Kayla Hart (kanaha) wrote in nearside_rpg, @ 2010-01-07 17:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: kayla hart, character: sam west, location: madame blueberry's, player: christina, player: zanne, status: complete |
Who: Kayla and Sam
When: January 7, 2010
Where: Madame Blueberry's
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Swearing, as always with Kayla.
Summary: Kayla happens to be working when Sam comes in to shop.
Kayla was bored out of her freaking mind, a common affliction when she was working. Not many people stopped by Madame Blueberry's and those who did tended to just look around before drifting back outside into the cold January air. Her job didn't often require any sort of effort, as she usually sat behind the cash register, answering questions when needed. Of course when Madame Blueberry was around, Kayla was more often than not forced into a costume designated for the employees to try and attract business. Not that she did much good at that, with how much she scowled. Kayla just assumed the old bat got a kick out of forcing her employees to do uncomfortable things.
Luckily today, Kayla had the shop to herself for her shift and no one had yet to come in and bother her too much. One elderly couple came in with a teenage girl who wanted to look "different" for school, so Kayla pointed her toward some bins of costume jewelry and retro shirts, trying not to snort. Leave it to a teenager to work so hard at being different, when she'd just end up acting like everyone else anyway, though talking about how original she was.
Kayla definitively didn't miss high school and all the drama that went with it. From what she had seen of college during her semester there, it hadn't looked much better, with people just drinking and sleeping around more openly. Yeah, no thanks. She'd rather spend her days staring at molding old costumes (not that they were actually molded, of course), being bored out her mind.
"Booooooooored," she complained, idly tapping her pencil against the counter she sat behind. She was halfway tempted to start dressing up herself, just to have something to do. The Cat Woman costume WAS fun. "Snape...Snape...Severus Snape," she began to chant quietly as she kept the rhythm with her pencil. She wasn't much of a Harry Potter fan, but she did enjoy the youtube videos. "Snape...Snape...Severus Snape. DUMBLEDORE!"
Sam hated shopping. Had since he was little and knew he wasn't ever going to get anything good, if he even got anything at all. His philosophy now was pretty much to get in, try it on to make sure it didn't rip when he moved or drag onto the ground, buy it, and get out. Of course, he now had the added bonus of worrying even more about cost. Being thrifty was nothing new to him, but his current situation just brought it to whole new levels.
But he also believed in not looking like a vagrant, and of his three decent work shirts, one was becoming a bit threadbare, and the other had recently acquired a sizable tea stain down the front. No amount of detergent or stain removal crap had got it out. So he'd stopped at the hole in the wall near work after his shift, emptying it of twenty dollars he really couldn't afford to spend, and made his way to the clothing shop that seemed to sell hand-me-downs.
He walked swiftly, trying to keep the cold at bay, as he'd forgotten his gloves and hat, and soon made his way through the door, pausing just inside to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The first thing he noticed was the display of costumes, swiftly followed by a rack of more vintage clothing. He made a slight face, and let his eyes roam the store more thoroughly, looking for the more mundane (and cheaper) selections.
Then, however, his attention was drawn to the counter, where a diminutive girl easily caught his attention with her unusual chanting. His first thought was, of course, that she must be a complete oddball, though he recognised the names she was saying. Growing up in the UK as he had, one would be hard-pressed to be ignorant of them. Which brought on his next thought, that, well, if she was a fan of the Potter series, maybe he wouldn't have to censor his very British speech patterns.
He didn't bother her, however, merely stepped more fully into the shop, where he finally found the selection he was looking for. He started sifting through the shirts on the rack, hoping to find an appropriate work shirt that at least sort of fit.
Kayla started to get into the song, adding in Ron and Hermione's part as well, completely tuning out the tiny jingle of the bell, signaling someone's arrival into the store. As she let out another loud, "Dumbledore!" She happened to look see the man standing in the middle of the shop, going through some clothes. "Shit," she squeaked out, her hand freezing and the pen falling out of her loosened grip. Had he been there for long? Damn, damn, damn.
"Uhhhh...can I help you with anything?" she asked hesitantly, not really wanting to get up to face him, but still needing to do her job. Of all the effing times for someone to walk in the store, it had to be when she was making an ass of herself. Well, at least she hadn't given into temptation and did a little dress up, so she didn't look like an idiot on top of it.
Wow, she was really going to town. He had no idea what the hell the song was about, as he couldn't remember it in any of the movies he'd seen, but he supposed it was one of those things the, er, truly passionate fans might know. Sam was not one of those. He'd read the books, some of them anyway, and seen the first few movies, and knew the basics from general pop culture knowledge. But that was really as far as his interest extended.
He had to smile a little as the song ended and she swore, though he didn't look up from his task until she addressed him directly. "I think I've got it," he said with a smile in her direction. "Thanks though."
