shellyharmon (shellyharmon) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-09-27 22:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | shelly harmon, ~ro clark |
Girls Night
Who: Ro/Shelly
What: An Understanding
Where: Las Vegas, Shelly's Apartment
When: Present
Content Warnings: Nothing Untoward
They'd exchanged contact information and promises to meet to discuss business. Ro had a few reservations but Shelly had been professional when Ro had seen her in action at the bar. If the other woman could get into and out of other people's houses, she had a level of skill to respect. The problem was, of course, that you couldn't trust a con. The last thing g Ro needed was to find herself holding the bag for someone else's decisions. Again. If it wasn't for the money, Ro might not consider it. But her nest egg was a little light lately and there was ground to make up.
She knocked on Shelly's door and waited for the little haunted doll to let her in.
Shelly opened the door, donning pajamas, a robe, and a foaming face mask. Inside the apartment, a movie played on the flatscreen television, something classic-sounding. She had ordered Chinese food, a variety of items in case Ro was picky, and had bought a really good bottle of red. Nothing gas station or blunt force trauma-y.
“This is my low-key self-care night,” she explained, her blonde hair piled messily atop her head. “But trust me, this is all business.” Shelly stepped aside and gestured for Ro to come in.
"You mean you don't step out of your dollhouse perfect? I'm shocked." She smiled as she stepped inside. "If I knew it was going to be spa night I would have rolled up in my bunny slippers with my bra off." Ro was in one of her low-key looks already, jeans and a white T-shirt. "Should I give you time to finish your pores before we talk?"
The blonde checked the timer she had set on her phone. “Oh, it’s time to rinse,” she announced. “Make yourself…not at home, but like you’re at a distant aunt’s.” Shelly swept her arm to gesture at the spread before dashing off to the bathroom. She emerged a few minutes later after blotting herself dry with a face towel.
When she returned, she grabbed a plate and piled it with some lo mein and egg rolls and perched on her prized sofa. “So. Arrow. I realized after our last chat that I know so very little about you.”
Ro already had made herself a plate and was sprawled comfortably in a chair when Shelly came back out. "What's there to know?" She asked, digging into her chicken. "I never had an aunt."
“Really?” Shelly asked, setting down the plate to pour them both some wine. If Ro didn’t want hers, she would drink it. “I have five. One lives in Boca. She has a ’Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ thing going on with her third husband, and I think it’s working for her.” She shrugged and bit into an egg roll, and immediately began waving her hand in front of her mouth. Hot. The blonde washed it down with some Pinot.
“Are you from Vegas?”
Ro did want hers and she raised her glass to Shelly. "No, I was passing through and decided to stay. I'm from," she paused to sip her wine, "whatever the equivalent of boarding school is."
Ro stretched out her legs, crossing her ankles. "And you? How did you get into your hard knock life? Is that what you're asking? You're a pro, you handle yourself well."
Shelly’s gaze drifted between Ro’s face and the television. The movie was ’the Birds’, and it was currently on the scene where Tippi Hedren and all the children come pouring out of the schoolhouse, chased by a group of the title avians. “You were born in a boarding school?” the blonde asked before depositing some noodles into her mouth.
“Thank you, I do handle myself well, and I appreciate the recognition,” she told Ro with a pleased smile. “As for how I go into it…it’s a very long story. A little Holly Golightly, maybe a dash of Janet Leigh from Psycho, but without the shower murder.”
Ro let out a laugh. "How old are you? Are you sure you're not a haunted doll? Do you have any references that aren't," as old as I am, "sixty years old?"
Shelly gestured with her glass. “I’ve decided to cultivate an air of mystery and refrain from telling people my age,” she informed Ro. “But the classics are a classic for a reason. They endure.” She didn’t need to talk about her bizarre love for very modern reality shows at that particular moment.
“Do you remember any movies from 2012? One that really moved you, or changed your life?” the blonde continued, picking up steam. “Or one that helped you escape.” She looked back at the television. Tippi had found her phone booth. Shelly cleared her throat and turned her attention back to Ro.
“Whenever I’m lonely, I can visit all my friends in one place,” she finished briskly, before getting to her feet and taking her plate and fork to the kitchen. “Anyway. Business.”
Ro tried to remember what she'd been doing in the early 2010s. Had she finished her yacht phase and started establishing Arrow as her identity? If not then nearly. "That's a romantic way of looking at it. But yes, business. Why don’t you explain what you're intending?"
“Revenge.” Shelly gave Ro a brief but wicked smile as she returned to the sofa and got comfortable. She tucked her feet beneath her, Essie’s ‘Ballet Slipper’ adorning her toes, the pale sheeny pink catching the light. “Not for me, but for a friend.”
"Decent reason to do something but it can get messy, especially when it includes outsiders," Ro said. "Mess could come my way and it's not my revenge. Why should I get involved?"
