Morningstar Manor

Fin had had a breakfast meeting with his agent. This was a regular thing and pissed him off mightily because he knew damn well the agent wasn't that busy and even when they did have breakfast the man only picked at the food because he was on a perpetual, and unsuccessful diet.

Consequently Fin had pigged out in protest and now needed a little lie down while he digested.

He contemplated the stairs, said, "naaaaah" and went to wait for an elevator.

There were several people around Vine Square going about their business this fine Saturday morning. Nobody would have thought there had been a blizzard only a week ago!

	Andras was wheeling his bike over the Square, talking into his phone as he went. "No, she won't want any fucking promotional items, you fucking moron," he growled. "She's a fucking pro and wants to use stuff she fucking knows. Where the fuck did you get my fucking phone number anyway, you fucking dick, and on a fucking Saturday morning!" He glared at his phone as he disconnected the annoying call. He'd need some coffee now!
	Charlotte was leaving the Auberge just at that moment, having paid up, carrying three dainty shopping bags that screamed of luxury, and looking airily around her. Had the air just turned a shade bluer?
	Cindy was visiting her building site, where the plasterers were putting in an extra shift so everybody could get on with things on Monday. Of course, they were being paid for it, but she still thought it great that they'd give up their Saturday instead of keeping everybody back another day. So she was bringing them several large bags full of Chinese food from those little folding boxes, fresh from a restaurant three blocks down, as a surprise lunch.
	Maude was hesitating in front of the gallery windows. She had had a call from a friend in California, who knew a friend who had a question. Pity Andy wasn't working here any more. So, Maude was pretending to look at the things in the windows while trying to determine who was there.
	Chandika was rather exhausted and made a beeline for the Auberge as well. She'd done lots and lots of Easter shopping. With a Catholic flat-mate, there was an excuse to get a good breakfast for when Bethan came from church, nice dinner, and lots of seasonal candy. You were never too old for hot chocolate with tiny yellow peeps in! But you had to find all the stuff somewhere.
	Ricky was sitting on the base of the bronze angel, smoking a roll-up. It was not discernible as anything but an ordinary roll up, but you could never tell what might be in one of Ricky's roll-ups. He wasn't quite completely happy. Something had gone wrong lately, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
	Sibyl had been browsing the disreputable antiques shop that was still sprawling through several old garages, workshops and commercial storage space in an alley off Vine Square. She was proudly carrying three late 19th century dining chair with their upholstery in an unspeakably vile state. But re-upholstering a chair was one of Sibyl's most familiar tasks; she'd find some nice fabric, pamper the wood a little, and then make them all pretty again. The substance of the chairs was completely sound, so she proudly lugged the apparent ruins across the Square.
	Urquhart was lounging on what was, temporarily, his own doorstep, sipped a coffee he'd fetched from the Auberge, and watched people. By now, he knew where he was going with this contract. Some rumours about the Manors were rather weird, though. Some were quite silly. A few were laugh-out-loud preposterous. One or two were actually worrisome.

[[OOC: Open all weekend and Monday! Say in your tag whom you want!]]

Fin had a coffee and a head full of half digested research about modern teaching methods and a horrible conviction that he should arrange to spend some days in schools to see for himself.

He was working his way up to needing a cookie.

It had been a LONG while since he had done this but he hadn't lost the hang of it.

Charlie hung out in the Mocha, his old maintenance uniform fitting a little better now than it had way back when, with his old tool bag at his feet and a big smile for anyone who passed.

On call again!! So Nick could spend the evening with Seth and Zack and Brendan, and Phil, who was ehausted poor kid, could crawl home to mum and sleep until Monday.

It was quite fun if you knew you wouldn't have to do it too often.

