A Certain Mr. Rit Co Chapter 2

Chapter Two: A Collision of Calendars

The silence that settled between Ellie and Leo after Arthur Rit’s decree was not the comfortable kind. It was the high-pitched, anticipatory quiet of a detonator being armed. Benedict, ever the diplomat, gave a soft woof and nudged Ellie’s hand with his wet nose. The touch grounded her. She had a job to do. Flawlessly. Even if the universe had saddled her with a walking, talking, cat-carrying obstacle course.

“The Vanderbilt-Price wedding,” Ellie began, her voice cutting through the city’s ambient roar as they stood on the sidewalk. She pulled out her tablet, the screen glowing with a color-coded timeline. “Six weeks. Black-tie. Venue is The Aviary Conservatory.”

Leo whistled, adjusting the strap of his bag where S;ren now purred, a rumbling engine of contained mayhem. “The glass palace in the park? Nice. All that flora and fauna. S;ren will feel right at home.”

“He will feel,” Ellie corrected, not looking up from her screen, “like a guest who is not on the manifest. The conservatory has a strict no-pets policy, except for the approved avian residents and the ceremonial doves.”

“Policies are just peer pressure from dead people,” Leo quipped, but his eyes were scanning the venue details on her tablet with a surprising sharpness. “The Aviary… that’s a bold choice. All glass and orchids. One nervous groom and you’ve got a symphony of shattering.”

“The structural integrity is impeccable,” Ellie said, a flicker of professional pride breaking through her frost. “My concern is atmospheric cohesion. The clients requested ‘spontaneity within flawlessness.’ A paradox I intend to solve with a meticulously planned ‘wild’ flower meadow installation and unscheduled-but-pre-vetted musical interludes.”

Leo stared at her. “‘Unscheduled-but-pre-vetted’.” He repeated the phrase as if tasting a strange new fruit. “Ellie, my love, that’s not spontaneity. That’s chaos with a curfew.”

“It is managed spontaneity. The only kind that has a place at a $500,000 event.” She started walking, her heels clicking a determined rhythm on the pavement. “We have our first site meeting with Astrid Vanderbilt and Julian Price in two hours. You will observe. You will take notes for your… article. You will be silent unless spoken to. And that,” she pointed a stern finger at the bag, “will remain zipped.”

The Aviary Conservatory was a cathedral of light and leaf. Sun streamed through the vast glass dome, dappling the stone paths and exotic blooms. The air was warm, humid, and fragrant. It was, Ellie thought with satisfaction, perfection. Her domain.

Astrid and Julian were already there, a striking duo. She was all sharp angles and artfully dyed silver hair, he was a bear of a man with a gentle smile, both clad in expensive hiking gear. They were, as promised, eccentric.

“Ellie, darling!” Astrid air-kissed her. “And you must be the scribe! Arthur said you’d bring a fresh, savage eye. Wonderful.”

Leo offered a charming, slightly scruffy smile. “Leo. And my silent colleague, S;ren.” He gave the bag a pat.

“A fellow creature enthusiast!” Julian boomed, peering with interest at the bag. “We’re having capybaras as ring-bearers, you know. And the doves will be dyed to match the lichen on the old oak.”

Ellie’s pen hovered over her iPad. “Capy… baras. Of course. We’ll need to liaise with the exotic animal handler for… waste management contingency.”

As she began walking them through her vision—the meadow here, the string quartet there, the custom crystal feeders for the hummingbirds—Leo quietly unzipped his bag. Just an inch. S;ren’s nose poked out, twitching at the riot of new scents.

Ellie was deep in a discussion about sustainable, conflict-free ice sculptures when it happened.

A flutter of wings. One of the conservatory’s resident cockatiels, curious and unafraid, swooped down from a nearby frond and landed on the path a few feet away. It cocked its head, beady eyes fixed on the moving zipper of Leo’s bag.

Time, for Ellie, seemed to fracture into slow motion. She saw the bird hop closer. She saw the zipper inch down further. She saw a blur of grey fur explode from the bag with the focused velocity of a tiny missile.

“S;ren, no!” Leo’s shout was half-laugh, half-genuine alarm.

Chaos, true and unmanaged, erupted.

S;ren streaked after the cockatiel, which took off with an indignant shriek. The kitten scrambled up a potted citrus tree, sending a shower of blossoms and small, unripe lemons tumbling to the ground. He then launched himself onto a delicate trellis of jasmine, which swayed perilously. Benedict, believing this to be a splendid new game, gave a joyful bark and trotted after the kitten, his tail wagging like a metronome set to pandemonium.

“Oh! How vibrant!” Julian chuckled, raising his phone to record.

“The jasmine!” Ellie hissed, her composure cracking. She lunged, not for the cat, but for the trellis, steadying it as S;ren, now high above and realizing his predicament, let out a pitiful, high-pitched mew.

Leo was already there, scaling a decorative rockery with infuriating agility. “Come on, you little nihilist,” he cooed, plucking the kitten from his leafy perch. He tucked S;ren securely under his arm, where the cat immediately began to purr again, as if the whole episode had been a deeply fulfilling philosophical exercise.

The cockatiel shrieked one last insult from the safety of the dome’s highest beam.

The silence that followed was thick with the scent of crushed flowers and humiliation. Ellie’s hands were trembling. She clenched them into fists, her nails leaving half-moons in her palms.

Astrid beamed. “Well! That was certainly spontaneous! I loved it. The raw, predatory energy! It’s exactly what these sterile spaces need.”

Julian nodded in agreement. “A good omen! A hunter in the garden. Very primal. Very us.”

Ellie forced her lungs to work, her professional mask slamming back into place, though it felt brittle. “I’m… so pleased you found it engaging. Now, about the capybara procession route…”

Later, outside the conservatory, the fragile truce shattered.

“Managed spontaneity?” Leo mocked lightly, stroking a now-docile S;ren. “You can’t schedule instinct, Ellie. Life isn’t a spreadsheet.”

“Life, Mr. S;rensen, is a series of obligations and consequences!” she shot back, her voice low and venomous. “That ‘instinct’ nearly destroyed a ten-thousand-dollar floral installation and could have resulted in a lawsuit if that bird had been injured! This is not a bohemian poetry reading. This is my career.”

“And it’s sucking your soul out through a straw,” he said, the humor gone from his eyes, replaced by something unsettlingly direct. “You’re building beautiful cages for other people’s love stories. Where’s your story in all this?”

The question hit her like a physical blow. She saw her reflection in his eyes: a flawless, furious, empty sculpture. Benedict whined, pressing against her leg.

“My story,” she said, her voice ice-cold once more, “is to ensure the Vanderbilt-Price wedding is not remembered as the one where the groom was hospitalized with a lemming—I mean, capybara—related injury, and the bride was upstaged by a fugitive kitten. You will control your animal. Or I will have Mr. Rit remove you both from this project. Are we clear?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Turning on her heel, clipboard held to her chest like a shield, she walked away, the click of her heels a retreating tattoo of order. Leo watched her go, the fading sunlight glinting off her perfect chignon. He looked down at S;ren, who blinked slowly up at him.

“Well, philosopher-king,” he murmured. “I think we just got categorized as a ‘critical path variance’.”

In his bag, nestled among his notebooks, the little grey cat merely purred, a tiny engine of relentless, unpredictable life. The blueprint was officially on fire.