Kairu Rigby did not like him. His eyes where the stark, grumpy kind of brown, shaded by a deep, full, grey brow and framed with crow's feet. His short beard was speckled with peppery bits of black, and matched his pinstripe suit perfectly. He scowled at the multi-colored locks of the other patrons, waiting for Kairu to finish fetching his coffee- black. Kairu put down the coffee pot, her olive-emerald eyes flickering from counter to register in the hope that he wouldn't be looking as she dropped a spoonful of sugar into his drink. Maybe now he'll be a bit sweeter... She thought, turning around to face the customer. " 1 dollor, please." he man handed her his change and thundered though the shop, leaving muttered grublings in his wake. Kairu rolled her eyes. She wiped her hands on her vintage blue-gingham apron. Underneath, she wore betsy johnson tights, a gift from her husband, Smith, and a vintage black strapless dress that featured a feathered belt around the waist. As she put the money in the register, another customer walked in. Kairu Straightened herself up before asking, "Why hello, what can I do for you today?"
Aella pushed open the door to the coffee shop, the air conditioning of the room felt good as it pushed back the long autum hair from her face. The summer heat was already pounding down hard even though it was only mid morning. She walked up to the counter and let her ice green eyes scan over the menu board for a few moments before turning her gaze over to Kairu. "Hmm...I think I'll have the pumpkin spice latte." She told Kairu with a warm smile right after. Aella looked the girl behind the counter up and down, liking her wardrobe style. Both wearing dresses...hmm. Her mini black and white lace dress brought back memories, the one who gave it to her, what all had happened. She suddenly got lost in her mind as the memories overwhelmed her brain.
"Okay." kairu turned from the girl with the spiced hair, and fixing the coffee she asked, "So, what brings you to grant springs? I've never seen you here before." She poured pumpkin flavored syrup into the drink, the translucent liquid matching her autumn-orange nail varnish.
Aella jerked her head up when she heard a voice and then sighed shrugging slightly to Kairu. "I guess I just needed to get away from home...too much went on over there and I couldn't take it anymore." She confessed quietly, looking down at her shiny black heels.
Kairu squeezed a fluffy cloud of whipped gream on top of the coffe, then dusted it with cinnimon and edible orange microglitter. "huh," She said briskly, snapping the domed lip carefully onto the cup. "Well, this is a very different community... lots of people don't even know about the rest of it-" She whipped around, her white and black bangs falling into her face as she slipped a paper cozzy around the coffee, "we have a charm on the outside so it just looks like a small cul-de-sac." She smiled, putting the warm coffee onto the counter. She hesitated for a moment before prompting, "You know, if you get a pumpkin spice latte, you get a free carrot cookie." She gestured towards the cookie jar on the counter. "It's like a carrot cake, but not." She took a leaf of wax paper from a box near the jar, and reaching in, retrieved a round orange-ish cookie with white buttercream icing. "Two dollors, please." She smiled in her naive way.
"Sounds great" Aella said with a humored smile on her face as she handed Kairu the money. "I don't really know much about this place at all, and you're the first friendly person I've met so far. Would it be too much to ask for a tour sometime?" She picked up her latte and took a long sip at it, the mixed spices tasted delicious and eased her muscles a bit, relaxing her.
"sure!" Kairu put the money in the cash register sing-songily. "If you want, drop by my house at 5:30. It's-" She tilted her head, thinking. "-just up this road, to the right, and at the middle of that street. My house is the one with the red old-school car and the flowers, with a big field by it?" She explained. "Yeah, that's the one." She nodded to punctuate.