Saturday at 11 am, and the Mocha was really busy. Among them were:

• Andras, who had visitors. One of them was his brother Lajos, in the City again for lawyerly business, even though he no longer kept a flat here; the other was a bloke he brought along to sleep on the sofa, some researcher from Cambridge whose cousin apparently was Ilona's best and most high-strung graphics designer, here to briefly consult something arcane that was kept at Rutherford. Andras had no hope of even understanding what it was, except that it was Historical; so the bloke was most likely a historian, right? Funnily, though, he was from the same area of Old Blighty originally where Charlie had that farm Andras visited once; so there was something to talk about, at least.
• Charlotte James, who had just been to an early morning visit to the new spa, and was discussing the relative merits of that versus the Michael's Brothers spa with Maude Temminck (whose character had much improved, Charlotte thought, since she was widowed, dried out, and had a grandkid) while her son Manny was sitting peacefully by, as if the chatter of women was no more meaningful than the waves of the ocean, and just as calming. On his lap, little Morgan Temminck was fast asleep. Theoretically, he was waiting for his wife, but Charlotte got the impression that he was content to just sit there.
• Cindy was sitting a few tables on (having said hello to Charlotte and her lot, but still uneasy about the Temmincks, so she hadn't joined them), talking to the Indian woman, Chandika, and her adorable kid whose dog Hanu was most likely the illegitimate son of Axminster, but nobody minded any more, not even the owner of the mother, because Hanu was such a great dog, and while not pedigree, still an indubitable lurcher. They were talking about spas as well -- in particular, the one where Chandika worked. Cindy was very cautiously trying to work out whether it would be all right for her to go there, and Chandika was doing her best to gently reassure her that of course it was. The dogs were both under the table in classic Axminster pose, fast asleep.
  
• Ricky had his earbuds in, surfing MySpace on his netbook; he was sharing his table with some tall stranger with lanky hair and a large nose who was also working away at his notebook -- a rather larger and posher one. They were both drinking chai latte, and any attentive observer might have realised that they were each drinking distractedly from both cups and totally not noticing. Unless one of them had the swine flu, it probably didn't matter.
• By the door to the conservatory, two ghosts were lurking, mostly unseen by the rest of the Mocha. "Just listen to them!" Marek was saying. "They're totally superficial! All they ever talk about are spas." Manny shrugged. "I've spent my life talking about business; spas are a nice break. And I don't like women for their conversation, you know. More for their curves." Marek laughed.

[[OOC: Brief visit of Lajos Toth and Edgar Cobham to justify the icon and make sure that all twelve are really there!]]

It was Saturday morning, and around the ground floor and basement, people were busy:

• Chandika was looking around the place that was going to be the creche, admiring the colours and furniture, trailing the smell of coffee, from the cappuccino in her hand;
• Ricky was in the conservatory, drinking tea, but still smelling slightly of last night's hemp smoke;
• Manny was in the lobby, home from his morning run with a bright, sportsy push-pram, still hopping as he waited by the elevators, a faint smell of used diapers coming from the pram if you bent over little Morgan, who was fast asleep in there;
• Charlotte was just entering by the grand doors, having been shopping already, the scent of mixed perfume testers coming from the small but exquisite Michaels Brothers bag dangling from her hand;
• Cindy was in the first elevator that stopped and opened, with her dog and in a marathon-class racing wheelchair, leaving a scent of citrus shampoo as she cheerfully left for her morning run;
• Marek was in the ballroom, going through classical exercises at furious speed, smelling of nothing but the dust motes moving through him, undisturbed;
• and Ashley was in the library, looking at art books and loving the scent of old books in the morning.

Stone was bored. He'd taken the day off from working since he'd finished his paperwork for the week the dsy before. He'd planned on taking Poe to lunch but she'd said she had class and then some club meeting. He'd sent Lara a couple of texts but figured she was busy and he had no idea where Lis might be.

All of this amounted to the reason that Stone had hooked Slate up into the little blue harness leash that Poe or Lis he didn't know which, had gotten for him to bring him outside. He took the growth stunted kitten out to the garden to play around in the grass since it was nice out. Eventually, Stone sat down in a patch of grass and hookes the leash around his ankle. He kept an eye on Slate as the cat chased around a particularly extra fluttery butterfly.

He was on the desk today. The bruising on his face was all but gone, the only thing left a slight mark on his lip where the cut was nearly healed. He'd done the schedule for the next few weeks, gone over some reports, looked over the paperwork for the Memorial Day BBQ - basically done all the work he had. And he still had a few hours until his shift ended.

