Gisella #thefictionawards2019

Part 2: Chapter Six

The weekend whizzed past, and Gisella grew more excited to see James. Since she'd last spoken to him, she'd made her first sale and had also completed her first shift at the café. Waitressing went better than she'd expected. Gisella hadn't spilled a drop of liquid on any of the customers. In fact, the customers seemed to relate to her easy enough, and she even made a reasonable amount in tips. Ernie said that she'd done well and asked her if she'd like to take on a regular Sunday shift, which, of course, she'd eagerly agreed to.

Gisella wanted to share her successes with James. Last night, she couldn't get her thoughts off him. She was even looking forward to the intimacies they would once again share. While she knew she still battled a few demons in that department, she was overall more satisfied than she had expected to be. Gisella wasn't too worried about those demons. She was sure that, with time, they would continue to fade. For now, whenever any ugly thoughts slipped to the forefront of her mind, she ruthlessly pushed them back to where they belonged. She'd also realised that taking control in the bedroom helped her to stay in control of her emotions. James certainly didn't seem to mind much; in fact, she'd bet her bottom dollar from his reactions that he rather liked it a lot.

It wasn't even seven a.m. yet, and Gisella had already dressed and eaten her breakfast. Maybe she should just start walking now. Hopefully, Fred would already be there, and she could be of some use setting up the yard.

Walking with a bit of a skip in her step, she made her way to work. The sun was already warming up the city, and the birds were chirping. A couple of blocks from work, she spotted a willy wagtail bouncing around on the footpath. Cheeky little thing, it wagged its tail several times at her before flitting off into a nearby tree.

"You wet the bed?" Fred called out to her as he got out of his ute.

She poked her tongue out. "I woke up early and thought I'd be of more use here than sitting in my kitchen. Want me to start putting the signs up in the car windows?" she offered.

"Sure. I left them on the chair in the office," he replied. Fred opened up the office and took a few sets of keys off the hook so he could organise the cars in the lot.

Gisella was a little disappointed that James wasn't already there too. It was pretty early, and another hour or so wouldn't kill her. If she got busy, then the time would hopefully go a lot quicker.

James ended up arriving around nine a.m. She didn't know what was worse: waiting for him to arrive, or having him arrive and having to pretend that she wasn't interested that he'd arrived.

For the first hour or so, he avoided her, and she started to wonder if there was something wrong. Finally, he approached her. "Gisella, I really need to talk to you," he stated solemnly.

"Alright, what is it?" His serious look had her feeling a bit nervous.

"Not on the floor. Um, Christ, there is no real good spot to do this, and I need to chat to you fairly urgently. Give me a minute, and I'll tell Fred that I need to take you somewhere. Hey, I'll take you down to the bank. You can learn to do the bank run," he figured out.

"I already did a bank run last week, and I'm pretty sure they aren't even open yet. What's going on?" she asked, getting more curious and a little rattled by his growing look of panic.

"Fred, I need to talk to Gisella for a bit. I'm just going to take her for coffee. Can you look after the front desk if anyone arrives?"

"Ah, yeah; we've got an hour before we open, so it shouldn't be a problem," Fred answered curtly, and the two men stared at each other for a moment. Fred backed down first, shrugged his shoulders, and stalked off.