Distort the world into clarity

Chapter Eighteen: Becoming even

Before Beatrice could say anything, Ria floated into a corridor that she'd never seen before. Beatrice followed, but she was getting more scared with every step she took. At the end of the corridor was a brown door. It led to an office. Ria's name was written on a placard on the door.

The office itself was a small room. Just a desk and three chairs, nothing else. Ria wasn't much of a decorator it seemed.

With a sigh Ria sat down. 

Beatrice sat down in front of her without making any noise.

"Here's the thing, Bee. I appreciate what you did. You're a nice kid, trying to get me out of trouble and all, but I'm a grown woman, capiche? I made the decision to not listen to Lenny and I should've faced the consequences for that." Ria leaned her head onto two of her tentacles while looking at Beatrice.

Beatrice didn't look back. She was fidgeting with her fingers. She'd placed her hands on top of her lap and couldn't stop looking at them. She didn't want to. For a while she was silent.

"You made yourself a target now. It's better to stay on her good side. If you make one more mistake, there will be consequences. One of my co-workers, Jenny the jellyfish, remember her? Well she had to clean toilets for a full week with a ten hour shift. Just because she'd served a soup with a fly in it. The boss went easy on you for now, because you're just a kid and the only human we've got here, but don't think that she won't be watching you extremely closely, waiting for you to slip up, capiche?" Ria said.

After another long silence, Beatrice had finally gathered the words she wanted to speak.

"She was going to blame Lenny, not you. Were you going to let him take the blame or were you really going to take responsibility? I wasn't sure."

To Beatrice's surprise, Ria smiled. "You're smart. Maybe I wouldn't have taken the blame. It's hard to own up to your mistakes, isn't it? I've always found it a lot easier to admit to something I haven't done, at least."

Beatrice nodded. "I agree."

"Admitting your faults and your wrongs is the hardest thing there is. I take a lot of pride in myself and in what I've accomplished so it's hard for me to..." Ria's voice faded away. "Well, you get it."

Beatrice didn't respond.

"I still don't really understand why you like Lenny so much. Why did you even bother helping him? He's never been a very genuine or trustworthy guy if you ask me, so I don't really see the appeal." Ria tilted her head a little bit. She seemed genuinely curious.

For a while, Beatrice thought about it. Why did Ria see Lenny this way? For her, he was the most genuine and trustworthy guy in this whole hotel.

"He told me he had my back," she decided to say.

Ria's smile vanished. "He says a lot of things, you know..."

"No but he actually has! He did have my back. He asks me how I'm doing every single day, he gave me permission to skip work for one day to catch up with my sleep and..."

Ria's smile crept across her face again, but this time it looked more malicious than nice. "Good for you."

The silence that followed was shorter than the ones before, but it felt so much longer to Beatrice.

"Sorry... I just-" Ria sighed. "I'm sure he's a good guy. Now go back to work. And don't worry about the gossip, by the way. I'll be right there in a few minutes and I'll tell everyone to shut up. They'll forget about it in a few days, don't worry."

That was nice of her, Beatrice thought.

When Beatrice arrived at the kitchen she tried to pay the whispers no mind, but that was an impossible task. She couldn't wait for lunch. She couldn't wait to see Glen's friendly face and hear his voice instead of all these murmurs.

Even though Ria did order everyone to "shut their mouths", it worked for a little while, but when lunch-time arrived the gossiping was back again. Some fish even came up to her and tried to talk with her about the 'incident', or at least that's how they referred to it. Luckily Glen saw that they were making Beatrice feel uncomfortable, so he told those nosy fish to get lost.

Today almost no one asked Beatrice for a sandwich. Guess most workers didn't want to be associated with her anymore... On one hand, Beatrice was glad she didn't have to waste her whole lunch making sandwiches for everybody, but on the other hand it made her uneasy that almost no one wanted to talk with her.

Beatrice always wanted to be liked. Everyone wants that. It's what always made her so anxious around strangers. There were so many things she could do wrong around them, there were so many things they may not like. It was always just too much for her. She didn't know what to say or do around them. There were too many doom-scenarios. Sometimes it's better not to make any impression at all, Beatrice thought. Sometimes it's better if people don't notice.

Sadly, Beatrice stuck out like a sore thumb around this bunch. She couldn't hide anymore. She was going to make decisions, she was going to talk and people were bound to notice this time. Sometimes they would agree with her actions, sometimes they wouldn't. Beatrice couldn't accept that fact, however. Not yet.

If only she could fade into the background again. If only she could disappear into the kitchen's corner, far away from the drama that was social interaction.

"Hey, I'm sorry, but I promised Jack that I'd say hi to him during lunch. You'll be okay right?" Glen asked Beatrice all of a sudden.

All that Beatrice could think was: "Please don't go, don't leave me alone." But of course that's not what she actually said.

"Yeah, of course." She forced a smile.

"Thanks, Bug! We'll see each other at dinner, alright? Oh, and I invited Irwing for tonight too, hope you don't mind." With those words Glen hastily left, without giving Beatrice the time to think of a response.

Beatrice minded a lot. She didn't want to be bothered with even more strangers than she had to. It was both a blessing and a curse that Glen was so extraverted. He'd been the first one who'd reached out to her, but he was also always busy keeping his other million connections, leaving Beatrice to her own devices on countless occasions. 

That lunch was the longest one she had in her entire time working in the kitchen. Beatrice tried to enjoy the fresh air, to look at the beautiful fluffy cloud under her feet and admire the red leaves in the sky. The sun was shining so beautifully too, but right now Beatrice paid it all no mind. She kept on worrying about what others might be saying about her and she kept on worrying Glen would hear some terrible gossip about her. What if he'd never want to speak with her ever again?

Finally, Ria called everyone back inside. Beatrice had never been more happy that the break was over.

Luckily, work was a great distraction. Ria had taken her aside to talk about the new human meals for the menu. The office was nice and quiet in comparison to the kithcen. 

Ria seemed to know some human dishes too. She wanted to make pizza, which she thought was a high-class human dish. She said humans always talked about it.

Beatrice didn't know how Ria heard these humans talking, but she just nodded. Pizza was sort of easy to make, she could manage that. They added some other dishes to the menu and Ria was satisfied after a while.

Beatrice was dismissed, but she didn't want to leave the quiet office. She didn't want to go back to the kitchen.

"Why are you standing there? You're done working, go enjoy your free time," Ria barked at her.

Surprised, Beatrice turned her head to Ria. "I don't have to go back to the kitchen?"

"No. I think you deserve some time off. So get out of here."

Beatrice sighed out of relief. Her shoulders relaxed. "Thanks, Ria."

Ria didn't say anything back, so Beatrice left the office and made her way into the reception hall.

In reality, Ria didn't think Beatrice did such an amazing job that she deserved time off. You could never deserve time off, according to Ria. She simply noticed Beatrice's unease with the whole situation and after all, she did owe the girl.

"Now we're even," Ria mumbled softly as Beatrice closed the door behind her.