Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley: 3-2

AUBREY sorted through the piles of receipts. She laid them out on the counter next to the cash register and started writing down numbers on a notepad. Beeps came out from the calculator she had beside her as she pushed buttons and wrote the additions and subtractions.

BASIL was never good with numbers. If it wasn’t for her, AUBREY was convinced he would have gone into bankruptcy at this point. That boy was never meant to be an entrepreneur. But who was to tell him no? Technically, BASIL’s shop was only an extension of FIX-IT’s flower section, which was given its own store at OTHERMART, and he was under their employment. When he told them this wild idea to start a flower shop slash cafe, they thought he was joking. A few months later, with some papers signed, he showed them the place. His parents had funded the initial costs.

God, she wished her family was rich too. She was running two part-time jobs at the same time just to pay her college tuition. Not counting this one, of course; she couldn’t take anything from BASIL. Not when she took away so much.

Also, it wasn’t like he was raking in profit. If these numbers indicated anything, at least. AUBREY sighed.

The sounds of beeping and pencil scratches were buried out by crumbles. Initially, she tried to ignore it and continued her calculations. But the crumbles just kept getting louder and louder until it became unbearable. She put down the pencil. She closed her eyes. She tried breathing in and out; just like how MARI taught her how to calm down. In moments of anger, memories of her always proved to provide solace; even though there was once a time when those memories were the source of that anger.

It was too bad that the noise did not stop, and it didn’t become any less obnoxious.

She opened her eyes and looked in the direction where they were coming from. KEL was sitting by a table with a basket on it. He was shuffling stuff on it. He stopped for a moment and put his hand on his chin, contemplating. Then he continued again, and rinse and repeat.

“KEL.”

She said nicely, or as nice as she could muster. He did not respond, and the noise continued. So he left her no choice.

“KEL!”

She banged her fist on the counter. The impact produced a large bump sound and shook some of the receipts away. That got KEL’s attention, and he looked her way, awkwardly grinning.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m sorting out the sugar packets.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded. KEL shrugged.

“You are doing what?”

“Yeah, cause this stuff is a mess. There’s sugar, coffee, tea, they’re all different colours too.” He shuffled through them with his fingers.

“Since when were you the organized type?”

“Well, I’m not, which is why it’s still like this.”

She stood up to look at the contents of the basket. They were completely disorganized, and nothing had been done to clean it. It almost seemed like he had made it worse by just moving certain packets randomly to the other side.

AUBREY groaned. “Maybe you should go grab a mop and do something more productive.”

“Whaaat?” KEL whined. “But that sounds boring!”

“Would it be any more boring than sorting out sugar packets?” She seethed through her voice.

“Good point.”

KEL got up from his seat and walked past AUBREY behind the counter. He grabbed the broom, which was leaning against a wall, and went back to the main area. He began humming a tune as he swept the floor.