... (foreverwild) wrote in the_dome, @ 2013-12-03 12:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | 04-15-2017, clementine, clementine and frankie, frankie |
Gossip
Who: Clementine and Frankie
When: Afternoon
Where: Clementine’s
Despite the weather sucking, Frankie was working fairly hard and efficiently throughout the morning. Once she finished, she grabbed a quick bite to eat and then showered, washing the muck and mud from her body. After changing into a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, Frankie pulled on her boots, got her dirty work clothes in the wash and then grabbed an umbrella to head out with a tin canister in her hand. The rain wasn’t as bad as the day before, but it was still miserable outside, and with the power still out, Frankie didn’t want to spend her day holed up in her room, reading or writing by candle light. The crappy weather was at least allowing her to catch up some with the people she knew and liked in the dome. Maggie had cut her hair before, and Frankie had been able to see Gin for a bit before the barn dance. She might have run by the pub to say hi to Lochlan, or any of the O’Reilly’s, really, but with the power out, she figured they were still closed.
So she ended up at Clementine’s, hopping onto the porch and lowering the umbrella so she could knock. She had no idea if Clementine was actually home, but if not, she figured she could just leave the canister in front of the door for her.
Clementine was inside, stoking a low burning fire to try and get more of a punch out of it. At the knock, she looked up and headed to the door with a curiosity. She was surprised to see Frankie at the door but not unhappy judging by the big smile she had on her face. "Hey you! Long time no see! How are you?" She asked, leaning out of the door to hug Frankie and simultaneously start to pull her toward the house. "Come inside, warm up. Let me get you some tea or something."
“Hey!” Frankie was relieved to find Clementine home and she set her umbrella against the house before stepping inside. “Tea sounds pretty fantastic, actually. That’d be great. And I brought you some cookies from the ranch, so…I guess cookies go with tea, right? Although you don’t have to eat them now! Or even share with me, god knows I eat enough of these when I’m home. But here.” She offered the tin out to Clementine before starting to shrug out of her jacket, her eyes shifting to the fire. “Hey, you want some help with that? I can really get it going, if you want. Feels like you need some more heat through here.”
Frankie was so nice. It'd been much too long since she'd seen her friend and she smiled at her and the tin of cookies. "Frankie, you didn't have to do this but thank you! I'm sure they're delicious and cookies go with everything," She said, taking the tin and starting into the kitchen. "So they'll definitely go with tea. Like I wouldn't share the cookies you brought me with you." Peaking her head back out of the kitchen, she looked at the fire. "If you want to, sure! But if not, feel free to just snuggle up under a blanket on the couch and I'll keep trying at it. I don't know that I have the magic touch like you do, though."
She had never been a baker, or even a cook, so she was thankful for Mrs. Haggerty. There were always sweets laying around, and Frankie always enjoyed being able to take them around to her friends. It was only polite to show up on someone's doorstep with a gift in hand, right? Setting her damp jacket aside, Frankie walked over to the fire and knelt down to start moving some of the logs with the fire poker to get the flames burning a bit higher, and hotter. "I don't know that it's magic," Frankie called out, amusement leaving her tone. "More like my dad dressing me up like a boy and taking me camping almost every weekend we had available. Survival knowledge is good for something!"
"Survival knowledge is very good for something," Clementine said, bringing out a tray with a pot of tea on it and the cookies, spread out on a plate as nicely as she could. "But I think I wasn't made so much for survival. I just really lucked out outside of this place." Putting her tray down, she poured Frankie a cup of tea and held it out for her. "The fire looks great! It is magic." Smiling at her friend, she settled down on the couch and pulled her tea closer to her, to warm her hands. "You were working today?"
“Hey, luck is just as good,” Frankie said as she set the poker down and stood, rubbing her hands in front of the fire. “I think anyone who made it here has some sense of survival in them. It doesn’t have to just be being able to build a fire, or hunt food.” She turned back to Clementine and then walked over to sit down beside her on the couch, reaching for her own tea. “I had to work for a bit this morning. Animals still needed tending to. Riley sent most of the staff home yesterday, because of the outage, but the ranch still needs daily work, so I helped out where I could. But we don’t have to talk about that! There’s nothing interesting about me rambling on about hay and manure, especially when we’ve got cookies to eat! So tell me about what you’ve been up to! I feel like I’m missing out on all the fun gossip. Fill me in!”
