message from Henry that he might not be able to make it to work today .It was sort-of ridiculous, Eric initially thought when he read the first line of Henry’s text as he was staying in the spare room at Galiana’s but felt bad when he continued reading that Henry was down with flu and couldn’t get out of bed. And so being left solely in charge of the place, Eric made sure everything was in order for their guest’s 70th birthday celebration.

“I haven’t seen Henry anywhere. Have you?” Belinda asked Greg while they were in the kitchen. The catering service for the party just arrived and most of them were busy assisting with arrangement upstairs. The ones left to serve on the first floor were the two baristas, Kyla and the busboy Kevin.

“I heard the manager say something to the guest about the owner getting sick but I wasn’t sure if he was talking about Frank or if Henry got sick too.” Greg replied with a shrug.

It was unusually crowded at Galiana’s today, Kyla noticed. Henry usually helps around the place when there were this many people inside especially when they were hosting an event upstairs with so many guests but he was nowhere to be found.

“Hey guys, I have to get back to the kitchen to finish up,” Kyla said. “See you guys in a bit.” Then she turned to leave.

Kyla headed to the kitchen where she resumed working on designing the cake for their customer’s celebration and then start plating the desserts she prepared earlier in the morning. It was a hectic day for the people who worked at Galiana’s but Kyla loved every bit of it. The place was starting to grow on her and though some people she works with thought she might be having an affair with Frank, in general she liked working there.

It was an hour before her shift ended when Eric walked into the kitchen to speak with Kyla privately.

“Hey, are you busy after work?” Eric asked her. Aside from discussing the menu every week and the polite exchange of pleasantries in the morning, he and Kyla never really had a real conversation before. Probably because she spends most of her time in the kitchen while Eric supervised the coffee house in the morning and stayed in his office discussing the establishment’s weekly budget with Henry and also acted in-charge of human resources.

“Not really,” she replied suspiciously after taking some time to answer. Aside from researching for new recipes for Galiana’s and preparing the ingredients and supplies she needed on a daily basis (and she admitted to herself, the absence of a social life) Kyla spends most of her time working, or thinking about work. “Why do you ask?”

Eric cleared his throat and then walked closer to Kyla and said in almost a whisper: “We have a bit of a situation.”

She looked at him warily before asking “What sort-of a situation are we talking about?”

“This has to stay between us ok?”

Kyla’s brows furrowed in confusion and looked at Eric questioningly. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?”