Eigengrau

The beginning of a great week

Chapter 17:

After a few days of working at Thatch's, Mia'd finally learned the reason behind the name. Milo's favorite movie of all time was Disney's Atlantis, mainly because the protagonist had the same name as him. The character's last name in the movie was Thatch, and when he was a kid, Milo used to introduce himself as Milo Thatch, instead of Milo Piper. It was a sweet story, like the ones you'll tell your grandchildren someday, but to Mia it was only further proof of Charlie's ignorance of the existence of his first child.

Jim didn't complain about it. He brought the matter up many times a day, but it was always with an air of amusement, as if it was nothing more than a sick joke his father was playing on him. Only Mia could see right through him, and realize that he actually yearned for his father's attention and approval. That's why he worked so hard.

Over the course of only a couple of days, Mia and Jim had become very good friends. They took every break together, and chatted non-stop about things other people would never talk about. They covered matters like social equality, poverty, refugees, abortion and they criticized Donald Trump together. They spoke aloud of things everyone else kept quiet, or discussed in whispers at the back of a bar, or in the privacy of their homes.

Still, all he was to her was a friend.

It was during one of these talks at the end of their Wednesday shift at Thatch's that Mia got a call from April.

"Sorry, I gotta take this," she said, pointing at the ringing phone.

Jim pressed his lips and smiled, motioning with his hands for her to go ahead.

"Hey," Mia said in Spanish, excited as always to hear her best friend's voice. Jim's face lit up in a childlike wonder at her incredible ability to switch languages just like that.

"Hi!" April answered in a tone so happy Mia knew she had news. Now, knowing April, Mia was aware that her friend would make her beg for that piece of information.

"Why are you so cheerful?" Mia asked, dragging her question and with a suspicious tone "What happened, April?" she all but demanded.

"Well, you know your birthday is coming up, right?" April spoke as if Mia would ever forget the date of her birth.

"Yes, I know." she replied, getting bored of the same old joke.

"I already got you your present, and it's so freaking good! That's why I'm excited." Mia's friend said in an ear-piercing tone.

"Ok..." Mia said, making a face in Jim's direction. A face that clearly said 'I don't know what's going on', to which Jim responded with a shrug of the shoulders and a chuckle. He knew even less than her, because even though he listened to music in various languages, he only spoke english. Mia smiled.

"You know the drill, Mia! Guess!" April cheered, excited as a little kid would be when playing a game with their parents.

"Alright, let's see..." Mia played along, just to please her friend, and a little bit for herself as well, because she loved getting presents "Uh, a collection of all of Miyazaki's movies in DVD." she guessed.

"That's be an awesome present, but nope." she popped the last syllable.

"A Black Widow action figure."

"We don't get those down here, honey. We only get the manly machos. No." April said, knowing well enough that Mia had said that as a joke.

"A T-shirt with your face on it." Mia teased.

"No, Mia. Take it seriously!" her friend demanded.

"Can I get a clue?" the blonde asked, tired of shooting blindly at the endless string of options.

"Ok... it's something for me as well." April answered, sure that that would give it away.

That narrowed the options down for Mia, to whom the game had began feeling interesting. She was excited now, for anything that she would get to share with her best friend was a really good thing.

"Concert tickets? Did you get us concert tickets?"

"No."

"Tickets to a movie? Or a movie premiere?"

"I wish, but no."

"Are we going on a trip?"

"Oh, you're real close!" April said loudly into the phone.

"Wait," Mia said, suddenly enlightened. She knew what the present was, and it was so good she was shocked. She grabbed Jim's leg and dug her nails into his skin. Jim pulled a face of pain and Mia let go, apologizing quietly. Nonetheless, he took her hand in his own and let her squeeze it, not one complaint ever leaving his lips. Somehow, Jim taking her hand was not as big a deal as the time Riley'd done it.

"Wait." she repeated, her eagerness for a confirmation denying her the right to speak a word other than that one "You didn't..."

"Oh, hell yeah I did!" April spoke in screams, and in the background Mia heard April's mother telling her to lower her voice "I'm coming to see you!"

Mia then stood up and started screaming and jumping in excitement, much like when Charlie'd given her the job. Jim, who still held on to her hand, found himself being dragged along with her, his arm bouncing up and down with Mia's body.

"My best friend's coming here!" she said, switching back to English so Jim would understand why she was so happy.

"Hey! That's great!" he said with a smile from ear to ear. Mia could see the sentiment hidden behind his smile; a sentiment of pure happiness for her, a sentiment that arose from the fact that Mia was happy, so he was happy as well.

She hugged him over the shoulders as she heard April on the other side of the line: "Are you with someone?" she sounded surprised.

"Yeah, yeah. A friend." she answered in Spanish.

"Amigo!" Jim pronounced the Spanish word with a thick american accent "That's the Spanish for friend, isn't it?" He seemed extremely proud of himself for understanding a word that was in a language he wasn't familiar with.

"Yeah," Mia chuckled "it is."

Jim laughed and raised both his fists into the air, demonstrating how much of a winner he was. The purpose was to make Mia laugh, and it worked perfectly.

"Who are they? What's their name? Huh? Are you replacing me already?" April joked once the initial rush of excitement left both of them.

"He's Jim, do you remember him? I told you yesterday, he's the son of the guy I work for. The guy who works the coffee machine?" Mia asked in an attempt to bring back the memory of him to her friend.

"Oh, yeah! I remember! Tell him I say hi." April requested.

"I heard my name, are you talking about me?" Jim asked, forcing Mia to go back and forth between both languages, struggling to keep up with the two conversations.

"Yeah, I'm just telling April who you are." she clarified "She told me to say hi to you."

Jim smiled, pleased, and told Mia to say hello to April, too. And so she did.

"So, when are you coming?" Mia asked April.

"That's the other thing." her friend answered "Come home right now."

And that was all it took for Mia to start running as fast as she could, with a confused Jim running behind her, asking what the hell was going on.