"Hello, ma'am, I'm Hudson Ellis - I'm a representative of the charity Man's Best Friend. You may have heard of us?"
"Ah ... ein weiterer Verkäufer. Warum ist das hier legal?"
Hudson blinks. He doesn't speak German, but he gets the sense that her muttered words weren't for him. "Uh...we help disabled dogs," he offers weakly.
"Hunde?"
He doesn't know what a hunde is, but hoping that it's a German word for disabled dogs, he nods hesitantly. "Yeah. Uh...hunde."
"Dieser Junge klingt blöd," the woman murmurs under her breath. Hudson stamps down the urge to panic and run away.
"Anyway..." he clears his throat. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in helping our charity?"
"Dies ist eine Wohltätigkeitsorganisation?" the woman asks, eyes widening with what Hudson really hopes is understanding, because at least one of them would actually know what the hell is going on.
"Uh..." the desire to flee has now mulitplied tenfold.
The woman rolls her eyes. "You...charity?"
He almost cries in relief. English. True, broken English, but English. "Yes," he nods, "for dogs."
"Dogs. Hunde," she tells him. "In Deutsch."
"Oh," Hudson feels like his nod to comprehension ratio is currently a little uneven. "I see."
"I help," she nods at the clipboard in Hudson's hand, and thank God. "Sign?"
"Yes," he says a little too quickly. "I mean...please." A thought occurs to him as she writes her contact.
"Danke...?" he says hesitantly as she draws away. The woman lets out a laugh, and Hudson feels his insides warm up a little.
"Gern geschehen."
☒
"You're lucky I'm here to come over and make sure you don't die from malnutrition," Georgie tells him as she slides a salmon fillet onto her plate and then another onto his. "For just how long do you plan on living on Top Ramen alone?"
Hudson shrugs, already preoccupied with his dinner. Georgie rolls her eyes, but follows his example and begins cutting up her salmon. "Remind me how you got through college?" she asks before popping a forkful into her mouth.
"Roommate was minoring in culinary arts," Hudson mumbles around a mouthful of salmon. "This is so good."
"Oh yeah, what happened to him? And I know it is."
"I don't know," Hudson says thoughtfully. "I should probably call him up."
"I agree," Georgie says, swallowing another bite. "You need all the friends you can get."
"Hey!"
"I speak only the truth," she smirks.
"Shut up," he flicks a piece of broccoli at her from across the table.
"Oh, mature, Hudson, real mature," Georgie says with mild disgust as she picks it off her sleeve.
"You love me," he tells her, returning to his salmon.
"God knows why," she mutters, but bites back a smile as she does so. They spend a few minutes in comfortabl silence, before Georgie breaks it. "Alright, are you going to tell me what that is or am I going to have to guess?"
Hudson frowns in confusion; in response, Georgie nods to the piece of paper taped to the window.
"Oh," Hudson says eloquently. Georgie raises her eyebrows. "Uh huh," she says. "You better start talking, Lover Boy."
YOU ARE READING
Door To Door
Short StoryHudson Ellis is good at his job. Somehow, he manages not to annoy people when he knocks at their doors and asks them to contribute to the charity he works for - instead, he gets them to sign up for sponsoring programmes and fish whatever spare chang...
