Isabelle "Izzy" Shaw (izzy_shaw) wrote in low_tide, @ 2010-03-08 06:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | isabelle shaw, mallory quinn |
A Win-Win Situation
"I'm leaving for my lunch break now, Ian," Mallory said after wiping a streak of dust from the bottom shelf and tucking the cleaning rag back behind the counter. "I should be back in about forty-five minutes. If Chad decides to grace us with his presence today, tell him he can break down the boxes in the back because I'm not doing it this time." Chad was the new hire, but the redhead doubted he'd last long since he seemed to have the work ethic of a sausage. Never mind. More hours on the paycheck meant more money at the end of the week.
The roommate search was not going well. She'd interviewed four candidates thus far, and the only girl who'd proven acceptable as far as being employed and semi-responsible turned out to be allergic to dogs. The next step was to put up a notice on Craigslist and see what happened there. Other than that, life seemed to have smoothed out at the edges a little. She was glad she'd decided to have lunch with Izzy this afternoon, if only for something to take her mind off of things.
At least the morning sickness had subsided. She hadn't barfed today. Thank God for small favors.
Izzy checked her watch as she walked as quick as she could in a business skirt and heels without actually running, since she'd been delayed by a last minute phone call from a customer wanting to book a restaurant reservation for when he and his family were in town next weekend. Spring Break was starting up soon, and the relative quiet at the hotel would be a pleasant memory for the next several months.
The blonde stepped into the hole-in-the-wall restaurant and looked around for Mallory as she inhaled the rich aromas wafting from the kitchen. Cuban cuisine had been a new taste for her when she'd arrived in this dimension, but one she'd found she enjoyed, and this place had some of the best authentic meals around. Even better, only the locals seemed to know about it.
She spotted Mallory and made her way over to the other woman. "Hey there, how's your day going?"
"It's going," Mallory answered with a one-shouldered shrug. The majority of the lunch crowd hadn't gotten there yet, and the two of them were directed to a table as soon as the hostess noticed them. The smells coming from the kitchen were delicious, and today she was actually hungry for a change. Two glasses of water were placed on the table, and the hostess departed after saying that someone would be over soon to take their order. "How's the hotel business?"
Her stomach bumped against the table, and she adjusted her chair to make herself comfortable. Starting to show now, just a little. Four months along. Trying not to worry herself gray-headed. She picked up the menu with perhaps more determination than was absolutely necessary. Food was a good stopgap for fretting, right? "Things going okay on your end?"
"The calm before the storm," the witch intoned with an expression of mock-horror on her face. "Calls are starting to pick up with customers wanting to try and schedule things in advance, and we'll have the Spring Break crowd starting to roll in over the next few weeks. After that we have summer vacationers coming down. I'll be so busy at work I won't have time to think, let alone break for lunch."
Her friend's slightly rounder figure hadn't gone unnoticed, but Izzy kept her mouth shut. She'd only just met Mallory a couple months ago and didn't know the other woman that well yet. It might be something more than just some weight gain, and then again it might not. Better to just say nothing and let nature take its course. Time would tell one way or the other.
"Well, hopefully we'll get some of those customers," Mallory said, pointing back in the direction of the bookstore. "Things have been so slow lately that a lot of places near the square have been closing early. We're one of the last holdouts for regular business hours, and that's mostly because the owner is retired and doesn't have much else to do with his day. Maybe the vacationers will need something to read while they're down here."
She paused long enough to take a drink of her water, letting one of the ice cubes get past the rim of the glass so she could crunch it up, then added, "On the other hand, I do not envy you the spring break crowd. Its probably like dealing with the Mongol horde to have a few hundred college students show up all at once. Do you have armor set aside for when the time comes?"
"I'm sure some of them will," Izzy assured her friend as she picked up the menu to decide what she was in the mood for today. "There are always the moms who want a good book to read on the beach while their kids are swimming or building sandcastles after all." She didn't envy Mallory's position, working in a small independent shop in the tough times the economy was going through.
