Morningstar Manor

Guy wasn't a huge fan of the coffee shop. While he knew he was allowed to be there and nobody had ever made him feel unwelcome, he was well aware that he was the help and tended not to linger.

However he DID really enjoy the hazelnut mocha so got into the line to get a take out to take up to his apartment.

On weekends, the Mocha was always packed with people having a late breakfast all through the morning. The crowd today included:

• Andras, who was talking via Skype with his brother in London, for whom it was already between lunch- and teatime.
• Sibyl and Urquhart, who were sharing a table and a plate of cookies, and discussing a shared problem: - what you could possibly give Ruth for Christmas that she'd really enjoy.
• Chandika and Rahul, with Hanu the hound in tow, who were spoiling themselves with a sweet breakfast made by somebody else, as Bethan was working an early shift at the clinic.
• Cindy, who sat a few tables further on, reading a magazine in Greek and keeping an eye on Axminster and Hanu. At the moment, they were just laying in a heap under her table, but she knew those guys, and they could get boisterous.
• Ricky, usually quite as boisterous, was at the moment curled up in the corner of a sofa being morose into his phone. "No, mom, you really can't do that to me," he complained. "We are having this big concert on the -- what you mean, they can play without me just as well? Do you know what the industry is like? Mom??"

As usual getting hired at the Manor took a while. There was a very deep back ground check that was done for one. But eventually Jason put a call into Guy and asked him to come back to the Manor.

Now he leaned against the security desk in the lobby, sipping his coffee an waiting.

Guy took a break between pickups and bought a coffee and took it to the angel statue. He liked sitting in the shadow of the big green wings while he drank. It made him feel safe.

###

Ben also had a drink - tea he had made himself. It was getting cold on the counter while he unpacked and shelved books. The door was wide open and the workmen were in and out whistling. Ben was very pleased with the way the work was going. The soft pale turquoise paint on the walls made him feel happy and relaxed. he hoped it would have the same effect on his customers.

###

Charlie should have been answering emails but a thought had struck him and he'd gone and found a sheet of paper and had got out some pastels and was making a glorious smudgy mess that was slowly beginning to look like the City on a windswept and rainy evening. He was particularly enjoying doing the neon reflections in puddles.

There was a big smudge of pink across his cheek.

###

Allan pumped the bellows watching the iron go from red to a glowing yellow-pink, then he took it from the fire to the anvil and picked up his hammer. White sparks showered as he struck, and again. He wasn't making anything in particular, but it really helped him to think.

Kris had almost a full day of hair styling scheduled, but he also had laundry to do, having had a bit of a mishap with a mug of coffee and the trailing edge of his comforter. So into the laundry and he began to stuff the machine, the skin of his back crawling as it had been all morning.

He glanced round.

Nobody there.

It crawled again so he glanced round.

Still nobody there.

###

Guy hadn't heard anything back from the Manor - but then it was only a couple of days and his application had been speculative. He still had his fingers crossed though and he opened the window and took a breath of air untainted by disinfectant. At least the cab no longer stank of vomit. He was heartily sick of picking up drunks.

Even though he was a little preoccupied he still spotted the raised hand of a prospective fare and pulled over with a grin.

###

Ben ticked another item off on his list and smiled at Kelsey as she passed with a tray of mugs of coffee from the Auberge. He had found the shop fitters worked harder and more willingly if they were supervised and if the coffee kept coming. It would be his turn to go in an hour.

"Is one of those mine?" he asked Kelsey and she grinned and nodded to a mug on it's own in a corner.

Tea.

But somehow significant, Ben thought as he took it, of certain aspects of his life. Yes, the mug alone in the corner fitted.

Guy had been booked to collect Mrs Kelso at eleven sharp and it was sheer luck that he had dropped Mrs Eddings off at twenty to. He thought it was probably pushing his luck a bit to try and persuade the man on the desk to let him buy himself some coffee, but then it occurred to him to do something he had considered on several occasions before.

He went up to the desk and smiled and said, "Hi, Vincenzo, any chance of a word with your boss?"

The security man raised his eyebrows. "I can ask," he said. "Hang on," and he made the phone call."