The blonde grabbed the remote control and switched off the television. “Because the person we’d be getting revenge on is absolutely loaded, and part of the plan is to drain him dry.” Shelly paused for effect, curling a lock of hair around her finger, then letting it spring free.
“We split it, 50/50. We’re talking 100,000 each, easily.” She had done the math, it was on a notepad resting on the coffee table.
Ro's eyebrows came up. "That's not nothing. This is the guy from the house? What'd he do?"
“No,” Shelly replied, suddenly unusually subdued. Her gaze fell away from Ro. She pretended to be interested in her fingernails. “The guy in the house is how we get to this guy,” she answered. “He was just a rung on the ladder who happens to work for one of the largest real estate developers in Nevada.”
She let her hand drop onto her lap and looked up at Ro. “He played my friend. Told her he was divorced and looking to start over. She fell for him, and he broke her heart. It’s a story as old as time, but still a potent one.”
Ro shrugged. That was the kind that happened. "Not my kind of revenge but for that kind of money, why not." She paused, sucking on her teeth. "He's not mob connected or something crazy like that, is he?"
“Mm, no, nothing like that. His business dealings seem to be above board, sadly,” Shelly answered with a shrug. “So if revenge isn’t your bag, what exactly is your thing? It has to be more than sleeping with randos and robbing them afterward.” She picked up her glass and tipped it back, not even pretending to care about the notes or bouquet or whatever. “There has to be something else.” The blonde gave Ro a shrewd look, trying to suss her out.
Shelly was obviously good at reading people, no wonder she did well in this business. "Do I need more backstory than that? That's basically it. I bore easily. I was doing something else and it didn't work so now I'm doing this again."
“I don’t need your backstory, but a little information goes a long way toward building my confidence,” Shelly replied smoothly. She topped them both off with the rest of the wine and grabbed a crab rangoon. “How do I know you won’t try to split when the going gets tough? How do I know you won’t rat me out? There are a lot of variables that go into a thing like this, and I’ve been burned before.” Her gaze dropped to the rug beneath the couch and table. It was a new one, not a trace of dead rich guy blood to be found, but the mental image was still clear as day.
"I'm not a rat." Ro gestured with a chopstick for emphasis. "Believe me, there's nothing I have to gain by getting police involved." She considered. "I recently literally got screwed by someone else's problems. It set me back. I have ground to make up."
“Oh, Ro,” Shelly smiled. “The police are the least of my worries.” She put the half-eaten rangoon on her plate and bussed it over to the kitchen before washing her hands in the sink with some dish soap. The gears were turning in her head. Perhaps there was a litmus test, something she could say to get the cagey other woman to level with her. The blonde returned to the living room. “There are far more dangerous things out there to contend with.” She sat back down and crossed her legs demurely. “But you probably know that.”
"I'm not a big fan of the Russian mob," Ro offered. "They're kind of on my shit list."
But still very much human. Well, maybe. Shelly wondered if vampires were interested in organized crime. They would certainly be good at it. “Right, well...I don’t involve myself in things like that,” she assured Ro. Not knowingly, at least, but that part didn’t need to be stated out loud. “So, are you in?”
And out and in and out and in, Ro's mind supplied. She busied herself with her food. Focus. No need to get ridiculous. She didn't even sense any attraction her way from Shelly. Ro was simply bad at serious conversations without something to focus her mind on. "I'm in," she agreed.
“Good.” Shelly looked around awkwardly. Once that was done, the conversation seemed to fizzle out. She picked at some imaginary lint on her pajama pants. Of course there wasn’t real lint, they were dry clean only. Faux silk, very Myrna Loy. Not enough people appreciated her visual references. “So…” She tapped her fingers against her knee. “Is Arrow like a family name? It’s very unique.”
"I'm a unique person." She didn't explain she had picked it herself. Someone as good at people as Shelly should pick that up. "You've been asking about me, but what about you, hmm? How'd you wind up doing this? Femme fatale's aren't what they used to be."
What kind of answer was that? “Are you now?” Shelly resettled on the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her. “Well, let’s see…” She flicked her eyes upward and tapped her fingers against her knee. “I guess it started at boarding school. No, wait. That’s your life, apparently.”
"So suspicious." Ro stretched her legs out in front of her. "I don't know why. You've told me about as much as I've told you."
“Really?” Shelly asked, the corner of her mouth turning up. “You know my real name and where I live. Something I try to keep on the low, by the way. So I think I’ve got you beat.” She held up her thumb and index finger about an inch apart from each other. “By like this much. But it’s fine. All I need to know is if you’re a flake or not. So we’ll do a trial run.”
"It says Arrow on my driver's license, if that makes you feel any better?" Ro shrugged. "I'm good at getting people to let me into their private spaces. Homes, condos, hotel rooms, that kind of thing."
“I have like five different driver’s licenses,” Shelly grinned, twirling a long blonde lock of hair around her finger. “But yeah. Let’s test this out. I’ll think of something and text you.”
"That's fair," Ro agreed. "Looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Dolly."