The witch rolled her eyes at the comment about armor. "I'm only one year removed from college myself, my biggest problem will be making sure the drunks keep their hands to themselves. We've got a good security staff though, and all the hotels here have lived with Spring Break for decades. We'll be all right."
The waitress arrived, and after some deliberation Mallory decided on the empanadas. Her stomach was better today, but she didn't want anything too spicy, just in case. Between that and a glass of tea, she'd be full until supper, most likely. The menu was folded and handed back, and she turned back towards the blonde.
"So what else is new in your life? Anything interesting?"
After some internal debate, Izzy decided she was hungry enough to try to tackle ropa vieja and handed the menu back to the waitress.
"My life?" Izzy could name one item right off the bat, but it wasn't something she was going to discuss with Mallory. The other woman was clueless about vampires and the supernatural as far as Izzy knew, and she wasn't going to have the other woman thinking she was crazy by describing how she'd been attacked by a vampire. "Other than having to hear all about a roommate's upcoming wedding plans when my own have been in the trash since New Year's. I love Ashley like she was a blood sister, but there's only so much more I can take." The witch was particularly fond of that particular housemate, and she'd had spotty memories of sharing a bedroom at least one of their college years at the sorority, but even that had limits. She mimed throttling someone, her hands over the center of the table. "If she keeps it up I won't be held responsible for making her fiance a widower before they're even married."
Not to mention the fact that she suspected all her roommates of trying to get Mark back into her good graces.
"There are drawbacks to communal living. I managed to get a single when I was in college, but the girl across the hall from me had to share with three other people. I can't imagine what that bathroom must have looked like." It gave the redhead a little pause about this whole 'look for a roommate' deal, but one person was much different than two or three. At least she'd narrowed it down a little. "Hopefully you won't do something you'll regret. I doubt that day-glo orange is your color."
Because the crowd was so sparse, their orders arrive sooner than expected, and Mallory unfolded her napkin across her lap before sniffing at her plate. "I think I suddenly realized I was starving."
"Me too," Izzy resisted the urge to just dive into the meal. In both universes she'd been raised with some manners, and the blonde unfurled her napkin and placed it in her lap before picking up her silverware.
"Roommates are a curse and a blessing," Izzy said simply, returning to the topic in hand after a bite of her ropa vieja. Delicious, as if there'd been any doubt. "I've known all of mine since we pledged Delta Phi Epsilon together, and most of the time we'd do anything for each other, but sometimes..." she let her voice trail off, and took another bite of her meal before continuing. "They seem to think Mark and I were meant to be, so all of them want to seem to find a way to patch us back together." Which just made life more difficult in dealing with her stepfather, who also didn't understand and took her sorority sisters' opinions as one more piece of evidence that his little girl had lost her way down in Key West.
"Well, no offense, but from the outside sororities always seemed like kind of a hive-mind. Benign most of the time, but they're probably used to you listening to them and taking their advice. They might not know what to do with themselves now that you aren't." Mallory smiled to try and take the sting out of the remarks, but she was suddenly very glad that she didn't have anyone pushing her towards Dominic. On that issue if nothing else, she was a committee of one.
"People have to make their own decisions anyway, at least about the really important stuff. Why did you decide you guys weren't going to make it?"
"Because he wouldn't listen to me on something that was very important to me for one thing." Izzy responded in between bites of the vieja. "He knew I didn't want him badmouthing Bobby, but he went ahead and did it anyway. I wanted them to be friends, not sniping at each other every chance they got. Bobby had been living up to his end of the deal even though I knew he couldn't stand Mark, and Mark wouldn't do that. It made me examine our relationship in a new light." It made Izzy re-read every entry in the diary and re-examine every fragment of memory she had from her other self, and in the end she'd made the cold blooded decision that however Isabelle had thought of him before Izzy had taken over it wasn't going to work now that she had a mind of her own.
"In the end I just decided that we'd grown apart and wanted different things in life."
