Gaby Book 17 - Seasons

“Gab, Gab!”
I stopped and looked around for the voice’s owner, “Oh hi, Chris, wassup?”
“Thought I’d missed you,” she advised crossing the last few metres to where I waited.
“Well here I am.”
“Mum wanted me to check that you’re still okay for the weekend.”
“If she still wants us.”
“Most definitely, we’re expecting to be well busy.”
“Let us know where and when.”
“I’ll get Mum to ring you later.”
“’Kay, damn, the others have gone on, catch you later.”
“Laters,” Chris replied as I heaved the Schauff into motion.

“What happened to you?” Nena asked when I caught the others up at the start of the cycle path where they were waiting for me.
“Stuff for the weekend.”
“Weekend?” Bridg queried.
“Brohl Kirmes,” I supplied, “me and Mand are working on the Foch’s waffle stand.”
“Had to be a food stall,” Steff grinned as we resumed our journey.
“What about the All Stars?” Pia enquired.
“I’m sure Mand can slip out for that, you don’t need me there.”
“Hey, we could go down for the day,” Con suggested.
“It’s on all weekend,” Pia supplied, “we’re there both days.”
“We can see how good Gab is at making waffles,” Nena opined.
“So what did Boxxie say?” I requested.

Now the days are a bit longer we can actually get out for a ride rather than be stuck on the turbo’s in the cellar. We’d been going for forty minutes; we were just joining the Rhein cycle path at Remagen when my Handy started demanding attention.

I fished it out of my pocket and flipped it open, “Bond.”
“Gaby? It’s Eva Foch.”
“Oh hi, Chris said you’d ring.”

Mand had already eased off so we rolled along the smooth path barely turning the pedals.

“Saturday, can you be at Der Mühle for nine?”

Sugar, I’m supposed to be at the bakery until twelve.

“Gaby, you still there?”
“Er sorry, I’m sure Mand can, I don’t finish at the bakery until twelve though.”
“Saturday,” I mouthed at Mand.
“Well we can probably cope, it shouldn’t be too busy until later, what time can you get to Brohl?”
“One?” I suggested – have to try and wangle a lift.
“Okay, your friend, she knows where to come?”
“Er yeah, um where will you be in Brohl?”
“Burgstraße, at the far end of the square.”

Great, make it easy to get to why don’t you.

“I’m sure I’ll find you. Do we need to bring anything?”
“Just yourselves, I’ve got shirts and aprons for you.”
“’Kay.”
“Well I’ll see you both on Saturday then.”
“Nine at Der Mühle,” I confirmed, “tschuss.”
“Tschuss.”

“That sounded complicated,” Mand suggested as I stowed my communicator back in a pocket.
“Not really, you need to be at the Foch’s place for nine, I’ll come down when I finish at Thesing’s.”
“On my own?”
“You know Christina.”
“Barely,” she allowed with a hint of doubt in her voice.
“You’ll be fine, come on, we need to get back before dark.”

“Daddy?”
“Hmm?” Dave moved his attention from the spaghetti to his youngest child across the table.
“You know Saturday?”
Here it comes, “What about it?”
“Could you like take me down to Brohl when I finish at the bakery?”
“And why would I do that?”
“I need to get there to work on the waffle stall with Mand.”
“Dad,” Jules complained, “Mainz? You promised!”

Indeed he had, and it was already going to be a push to get back to collect the Grönberg’s.

“Sorry kiddo, Mainz was arranged a while ago, you’ll have to make other arrangements.”
“What’s so important about Mainz,” Gaby demanded, clearly miffed by the refusal.
“It’s an open day at the university,” Juliette stated, “Some of us actually consider our future.”
“Girls! Desist!” Dave demanded, this pair can descend into full warfare in seconds. “Gabrielle, you’ll have to arrange something else, you should’ve thought about this before now, you’ve been told about making all these commitments before.”

The youngest Bond contemplated saying more but instead stormed out, leaving food on her plate – almost unheard of.

Bum, bum, bum! What am I gonna do now? Grrr! It wouldn’t be so bad but Dad’s right, I really hadn’t thought it through, I suppose I’ll have to ride down, what a pain.

“Gabs, you alright?”
Mand poked her head around the door.
“Guess so, time of the month,” I proposed in jest.
“Thought so, I’m due too.”
Sugar! I scrambled to find my diary, a quick scrabble through the pages confirmed it – bum!
“That’s all I need.”
“I read somewhere that women living together usually have the same time, like some cosmic alignment thing.”
“Oh joy, so instead of just one mad woman we get four,” I opined.
“Look on the positive side, the rest of the month is PMT free.”