He refocussed on his errand, pulling out a shirt or two to check the sizes, holding them up against his chest to see if they'd fit.
Holy shit, he was British. Either he was mocking her for her choice in entertainment and she should be pissed or he was actually British, which would be...well, as if she'd complain about a British guy in the store. She'd read on the journals about some guy who was having problems with American money, so this might very well be the guy. Hmmmmm. Whatever.
She sat up straight in her chair and took hold of her pen, intending to work on the doodle she had started hours before. After managing to draw an impressive tail to the dragon taking shape on the paper, Kayla glanced up to see how the guy was doing. Noticing as he held up a shirt against him, she called out. "If you need to try anything on, the changing rooms are in the back behind the curtains."
He looked up again, surprised at being spoken to, but offering a crooked smile. "Thanks." He checked the tag of the shirt he held, making sure it wasn't more than he was willing to spend, then draped it over his arm. He grabbed another he'd looked at previously, then asked, "Just back there then?"
After receiving an affirmative, Sam made his way through to the back of the shop, where he quickly changed into the first shirt, which ended up pulling much too tightly across his chest. He pulled it off and put it back on the hanger, the lack of a shirt feeling good after having his jacket on in the small shop. He found success, however, in the second shirt, even if the sleeves were a bit too long.
Oh, well. It was . . . He pulled it off again and checked the tag. Six dollars. Not bad, really. He put it back on the hanger as well, then put his own clothes back on and moved back out to the front, jacket draped over his arm. He stopped at the rack to hang up the one he was not buying, then made his way to the counter.
He wished there had been at least one more, but he supposed he'd just have to make do with the older shirt. It might last another month or so.
He offered a polite smile to the shopgirl as he placed his selection on the till.
Kayla was momentarily struck dumb when the guy smiled at her. He was cute, she realized with a start. Kayla didn't think any guy was cute, especially not someone who was so American Eagle-esque, but he was attractive and she THOUGHT he was attractive. Well, shit. The last time she thought a guy was attractive had been when she was fourteen and she remembered clearly how that had worked out. She wondered if the guy still had a crooked nose from when she broke it.
"So...." she trailed off as she logged onto the register to ring up his shirt. She would not act like a total nerd, no matter how he looked. He was a customer and probably a dick, too. "Are you the new guy around Solaris Road? You know...the one complaining about the money?"
Sam's smile dimmed a little as she rang him up. He was just so knackered. Seriously exhausted. He'd never handled stress well, and it seemed he wasn't getting better with age. Though at least he wasn't shouting at people for no good reason. He reached into his pocket, pulling out the twenty . . . That was the twenty, wasn't it? Yes, yes it was.
And then she called him on it. He looked up, surprised, though his confusion cleared when he realised she must be talking about the journals. "Oh. Yeah, that was me." He didn't say anything else, watching, waiting to see if she would mock him.
Perhaps he was growing up. A few years ago, he would have immediately assumed that her comment was meant to be insulting.
Kayla didn't normally openly mock strangers unless they did something stupid and she wasn't mocking this guy. People might assume from the journals that she was naturally bad tempered and bit of a bitch, but that wasn't the case at all. She rarely meant anything behind her more harsh comments and she tried to be at least somewhat polite with strangers. Usually, the more swearing she did at someone and the more she gave them a hard time, the more she liked the person.
Take Elliot for example. She loved the little shit like no tomorrow and he had been her best friend since she was five years old for a reason. She gave him such a hard time as a way to show affection, though in a twisted way. Yes, she called him gay and said he was an idiot, but she didn't really mean what she said. In all honesty, she just liked watching him get so pissed off.
"$6.23," she said after scanning the tag. "Don't worry about the money thing. It'll get easier, believe me. I had just as much trouble in England with the different pound notes, though instead of the lack of color, it was all the color that was confusing." Kayla didn't typically broadcast her adventures, but she had been to England several times with one of her parents over the years. One of her father's offices was centered in London and for several summers, she had spent a few weeks in the UK. How else would she have learned about Dr. Who? "Do you want this in a bag?"
Sam didn't know her from the journals. He tended to forget just how public they really were. It was just a hard habit to break, even as he'd matured, thinking that everyone was mocking you. It was maybe insecure and childish, but that's just the way he was. But as she spoke again, he quickly realised she had only been asking, not teasing.
It was entirely possible Sam's whole face lit up. He was, indeed, quite homesick, even if he didn't realise just how badly so. The thought of speaking of home with someone was just such an excitement all of a sudden!
"Er, yes, please, a bag," he said, pulling himself together. "You've been to the UK?" he asked, his smile and voice exposing his sudden eagerness.