"Well, I don't know how much of my gossip is all that fun," She answered, shrugging a little as she leaned back and pulled her blanket closer around her. "It's been kind of crazy since I last saw you though." She wasn't all that sure she wanted to get into it, but Frankie was a good friend of hers and it might be nice to get another perspective on it. "Put my foot in my mouth big time here little while ago. I did the best I could to fix it, but it was way wrong of me to do it in the first place. Really, really selfish."
That wasn't something Frankie was expecting to hear and she sipped her tea before frowning. "Selfish isn't a word I would ever use to describe you, so I find that kind of hard to believe. What happened? I mean, if you want to tell me. Believe it or not, I'm a pretty good listener and I'll do my best to give you an unbias opinion." Frankie knew what it was like to stick her foot in her mouth. She generally did it two or three times a day if she wasn't thinking, and sometimes when she was on a tangent, she didn't.
Clementine sighed before she launched into it. "Well, thank you, but I was definitely really selfish this time. I…made this set of rules with a boy and it was wrong of me. He didn't want me to let a vampire feed on me and I decided I didn't want him to go making out with another girl. But it was wrong of me because I think she actually liked him and I shouldn't have done something like that. So I went to take it back and told him that he needed to figure out what he wanted…but then I went to see him this morning. I just don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I keep sending him mixed messages, and with that and what I did to Kenzie…I just feel selfish."
Looking back at Frankie, she tried for a smile. "But really, that's not why you came over here. Let's talk about something else, something nicer."
Frankie held her tea cup tightly, relaxing as it warmed her hands. She studied Clementine as she spoke, occasionally lifting her brows in response. Then she sipped her tea, not quite ready to start rambling about nice things, though there were plenty she could tell Clementine about. Instead, she lowered her cup to her knee. “Well, it sounds like you like him, and I don’t think that’s selfish. If you like him, and he likes you, then that should be good enough. You can’t make yourself unhappy by making everyone else around you happy, does that make sense?” Frankie paused very briefly before continuing, “Let him, whoever he is, figure out what he wants. That doesn’t mean you need to keep from spending time with him. Maybe he needs that to see how amazing you are! And I swear that’s true. Guys are dense, most of the time, and they can’t always see what they have in front of them you know? Don’t feel selfish for having feelings.” She gave Clementine a small smile. “I don’t mind what we talk about. If you have things you need to get off your chest, I say go for it! I really don’t mind if we commiserate about our pathetic love lives. It’s just too bad this is tea and not wine,” she added with a grin as she lifted her cup.
Listening to Frankie's words made it feel like it should be a very easy decision on her part. But it wasn't. She was still concerned with Kenzie's feelings, with Skylar's feelings, with everything. Maybe he did need more time with her to see that she wasn't so bad, but did she want to try and force someone into liking her? Not really. Not if his mind or heart or whatever was elsewhere, ultimately. Sighing, she shrugged. "I don't know, I still think I went about it all wrong. Screwed it up pretty bad. But why are we commiserating both our pathetic love lives? What's going on in yours that makes it pathetic, which I highly doubt is a good way to describe it anyway..."
"Well, you recognize that you screwed it up," Frankie pointed out, "and I'm pretty sure it's not something you meant to do maliciously." Personally, Frankie thought this particular boy was an idiot if he didn't want to be with Clementine, but Frankie also knew she was probably bias. She sipped her tea again and had to lift a hand to keep from dribbling it from her mouth, because Clementine's question made her want to laugh. She shook her head, licked her lips and smiled. "Well, what's going on with mine is that I don't have one! Which maybe makes it pathetic. Or makes me pathetic, I don't know. That's why I'm making the rounds with all my friends so I can poke and prod and live vicariously through their social lives. I haven't really had a lot of time to get out and... date. Although there was some talk of tap dancing with Gin to get one guy's attention, but I think I would have to practice for a few days beforehand and really work on my jazz hands." She lifted one hand to shake it enthusiastically. "Of course, that might just end with me getting thrown in the non-existent loony bin rather than with a date, but hey, you never know! Maybe he likes a woman with moves!"
Clementine giggled at that but ended up shaking her head. "You shouldn't have to dance or jump through hoops to get some guy's attention," She said, shrugging a little. "Whoever he is, he should see you and think, "Damn, what can I do to go on a date with her!" Clem took another sip of her tea and smiled again at her friend. "So, wait, who is this guy?" She did realize that she hadn't mentioned her own guy, so she shifted a little and crossed her legs underneath her. "Tell me yours and I'll name mine."
