Ray Carver (fearandgloating) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-05-28 20:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | charon, eris |
You keep lyin' when you oughta be truthin'
Who: Carver & BB
What: A confrontation in the mail room
Where: The Pax Letale mail room
When: After Isobel and Carver met in the bar, backdated May 12
Carver waved off the doorman as he wrangled his carryon through the front door, feigning more cheer and energy than he currently felt. Usually travel refreshed him, but this trip had been different: longer and somehow both uninspiring and unrestful. He felt little had been accomplished, towards his own ends or Obed’s, and that cast an even a darker shadow over the dull excursion.
He almost went directly to the elevator because of this; but at the last moment it occurred to him that dealing with the (surely) overflowing contents of his mailbox would be more irritating later, and he might as well just suck it up and deal with it now.
One of the wheels of his trusty rollerbag had taken up a nasty squeak. The high-pitched noise scored his short diversion into the mailroom, announcing his entry like a single warped herald.
BB winced at the sound; dressed in her roller derby gear with knee-high, bright pink kitty socks to finish off the outfit, she wasted no time in rounding on the person she held responsible for the atrocious and ear-splitting sound. Her gaze zeroed in on Carver and his bag, her person entirely uncaring that he looked like he'd just gotten in from a long flight.
"Wow, have you, like, gone deaf?" Junk mail waved from her right hand as she motioned at his luggage. "And now you're, like, visiting that terrible noise on the rest of us, as, like, what, some lame form of consolation? That's absolutely no way to treat your neighbors, you know, I mean, jeez."
“Yeesh, calm your tits. Just needs a little WD-40 is all. Sounds like you could use a little WD-40 too.” Carver cocked an eyebrow, frowning as he looked the spectacle in front of him up and down; then his eyes landed on her kitty socks, and despite himself, he grinned. “Ha, so you’re the one.”
BB's brows came together across her forehead, and she followed his line of sight, glancing down at her socks. One foot came up on a toe as if displaying her calf, but when BB glanced back up, her mouth had not dumped her frown.
"Yeah, they're mine, and I'll thank you (except not) to stop pilfering things that don't belong to you," she replied, her voice righteously indignant. Then her eyes narrowed, and she took a step toward him. "Say, you don't know anything about a ketchup-splattered copy of Shark Night, do you? Or, say, like, a dead officer's police badge? You totally seem like the type to go around hoarding weird stuff..."
Carver looked perplexed, but only for a moment, and then he laughed. “Lady, I’ve learned my lesson, thanks to you. I’ll just leave that shit lying in the stairwell where I found it and stop trying to be all helpful from now on.”
She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest as she half-crushed her mail to her ribcage; BB was no stranger to sarcasm, having used it often and well in her own conversations.
"Seriously, asshole, maybe you ought to think twice before running around in this get up and dragging your, I dunno, mini-hearse around and making people think you're the culprit, OK? I mean, there's been a lot of weird shit happening, maybe actually try to blend in with the nonfreaks??"
Carver just barely swallowed another laugh. “I’m not sure what the nonfreaks are wearing these days, but I’m pretty sure it’s closer to what I’ve got on. You know. Just a guess and all.” He brought his noisy bag to heel, producing another coarse shriek, just to annoy her. “So mind getting out of the way so I can get my mail and stop triggering your paranoid delusions?”
"There is nothing paranoid about me, nor, I'm sure you'll be dreadfully upset to hear, delusional," BB retorted, making no move to clear a path for him. "Just why are you acting like there's nothing wrong with this place, anyway??" She stared at him as if he'd grown another head, her eyes darting toward his bag as if she were wondering whether or not she could snatch it and abscond with it to search its contents for her earlier described pilfered items.
Carver shrugged. He subtly moved himself between BB and his back, seeing the direction of her interest. “Guess I’m not too surprised when the rich and infamous get up to shenanigans the rest of us would be arrested for. Although, I haven’t seen anything that weird. Those mystery presents, maybe…”
BB stared at him as though he'd grown another head.
"Are you shitting me right now?" Her arms dropped to her sides, mail flopping against her leg. "You mean you know nothing about what's been happening here for, like a week?? Have you been living under a rock?!" The last question was punctuated by a step forward, the hand holding the mail rising to point accusingly near Carver's face.
“I’ve been out of town?” Carver gestured at his bag, and barely managed to keep from adding “duh” to the end of his sentence. He also barely managed to resist swatting her hand aside, though his fingers twitched by his side; he didn’t need this crazy lady suing him.
BB glanced at the bag again, deflating slightly as she took a step back, still a small but impassable boulder in his path.
"OK, fine," she admitted. "You win this time. But seriously, just like...watch out, OK? Like...the walls, they do stuff." That was the sentence that finally made BB realize she sounded like Shaggy a la Scooby Doo, and she tried in vain to remember how much pot she'd been smoking. Finally, BB physically waved the worry away with a wave of her mail, putting her arms in a casual loop over her chest as she studied this newcomer with fresh eyes.