"It's probably better that you know now and not, y'know, five years down the road," the redhead said. The food was very good, and she was taking her time with it, eating in careful bites. "My ma always says, 'marry in haste, repent in leisure'. If you aren't right for each other, it'll make both of you happier in the long run to figure it out now so you can deal with it. If I knew then what I know now, I might have done things differently."
Even as she said it, though, she wondered if it were true. There was a spark of something good in Dom, something that if cultivated could turn him into a man who could stand up and face things, and it had been that spark that had drawn her towards him. If he had had nothing at all to offer, her situation now might have been easier, because then she'd never have let him touch her. And she wasn't sure he'd want to be tied to her for the rest of his life either, not if nurture won out over nature and she became just like her Ma in twenty years. She could not begrudge the child she carried his or her right to be born and have as good a life as was possible, but as for the father? Dominic would have to fend for himself.
"So what will you do now? Got any plans?"
Izzy raised an eyebrow at the 'done things differently' comment. So. That was as good as confirmation of her suspicions. The other woman hadn't come out and said it, but it seemed pretty clear what she meant. Izzy wasn't going to force her to talk about the issue if Mallory wasn't ready though, better to wait until the redhead said something official.
"Stay in Key West for one thing. I like it down here, the energy, the culture, the people." Her friends, the ones she knew and not her previous self, were here, and Izzy wasn't interested in starting over yet again. There was her family, but the witch felt it was probably better she stayed a phone call and plane flight away rather than be tripping over her mother and stepfather all the time. She could always go up and visit whenever she wanted anyway, be there for holidays and just to visit.
"Other than that?" The blonde shrugged with a bright smile that didn't quite match what she really felt. "There are other fish in the sea, and plenty of smart, cute guys down here too. I'm sure I'll find someone."
Half-done with her lunch, Mallory washed the last bite down with some tea, pondering the germ of an idea she had. It sounded like she and Izzy were both dealing with some problems right now, and thus far the blonde had proved to be not fligthy at all, stereotypes about sororities aside. She wiped at the corner of her mouth with her napkin, put the piece of cloth back in place on her lap.
"You wouldn't be allergic to dogs, would you?"
On the heels of the question she rushed to explain, knowing that out of context it just sounded weird. "I'm looking for a roommate. I like the place where I'm living now, but I'm going to need more room in a few months. I won't be able to swing the rent on my own, the prices are too steep, but with another person I could manage it. Exactly how badly are Ashley and company getting on your nerves?"
Izzy sat back in her chair, surprised at the offer and her brow furrowed slightly as she thought it over. There was no denying she wouldn't mind getting new roommates. Due to what memories she had of from before, she did have a great deal of affection for them but it was time to put some distance between everyone. Ashley was getting married in a month, and Susanne planned on going to Grad School up north in the fall, so they wouldn't be around too much longer, but there was still Molly to deal with. Of all her roommates she seemed to be the most inquisitive about what Izzy was doing 'puttering in the garage', when the witch was working on techno-magic projects. She had to go, and soon.
"How much would your share of the rent be?" She asked, still thinking things over. The one smart thing Isabelle had done was use part of her inheritance she'd gotten from her adoptive grandparents to buy a foreclosure special here in Key West for her and her sorority sisters to stay in while they lived there. It had been intended as a temporary thing, only a year or two and then to put it back on the market or use it as a vacation home, but there was nothing stopping her from changing things around.
"I might have a better idea for you."
Mallory had been about to launch into a brief description of the places she'd found acceptable, but the blonde's words put her on a different track. At this point, being open to suggestions was a good idea, since she felt like she was flailing blindly more often than not. "What did you have in mind?" she asked Izzy, finishing her first empanada and then tucking into the second one.
"I don't rent my place, I own it." Izzy replied simply. She shrugged, a little uncomfortable at the admission since it felt like she was showing off. Even with a few months under her belt in this dimension, she still found it hard to get used to the fact that she came from a wealthy family here. "Somehow, don't ask me how, the idea popped into my head last year when I knew I'd be coming down here that I might be able to buy a nice place at a firesale price with the housing crisis and all. I figured it would be a good investment long term, and when Mark and I were married we could use it as a vacation home if we didn't want to sell right away. That plan has obviously gone down the drain, and I'm going to be short one roommate in a month, the rest will be gone by summer."
