Vitus and Leila

Chapter two: A busy day at 'Cups and spoons'

"..At only twenty eight years old, Vitus Sorokin is now the president of the famous motorcycle club, Heaven's devils and the head of the Sorokin family, one of the richest families in the world." Leila opened her eyes and turned off the radio, she glanced at the time, 7am, time for breakfast, she thought. She got up, stretched and folded up her wall bed into the closet. She then made herself some toast with butter and jam.

Leila lived in a one room apartment which was in a house between where she went to university and where she worked at the coffee shop, 'Cups and spoons'. She liked the area and although her rent was quite expensive compared to where she had lived with her parents back in Holland, it was an average amount for this part of London. The building she lived in was fairly old, but it had been done up nicely. It was a big house and Leila lived at the very top in an attic flat. If she stood up on her tip toes and craned her neck she could even see the river Thames out of her bathroom window.

There were eight apartments in the house all together but Leila only knew two of her neighbours.

One was a girl named Sally who lived across the hall from Leila, in a one room apartment like Leilas, the other was a family, with two children who lived in a two bedroom apartment down on the ground floor.

Leila calmly walked down three flights of stairs, she was good on time, as usual and she had no need to hurry. Before getting to work she decided to stop at her regular kiosk to buy a pack of gum "Hello there Leila, how are you feeling today?" Margery, the lady behind the counter, asked "I'm alot better today, thank you Margery" Leila replied, "That's lovely to hear, my dear, and do call me Marge." Margery insisted. Leila nodded and smiled, before handing over the money for the chewing gum. "Thank you" she waved "Bye Marge." "Bye Leila" Margery smiled.

Leila got to work at just before half past eight, as always, she said good morning to the lads in the kitchen and went to put her apron on.

When she got back, Julie was just bustling through the door:"Boy am I glad to see you!" Julie embraced Leila in a tight hug. "You saw me yesterday," Leila answered laughing at Julie's dramatic expression. "But hardly, as you were with the lads in the kitchen all day!" Julie complained. "Please tell me you're staying in here today! Please, please, pleeeease" Julie begged. Leila sighed, "if you insist." She said quietly.

Leila preferred the kitchen, but with her head feeling better and Dimitri, Pete and Johnny being at work, she knew there was no neccessity for her to be in the kitchen today. "Thank you thank you thank you" Julie shouted and hugged Leila.

"You're normally very lively, Julie, but today you seem extremely pleased to see Leila, would you mind explaining to Leila what went on yesterday?" Mary asked as she came through the door with Martin. "Oh good! You're back and feeling better!" Martin said cheerfully in Leila's direction.

When Mary and Martin went to the back to get their aprons on Julie turned to Leila. "Yesterday was the worst day EVER!" She wailed. Leila raised her eyebrows, as much as she really liked Julie, Leila knew that she could be a bit of a drama queen. "No, don't give me that look! I mean it!" Julie continued "a whole group of rockers had booked a table here, there was twenty of them, all shouting and ordering, asking me why they couldn't have whiskey in their coffee's. I mean, we're a coffee shop, not a bar!"

Leila swallowed, she already regretted agreeing to work up front today. Before she could say anything Martin had opened the front door and was nearly run over by incoming customers. Mary, Leila and Julie gaped at the massive crowd of people who were now standing infront of the counter.

"I'm serving, today girls!" Julie shouted, "be my guest" Leila said.

Serving tables couldn't nearly be as stressfull as serving this amount of people up front, could it?

Mary smiled at Leila "Ok, then I'll prepare the orders with Martin, Leila, if you need any help please ask." "Thank you, Mary, I sure will" Leila replied and walked over to the first table with four guests.

After four hours of being on her feet, Leila sat down in the staff room, happy that the shop had quietend down enough for her to have a break.

Suddenly Martin came rushing in "Leila, a Mr. Lebedew just rang and booked a table for twenty one people in half an hour, I'm going to push the tables together and then I'd like you to serve them with Julie today. Is that alright?" He asked Leila quickly. Leila nodded "no problem, Martin." She replied carefully, she hadn't forgotten what Julie had told her that morning. What if they were the same people as yesterday? She really didn't want to be shouted at and asked for alcohol, just as Julie had said, they weren't in a pub, they were in a respectful coffee shop.