"Uhhhh," Kayla replied stupidly, momentarily forgetting how to speak. That smile should be illegal. She was fine when he was just speaking, but paired with his killer smile? She was only one woman! "Yes?" She couldn't for the life of her remember what she was agreeing to. Concentrating on the conversation and averting her gaze from his face, she thought about what he had asked her.
"Yes," she suddenly burst out. "Yes, I've been to the UK. My dad catalog's the number of endangered critters in the world and the Europe branch is in London." She had also been to England with her mother, but as she didn't particularly like the woman, she chose not to mention that fact. "Have you been in Nearside for long?"
Sam waited, not even noticing the slight gap in response, nor the sudden outburst. He was just too excited to focus on anything but the words and topic. He also caught himself, and reached into his pocket again, extracting the loose change he had. He was trying to practice, after all.
"Really?" he asked, his eyes bright. "That's great!" He reined himself in, trying to take his voice down a notch, knowing how loud he could get. Of course, Americans tended to be louder than the people back home, so maybe they wouldn't notice. "Only two months now. I'm still adjusting."
He chuckled and added, "Obviously," as he peered at the coins in his hand. The three pennies were easy, but eventually he managed to pick out two nickels and a tiny dime. He handed them all to the girl along with the twenty. "Other than the money issues, how did you like it over there?"
Kayla took the money and punched in the total on the register, dumping the change into their proper containers. "Oh, you know," she began, still refusing to look at his face. "The telly was rubbish and the futbol matches I watched were shite." She snorted in laughter at her own lame joke as she expertly pulled out the bills.
"No, it was fine. I like it better than any other place I've been as at least everyone speaks English." She cocked her head, thinking. "More or less," she added after a moment. After meeting people with thick cockney accents who spoke in rhyme, she couldn't say that they spoke English. "I don't remember any of the touristy places I went to, except for the Tower of London, which makes the memories better, I guess."
She handed him his change and got off her chair to put his shirt in a bag. The downside of her height was that the moment she slipped off the stool, the counter was much higher than it had been before. Leave it to Madame Blueberry to have a tall counter with a vast display case underneath showing off the more expensive jewelry and masks. "Are you here for long or is this just a visit?"
Sam laughed along with her, appreciating the humour, especially as she wasn't making fun of the way he spoke, just pointing out the differences. He shook his head then, and said, "I've done the tourist spots before, of course, but mostly as a kid. School trips and the like. Whenever we went into London as a family or whatever, it was to do something, not see the sights. And when I moved there, well. You know how it is. You work, and spend time at the local with your mates, not run around with a camera."
He pocketed his change after carefully counting it (two fives--purple!--and four singles) and looked up again, only to have to look back down all of a sudden to see her. He smiled again, though it was a bit strained now, and said, "I'm here for quite a while, I suppose. I have a lease and all."
"Lucky you," Kayla replied, climbing onto her stool again and handing him his bag. "At least you're not stuck in the middle of nowhere Kentucky in town of two hundred. There's not much to do here, but we do have some stuff." She logged back off of her register. "Just stay away from the comic shop since the manager over there is crazy." Which was the truth, although not the entire truth. "Do you need help with anything else?"
Sam took the bag, and nodded. "I haven't really explored much yet, but yeah. It seems a nice place. But, uh, thanks for the advice, I reckon." He wasn't into comics at all really, so he would easily be able to avoid the mad manager.
"No, I think this is it for now. But how often would you say you get new inventory?"
"We usually get new inventory whenever Blueberry decides it's time to change," Kayla explained, changing back into worker mode. "We also get some stuff here and there that people bring in or you can special order some items, like costumes and stuff like that." With the more retro items, clothes usually arrived only when someone cleaned out their attic or an old relative died.
"If you want to order anything, I can write your name and number down and we'll call you when we get whatever it is in stock." She took a chance and looked him in the eye, nearly melting into a pile of goo when she did so. If she were any other sort of female, she'd be asking to show him around town, but since she was herself and he was mind-numbingly hot, she was happy just to look at him from afar...or whatever, since she was just a counter apart from him.
"Oh, no," he said with a smile for her. "That's quite all right. I'll just come browse every now and again." He had a feeling orders might be a bit more costly, and he certainly didn't want to reserve anything, and then not be able to pay for it when it arrived.
"Thanks though. I reckon I'll see you soon." He sketched a small wave and widened his grin in farewell, then turned to head out the door and back to his flat.
"Yeah, see you...." Man, she hoped so. After watching him leave the store, Kayla sighed deeply and picked up her pen to continue with her drawing. After several minutes and one fire breathing, Elliot eating dragon later, Kayla sighed again. No, she wouldn't mind seeing him again at all. The worst of it all was that he didn't even seem like a dick. Well, that was fucking fantastic.