A Dahlia Amongst the Daisies and Marigolds

Return To Crime

"Eggs!" Paloma yells as she dumps the pan of scrambled eggs onto a plate with some strips of bacon and quickly hands the plate to Mitzi. It had been a month since she began working at the Little Daisy cafe, the wages were good enough for her to pay Viktor rent, the customers and the ones who ran the place were kind, she quite liked this new life. Her English was still quite poor, but she could understand the words on the menu that Mitzi would shout or hand her scraps of paper with the order scribbled on them. She was still learning, though it seemed like she was getting better at the Slavic language she was picking up from Viktor and his tiny neighbor who seemed to be decades older than her own grandfather. Her break should be coming soon, which should happen after the breakfast rush so she could continue her English lessons with the grumpy older man, who was having coffee with his colleague, the equally grumpy one named Mordecai.

Something about that man made a lot of the patrons nervous for some reason, which she didn't understand because he seemed quite harmless. All he really did was give her an unamused stare, which seemed to be permanent. Wonder if he ever really smiled before.

She felt a tap on her shoulder to see her boss, Atlas, tapping on his wrist and pointing to the tables. That was her cue for a break. Paloma nods and quickly removed her apron to hang it and scooted under the counter to head towards the table where Viktor was sitting. Mordecai was sitting across from him, quietly sipping his coffee and reading some book whose cover she couldn't read, ignoring her as she took a seat next to him so she could face Viktor.

"Good afternoon!" She says cheerfully. Viktor nods before pushing a small notepad towards her. This was covered in several neatly written words and there were what looked like sentences, and her exercise for today would be either writing them or reading them out loud.

"Speak." Viktor instructs as he taps the pad. "I."

"I." Paloma repeats.

"Can."

"Can."

He then points at the rest of the words. She squints at the paper.

"D...unce?"

"Dance." Mordecai says loudly. "Short a."

"Like...apple." Viktor adds.

"Dance." Paloma says and the older man smiles. "I...can...dance."

A plate with a simple sandwich is placed in front of her and she looks up to give Mitzi a smile. The older woman smiles back before setting down a glass of water down next to the plate before she hurries back to the kitchen. Paolma takes her food and starts to eat as Mordecai and Viktor talk. All she understands is the words "guns" and "trouble", which she ended up tuning out to focus on her meals.

"Lesson done for today." She hears Viktor say as he gets up, pulling on his thick coat.

"Thank you." Paloma says as she gets up, allowing Mordecai to leave the table before she sits back down again. "¡Adios!"

Viktor waves before he and his companion leave the cafe, stopping to speak with Atlas before leaving.

Wonder what they were talking about? Paloma wonders as she gathers her dishes and proceeds to grab other dirty plates from empty tables to bring them to the back. Were the two in some sort of trouble? God she hoped not, but maybe she was overthinking it and there was nothing going on. I need to avoid being so nosy, especially when I learn more English!

---

"I'm heading to bed early, got a job that requires me to be up at the crack of dawn." Paloma hears her grandfather say and looks up to see him dressed for bed. "You best head straight to bed on time."