Lovely Creature

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

A happy Buddha

“I would like to order a number two, three and… a combination of a nine and one.”

   “Anything else, sir?”

   “No, that would be all today Elena.”

   The man sitting in front of me gave me a big smile and revealed a lot of wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.

   I privately called him a happy Buddha because of his looks. He was a little bit over the fifties, had a large stomach and seemed happy with life even if I had told him this would have been the very last day of his life. And even if it would have been judgments day, he would've still come to Amor to buy enough food for an elephant. Or two.

   I smiled back to him and closed my little notebook in my hands, while thinking about this. A sound of smashed plates made me glance back and stare at the closed kitchen door. The happy Buddha, who was human, stopped to smile. Instead, he pointed at the direction to the door with a thick thumb.

   “It´s based on our mistakes we learn something new.”

   You got that right, shot a thought in my head. I turned around and gave him a weak smile. My notebook slid down to the pocket of the apron I wore without even knowing it. I knew these sorts of habits were easy to ignore. Even though I only had worked at Amor for five weeks, some behavior had grown to me very quickly.

   On my way back to the kitchen I let my smile fade away and laid my hand on the kitchen door. I pushed it open and almost flinched back when I saw Fernando’s eyes were three centimeters from my own.

   “Elena, mi angel…This is not working. He can´t handle the stress, and it´s killing us all!” he finally managed to say after cursing in Spanish.  

   Fernando was my boss and the owner of the restaurant Amor. Seeing him this frustrated and angry made me curious and surprised. His pulse on his forehead beat constantly, threatening to pop out of its place. Looking at it, it almost brought me back to my first day at work.

   Back then, I had made the huge mistake to splash a lot of dishes- in front of not only the staff, but also the whole restaurant. Thinking back, I could almost see Fernando stand in the end of the kitchen yelling at me, warning me that it might have been the last day at work for me.

   That had been the first time in a long time I had wanted to cry. After he had yelled and embarrassed me out enough, he had patted my shoulder and said that I had to step up, or he would have had to fire me.

   I still remember his look on his face when I the next day worked as if I was about to die any moment. He hadn´t said anything, but I had good hearing and had heard a lot of whispers and seen enough of the staff’s finger pointing to know that I had become one of them.

   Now, hearing the happy Buddha’s words once again in my head, I knew he was telling me the truth. I knew I had learnt enough from my mistakes to not make the same ones again. But I had also known that I needed money, since I lived with my grandmother and felt like robbing her whenever I asked.

   So, my solution had been finding a job. I had ended up at Amor’s with Fernando, whose face now stared blankly into my own.

   “Um, Fernando you need to chill out. I can go talk to him while you take out the garbage.”  

   Even though he was my boss and should have told me what I had to do, I had instead told him the solution we all needed. I knew that if Fernando got even more upset and angry, it would´ve stayed the whole night.