Cat in The Flowerbed

First Encounter

Is this the place? holy.. that's alot of flowers. Mari looks around, colours and textures and even more colours flood her vision. This yard looks like a jungle, all sorts of tropical and exotic plants growing from every surface a seed can be planted. She looks further, past all of the tall trees, and sees some curly gray hair peeking out from over a bush, is that Miss Gertrada? Her feet follow a path already paved from years worth of walking.

“Hello?” Mari murmurs, a plump old woman turns to face her. Her eyes shine of confusion for a moment, and then she smiles.

“You must be Mira! or, Mari? Mari is it? Oh you're finally here! I've been waiting, come in! let's go over your pay.” The woman spoke a mile a minute, leaving no room for Mari to utter a word. She just nodded and followed as Miss Gertrada led her towards her front deck. The woman had just below shoulder length hair in loose gray curls, a bright blue dress with floral patterns and a yellow cardigan. She never let go of that smile that seemed to be permanently pasted on her lips.

Once inside, Mari saw even more plants. On the window sill, hanging, above the fridge, even inside of cupboards! Miss Gertrada pulled out a chair at a round dining table. She then walked to the kitchen, grabbing a pen and a notepad.

“Sit, please. Would you like some tea?” The woman offered.

“No thank you,” Mari replied, with a small smile. She tried to be as polite as she could, but Mari wasn't known for her kindness.

“Lets go over everything, I haven't actually wrote anything down yet, so it's up for negotiations.” Miss Gertrada sat down opposite of Mari and looked at her, as if expecting something. “How much would you like to get paid?”

“Oh, um. I havent really thought of that I guess, whatever you're willing to pay.”

“You're giving me too much freedom dolly! How about I pay you by the hour, okay? Let me do some math.”

Mari sat nicely in the white dining chair while waiting for Miss Gertrada to calculate. She looked around her house in the meantime, it was an old house for sure. But it had some nice qualities. The architecture was amazing, details everywhere from the table to the wall trim. The colours reminded her of neapolitan ice cream, but it worked well with the lady living here.

“Okay dear, how about I pay you thirty dollars up front every day, and you would work for about three hours, so that's one-hundred and five if I pay you thirty five an hour. Does that sound good? If it's not enough I can definitely add more.”

Mari was shocked. Not only would that be enough, but way over the amount she was expecting. This was supposed to be a short summer job, there's no way she could accept that much for such little effort.

“That's definitely enough, we can do less, really. I don't need all of that!” She tried to negotiate lower, she didn't want to scam this poor lady of her money. Though.. it did sound like easy cash.

“No need darling! I have plenty to spare, if anything we should go up!”

The two faught over this until finally Mari agreed. Miss Gertrada had a sly grin on her face by the end.

"Great. You can start tomorrow, I can't wait to see you!" She clapped her hands together, shining that warm smile once again. It almost looked like she was glowing, even with how much money she was losing.

The woman bowed, and Mari waved. She was just finding her keys to her car before Miss gertrada stopped her again, yelling from the house;

"If you see a Black cat missing it's ears, that's Stinker! He might not like you, he doesnt like anybody really. But maybe you should try befriending him!"

"Will do, Miss Gertrada. goodbye!" She called from her car, once more.