InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Moerooo!"

Lia Valencia | Aphrodite (philommeides) wrote in paxletalelogs,
@ 2011-10-23 19:10:00

Entry tags:

aphrodite, loki

Let's go downtown and watch the modern kids...
Who: Lia and Richard
What: A meeting for business! And meeting! Though wonky powers are wonky...
Where: Voltage Coffee & Art
When: October 23, 2011
Warnings: Banter! Wild Mood Swings! Magic!
Notes: We stole the concept for Voltage Coffee & Art directly and shamelessly from here, an awesome place by where I used to live in Cambridge. Just consider it transplanted to Newport for our nefarious porpoises! :D

It had occurred to Lia that one of the positions open at the station was her boss' position. He'd asked her to come with him to New York, where he'd accepted a position that would be a great move for him, but Lia was happy where she was. Between the column being syndicated and the show possibly being picked up as well, it didn't make sense for her to leave, and he knew that. She rather thought that it didn't make sense for him to leave either, but he'd said it was an offer that he couldn't refuse, and that was that. They made plans for lunch on her next visit back east.

In the meantime, she wasn't sure Richard would be qualified for the program manager position, or if he'd even care to apply for it, but Lia was never one to take chances with these matters. As a result, she'd put on just a touch of makeup and a comfortable but flattering sun dress, then made her way to the cafe, which was conveniently walking distance from Pax. It was 4:03 when she arrived, and looked at the small table by the window Richard had mentioned.

Upon seeing him, she gave a little half-smile. He certainly wouldn't be bad to have around the office to look at.

With a fuller smile in place, she walked over to the table.

"Richard?"

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atrickstertype
2011-10-24 12:11 am UTC (link)

When Richard left Pacific Life, he didn't even have to pack a box. The few weeks he had worked there were hardly enough to personalize his office, much less make a real difference in the corporation. At least he hadn't made too big of a name for himself in regards to that job. Somehow, he doubted that he would be able to use it as a reference. In theory, he knew that he should feel bad about how it had ended (a quiet chat with his direct boss had only been the culmination of several larger incidents)but he knew he could spin it well when applying at the next place.

Which, lo and behold, looked like it was going to be a lot easier to find than he had anticipated. His radio career had ended badly more than a decade ago, but he missed it more than he cared to admit, so the post on the Pax message boards had seemed too perfect to be true. That didn't stop him from following up on it. Now here he was, dressed in a nice pair of jeans and his nicest remaining WPEW t-shirt under a suit coat. Not too casual, but not overly professional either, he hoped.

Hearing his name, he looked up from his coffee into a smiling face that was, frankly, far too good looking to be in radio. It was the kind of surprise he could get used to. He set down the coffee and stood, offering his hand and a warm smile. "That's me. You must be Lia? It's a pleasure."

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philommeides
2011-10-24 12:47 am UTC (link)

Slipping her hand into his, the character of her smile shifted to match his, already feeling that all-too-familiar spark that seemed to happen at Pax. Immediately, she found herself wondering who Richard was beneath his skin; him being so new, she was sure he couldn't know yet.

Then she immediately felt discomfited at this line of thought.

Even so, her smile didn't falter, and she gave his hand a little squeeze before she released it.

"Lovely to meet you, Richard." Draping the little wrap she'd brought with her over the back of the chair Richard hadn't been sitting in, she looked up at him. "Should we get in line to get a drink before we get started?"

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atrickstertype
2011-10-24 02:09 am UTC (link)

Hand squeezes? This coffee might go better than he had thought. At her question he chuckled, and replied, motioning towards the large mug he had been drinking from when she walked up. "Well, I beat you to the punch there, I'm afraid. By all means, though, get yourself something. I can wait." He sat back down in his chair, taking a sip from his drink. It wasn't exactly his most charming moment of conversation, but he thought it might be better to be casually polite until they exchanged more than a few words. He didn't want to start out on the wrong foot, especially if he ended up working for this woman.

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philommeides
2011-10-25 01:41 am UTC (link)

It didn't take long for Lia to get her own drink: a quick reach into the cooler for a ginger pear kombucha prevented having to wait for a drink to be made, and as soon as she'd paid for it, she returned to the table where her neighbor waited, and slid into the seat across from his and crossed her legs as she twisted the cap off.

"Thanks for waiting," she said with a smile. "It's nice to meet someone from the building who's in the business, or has been."

She took a sip of her tea.

"So did you just move to the area? You don't seem much like a Californian."

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atrickstertype
2011-10-25 05:29 am UTC (link)

If Richard let himself take in the view a little as Lia went to get her coffee, well, he could hardly be blamed for it. The coffee here was good, and the art was interesting enough, but he found himself more interested in other views. Was everyone in California a super model, or just at the Pax? Where were all of the aging and overweight businessmen, the gangly teenagers with acne, the people over sixty? It wasn't as if he was complaining, but there were moments when California itself started to make him uncomfortable.

