Captain William Laurence (betwixtsea_nsky) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-05-18 11:28:00 |
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Marissa had phoned Laurence the first tutoring system that she’d missed. Laurence could hardly say she called ahead, since she had called a scant five minutes before the appointment was to start with a vague ‘something came up” and no other explanation, but at least she had called.
There had been no phone call this time. Laurence had instead sat at the Pimpernel Outreach centre for the full hour, the mathematics textbooks piled next to him, internally warring between being annoyed at having been stood up and being worried about Marissa. She had, previously, been very excited about earning her GED. Laurence did not like to pry for information that wasn’t volunteered, but as he understood it, Marissa had escaped from a domestic violence situation, and he suspected there may have been a substance abuse problem in her past too.
Finally deciding that Marissa likely wasn’t to come - forty-five minutes of her hour appointment had already passed - Laurence packed up the textbooks, and sought out Marguerite. “Mrs. Blakeney?” he asked, knocking on her door. “Do you have a minute?”
With Freya being relocated overseas and no shows or even auditions at present, Marguerite was spending more time at Pimpernel Outreach helping Percy out with the administration of the nonprofit. Not that she minded. It was good work, necessary work. She had been a fixture there since they opened even during times of performances - it was just rehearsals and shows often meant she was there on a more limited basis.
But for now, she was spending more time at Pimpernel Outreach and helping more with the program Freya had put into motion for trusted people only, helping those who had been failed by the law to get to safety even as they had to disappear from their lives here. Like Percy, the actress found it similar to helping the wrongfully convicted escape la guillotine. An unfortunate necessity but it was a sad truth all the same.
Hearing the knock at the door, the actress looked up from the financials she’d been going over.
“Of course, what can I do for you?”
Laurence stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. If Marguerite did know something about Marissa, it would be better if anyone passing by didn’t hear their conversation. “I was wondering if you’d heard from Marissa lately,” Laurence said. “She hasn’t arrived for her last tutoring sessions, and I was wondering if perhaps she’d mentioned something to the organization.”
The closing of the door made Marguerite worried. Usually that only happened when it was going to be a conversation of a delicate matter. And it seemed that she was correct when Laurence mentioned that Marissa had missed her last tutoring sessions. She knew that Marissa wasn’t one of the women they had helped to escape Orange County to start anew somewhere else, they would have made sure that none of her appointments were still active otherwise.
“Not that I’ve heard…” Turning her attention to the computer, Marguerite checked the computer to see if someone else had been told something and her file updated. But...nothing.
Laurence frowned to himself, thinking over the possibilities. He supposed it was likely that she had just decided that she no longer required tutoring, or that she had simply lost her desire to pursue her GED, but…
“I do not wish to presume too much, or to overstep my position here,” Laurence said, hesitatingly. “But Marissa had been very keen before her unexpected absence last week. It worries me that there’s been no word from her.”
There were a lot of possibilities on what was going on, some more innocuous than others. But with the people that were helped at Pimpernel Outreach? Suddenly up and not coming in, especially without any sort of warning? Well, that tended to warrant concern.
“Of course not. And if this isn’t the first time she’s had an unexpected absence….”
Sighed. “I believe that she’s grown close to Ilia since being here. I can speak with her when she gets in later, see if she’s heard anything or picked up on anything.”
Better to be safe after all. It could just be a simple matter of not needing the tutoring or just being sick and not calling in because either she was sleeping it off or something. But since it was more than once?
Laurence nodded. That should have been good enough for him; from what he could tell, Ilia was reliable. Maybe Marissa had just decided to do her studies with her own power, which was respectable enough. Even still… “If she hasn’t heard anything, I think I would like to check on her,” Laurence said. “If it’s not against policy to give out her address.” It probably was, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. Laurence never had been content to simply sit back and allow others to do what needed to be done.
For all of the things Ilia had needed to work through, she was extremely reliable, especially in her work here. So it was possible that something came up or even a dead phone. Something that didn’t require any extra concern. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had lost electricity and thus their phone wasn’t charged or the like.
“If not, we can do a wellness check.” After all, they couldn’t give out addresses just like that, but Laurence was solid and wellness checked did require two people so it would be doable.
Laurence let out a breath, his shoulders relaxing. Until that moment, he had not realized just how much tension they’d held. It was a relief to hear that something would be done, and though it was not something that would be done right then, Laurence understood the importance of patience. “Thank you, Mrs. Blakeney,” he breathed. “I hope that it will not be necessary.”
Tension was like that sometimes, you never really noticed it until it was released. Or someone pointed it out. Patience though was important in times like this. There were safety precautions after all that needed to be adhered to. One could never tell. Marissa wasn’t on the list of people who potentially needed that extra service that a select few provided but if this was going to make it necessary….
“Of course. I hope it won’t as well, but it’s good to make sure.”
“Indeed,” Laurence said, backing toward the door. He rested his hand on the doorknob, not opening it quite yet in case Marguerite wanted to talk to him about anything else, though it was he who had come to her first. “I will leave you to your work again,” he said. “Thank you for listening to my concerns. You’ll keep me posted?”
Smiling sadly, Marguerite just nodded, “Of course I will. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” Because there was always that chance that it was something more than a change of mind and forgetting to call, or no electricity or something that was completely innocuous. It was the nature of the work here, so it made sense to be want to make sure.
“Take care, Mrs. Blakeny,” Laurence said, opening the door, and then he was through it and gone, hoping that there would be nothing to worry about.