Frankie threw her head back as she laughed, though she was careful as not to spill her tea in the process. "You know, I think you're right! I think I ought to have a guy tap dancing for me. Oh, if only." She grinned, happy that she had made the choice to come visit Clementine. Her friends were always good for some fun. It was so much better than lounging around in her room and reading. Frankie brushed her hair back from her eyes and felt her cheeks flush. The lowly curse of the redhead... it didn't matter if she was embarrassed, flustered or pleased, her face seemed to always turn pink. "Okay, I think that's fair. But remember that for me, it's just a silly crush. Especially since I'm pretty sure he has no idea I exist, unless I'm blabbering at the end of the bar at him, and even then I think he may be completely zoned out." She lifted her hand upward, like she was shooting off to space. Then she settled and lifted her tea cup to her lips again before wrinkling her nose. "You know Patrick O'Reilly? Yeah, he needs someone tap dancing in his pub, huh? Who's yours?"
"Patrick O'Reilly…" She said, a surprised awe in her tone. She had no idea her friend was interested in him and it made her grin. "You should go talk to him. Every time I see him, he looks grumpy or sad or alone. He's got to be in desperate need of someone! And who better than you!" Clementine said, grinning a little more. "We should go to the pub, go find him."
"I know, right?" Frankie nodded, amused by Clementine's response. "How can anyone resist that grumpy nature? You just want to do something ridiculously stupid to make him smile." She really had no idea if Patrick was in 'desperate' need of anyone, or anything, but she couldn't remember ever seeing him out and about with anyone. Anyone unrelated to him anyway. Frankie parted her lips in surprise at Clementine's suggestion, though it didn't seem like a bad one. "Now? They're probably still closed, with the power outage! And you... you still haven't told me who your guy is." She wondered if the pub was closed, and if it was desperate and pathetic to want to go look.
"If anyone can make him smile, it'd be you," Clementine said, smiling more at her friend. "Well, when they open up again, we'll go and you can go introduce yourself to him." She ran a hand through her hair and shrugged. "So, my guy? Is Skylar," She said, pulling her blanket closer to her as she felt a blush creep on her cheeks.
Frankie wasn’t too sure about that, and she wasn’t even sure she had the balls to introduce herself to Patrick. Well, obviously she didn’t have the balls, but every time she went to the pub, she sat at the end of the bar with a beer, or two, and spent most of the time just trying to think of something to say. And that was a true rarity for Frankie, who always had something to say. Maybe she needed three beers instead of two. “Skylar?” Frankie asked, surprised evident in her eyes. “The greenhouse guy? Really? He’s pretty cute! Have you two gone out or anything?”
"I don't think we've gone out in the traditional sense. We just end up around each other and spend time that way," She said, smiling a little at the thought of it. "But he's not sure what he wants, so I think he needs to figure that out before I do anything more than just seeing him. Shrugging, she looked back at her friend and smiled. "I promise, I'll go to the bar with you and we'll do it right, ok?"
"I think that's all you really need," Frankie said. "Just spend time together. That's how amazing things begin. He's just a guy and most guys don't know what they want. I mean, geez, most people don't know what they want. Just give him some time, especially if he's worth it. And based on that blush, I'm guessing he is." Frankie smiled and reached over to poke Clementine gently. "I think a trip to O'Reilly's together sounds like fun. Not just to oogle Patrick O'Reilly, but to just get out and have a couple drinks and act silly."
Clementine smiled at Frankie when her friend poked her. “I think he is,” She said, shrugging a little bit then leaning back into the couch. “Then we’ll go have a girls’ night sometime at the pub.” Stretching her legs out on the couch, she looked back at the fire with a smile. “I’m glad you came by to see me, Frankie. Let’s do this more often, ok?”
"Absolutely! Anytime. And you can come over to the ranch anytime you want. Riley's housekeeper makes some amazing food and she's always happy to feed guests." Frankie sat back to get comfortable. Despite the crappy weather lately, it had at least allowed Frankie to get out and see a few of her friends. "And make sure you let me know how things go with Skylar. If you need a wing woman, totally let me know! I can so talk you up." Because Clementine deserved to have a great guy in her life and Frankie was always ready to help make that happen.
She smiled a little more and nodded. “Well, thank you kindly,” She said, putting on a Southern accent that wasn’t quite right and just made her laugh a little more. “I’ll stop by the ranch sometime but I’m only eating if someone gives me a chore first.” All in all, today was turning out to be a great day. She had Frankie here, a warm fire, and cookies to share. What more could she want?