Things That Are Red

Chapter One, Eva

My father left me on the day of my middle school graduation. I wasn’t exactly surprised; I was just a bit disappointed. I wanted my father (even though I didn’t call him that) to at least attend my graduation without any problems, especially since my younger brother was there, and I was even the valedictorian. But it felt as if my father was in another world. He always seemed so detached and done with all the bull the world had to offer. I couldn’t blame him, though. The only person that kept him from going crazy, her mother, was gone. So I couldn’t complain. I just wished things were different.

It's the October of my senior year in high school, it is Sunday at around 4pm, and I’m going on an errand for my brother to go shopping for tomatoes. He’s sick, so he’s making me go and buy tomatoes so that I can make him tomato soup, though I loathe tomato soup.

Everything is fine, until, while walking back, it begins raining. And it’s not even light rain. I want to ignore it, but it becomes more of a storm by the second. And I don’t know why, but the only place that looks safe enough for her to take shelter in is the bakery that looks like a five-star hotel on the outside. When I get inside, though, it seems that many people thought of this idea way ahead of me, and so now I’m is stuck inside of a smelly sea of people. I look around for the manager, or at least someone who looks like they run the place, but not even he is anywhere to be found.

I head up to the second floor, but I’m is looking out the window to see how bad the storm is, so I ends up bumping into a man about six feet tall, broad shoulders and stubble on his chin. He has light blue eyes and light brown hair that has been pushed back. He looks down at me and I freezes in place. His eyes aren’t cold, but he is still intimidating. It could be because he's so tall. But then he smiles.

“Are you okay?” he asks me. “It’s pretty crowded in here.”

I really do not know what to say, though; I just can’t seem to find the proper words. So I just nod. But the fact that I didn’t talk might have told him that he needs to speak to me more, which is really not what I want. “Do I look scary to you? Sorry, people tell me I give off that vibe sometimes. I’m not scary though, you can even ask my staff.” He laughs a little at his own statement. I think that it might be in my best interest not to get involved with this guy.

But he seems nice, so I go for it. “Staff?” I ask him.

He nods as a strand of his hair flies upward and bounces back down. “Yeah. I’m the manager here.”

“M-Manager?” I have never been this surprised before. It should not be so surprising to a normal person, but I doesn’t really get out much. The guy looks like he belongs on the cover of a teenage girls’ magazine. “How old are you?” I ask, and his expression changes, so I think my tone when I spoke was a bit demeaning. But in all actuality, it was a compliment.

The manager lowers his head, and I first think he is going to wallow in despair, but then he says a little too timidly, “I’m 30.”

“Why are you embarrassed?” I try not to laugh, but this man makes it difficult not to.

Then he laughs himself, and his laugh is not rough or loud, it’s very subtle. He says to me, “I’m Matthew. I own this shop, but call me Manager.”

“Evangeline, but call me Eva,” she says.

“Then Eva, I challenge you to an eating showdown.” The Manager puts on a playful grin, in which you’d think he is trying to make you believe he is younger than what he claims to be, but it is, frankly, just the cruelty of hormones.

I stop to think about what the Manager just said. But thinking won’t get me anywhere, as it never does, so I ask him, “What do you mean?”

He drags me over to a table as if I had accepted his challenge in the first place. He slips away for a few seconds, but comes back with a bunch of different slices of cake. “Whoever is able to eat the most slices in five minutes, wins. The loser has to do one thing the winner tells them to. Ready?”