Drawn from Water

Chapter 2

  ... 24 years ago...

Mia:

It was a warm sunny day on Mona Island, with a cool breeze blowing softly through Mia's curls as she walked down the cobblestone road to the town's main square. The colored buildings looking brighter with how the sun shined on them. The smells of spices and sweets filled the air from all the street vendors that filled the sidewalks selling all sorts of different fruits, meats and the poorly made wood sculptures. Mia always wondered what made tourists buy those things, surely they could find better quality items in Puerto Rico markets.

Mona Island was 85 miles from Puerto Rico but people from all over the world still made the journey to the island. Exploring its colorful buildings and swimming at the pristine beaches. That was about the only exciting thing for Mia was to see all the different types of people. She loved people watching. Mia worked at a café by the docks where she met all sorts of different people. People from Japan, Sweden, even people from California. She listened to how they talked with their different accents and watched their mannerisms as they would order from her.

The café was nothing special, if anything Mia always thought it looked like a small shack someone placed on the beach, but it brought people in for the food. The café belonged to Mia's father who ran it for years before he passed away, now it was Mia's. Andres, who was a longtime friend of her father's, helps her run the café, he was the best cook on the whole island in Mia's opinion. There were many restaurants on the island with many skilled cooks, but nothing compared to Andre's cooking.

As Mia rounded the corner, she could see her café bustling with people sitting and being served and eating the delicious food. As she approached, she could hear Andres yelling something to the server about not taking the food in time. She couldn't help laugh to herself, Andres was a kind man, but he was not very keen to people messing with his food.

"Andres callar, quit your yelling." Mia called out

"Mia where do you find these people? This one is slower than the last one we had." he said as he pointed to the young teenage boy walking away to serve a table. Mia laughed at Andres who continued to curse to himself about the server.

"Well Andres he is your grandson, so you tell me why he is slow and why you asked me to hire him?" Mia said raising her eyebrow at him.

"Because I need to keep him out of trouble, just like you mi carina." he says with a smile.

"When do you ever see me getting into trouble?" she says with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

Andres has been like a father to her since her father passed away a year ago from cancer. It was her father's last request to Andres was to watch over Mia when he passed, and as his friend he would do anything for Mia's father. They had been best friends since childhood and grew up together on the island. Andres was there when her father and mother got married; Andres always joked he got them together because her father was too chicken to go up and talk to her. She would laugh when they argued with each other. Andres was also there for him when Mia's mother passed away a few years after Mia was born. To Mia; her father and Andres were brothers in a past life that found each other again in this life.

"Mia get to work, we are about to be very busy." Andres says snapping Mia's attention to the direction he was looking. Sure enough Mia could see a tourist boat pulling into the docks. Mia grabs her server apron and starts to prepare herself for a busy day.

The café was filled with people from the tourist boat that pulled in, Mia had to pick up the pace for Andre's grandson was, as Andres pointed out was very slow, and as always, he was right. She found herself taking over most of the boys' tables, refilling drink orders and bringing hot plates out to the customers. She didn't mind though it made the day seem to go by faster the more people she served.