The blonde wondered if Mallory would take the offer she was about to make. They'd gotten to be friends, sure, and the other woman had offered to let Izzy move in with her, but this was a bit different than cosigning a lease together. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in being a roommate at my place?"
The question took Mallory by surprise, and she set her fork down on the plate. The talk of housemates had naturally led her to assume that Izzy was also renting, and she wondered if it was a faux pas to imply that that someone would need help to cover the bills when money seemed to be no issue. "Is it pet-friendly?" she asked. "I have a boxer mix, and while he's friendly and good with people he can be a handful. An armload, really." Pause. "He is housebroken. I'd have gotten rid of him by now if he wasn't."
"I love dogs, as long as he's housebroken I don't have a problem with it." Izzy told her. "I don't want to stay all by my lonesome, and I like having a full place." She paused to plop a bite into her mouth and get that down before continuing. "My family is well off, but most of my savings went into the house and I'd rather make this work on my own than going back home and admitting I need help." She confessed while looking down at her plate, rather unsure what would happen if she did go back home hat in hand. Izzy didn't think Geoff would try to pressure her into patching things up with Mark, but she did know he was upset. He wouldn't be the first father to try to use the purse strings to try to straighten out a 'wayward child'.
"You'd love it Mallory, it really is a nice place." She really hoped the other woman would say yes, now that the idea had been planted in Izzy's head. To make the finances work she needed at least one, preferably two more housemates to help share the utilities and taxes on the house or she was going to have to put it back on the market or rent it out to strangers. Neither alternative held much interest to the blonde.
Looking down at her lunch, Mallory gave it some thought. Times were tight and cash was a little scarce, but she was getting more hours on her paycheck than the Next Chapter's employees. If Dominic made good on his promise to get her some money, she'd be better off than if she had to hound him over it. Her fork rattled against the surface of the plate before picking up another bite of food.
"I'm into my second trimester of pregnancy." Because that was even more important than the thing about dogs. "But I have a stable job and I don't think that's going to change. I'd have to check my bank account and see how it looks, but if you don't have any problem with my...situation, then we might have a deal. Okay?"
"You're not telling me anything I didn't already suspect Mallory," Izzy responded, gesturing toward the other woman's midsection. "I wasn't going to say anything since it wasn't any of my business and I could have been wrong anyway. I'm not going to throw stones because the baby's parents aren't married." It wasn't the way she wanted to have children and she suspected it hadn't been Mallory's plan either, but she wasn't in the business of condemning people either. "If the others get upset about it while they're still living there, that's their problem and they'll just have to shut up and deal."
"You're planning to keep the baby after it's born?" Izzy was genuinely curious. The blonde had no idea what she would do if she found herself in Mallory's position.
"I haven't decided that yet, haven't thought that far ahead." While terminating the pregnancy was out of the question, she supposed adoption wasn't. The possessive part of her already saw the child as hers, a tiny being that would come into the world from her body, but would it be selfish to hold onto the baby if there were others who could better provide for him or her? Mallory had no illusions about the next few months being a struggle as it was. What about what came next? She had no answers for that.
"When can I see the place? I have both afternoons off this weekend, can we arrange a time for me to look it over?"
"I have Sunday off, why don't you come by then?" Izzy scribbled her home address on the back of a business card and handed it to the other woman. "It's a real nice place and I got it for a song in a tax sale, there was no way I'd have been able to do it otherwise."
Mallory tucked the card into a pocket, went back to her food. "I really appreciate this," she told Izzy. "I'll be by in the afternoon after I get the laundry done, maybe three or so? You may very well have saved my sanity with this."
"That'll be fine," Izzy assured the other woman. "You'll be helping me out as well, so we both win."
"Here's to win-win situations, then," the redhead said, lifting her glass for a toast. She'd check the state of her bank balance after work today, then finish up her few chores before supper. "I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out."