In the gallery, Charlie shuffled his papers into four separate piles - Important/Urgent, Important/can wait, unimportant/Urgent and unimportant/can wait.

His unimportant/can wait pile was three times the height of the others and he had a feeling that close to the bottom of it were things that were beginning to edge their way into Important/Urgent.

He sighed and looked at the four piles and reached for the vital stuff again.

###

Alan carried a coffee across to the base of the angel statue and looked up at it with a scowl. He still hadn't shown Deacon the bronze he had made. He was hoping they might forget all about it.

Meantime he had coffee and it was sunny - he could smile about that.

###

Guy sat on the hood of his cab and turned his face up to the sun. He had a fare booked for noon and a good twenty minutes to wait and a soda clinking with ice from the Auberge and paperback novel that someone had left in his cab. It was - different - very different, and Guy was going to look out for the next in the series.

It was a quiet one. Guy had been able to park his cab quite close, which was just as well, and he pushed the door open to the waiting room with one hand while holding his fare's blanket closed with the other.

The corpulent middle-aged man was sweating and pale and he clutched Guy's forearm with an urgent hand. "You won't go, will you? You'll wait."

"Meter's running," Guy remeinded him, "and it's been a while already."

"Money's no object," the man insisted.

"Well, okay then," Guy agreed and went to get some assistance.

He had called as requested, Nick wasn't a big customer but paid up front and moved in the right circles to refer like minded people, and now was waiting to meet his new customer.

Eight pm, near the statue and he had been told she was drop dead gorgeous.

How many could there be like that?

Vincenzo was having a break in the conservatory, which was just as well as he was trying to deal with a call from his mother. "I know," he said. "Well, we have been telling her to look for a better job. It's not her fault it's in Chicago. No ... no, I won't tell her she can't go. Good luck to her. And it's not as though she'll be leaving before the wedding. She has insisted on being free for that. Yes, if necessary I'll take her there myself. AND check out her accommodation. Sure Mom, yes I will. Yes, bye, Mom."

He put down the phone and gave a deep sigh. Between his sister exulting because she had landed a good job in Chicago and his mother complaining because ditto life was getting overly complicated.

###

Guy had been summoned to pick up one of the tenants - Mrs Phillips, a real looker who tipped well, so he could put up with her leading comments about the length of his shifts and what he did in his spare time - but today he was a little early so he leaned against the hood of his cab and texted Sean, grinning as he got a reply.

###

Kris had laundry. Rosa had offered to do it for him but today he was in the mood for some tedious drudgery - while Gabe accepted and stowed a load of Spa supplies. Naughty, yes, but oh so satisfying.

He grinned as he ambled across the lobby on his way to wash his Egyptian cotton sheets, as yet unshared, but surely only a matter of time.

###

Nick yawned as the elevator opened into the lobby. Mrs Eddings chuckled and waved him out.

"I hope that means you've been having a good time," she said in her cracked and wheezy old lady voice.

"Oh you betcha," he lied and she went on her way happy.

Nick yawned again and headed for the basement to fetch another lock and set of keys. Second time this month Mr Paris had got locked out but why did he always have to break the door down?

Show off.

###

Charlie had dropped Nia off at day care and was now drawing in the Mocha. Vincenzo looked troubled, Guy looked cheerful, Kris looked like he was planning something and Nick - Nick looked exhausted.

Angling his pencil Charlie sketched them all into the drawing he was constructing, but tilted the page coyly whenever someone walked behind him. Gay vampire pirate cartoons weren't to everyone's taste.

Leo always checked the weather forecast before leaving for work in the morning. What he saw today made him grimace and get his furry Russian hat out of the wardrobe again and book a cab.

Standing in the lobby, he peered at the snowflakes beginning to filter from the dull sky and gave a sigh of discontent.

###

Fin had decided not to go out. Instead he sat in the Mocha with his laptop warming his knees and tapped away at an article on recipes designed to reduce cholesterol levels. They all sounded pretty dire to him but at least the paycheck was palatable.

###

Guy had just picked up a fare to deliver to the Manor, which was good because he was due to collect Mr Beck. He turned on his windscreen wipers to sweep the snow away and said, "I thought it was spring, didn't you?"