11

For some, unfathomable, reason, River found herself sat upon a rocky outcrop in the centre of a wide ocean. All around, she could see only peaceful, deep blue waters that lapped against the rock upon which she rested. Looking down, she saw that she had no clothes on, her hair falling in delicate ringlets over her chest, hiding her breasts.

She flipped her tail in the waters, then stopped. Why did she have a tail? A fish tail? And no legs? The circle of dolphins, that surrounded the outcrop, all held pretty, porcelain cups in their flippers. That seemed odd. Quite odd. Frowning, she flapped her fish tail again, causing drips to spray high into the air, catching the blazing sunlight and dazzling her with a myriad of colours.

"It is a rather odd situation, don't you think?" One dolphin chattered to her, nodding its head. "Why offer tea without milk?"

"It's Earl Grey." As River spoke, she realised that, instead of words, whistles, clicks and chirrups erupted from her mouth. "Adding anything to Earl Grey is indecent."

A loud beeping sound came from somewhere and River shifted upon the outcrop, the scales of her fish tail scraping against the jagged stone. She couldn't see a thing, only ocean as far as the eye could see and several dolphins that had now started carrying their cups of tea upon their noses. The beeping sound reached her ears again and the dolphin that had spoken to her frowned. She wasn't certain how a dolphin could frown.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" The chattering from the dolphin changed, becoming the beeping sound and River struggled to think of a reply.

As her eyes opened, she could see very little in the darkness of her room. The only light came from a sliver at the bottom of her phone, which she had turned face down upon her bedside cabinet. The beeping sound accompanied the flashing of that light and she tried to turn over to pick up the phone.

Struggling, the bed sheets wrapped around her legs, she fell from the bed as she reached out for the phone, fingers touching it, causing it to spin on the cabinet top and then fall after her, landing with a crack on her head. With a groan, she picked up the phone and tried to see which fool had called her in the middle of the night.

"'Lo. Who this?" She couldn't see the name through half-asleep eyes.

"River! It's Celeste. Listen, I've been doing a little research and thought this might interest you." Celeste sounded completely awake. Even a little cheery, as though it wasn't the middle of the night. "Apparently, there are tea farms, I mean plantations, in Scotland. Scotland!"

"Zuhlest? You know it's ..." Taking the phone from her ear, River tried to focus upon the tiny clock on the screen as she also tried to extricate herself from the bed sheets. "Four in the morning? It's four in the morning! Don't you sleep? Are you, like, a robot, or something. I was asleep. There were dolphins and rainbows and I had no milk."

After a second, River realised that she hadn't put the phone back to her ear. After another second, she realised that, if she wanted to hear Celeste's side of the conversation, she would need to return the phone to her ear. She could hear Celeste saying something, but the details were too quiet. Smacking her lips, kicking her legs in a furious attempt to unravel the sheets, she put the phone back where she could hear it.

"And I thought 'Brilliant!'. We'll do that." On the other end of the phone, Celeste paused. Then she paused a little longer when River didn't say anything. "What do you think?"

"Yes." River had no idea what she agreed to, but she remembered an online self-help video that said saying 'Yes' to things was the path to happiness. It seemed like a good time to start.

"Great! I'll be in touch." The line went quiet again and River wondered if she should say something. "Alright. Sorry for waking you. Ciao!"

"It's okay. I was ..." She heard the click of the line closing and looked at the phone as the call screen winked out. "I was only sleeping, after all. Sleeping and dreaming. Dreaming about dolphins. How do dolphins hold teacups, anyway?"

River replaced the phone on top of the bedside cabinet and then spent several minutes in battle with her bed sheets, that had, somehow, knotted themselves around her legs. Once she had removed them, and decided she needed to use a sleeping bag instead from the next night onwards, she crawled back onto the bed and fell asleep in an instant, cuddling one of her fluffy pillows tight to her chest.

The next morning, she awoke early in order to create a 'Help Wanted' sign on her computer. She added rainbows and dolphins to the sign, for a laugh, and waited for it to print. As she drank her morning mug of basic, everyday tea, she tried to work out what Celeste had talked about at four in the morning. She remembered mention of Scotland and tea, but everything else remained nothing but a blur.

Whatever it was that had caused Celeste to call at stupid-o'clock, she must have thought it important. So important that River had failed to hear half, most, of the conversation. She chewed upon the idea of calling Celeste to confirm what she had agreed to, but then thought against that. If she called Celeste in the middle of a job interview, she would never forgive herself. That was, of course, if high-flying executives like Celeste even had interviews.

That made River balk at a thought. Now she would have to interview people for the position of assistant. Hiring Erisa was easy. The law student had stopped by one day and asked for a job. River had felt that she had passed the interview at the end of that discussion, rather than the other way around, and, before River could even tell Erisa she had the job, the law student had already wrapped an apron around her waist and started collecting cups.

River doubted the next interview would go half as well. All through Erisa's interview, River had felt as though Erisa was doing her a favour by working for her. Not through anything Erisa had said, but all due to River not wishing to rock any boats. She hated making a fuss and, if she thought about it, she had needed an assistant, as she did now. Erisa always seemed to be right, more often than not.

Arriving downstairs, new 'Help Wanted' sign in her hands, showered, dressed and with hair a little less than a mess after attacking it with a brush, hair pins and several slides, keeping the various strands in place that always felt as though they had minds of their own. Taking blu-tac from beneath the counter (she always had a spare bit of blu-tac), she moved to the door, looking at the sign as she stuck beads of blu-tac in the corners.

She almost jumped backwards in fright as she looked up upon reaching the door.

There, outside, stood a line of people waiting for her to open. This was not usual. This was, in every sense of the word, unusual. In the entire time she had run 'Leaves', she had never opened up to a queue of people. Certainly not half-an-hour before she opened on normal days. River felt pretty certain that today was a normal day.

She gave them all a cheerful wave, beamed her brightest morning smile, and tacked the 'Help Wanted' sign beneath the 'Closed' sign. As a little extra, she adjusted the 'Closed' sign to make it clear that the shop was, indeed, closed and then made an exaggerated shrug, throwing up her hands and widening her eyes, hoping that the people in the queue understood. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, gave a mock grimace, rolled her eyes in a 'What can you do?' fashion and then turned away, horrified.

She had no option, but to begin preparations for opening straight away. Kettles were filled, taking up every pan stand upon the large hob. She tried to work with her back to the window, but she could feel all the eyes staring at her. Urging her to hurry up. Judging her tardiness, even though she was not late. She was, in fact, early and how dare they judge her! She had to stop thinking like that. No-one judged her. That was all in her head. Like the dolphins. And the rainbows. And something about Scotland.

A sudden realisation hit her. Something that she had heard in the middle of the night. Leaving the many kettles to their own devices, River ran back up the stairs to her little flat. Diving, face first, onto the bed, she grabbed her phone and began frantic thumb flicking until she found Celeste's number. She had agreed to something, in the early hours. Something to do with Scotland.

Worrying about whether Celeste was in a position to accept a phone call, River began tapping out a text message, hoping that she could find some subtle way to ask Celeste what the hell she had got River to agree to. She couldn't think of a subtle way of asking, so tried to think of a more direct, yet still polite way. That came up blank, too.

Still searching for a way to ask what Celeste had said, without revealing that River hadn't heard a single word after 'Scotland', River heard whistles begin to erupt downstairs. All of the kettles soon began to add to the shrill cacophony and, as River struggled with the content of her message, she heard the sound that signalled she had received an e-mail.

It was from Celeste.