I’d prefer it if the whole month was like before. Before, ha that’s a laugh; the Docs reckon I started my suppressed puberty when I was about twelve or thirteen. Certainly all that passing out, low blood iron business two, three years ago were symptomatic of my true gender. In hindsight it’s pretty obvious but back then I was certain that I was a boy and boys don’t have periods.

“Your dad’s a bit p’ed with you,” Mand added.
“I guess I should do the washing up.”
“In the washer.”

Well at least that’s one thing.

The rest of the week was less eventful, well more exams of course but nothing to disturb the peace of my life. What I hadn’t managed to do is improve on the transport arrangements for Saturday, well it has gone from the Schauff to my training bike but it’s still a bike. The alternatives, trains or bus, just won’t get me there quick enough, what could’ve been well under thirty minutes in the car will be every minute of the hour I’ve given myself.

“Morning, Gab,” Therese greeted as she let me into the bakery all of five minutes before the six thirty opening time.
“Morning,” I sighed.
“The Gaggia’s warming, I think Tomas has the first brötchen ready, if you can bring them through.”
“Sure.”

And so my five-hour plus shift was started. Of course, you can’t live in a small community like Dernau without at least recognising most of the people walking in the shop. But of course, creatures of habit that we are, it’s a different set of people coming in, some for breakfast bread and pastries, others for breakfast itself – the cake won’t come out until late morning when the early social visitors start to arrive.

It’s steady work, yeah there are busy times but there isn’t a lot of queuing. As usual I slipped into the barista persona and by extension I ended up looking after the café customers while Therese concentrated on the walk ins. I hardly noticed the time going round, not like some afternoon shifts with Con, we were keeping ahead of things but not to the point of being clear of stuff to do.

“See ya!” I called as I pretty much ran out of the bakery gripping my half eaten lunch in one hand, bag in the other.

I’m not a runner, but you know that, by the time I got home I was quite winded. I know I could’ve saved time by taking my transport to the bakery but, well let’s just say I didn’t want to leave it there raising questions I didn’t want to answer. And anyway, I didn’t want to ride down to Brohl in my Thesing’s uniform.

A quick swap, skirt for shorts, shirt for vest top, pull my denim jacket on, grab some headgear and push my steed outside. It took me a couple of attempts but the Mofa finally coughed into life and with a jerk I set off on my journey. Of course it’s not the same as a pedal bike, it only has one gear for starters and the brakes are not what I’m used to either.

However, by the time I reached the main road I’d just about got it under control. It might not be a great deal, if any faster than me on the Pinarello but I’m not getting hot and sweaty or running out of energy. It’s the best of both worlds, all the advantages of an engine but the flexibility to use the short cuts that are open to bikes.

I know I shouldn’t be doing it but like who’s gonna know? No one checks you have a licence and I can always claim to be Jules, it’s not like she’d know is it? Maybe I should apply for my own licence anyhow, I can see this being quite useful.

I was soon putting through Sinzig, I could get used to this! It’s still ten kilometres to Brohl, I should just about make it, whilst it’s restricted to 25kph on some of the downhill’s to Sinzig I topped 30kph. I turned off of the main drag onto the old road into Brohl however I didn’t get to my destination before being stopped by a road block manned by Polizei.

“Whoa, whoa Fraulein, where are you off to?”
“Er Burgstraße, down by the square?”
“The roads are all closed,”
“Sugar, is there a way around?”
“Sorry, it’s all shut down for the Kirmes.”
“Can I get to the school?”
He thought about it for a moment, “Okay, no further though and watch out for people on the street.”
“Thanks.”

He opened the barrier and I revved my transport forward.

At least the school was closer to the centre, not where I wanted to be but better than out at the roadblock. I dodged a few walkers and despite the warning from the police officer I contemplated going further. A couple of white hats fifty metres further on halted that idea so I pulled to the curb outside the school and closed things down.

I jog walked towards the village centre, the church clock started to chime one o’clock as I made my way through the crowds of festival goers. Eventually I spotted the ‘Der Mühle Crêpes’, a reasonable queue snaking away from the window.
“Sorry, I had to walk from the school,” I told everyone stepping into the trailer.
“Well you’re here now,” Eva allowed, “you can help Amanda to start, they’ve been queued like this all morning.”
Looks like it’s going to be a busy afternoon.

Maddy Bell 19.08.16