Just Rose

Chapter Six

The afternoon went by quickly; there was a lot of business. Sarah seemed to have cooled down by the end of the day and, although she didn't talk to me much, did say "bye" when I went out the door at dusk. It was better than nothing. It seemed like they really needed me at Food and so when I got home I asked Julie if she would like me to help out there on a regular basis.

"Of course," Julie said, clearly relieved that she hadn't needed to be the one to bring up the subject. "You've got to do some work to keep your room and board here, seeing as money for another person doesn't grow on trees. That seems like a fair deal. You work there for a few hours on... let's see, how about Monday through Friday." She paused, then continued. "Except not Thursday because we're closed Thursdays. I might need you there on a few Saturdays but probably not many."

"Sounds good," I agreed. After spending months living off other people's charity I was more than happy to finally do some real work.

"Mommy!" cried Timmy, running around the corner. "Aleck called me a mean word!"

Julie nodded at me briefly before turning to Timmy. "Let's go find him, okay?" They both walked towards the room Timmy had run from and after a moment I started to follow.

"Hey Just Rose, there you are! How was Food?" Max asked, coming down the stairs.

Just Rose? I turned around. "It was good," I said, walking over to him.

"What did you think of your co-workers?"

Co-workers. I liked how that sounded. "Yvonne is really nice, and I didn't get to talk to Alonzo much but he seems nice too."

"What about Kiana?" Max asked.

"Kiana?"

"Her and Sarah work there... remember?"

"Oh! Kiana wasn't there today. I think Yvonne said her mom's sick or something. Sarah was there though."

"Oh." Max seemed disappointed. "Well what did you think of Sarah?"

"She's..." I tried to think of a way to tell him about her politely but couldn't really come up with how to do so.

"She's Sarah," Max said after a second, chuckling. "You'll get used to her. She's actually really cool once you get to know her."

"How do you know her?" I asked.

Max looked at me. "Um, well she's worked for Julie, the person I've lived with for the past sixteen years, since she was... twelve, so you know, there's that." Oh. Right. "And I was really good friends with her in elementary school too. Kind of," he added as a side note.

"Kind of?"

"Yeah... I mean, she was some soccer-track-basketball-every sport there is super star. So it was hard to be that great of friends with the girl who beat you at everything you tried. It still is. We have a sort of love-hate relationship," he explained.

I laughed. "What about Kiana?"

"I thought you didn't meet her today."

"I didn't. But, you know," I said, taking a seat on the couch, "I think I should be prepared... if she's anything like Sarah."

"She's nothing like Sarah," Max promised. "I mean, they've been friends forever from what I can tell, but Kiana is the person who keeps Sarah from doing life-threatening things. She's also much prettie-" he cleared his throat. "She's Sarah's opposite. She's really nice, I'm sure you two will get along really well."

Also much prettier? I smiled a little. "She sounds nice," I agreed, choosing to overlook the fact that Max's face was beet red.

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