Aella's eyes lit up immediately when Kairu said yes. "Thanks so much! I'll be there!" She said waving a arm up as she left the cafe with her latte. As soon as she was completely outside of the building, she stopped dead in her tracks. To her right, leaning casually up against the building was Jake. He didn't look up, just leaned there with his head bowed, razored black hair falling into his face. It took him a few moments of dreaded stillness before looking up at her face with a evil smirk spreading along his face. "Aella...honey I know this whole 'get up and move' thing wasn't because you wanted to get away from me...now was it?" Aella couldn't move, she just stood their, her eyes wide with fear, listening. He then stood up and walked slowly over to her, taking her hand inside of his and leading her back to the corner of the alley not far from the cafe. She didn nothing but let him do what he wanted. Jake slammed her up against the brick wall of the alleyway and his once straight face filled with anger as he continued once more to throw her up against the brick wall. Slamming her head against it hard, his hand wrapped around her throat forcing her to stare into those evil eyes of his. Then throwing her onto the ground and kicking her repeatedly in the stomach before grabbing part of her dress and ripping the lace to pieces. "I know this was from the other guy..." He said almost calmy as he ripped it away. He was fixed on his work of destroying the dress and slapping Aella every other moment when a hard force of pressure slammed against his jaw, knocking him down onto his side. Another man stood in the entrance of the alley and stared down at Jake. His hair shone white and his icy eyes showed no fear as he faced his opponent. "You should get out of here." The man said quietly and walked slowly over Jake, picking him up by the collar of the shirt as if he weighed no more than a bag of sugar and threw his head against the wall so hard, knocking him out unconscious. He took one final glance at Aella who was weeping in the corner and walked away. Simple as that he dissapeared without a word.
Kairu hummed as she walked out of the store. She carried a bag of trash out to the dumpster, leaning over to put it in. Just as she was about to turn to leave, she heard a sob from farther down the alley. "h-...hello?" She called. She walked towords the sound and gasped. Aella was lying there, stripped to nothing but he underwear, clutching her stomach. "THE F*CK?!" She shouted, crouching beside her. "Hey! Hey! what the f*ck happened to you? Who did this?" she shouted, Getting hysterical. "I'm going to go get help!" She ran off into the kitchen of the cafe, and grabbing the nearest phone, called the police.
It didn't take long for the police to arrive, Jake was taken away and Aella had to about scream at the officer telling him she's was fine. The last thing she wanted was to go to a hospital...They had wrapped a blanket around her and she just kneeled down by the remains of the dress, staring at it for a few long moments before picking up a piece of the black lace and clutching it in her hand. She turned to Kairu with sad stricken eyes but managed a small "Thankyou...I'll see you at 5:30." She said and made her way out of the alley back to find her car as if not much had really happened.
-- Edited by retrozebra987 on Sunday 31st of January 2010 01:47:37 PM
That night, Kairu spent a long time preparing her home. She dusted, vacuumed, and mopped until her house was a shining lemon-scented pinnacle of cleanliness. "Honey?" Smith called from the master bath. "Why're you freaking out?" He put down his straightener and turned the corner to see Kairu shoving her feet into a pair of nicer, less dilapidated con's. His wifes hair was down in waves- she hadn't done a thing to it after her afterwork shower. "Because," Kairu sat up, looking at Smith pleadingly, "She just got the **** beat out of her. The least I can do is offer her a clean house to chill at." Smith nodded and let it go. Just then, the door bell rang. "That must be her!" Kairu said, checking her watch. She sprung from the rose comforter on her bed and flew down the stairs, landing by the door and almost tripping on the base of a coat hanger. She oppened the door smiling.
After Aella went home she tried her hardest to get cleaned up. A long shower, dressed up in a knee length cream tiered dress with a black bow around the waist, and her shiny black heels. And lots of concealer to cover up the bruises on her face so it didn't look like she had just been attacked. "Kato, you're gonna stay here tonight. I met a pretty cool person, and she's gonna tell me about the town and stuff." She said turning towards her pretty red siberian husky and gave him a kiss on his head. Grabbing the pan of freshly baked homemade chocolate chip muffins, she put as many as she could fit in an oversized chinese takeout box and ran out to her car. It didn't really take too long to find Kairu's house and when she pulled up in the driveway to park, a warm and cozy vibe flowed over her. Grabbing the box of muffins she ran up to the front door and waited patiently. Once Kairu opened the door she dangled the box up by her head with a smile.
-- Edited by retrozebra987 on Tuesday 2nd of February 2010 08:02:54 PM
"yup!" Kairu's eyes lit up when she saw her friend, then twisted her neck to yell up the stairs, "SMITH! PUT PENELOPE AWAY!" She turned around and smiled and a cry was heard deep within the house. "oh!" kairu realized she had not let her guest in. She sat on the couch, grabbing one of the pop-tarts that decorated the table, and munched on it as Aella sat down.
"I baked you some chocolate chip muffins." Aella said sitting the the box on her coffee table before sitting herself down. She then turned her body towards Kairu and got comfortable. "So before when you were talking about the town...tell me more." Her ice green eyes glittered, there was something about this place that was different and she wanted to know every little bit of it.
