Completely (Un)expected

The next morning I woke up at a much more normal hour, the excitement and stresses of getting settled in now behind me. The light steadily filled the small room casting intricate shadows on the carpeted floor from the patterned curtains which I stood up out of bed to open up more. I still wasn’t used to the calm Jersey scenery outside the window, not that Pennsylvania wasn’t calm, but it somehow just wasn’t the same.

I grabbed one of the towels aunt Donna had let me claim as my own and made my way into the bathroom just across the hall. Mikey was still asleep, so I wasn’t worried about him seeing anything or having to interrupt me to use the bathroom. I turned on the water and let it warm for a minute as I stripped off my shorts and tank top before stepping inside and wetting my hair.

After I'd finished, I wrapped my towel around my body, making sure all was covered and mentally cursing myself for not just bringing my clothes in with me. I poked my wet head out of the bathroom, checking that neither Mikey nor Gerard, or uncle Don for that matter, were in the hall. When I saw that all was clear, I quickly crossed the hall to the guest bedroom and shut the door.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to wear, but I figured that casual was okay. I avoided blue jeans thinking they were a little too casual, and instead slipped on a pair of black skinnies and a plain purple V-neck tee-shirt. There wasn’t much use in styling the mess of hair on my head, but I tried my best to comb out the tangles and at least make it look neat. Once I was dressed and my hair was mostly dried, I went downstairs to find my aunt Donna in the kitchen, sipping at a cup of coffee and reading a gardening magazine.

"Good morning, dear. How'd you sleep?"

"Morning. I slept well, thanks." I was still a little shy around Don and Donna. They were more than friendly; it was just that I hadn't seen them in so long and it wasn’t like talking with Mikey, they were grownups.

"Want some breakfast?" she asked.

From behind me I heard Mikey's, still raspy, morning voice speak up, "I do." I turned to see the messy haired boy walking into the kitchen while slipping on his glasses over his eyes. "Hey, Henri."

"Morning."

"Sit down guys, I'll make you some eggs," Donna said, standing up and taking her now empty coffee cup with her over to the sink. I insisted on helping her with breakfast, but she declined saying that it was no trouble.

"So," Mikey piped up, mindlessly flipping through the pages of the gardening magazine with obvious disinterest. "Ready to start at the comic store today?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," I replied taking in a deep breath and releasing it, bracing myself for what was to come. I wasn’t exactly nervous, but I wasn’t completely confident in my abilities either, though it was just a local comic store, not the White House.

"I'm sure you'll do fine," Donna called out from the kitchen as she scrambled eggs in a pan at the stove. "This will be good for you, and you'll have Gerard right there the whole time."

Right on cue, Gerard came trudging upstairs from the basement where he resided. I'd never been in Gerard's room, but I only imagined that it was full of interesting and curious knick-knacks and was messy as all hell. His hair stuck up in every direction, though it wasn't far off of what it usually looked like. He was still wearing his Star Wars pajama pants and plain black tee-shirt from the night, though I would have bet anything that after his shower, Gerard would put the shirt back on.

He ran a hand through his hair, effectively taming it, but only slightly, and let out a yawn while saying, "You'll do fine, kid." Obviously Gerard had heard a portion of our previous conversation. He came over and pulled out a chair, sitting down across from me and Mikey at the dining room table. Donna came over and placed a plate in front of each of us and we thanked her.

When we finished breakfast, I volunteered to wash the plates and Donna didn’t fight me on it, and instead gave in and told me where the sponge was. "Alright," Gerard said, finishing off the last of his coffee. "I'm going to go take a shower and get dressed. We'll leave in half an hour?"

I nodded my head in agreement and he went back downstairs to get ready while I got started on the dishes. Mikey hung around upstairs with me for a while; I washed the dishes and he reassured me that I wouldn’t screw up at the store and complained that, without either me or Gerard with him, he'd be 'ridiculously bored all day.'

Gerard came back upstairs a bit later, showered, dressed, and still wearing the black tee-shirt. "Ready?" he asked as I smiled to myself upon seeing his 'outfit.' I nodded me head and replied, "Yup."