So he sat, sipping a cup of coffee and watching the people come and go through the lobby. And tried not to think about Elspeth talking to the new guy.

There was a soft purrt and something rubbed against his leg and then Isis, his Siamese, jumped up onto the desk and demanded attention. Jason smiled and scratched her behind the ears.

"And what trouble have you been getting into I wonder," he said softly and Isis just ignored him and proceeded to wash a paw.

There was a baby in the Mocha, with her grandmother, and that drew people -- especially those of a female persuasion.

Charlotte usually preferred the company of her cats to lots of noisy kids, but the occasional adorable little lady didn't come amiss.

Cindy was a bit shy, but the baby was interested in Axminster (and he in the baby), so she had come over to prevent trouble, and just hung around when the dog sprawled in his eponymous way on the floor.

Chandika was chatting eagerly -- she was called in for an interview, for the job she'd applied for! And she really wanted that job, so totally down her alley. And the day care facility was the best idea ever, and a godsent at this point in time, really encouraging her to go out and get that job. And Maude was really in on it? Cooooooool!

Maude sat, holding Morgan on her lap, and was surprisingly happy.

By the main door, positioned so that he can see and smell everybody coming and going without them quite having to stumble over him if they are careful, was a large brindled greyhound. He was sprawling very flat, and guarding a very grubby toy that might have been a teddy bear, once.

Nearby, there was a small white-and-tabby cat, licking his paws in perfect innocence. He would never ever try to steal anybody's toys.

Their mistresses might be having coffee in the Mocha together, and chatting about all the recent newcomers.-

While Charlotte was chatting to Frank the security guard, catching up gossip as much as doling it out, two or her cats -- Faun and Sooty -- were running wild in the lobby.

They had got hold of a balled-up piece of tinfoil (somebody had given up on their UFO cult, maybe?), and were battling each other fiercely all over the place for it, jumping over sofas and running right between people's feet.

Emma and Emily had worked hard to make sure the apartment was ready, food laid out and some suitably upbeat music playing a lot quieter than earlier was on the stereo courtesy of Emma's playlisting and her iPod. Before anyone else was due to arrive, Emma had dithered on how to get Ang and Alec here, finally deciding just to do what worked best normally. So she rang them up and invited them to tea, for about 4.30 would be nice, and no, they didn't need to bring anything. Emma got the feeling Alec was suspicious, these invites were not that common after all, and usually involved Emma wanting something..... She chuckled, he was in for a suprise!

Anyway, at four o'clock Emma opened her door, and removed the "Shhhhh" sign, before leaving it wedged open and heading back into the apartment. Emily had gone back upstairs to change, and Emma had already put a clean top and jeans on. She fiddled with the sheeting covering the painting, she wasn't sure again, but told herself firmly that it was finished, she wasn't playing with it any more.... No, she was not. Luckily just then she heard voices and went to say hello to the guests!

On Tuesday morning - if 10:30 can be called morning - Emily arrived to the Mocha in her blue jeans and black shirt that showed a tactful bit of bosom. It looked like she could barely wait her turn in the queue, but when it finally was her turn she ordered her usual, a cappuccino, and demanded about the local morning paper.

"Hmh. Here you go. You were in it," Joy pointed out solemnly as she handed her the newspaper.

Emily grinned knowingly at her, and took the paper and the cappuccino to a window table. As soon as she was sat down she began searching the paper for the article about last night.

Andy carried the tray across and put it on their chosen table and began to transfer cups and jugs and the tea pot.

"The barista says she'll bring the scones across as soon as they are ready," she said, then sat with a sigh.

"Okay?" she said, sliding the tray under her seat.

At six in the evening, this Wednesday,

• Andras was taking pictures of leaves in the conservatory,
• Lajos was having a pint in the Lamb,
• Charlotte was having coffee in the Mocha
• Marek and Manny were trying to scare pigeons on the roof
• Cindy was arguing with a delivery man in the lobby
• Chandika was enjoying a family-free evening in the hot tub
• Ashley was lingering vaguely in the ballroom
• Maude was browsing suspense novels in the library.

[[OOC: Mun finally has internet at home again and celebrates in this way -- tell me in your tag who you want!]]