Wisdom of Street Drunkards

Dumbfounded, Eugene followed the car that a while after hid behind the next turn, going deeper into the town. He couldn't fathom how or why she knew his last name in the first place. Indeed, he never met this arrogant gal, and his coworkers in her presence only called Eugene by his given name. This resulted in Eugene falling into speculations about her persona, her motives. Could she be a stalker of his? Or, perhaps, a witch!? But soon enough, these ridiculous assumptions were crushed by simple truth from Jessie, who strolled behind him and remained there all this time.

"It's on your name tag, you idiot!"

"You indeed are such an idiot…", muttered Arnold, simultaneously rubbing his forehead with a sleeve. Eugene snorted in protest, but did not elaborate further, instead, he gazed at Arnold in suspicion and began interrogating him in regard to this lady.

"You surely are aware of who she is, Arnold, what connects you two!? But more importantly, what is her name?"

"None of your business, brat!" Arnold snapped suddenly, his face turning red with anger. This was somewhat comforting to Eugene, at least Arnold remained his old grumpy self. "This is your problem now, and I dare you if you will not leave them outside your workplace! You have 2 minutes to clean all the mess you have caused in the kitchen, and if I will find even a single drop of coffee on the floor, you will be left mopping the café until morning! You got me?"

"Well, Popular Front would surely disapprove of this work sched-"

"-GO!"

The final scream made Eugene run as if for his life. He hid in the kitchen and cleaned the remnants of his battle against the weird acquaintance of Arnold. Luckily, he had little to no work, thanks to Jessie, who somehow cleaned most of the mess in a span of seconds. Though, due to the influx of people in the second half of the day, there still was not much opportunity to speak with Arnold regarding the incident. All he could do was treat customers with fragrant coffee and watch Jessie do minor tasks. Even when he was able to catch Arnold outside his working space, the man kept silence about this lady, purposely keeping her identity from Eugene. The only thing he said was, "Figure it out yourself. You will have plenty of time to think during your holidays."

A little while later, Arnold left the café once again. Eugene and Jessie were left serving rare customers in the evening. Eugene saw his boss off and after coming back to registration said, "For god's sake, and how am I supposed to figure out her name?"

Jessie took no notice of his question, instead concentrating on mathematic equations. She was doing her homework, which was a regular occurrence whenever Arnold left earlier. The girl was squinting her lips and her dominant hand did not move. From the eyes full of frustration, Eugene could clearly tell all the curses towards long-dead Pythagoras. Despite the revolution he caused for the science world, the Greek philosopher was still hated by everyone weak at geometry. Eugene sighed in agreement with her silent frustration, glanced over the task, but then immediately averted his gaze towards the entrance and exclaimed: "Oh, hey, Arnold!"

"Oh!" gasped Jessie and dropped her textbook on the floor, whilst glancing at the door in panic. Immediately after, her frustration returned due to no one's presence at the front door, aside from the amber light of the setting sun leaking through the glass.

Eugene laughed and pointed at his ears: "Seems like you are not deaf in the end."

"If you do not have anything better to do, then why do not you start mopping the floor!" she snapped while putting her textbook back on the table.

"What's up with you two and the floors!? I have already done that."

The floors were indeed shining after short clean-up. Even though he was supposed to do it after closing hours, Eugene usually did this a few minutes before the end of the day, since there were not many people with dirty boots craving coffee. Evening was a time for more formal meetings or dates, increasing the necessity of one's clothes as well as boots being chaste. Those meeting were quite rare on Mondays and thus, there were not any clients in "Monso Rooster" at the moment.

Eugene peeked over the pendulum clock on the wall. The time was ten to eight, just a few minutes before the end. Alas, time was moving painfully slow when nothing happened. And the lack of clients truly tempted workers to leave just a little earlier. Unfortunately, Arnold's strictness regarding the time management along with his eyes being everywhere balanced their desires. 

"Still, his arrival today was a surprise. Even though he had some kind of meeting." said Eugene and sat on the registration table. Usually, if Arnold did not arrive to the work in the morning, he would not arrive throughout the day as well. It meant that Arnold was too far away to arrive to his workplace, and so he did not even bother. But this time it was different, not only he did arrive later during the day, but also stayed for the whole day as if ditching the one he was originally supposed to meet up with, "It truly seems like he came over today for the sole purpose of serving her. Just who in the world is she?"

"I am as clueless as you are. If anything, you should know about Arnold's relations much better than I am."

"As if he ever talks about his friends! Even Chris would struggle to name three people close to Arnold. This man is a hermit." caustically declared Eugene

"Well, all you need to do is to ask this lady. Maybe she is more willing to spill the beans on Arnold's relationships." these were her final words before diving back into the head-hurting world of calculus. And Eugene was left thinking of the way out from this never ending circle of questions and answers.

Soon, the clock struck 8, the closing hour of "Monso rooster". The two departed the café, told their regards to each other and moved towards to their respective directions.

From now on, Eugene had a task to do from the arrogant lady, he thought of the ways to find out her name other than just asking Arnold. There was not any information or anything he had at hand, only her status of noble. There were quite a few rich families living in the town that could be classified as nobles, but after a small thought, he realised that none of these families had daughters.

"Ah, this is pointless! What else should I do?" whispered Eugene and took a deep breath. The fresh air tickled his nose and the setting sun warmed up his face. Even though his eyes were directed at an amber light that painted clouds orange, he did not feel any pain nor urge of closing them. Those rays were delicate and rather pleasant, unlike those that burnt your pupils during the day.

Eugene could endlessly enjoy the warmth of light along with a moist breeze that pushed clouds to the east, but he truly had to hurry up his travel to home. It got dark way too suddenly around these places, making it hard to move around without stumbling over a rock or some rubbish on the road.

The streets were lacking people, only a few drunkards were wandering around and loudly discussing the recent Tour de France. A yearly cycling event across France, where even one of his friends was brave enough to participate. The sole view of that said friend being out of breath, crying but sincerely smiling after the compilation of the course, brought a smile on Eugene's face, at that time. It was truly a brilliant achievement that Eugene himself could not even dream of.

While Eugene's mind made a tangent to the recent memory of the Tour de France, some suspicious words were caught by his keen ear. They were coming from one of those wandering drunkards.

"Well, that's what I heard about these la Avise, or whatever. It is said they are crazy influential, wealthy but also such assholes!"

"I would be the biggest asshole in the world with such reputation as well!" laughed the other man besides him. Eugene slowed down his tempo and pricked his ears.

"Still, why in the hell would they move here, of all places? I guess, our town did not really suffer from the crisis, but there are much better places! Screw them!"

"Hey, who are you talking about?" finally, Eugene presented his question. The two men raised their heads in confusion. Their eyes were narrowed, noses red and hands occupied with half empty liquor bottles.

"...Ah, do you mean la Avise? You know, this new family who moved here. God, I do not remember their names…"

"And where do they live?"

"Oh, somewhere down the lavender field. But I think it is faster to reach their place through the main road?... by the way, who even are you?"

Eugene got all the information he needed and proceed with his stroll to home. At the question presented by the unknown man, he only waved his hand and said, "Just you regular taxpayer, do not mind me and thank you."

"No worries, man. Recommend you to not engage with these people, they are assholes! Ass-holes!"

The sincere warning as well as their laughter flew past Eugene's ears. He was well aware of this family's nasty attitude. In fact, he witnessed it with his own eyes in the form of the young woman that beat him in a coffee brewing competition. That's right, even though it was only an assumption, Eugene was quite sure of that woman's origins. She must certainly bear the blood of the la Avise family! Though, Eugene never heard of them.