He grabbed his jacket and gave Donna a kiss on the cheek. She turned to me and hugged me and Mikey did the same, wishing me luck. Gerard and I left and made our way to the comic store which was only a short walk away.

When we got there, Mr. Ricket greeted me. "Hey there," he paused and I filled him in, reminding him of my name.

"Henri,' I said rather flatly.

"Henri, right. Well, Henri, I have everything set up on an Excel sheet; you've used Excel right?"

I nodded having used it a few times for my math classes in school. I was no expert, but it wasn’t exactly rocket science either.

"Good," he chirped happily, motioning for me to go with him. "Follow me; this will be your 'office.'" Gerard nodded to me and smiled as Mr. Ricket took me into the small back room with a desk and computer. It looked ancient. Basically my job was to enter all of the information for the week into the spread sheet and make sure all the totals added up. It sounded easy enough, until I saw the box.

Mr. Ricket pulled out the box that he kept all of his financial files in, probably starting in nineteen-seventy. "I'm looking to go paperless, so once all the weeks transactions are cleared through, you could start entering some of this."

I swallowed hard and eyed the overflowing box of papers and receipts. And here I though this job wouldn’t be too bad. "It doesn’t have to be all at once, but I was hoping everything would be entered by May." It was nearly September now.

"Okay," I said slowly, taking in the true magnitude of my task. "Wow."

"I know, it's a lot of work, but it's just tedious, I promise. I've kept meticulous files over the years, and trust me, everything is there, just not in the computer yet," Mr. Ricket assured me, and truthfully, I felt better knowing that my margin of error was significantly increased. Basically what he was saying: any inaccuracies were not my fault.

"Alright, I can do this," I spoke, mostly to myself.

"That's the spirit, kiddo." Why was everyone calling me 'kiddo'? "If you need any help, I'll be in my office and Gerard is right outside the door.

He left shortly after I'd situated myself at the desk and began to enter the numbers. It took about an hour, but the week's totals were entered and verified, and I was beat. Gerard came in and brought me a sandwich he'd picked up at a nearby café and I thanked him, grateful to be taking a break.

"So, how'd it go?" he asked, taking a bite of his own lunch.

"I finished this week's transactions, now I only have that left to do." I pointed over to the box of papers. Gerard raised his eyebrows and nearly choked from the shocking sight of the thing.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed. "That's all?" he asked sarcastically.

"No," I defended. "I mean, it all has to be entered, but not 'till May. I just want to get started on it now." Gerard's face relaxed now, cleared on what the actual goal was.

"Yeah, I was going to say," he paused. "That would have sucked."

I chuckled to myself and took the last bite of my sandwich before throwing away the paper wrapping. Gerard had to get back to the front and I had to get back to the spread sheet, so after throwing out his out wrapping, he left me to my work.

I spent two hours on the box and barely made a dent in it, but it was progress nonetheless. I decided to call it a day when I got to the records from nineteen-seventy-three. I knocked on Mr. Ricket's door and told him how far I'd gotten and he gave me the okay to head home. Once I got the all clear, I said goodbye to Gerard who would be home later on and headed back to the house.

It was a little weird getting home without Gerard or Mikey to lead the way, but I figured it out with little difficulty. When I arrived at the Way house, Mikey sat in the living room, upside down, on the couch watching cartoons. I walked over to him and tipped my head down to say hello.

"Hey," Mikey greeted, pulling himself up into a more regular sitting position. "So, how was it?"

I filled Mikey in on the spreadsheet and monstrous box of files and he gave his two-cents about how ridicuolously hard that would be for him. I laughed at Mikey's humor and we stayed talking for a while.

"I mean, it's not hard; tedious but not difficult. And it's nice to have Gerard around," I said, shrugging.

"Don’t worry," Mikey said. "I'll relieve your boredom anytime. Just call and me and the guys will come and save you before the insanity sets."

I giggled to myself and replied, "Thanks, Mikey."

Who were 'the guys?'

Notes

Yo!! So just to clarify, I'm intending for their to be anything romantic between Mikey and Henri, they're cousins. I'm trying to lean more toward the super-awesome-friendship thing. Sorry if I just crushed anyone's dreams...

See ya next week!!!