When Fate Hung By the Balance of a Burnt Bagel

They fall for it in the third shop, hook, line, and sinker.

I’m pretty stuffed at this point, having consumed two bagels and three chocolate bars in quick succession, but I’m also out of a job now, so I take the calories where I can get them.

With two successes and one failure, this fourth and final shop decides it.

The door lets out a soft chime as it swings open. The girl behind the counter is pretty, done up with light make-up, and she wears her light brown hair short in a way that reminds me of Scarlet. Like the older lady in the shop who’s currently stocking the shelves, she’s wearing overalls. Faint classical music hums over the speakers, Vivaldi’s Winter, and I make my way to the counter, flashing the girl a bright smile.

“Awesome hair,” I say, leaning an elbow up against the counter. “Where’d you—"

“That's my daughter,” the older lady calls out from the aisle.

Uh… shit. I back up a little, run my hand through my hair, and get straight to the point.

“Could I get regular bagel, plain cream cheese on the side?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, bobbing her head. There's a small smile on her face, my saving grace. “Give me a sec while I toast it.”

She pops the bagel onto a heating rack, and I eye the little rack hanging beneath the counter. Choices, choices. I select a KitKat.

“How’s business today?” I’m hoping to disarm her a little, build some rapport back up.

“Bad. Quiet.” It’s the older lady who responds, her eyes drawing together as she eyes me up.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, angling your body so that you can face both women at once. It looks like I’m not going to get away with ignoring the mom. “Am I the first one in today?”

“‘Course not. We’d be bankrupt if business was that bad.” The older lady snorts at the ridiculousness of my comment, and turns back to the cans of soup she was putting up.

“I think it’s been alright, Ma,” the girl says, giving me an apologetic smile for her mother’s brusqueness. “I think we’ve had the usual numbers come through.”

“Pah, you don’t know anything,” the older lady says. “And get that man his bagel. Stop dawdling.”

“Uh.. yes, right,” she says, dropping the bagel into a bag. I pick it up from her, and do the usual routine.

Back pocket. Back pocket. Front pocket. Front pocket. Nothing.

"Crap, I think I’ve forgotten my wallet,” I say. “I can come back later and pay.”

The girl quickly nods, glancing nervously at her mother.

“Do you mind if I snag this KitKat too? I’m dead hungry. I woke up late today, forgot to fix myself breakfast, and that must have been why I forgot to grab my wallet too.” The smile on the girl’s face wavers.

“And what are YOU trying to play at?”

I wince at the noise. That lady can screech.

“Just let him go, Ma. He looks like a fine person, he’ll be back,” she says. I feel a little guilty, hearing her say that, but I nod along.

“No, no YOU are not leaving MY store just like that.” The mother draws up to me, and though she’s a good half-foot shorter than me, I back up a pace or two.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I need to save the situation. An aroma reaches my nose. It’s the bagel… but it’s burnt.

“Look, if it’s that big a deal to you, I can return the bagel. I think it’s burnt anyways,” I say. I open up the bag and pull out the blackened bread.

The mother, about to scream some new invective at me, pauses. She looks at the bagel in my hand, and then she looks at the daughter. Now she turns to face the girl, and it's the poor girl who backs up a pace or two.

“YOU burned the bagel? What were you doing, chattering along to the customer while ruining the order?”

“I’m sorry, I just left it on the rack a little long,” she says quickly, but her mom is having none of it.

“Christ, someday I’m going to be gone, and you will be in charge of this shop, and you will RUN IT INTO THE GROUND!” She throws up her hands in frustration, and then takes a moment to compose herself. She jabs a finger at me, and I flinch involuntarily. “You give him a new bagel, and you let him keep it.”

The girl hurries back to the heating rack and pops another bagel on there. She’s holding it together still, but just barely. A couple seconds later, she takes it out, and passes it to me.

“Uh, and the chocolate?” I ask, the KitKat still held in my free hand.

“Pah, take it,” the woman says, waving her hand at me.

As I head out of the shop, I look back over my shoulder at the girl. She’s watching me leave, and I mouth a ‘sorry’ to her. She gives me a little wave goodbye, and then I’m out on the street again.

Okay. I take a second to debrief as I bite into the bagel, heading back to my flat. I got four chocolates and four bagels, though really only three of each were earned. So, does the Affection Multiplier really work?

I pull out my phone, and find the new app that had mysteriously materialised on it this morning. Titled a simple Affection Multiplier, it displays the exact same information as the app on my computer. I tap in and scroll through the list of familiar names until I encounter two new ones at the bottom.

Alexandra Vicario, Score: 6

Maria Vicario, Score: -3

I look at the numbers. This only makes sense if Alexandra is the daughter, and working off that assumption, I get that… well, not much still. What does 6 points mean? I have no clue, and I have no clue if, without the Affection Multiplier, my score would have been 3 otherwise. Fuck.

But Maria’s score is -3. And maybe that tells me something—there’s a certain internal logic to that interaction being positive between me and the daughter, and negative between me and the mother… and if the Affection Multiplier doubles positive gains, then of course I would be at +6 with Alexandra.

Then again, perhaps this is just all an elaborate trick. I know that Father’s hired a PI to constantly tail me (in fact, he’s about a block back right now, dressed in a dark sweater. He blends in well, but he's also been my constant companion for the last twenty years). Perhaps good old Inspector Vidocq is the one inputting these numbers on the app, giving me an internal logic to cling onto out of desperation.

Yeah. This test was informative, but I still need more data. I unlock the door to my flat, plop down on my bed, and lay there with my eyes wide open. I’m going to need to move very precisely these next few days.