“Would you slow down, Adette? You’re running around like a beheaded chicken.”
“No, I can’t!” Adette cried frantically as she darted past him, a broom clutched in hand. “The customers are going to be here any minute and the place is still in a mess!”
Derek caught her by the shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. “Adette, relax. Everything is fine.”
As if he had flicked a switch, she visibly seemed to deflate like a balloon. “Okay,” she sighed. As if on cue, the doorbell rang.
“Do I look okay?” Adette whispered, desperately patting her ruffled hair.
“You look fine,” Derek reassured her, restraining his amusement. He had never seen her behave so… female.
She walked up to the door and with surprising calmness for someone who had been near hysterics only moments before, greeted them with a smile and a “Hello, why don’t you come in?”
Derek watched curiously as a stereotypical married couple stepped in, looking around. “The laboratory is right this way. Would you like some tea or coffee or something?”
“Some coffee would be great,” the woman smiled and the man nodded his assent.
“Derek, would you get some coffee from the kitchen please?”
He shrugged and nodded, disappearing into the kitchen and hearing them talking to her. “Who’s he?” they were saying, “He doesn’t quite seem like he belongs here.” He heard the man add in a grouchy, “He needs a good haircut.”
Derek couldn’t help but smirk as he picked up the two mugs of coffee that Adette had already prepared and made his way to the lab. He should have expected such remarks from them; he realized he had come to forget about the world and their judging way of viewing things. All that had existed in his world for the past two months or so was Adette and robots.
He wordlessly handed the couple their coffee and watched along with them as Adette smoothly explained the functions of the robots, any technical errors that may come up, how to work them and everything else she deemed that they would need to know. He couldn’t help but wonder how many times she’d had people come to look at her robots before; she seemed fairly professional at it.
The couple seemed quite impressed with the robots, and by the end of the session they had placed an order for three different ones; Derek gathered from peeking over Adette’s shoulder that the amount of money that would give her was quite a lot.
“How did you handle that when you lived on your own?” Derek asked in an amused tone after she shut the door.
“About the same, except ten times more frantic before they came around, and a bit more disorganized because I couldn’t just send you off to the kitchen to get coffee or whatever else,” she grinned.
“You seemed so professional, though. How many people have you had come to look at your robots before?”
Adette’s eyes turned skyward as she thought. “I lost count after ten.”
“Ten!” Derek exclaimed, his smile dissolving into a look of astonishment. “How many of those went through with buying them?”
“All of them,” Adette replied meekly. Derek shook his head in disbelief.
“Oh, there’s something I want to show you,” she said suddenly, her face lighting up with a smile. She took his hand and took him to the back of the laboratory, where she then tugged aside a worn-looking curtain to reveal what was a very accurate model of wall.E staring back at him.
“When did you do this?” Derek questioned.
“I have insomnia,” she replied as simply as if she had told him the time of day.
“How come I never hear you?”
“Because you sleep like a hibernating bear?” she teased with a cheeky grin.
“Can’t you take sleeping pills or something, though?”
He watched as her whole face visibly darkened. “I don’t like pills.”
He decided it was probably wise to question her no further and turned his eyes on the wall.E model.
“Are you going to be able to make Eve levitate like she did in the movie?”
“Maybe,” Adette answered thoughtfully. “It’ll be difficult.” Her eyes danced as she added, “But I like a challenge.”