Lia's return pulled him from his reverie, and he smiled back. "Don't worry about it," he responded with a matching smile. He took a drink of his coffee, which was as dark and bitter as he could ask for, and at her question looked up with an abashed grin. "Is it that obvious? And here I thought I was blending in so well." Really, he didn't think anything of the kind. It must be pretty obvious how much culture shock he was dealing with.

He chuckled deprecatingly and shrugged a little, setting the mug down. "I'm a recent transplant from the Midwest. Chicago most recently, but before that Michigan and Ohio." He looked at her for a moment, a look of faux-concentration on his face. "I'm guessing you're from around here, originally?" She did sort of look like a native, but he was guessing. She could just as easily have been from Massachusetts, for all he knew.

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philommeides
2011-10-29 04:13 am UTC (link)

Lia shook her head with a half-smile just before taking a sip of the fermented tea. It didn't occur to her to question the beauty that surrounded her as a general rule. She understood the games behind it, the way it worked in the power structure here, and after living in SoCal for so long, she'd become accustomed to being around beautiful people. Part of her still missed the grit of the East Coast, but every time it looked like it might be a good moment to go back, something in the West would keep her lingering.

"No," she said, her smile widening a bit. "I'm from New York originally. But I've lived here ten years now, so I guess I've gone native. As far as how obvious you are, it might be something about inflection or how fast you talk."

She shrugged, her smile turning gamine. "Or maybe it's just a woman's intuition thing."

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atrickstertype
2011-10-30 09:02 pm UTC (link)

"Well, I do have the fabled Midwest non-accent," Richard admitted with a chuckle, pretending for the moment to miss her shift in tone. "It served me well in broadcasting, but I suppose it does single me out here in the West. I would try a Californian accent, but I suspect it would backfire. Unless people actually say 'cowabunga' still?" He took a drink, not really expecting an answer and grinned over his coffee cup. "Besides, I'm sure it will come naturally in time."

"As for intuition, well, maybe that's what it is," Richard said, his smile shifting to match hers. He had never quite gotten what a 'woman's intuition' was supposed to be, besides jumps of logic, but he went on. "I've heard stories about some women's ability to immediately grasp certain things. Ideas. I don't know if I've ever seen it in action, though." That had walked dangerously close to the double entendre line for a first meeting, and he dialed it back a little. "Are you especially intuitive, Lia? What's that like?"

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philommeides
2011-11-03 12:42 am UTC (link)

[sorry this took so long -- crazy week has been crazy]

Lia half-smiled, shaking her head at his question regarding California jargon, but only took a sip of her tea.

As the flavor of his smile changed, hers shifted to almost a smirk, slender fingers tapping on the glass of her bottle. As he spoke, her lips curved even further into the expression, and she shook her head again. His word choice might have been innocent, and in someone else, Lia might not have even noticed -- but she got the strong sense there was nothing innocent about him.

It was interesting.

"I suppose so," she said with a silky shrug and her lingering smile. "I think I get a reasonably good feel for people, at least."

She took another sip of her tea.

"So are you deliberately shifting away from the subject of where you come from, or is how intuitive I am a subject of particular interest?" she asked with a smile that might have been a bit sly.

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atrickstertype
2011-11-05 05:52 am UTC (link)

"Oh, I'm just trying to follow the flow of the conversation," Richard said. It might almost have been mistaken for honesty, if it hadn't been trying so hard to sound earnest. He got the feeling that flirting with Lia would be fun, like a guitar duet between Clapton and B.B. King. Any other time, he would have kept going.

But this was supposed to be a business meeting, wasn't it? It was probably better to wait until that had played out one way or another. There would be plenty of time to flirt once they were working together, and if he didn't get the job, well, there would be even more time then.

Time to shift the topic back, then. "It would be nice to have some idea of how much you can tell about me, though. Then I would know how likely I am to get a good word for that job you mentioned." He shrugged, faking a look of hopelessness. "If you already know all of my horrible secrets, I might as well just give up now."

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philommeides
2011-11-06 08:23 pm UTC (link)

Lia laughed. "If I know all your horrible secrets, Richard, you aren't nearly as interesting as I thought."

It felt like the first rounds in a volley, or maybe the first steps in a dance. It had been a while since she'd had a conversation where everything was deliberate and crafted. The exercise was as fun as she remembered -- but the movement back to their reason for being here was an appropriate one, and reasonable. Besides, it was plausible, with this level of charm, that he could get the position, and this kind of exchange with the boss, while certainly not a bad thing, had to be handled differently than the same with a neighbor.

Setting her bottle down, she said,

"I can tell you that we're looking to fill several positions, one of which is program manager. I'm not sure if your experience would fit to that, but I know where you can send your resume where it'd actually end up in front of someone who could do something with it, instead of being relegated to HR limbo."

