Work Text:
There’s a proposal happening in the dining room. Now, Calla doesn’t know much about proposals. Calla doesn’t know much about anything. But, ‘parently proposals are meant to be lovely. And romantic.
Now, Calla quite likes the Red Keep. Sure, she hates her Bosses. Sure, she takes hour-long smoke breaks. Sure, sometimes she’d rather kill than work. But, she likes cooking. And she’s quite proud of the cooking that she does. Most of the time.
Although, Calla will readily admit that the Red Keep is, well, a bit of a shithole. And that was being nice about it. Calla’s not usually nice about things. But she does like the Red Keep. If it wasn’t for the Red Keep, she wouldn’t have met Lacey. And that would be totally terrible.
Still, all in all, why anyone would propose in the Red Keep is completely lost on Calla. It’s just not a nice place? It smells of cigarettes (probably Calla’s fault to be honest), the lighting’s pretty dark and dingy (not Calla’s fault, she actually likes bright lights), and the dining has the cleanliness of a street cat (although Calla does like street cats, she tries to keep her kitchen cleaner than that).
But, Sabrina (Calla thinks that’s her name? That might’ve been the last waitress. It feels like they get through more waitresses than they do lasangas) came into the back with a ring. Table 4 is a proposal. Calla’s gonna put the ring into a dessert- she’s got some fancy brownies today, so she’ll put it on that. Pretty like.
Calla does like the idea of a proposal. The ring is very pretty. It’s all shiny and gold, and the stone on it is green like a fresh stalk of asparagus.
It makes Calla even more confused as to why they’re proposing in the Red Keep. It’s nowhere near as shiny or beautiful as the ring.
She shrugs. Doesn’t really matter. It’s not like she’ll ever propose.
Lacey gets clients with rings like that sometimes. Without the gem usually. Seems that ‘parently men don’t like gems? Calla doesn’t get that. She’d like to have a gem, some day. Although, according to Lacey, it’s not good when the men with rings come to her. ‘Cause then they’re cheating. And not at cards, like Lacey taught Calla to. But on a person. Which is bad.
Calla doesn’t approve of upsetting people. ‘Less they did something bad first. She does approve then.
It’s a bit much, honest.
So. Proposal. Ring in brownie.
It looks cute. Little bit of green standing out on the brown. Kinda reminded Calla of a flower in mud, (Calla’s heard of a type of cake called a ‘mud cake’ and people can eat flowers. Maybe she could cook that) which is a nice thing to think about.
She ends up having to take it out herself, since the ‘law’ says that people need a break, so Sabrina (Tina? Sabine? She has no clue) isn’t ‘round, and Benji doesn’t work Wednesdays ‘cause he has football. Calla isn’t sure why they get days off when she doesn’t, but smoke breaks probably count. She has those lots.
Table 4 has two women at it. One with short hair, in a long purple dress, and one with a bun of hair piled onto her head, who is sitting in a wheelchair painted with flowers (Calla is glad that the flower thought was a good one), and has a short red dress. It’s all cute.
She puts the brownie down in front of the lady with the long dress, who gasps, and her partner grabs her hands. It’s all very cute like. She says yes, which is nice! It woulda been kinda awkward if she hadn’t.
Calla wonders how people would deal with that. Maybe Lacey’ll know. Or they could go to the library.
Still. Proposal was quite nice, and Calla thinks her brownie was good for it.
She’ll have to tell Lacey about it all.