"So where yah been? Anyplace interesting?"
“Up and down the coast. And New York. Just business. Checking on job sites. But I like traveling, so I don’t mind.” He contemplated asking her to move out of the way again, hesitating because she seemed to finally have calmed down a bit. “You travel much?”
Her shoulders rolled, a strangely implied shrug. "A little. I'm from D.C., but been out here for a few years. What do you do that needs so much travel?"
“Checking on customers and storefronts. Keeping certain people happy.” He smiled pleasantly, as if demonstrating his work-charm for her. “I’m in the manufacturing and distribution business, and if you don’t want your customers going somewhere else for the goods, you have to keep showing your face around. And you? What do you do?” His cheeks dimpled, mischief flashing in his eyes. “Professional troublemaker?”
"You could say that," she replied, one hand rising to flip her hair over her shoulder in an assertive manner. "Journalist, Thirty Mile Zero. If you play your cards right, maybe you'd be worth an interview -- from where I'm standing, though," she continued, looking Carver up and down with an appraising eye, her upper lip curling slightly in distaste, "hoarder thieves don't usually merit much interest. Now if you did deliver all those weird gifts, we'd have something to talk about." Her eyes lit up as if her offer actually held some weight and might entice him into confessing.
“Afraid I have to disappoint you there too.” Carver shrugged. “Wasn't me. I wasn't even in town at the time. And I'm afraid I don't give interviews, either. Not that, as you say, I'd merit much interest.” He chuckled, weighing again whether she might let him pass at last or not. He decided perhaps she needed a little more softening. “So what sort of mag is Thirty Mile Zero? Sounds like it could be fun reading for a guy on the go like me.”
"You got a phone? Because it's pretty easy to find," she offered, holding out her hand as though he'd give such a device to an otherwise complete stranger. "I've got a whole column to myself, under Brittany Bernard? Some interesting stuff."
Carver almost handed her the phone -- he was tired, and four beers on an empty stomach had hazed his thinking more than he thought. Then he caught on her name, and his eyes narrowed slightly before he turned the suspicion into a smile. “Hey-- you write for TMZ, don’t you?”
BB wilted slightly, outstretched fingers curling into the start of a claw. She overpowered the feeling, keeping a bright smile on her face.
"That's what I said," she chirped, albeit with some slight annoyance. "Why, you read my work before? If you want me to sign something, you only have to ask!"
Carver paused, mouthing Thirty Mile Zero and then TMZ and following it with a wince. He was more tired than he thought. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I have read some of your stuff.” It would have been hard for him to forget Obed’s seething attempt to be calm about TMZ’s drag piece. His grim chuckle was not feigned at all. “Brittany Bernard. In the flesh. In our building. Who would have thought.”
A sense of dread was slowly rising in her gut, like she was facing a celebrity stalker or some other unsavory character.
"Yup," she offered, her smile dimming. "Just trying to keep people informed, you know, about things they should know about. So if you've got anything, you know, I should know, I'm right upstairs. 207.
"Can I ask which piece left such a sour taste in your mouth?" She finally pulled her hand back completely, dropping both to her sides as she struggled to not take a step back.
Carver was sorely tempted to let her have it in Obed’s name, but he had no idea if her restless, volatile personality extended to her pen. He didn’t want to be responsible for any revenge piece she might write about Obed in retaliation. So he shrugged. “Well -- if you want the honest answer,” he said, shading the truth, “that whole celebrity-bashing gossip-rag thing generally isn’t my thing. Sorry.” He held up both hands, trying his best smile to sweeten his unpleasant words.
BB canted her head to the side, like she was evaluating his response and finding it a little on the light side. But she let it go for that instance. "Not everything's for everyone, bud," she grinned in reply, weaving her arms behind her back. Her roller derby outfit was fairly tight fitting, but at least it covered the important places. "And how do you know you won't like something until you try it?"
Suddenly her phone in her pocket buzzed, and BB pulled it out. "Oh shit," she said, eyes flicking from it to the man's face and back. "I've gotta skedaddle, but you know what -- you know what," she repeated, intoning the word like she'd physically underlined it, "I never caught your name. I'd say, sir, you've got me at a disadvantage."
Carver swept away his momentary doubts. They were neighbors, after all; if nothing else, Obed would expect him to play nice. He extended a hand. “Ray Carver, at your service.”
BB took the offered shake with a firm grip of her own, pumping Carver's arm twice before dropping it. Her smile was plastic and wide, and she kept glancing at her phone.
"Great, great to meet'cha. I'm sure we'll see each other around, right? Right, I mean, this place is only so big. But I've got a date with some elbows and roller skates, so you'll have to excuse me this once." She offered him a little wave as she turned, her mail waving with the movement, before the hand clutching her documents fell to her side and she turned to walk away, heading toward the stairs to collect something from her apartment.
Carver watched her go, unable to entirely resist admiring the tight fit of her roller-derby outfit, and then, with a little sigh, finally went to retrieve his now long-awaited mail.