The Scarlet Letter

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

On weekdays, the Scarlet Letter doubled up as a day bar. People would come in for a quiet drink in a peaceful setting. Not as many people as there were on weekends when there were performances, but Alec was kind of glad for that. The Letter was where he would most likely be spending most of his time during his trip here and he didn't know if he could cope with it being constantly full.

Isabelle worked as a waitress at the Letter when she wasn't performing, bringing drinks to people at their tables, while Jace was a cleaner. Alec admired how hard they were working. Performing wasn't an easy job to keep and this was clear through how his siblings had to have secondary jobs-albeit, at the same establishment, but they were secondary jobs all the same-to sustain themselves. Sure, they didn't need qualifications or generic education for their work, but that meant nothing in terms of desire to work and determination to achieve. And Isabelle and Jace had both of these things in abundance.

Alec sat at a table on his own, translating some scripts for an online client. To earn money for himself to live over in France on his own, he took to putting his foreign language studies to good use by offering translation services through Patreon. He translated French; Spanish; German; and Indonesian to English and vice versa. The script he was currently working on was for an American client who lived in Mississippi who needed a movie script translated to Spanish for one of their actors. They didn't have time to do it themselves due to production schedules so they found Alec's Pateron when looking for cheap translators. He enjoyed the work, and it fit well for him because he could work it around his classes and personal schedule.

There were hundreds of pages spread around on his table, full of scribbles and notes on different ways different phrases could be translated, and a multitude of different coloured pens lay by his elbow so that he could highlight particular words for particular reasons. Alec maybe did too much for the amount that he was paid, but this was partly not for the work, it was for the aid he knew he was providing. He knew what it was like to feel isolated for not understanding what was being said to him. Tourists in Paris were particularly aggressive if you couldn't understand what they were trying to say, as if English was supposed to be the universal language that everyone had to learn out of courtesy.

Where did the impression that English was the most popular language come from anyway? The most common language was Chinese, for goodness sake.

"God, even when you're on holiday, you're working," Isabelle commented. She stopped beside Alec's table, propping the drink tray against her hip as she watched her brother write.

"Bills to pay, Izzy," Alec reminded her. "Remember what Mum and Dad said when I told them I wanted to study medicine?"

Isabelle nodded ruefully. "Pay your own way," she recalled.

"Pay your own way," Alec sighed. "We're not paying for you to become a sheep."

Isabelle snorted. "Ah, yes. Because you know how learning to save the lives of hundreds makes you a sheep." She grabbed Alec's arm and demanded, "Why are you conforming Alec?! What's wrong with you?! How dare you try to be a hero?!"

Alec snickered at his sister's silliness. "I'm not trying to be a hero," he told her.

"Well, yeah, you are." Isabelle flipped the tray and caught it single handedly. "All doctors are heroes, whether they want to be or not." The way she put it, how she described it like the title was forced upon people, made Alec cringe. Isabelle noticed this and chuckled. "What are you translating anyway?"

"A script writer in Mississippi needs me to translate their movie script to Spanish for one of their actors," Alec explained, gesturing at the mess of papers around the table.