The Girl in Manhattan

•Fine Whiskey•

New York City. The city that never sleeps. The lights that are always on. Clouds gazed over the quieter streets forming an eruption of storm, but all stayed quiet. Lights flickered above the liquor store as the girl in her room sat,with a desktop light and a half empty page. Kayla, was her name, meaning to be keen and agreeable. The pen fixed itself in her hand as she wrote 'story headline'. She wasn't a Publishing Director yet, but that's what she aspired to be, but for now she worked in the liquor store below, serving customers who didn't want small talk, they just wanted their drink. Monday morning came as the streets of Manhattan flooded with tourists, job assistants and NYC residents. A buzzer sounded as a man yelled through an intercom 'Yo Kayla! Your shift started 5 minutes ago! Get down here!' She scurried up replying 'Yeah, just a minute!' She turned to the alarm and sighed realising she forgot to press set on her alarm, oh did i forget to mention, Kayla also stands for forgetful, and that's exactly what she was.

The shop door flew open as a man stumbled through, asking for a bottle of whiskey, and as soon as he got the whiskey, he left, no thank you, no small talk. Nothing. He passed through as though Kayla wasn't even there. Many customers passed through today, including Kayla's friend, who even then was the only person on her 10-hour to ask how she was. She simply replied 'yeah i'm fine, you?' That's all it took. Just three little words to ask how she was, yet no one did. Fine, a word Kayla felt had a new meaning to her, she used fine as a distraction to show how she was actually feeling. Fine, a word so simple, yet it can satisfy a person and let them leave as quick as they arrived. 

Manhattan slowed down on the busy streets, and so did the last hour of Kayla's shift. Marco, the man who yells through intercoms, walked through the back of the store and simply said 'you had a lot of people in?' Kayla just nodded. He slumped back into the storage room of the store, as the smell of cheep cigarettes lingered straight past him and into the main area. She was used to this by now, in fact the smell of cigarettes kind of reminded Kayla of home to Kayla, but that was more because Marco practically lived underneath Kayla's apartment.