The Warrior

She was not picky when it came to customers. She struggled to find clients. She had reduced herself to driving a painted Volkswagen around Chicago, advertising her mural design agency. It wasn't really an agency- she just did it as a part-time hobby after her work at the restaurant was over.
So when Irene had gotten a call from a young woman around her age who requested a mural for her nursery, naturally she accepted quickly.

After a shift at the Moroccan restaurant, Irene loaded up the painted old Volkswagen and drove from her west-side apartment that her pay barely paid and drove towards the upper north side. She knew as soon as she entered the neighborhood, these people had money. Irene would add in a little bit of inflation if they were desperate for an artist and she was their last hope.

The first meeting with the woman went well- Irene had brought her portfolio for the woman to look at and she had run her well-manicured fingers over each laminated picture, making small positive comments.
"This is very intricate." She would pause to say, flipping the page and let out an appreciative noise. "You have an eye for details."
Irene blushed and sat across from the woman at her kitchen table, admiring the way the light filtered in through the large bay window behind her. She attempted to make some sort of conversation so she felt less uncomfortable sitting in such a nice home. Normally, Irene didn't care for such material things and enjoyed the ethnic and eccentric details of her apartment, but when faced with such a house with clean lines and bright colors- she just felt insignificant.

"What did you say you do, Mrs..." Irene blanched, realizing that she had not remembered the woman's name. She remembered that she was married (you couldn't forget with the large diamond resting on her ring finger) but she could not recall her name.
"It's okay, Irene. You can call me Dayna." She smiled a bright perfect smile at Irene and tossed her dark hair a little.
She was still unsure of herself when she nodded and asked then, "Dayna..Do you have an idea of what the mural in the nursery is going to be? May I see the wall?" Feeling a little bit more professional, she followed suit when the other woman nodded quickly and stood before saying, "Of course! Let's go."
The staircase was wooden, but painted over with white, just like the all the wooden trim in the parts of the house that Irene saw. Once they made it to the spare bedroom, it was clear that the woman had not had a child yet. There was a box sitting in the middle of the stark white bedroom, with "FRAGILE" emblazoned across the side of the brown cardboard. It was a crib that had not been assembled yet.
"I assume it won't be gender-specific?" Irene asked, indicating Dayna's still-flat belly.
"Oh, not yet." She clarified quickly before adding, "The husband and I have been thinking about a frozen pond."
Irene looked at her in an entirely unprofessional way.
Dayna let out a charming laugh and continued. "Your artistic abilities are clearly up-to-par. I have the utmost faith in you. Shall we go downstairs and continue talking about it?"
Irene nodded and asked, "If I can just get the measurements of the wall?"
"Of course, of course!" She obliged, watching as the younger woman took the measuring tape out of her rather large bag and began to record the dimensions.