She half-smiled.

"Assuming you're not, if you'll pardon the expression, a dick, of course -- since technically, if you got the job, you'd be my boss."

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atrickstertype
2011-11-13 07:11 pm UTC (link)

Richard chuckled and shook his head. "I don't think I'm a dick," he said. "But then, who does? I guess you'll have to judge that for yourself." It wasn't exactly as though he had a signed 'good guy' certificate. Which was a shame, because it sounded like a great prop for situations like this.

Shoot, if it would help him get a job like that, he'd have one drafted up as soon as possible. Program managers were in charge of everything the station played. They hired the jockeys, set the mission statement for the station, sometimes even had their own shows. It was a dream job. And Richard was, well, not exactly qualified for it- his executive radio work looked better on his resume than it had been at the time- but close enough to have a shot. If he could walk out of one job and into something like that? His 20-year-old self would be so proud.

He definitely needed to get on Lia's good side. "I could get you my resume within a day or so... always provided that you approve of me, of course." He grinned, and raised an eyebrow. "Anything I can do to help convince you that I'm not a dick?"

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philommeides
2011-11-14 12:49 am UTC (link)

Lia's grin bordered on a smirk, but there was something too genuinely amused for it to really be called that. She liked this guy, despite her better instincts, which told her that he definitely could not be trusted. But if Lia had learned anything over the course of her time in SoCal and her career, it was that you didn't have to necessarily trust someone to like them.

"Well," she said, "it'd be kind of hard to prove that, wouldn't it? After all, we haven't known each other long, and we haven't slept together, and in my experience, those are the two best ways to determine how much of a secret dick someone is or isn't."

She grinned.

"And since we won't be sleeping together for all sorts of important reasons, and we can't really pack years of a personal relationship into one coffee-tea-business-date, I guess you're going to have to sell me."

That said, she took another sip of tea, and her eyes lit up mischievously.

"I have an idea. Why don't you tell me all your worst qualities; some of the worst things you've done, the most heinous things I can expect from you as a boss and as a human being?"

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atrickstertype
2011-11-15 08:39 pm UTC (link)

At her comment about sleeping together, Richard had actually snorted with laughter with a mouthful of coffee. The brief moment of discomfort that followed as he tried not to shoot coffee out of his nose was almost worth it, just for the extra time it bought him to think of a response to Lia's challenge. It wasn't the first situation like this he had found himself in lately, but in this context the stakes were a lot higher than they had been in the stalled elevator. She was nice enough, and he was having fun, but he was neither desperate nor bored enough to offer potentially damning information to someone who might get him a job.

Still choking a little on the throat full of coffee, he spoke. "You'll have to let me get over my soul-crushing disappointment, first," he said, glancing up at her mournfully. "And second, that's hardly fair, is it? I mean, we've all done bad things in our time. But if all you know about me are the 'worst qualities', well, that's not exactly a balanced picture of the many and varied aspects of my charming personality, is it?"

"Besides, who's to say that I won't be working for you?" he added, tilting his head to the side. "Shouldn't I get at least a little info from you in return?"

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philommeides
2011-11-28 04:36 pm UTC (link)

Her laugh was at once delighted and mischievous.

"I get the distinct impression that you'll have no problem making your best qualities well-known in a very short period of time, and you seem like the kind of man who takes care in cultivating his image and the way he comes across. Though if you want to include a strength for every weakness, that's OK, too."

She took a sip of her tea, then leaned back in her seat. "As for me, I often show up late for meetings, but I'll never miss a show unless it's been planned well in advance. I'm a tenacious negotiator and I'm worth every penny and perk I'm paid -- more, soon, now that we're going into syndication. And I flirt outrageously, though these days, never with the intention of following through."

She smiled.

"But before I ask you what else you want to know, I'm going to need some disclosure on your part."

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atrickstertype
2011-12-02 09:35 pm UTC (link)

Richard's smile was genuine as he leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table and stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Disclosure, eh?" he replied, raising an eyebrow. "Fair enough." He ran down the list of things he could offer, separating what he could say from what he probably shouldn't.

"Well, I was a single child, with all of the minor psychoses that entails. Possibly a bit spoiled in my heyday, but I've quieted down since then." If by 'quieted down' he meant 'gotten less obvious' he knew the statement was completely true.

"I flirt for fun and profit, but only 'follow through' (as you put it) at my discretion. My old boss said I could talk a snake out of its skin and a girl out of my bed, but not always when I meant to." The last was said with a self deprecating grin. There had been one or two incidents when a few hasty words that had ended his assignations badly and suddenly, once in the middle of the work day. That had been towards the end of his time in Chicago.

He rested his hand on one palm, meeting her eyes with a quizzical smile. "Is that enough, or should I go on?"

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