makeyourownluck (makeyourownluck) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-09-25 23:56:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | hugo reyes, merrill |
Who: Hurley and Merrill
What: Random meeting - Hurley’s new in town
When: August 31st, 2013
Where Target
Rating: Low, just a friendly conversation
Status: Closed
Hurley Reyes gawked as he pushed the red cart down the brightly lit aisle. There was so much stuff. Any and everything one could think of and even stuff Hurley didn’t know he needed neatly lined each aisle. He’d never been to a Target this big, and really wasn’t sure where to start. Sure, he and his mom had packed up everything they owned from Miami and brought it with them, but the big house they now lived in made it seem like they owned next to nothing. It was a big change from the small house in the neighborhood he’d grown up in.
Hurley dug a hand into his side pocket and pulled out the crumbled list his mother had written down for him. Since this place also had food, he could also do the grocery shopping.
“Okay,” he muttered to himself, as he pushed the cart slowly along. “Shaving cream, deodorant, orange juice, blah blah blah….plantains? Yeah, ma, I don’t think this place has plantains.” He scanned down the list only to stop short as he suddenly heard a “Hey, watch it!” from in front of him. Hurley had been so busy looking at the list he hadn’t realized he’d nearly mowed down a person checking out some clothing at the edge of the aisle.
“Oh dude, sorry. Sorry.” Hurley said, flushing a little with embarrassment. He wheeled the cart away and pressed on.
At the edge of the clothing section he found socks, boxers, and jeans. Hurley wanted to roll his eyes; his mother made the list like he was going to school or something. He plucked some of each and tossed them into the cart. She had insisted on coming but Hurley had argued he was a grown man that could do the shopping on his own. Of which his mother had shot back if he was a grown man he’d have a woman by now that could do the shopping for him, one that wouldn’t break down and buy bags of chips and boxes of the newly reintroduced Twinkies.
Speaking of which…
“Twinkies,” Hurley muttered, eyes twinkling at the thought. It’d been torture waiting for those stupid little yellow cakes to come out again, and rumor had it Target and a lot of other stores had restocked on the stuff when the initial batch had sold out.
He pushed his cart a little faster, when he was distracted by something: a few feet away, where the clothing ended and back-to-school supplies started, stood a small section of music. Hurley ‘parked’ his cart off to the side and started flipping through the CDs.
Merrill's cart was nearly full of school supplies. Markers, crayons, plenty of notebooks and folders. Not to mention boxes of tissues, which took up much of the space. She had several of the requirement lists from different classes at her school, and was trying to keep track. In the front of the cart sat a baby, who was cooing up at Merrill and playing happily with a brightly colored cardboard pencil box. Both mother and child sported curiously pointed ears.
"I can't remember where we found those," Merrill murmured, mostly to herself. They'd reached the end of the crowded school supplies section for the third time now, and she was lost. There had to be more in here, somewhere!
Hurley plucked a CD from the $5.99 section. "Sweet, Drive Shaft!" He exclaimed to himself and flipped to the back to scan the tracks. He'd lost his copy in the move over. It'd been autographed and everything which only made the loss hurt the more. Totally excited on his find, he shuffled back towards his cart, happily singing to himself in a falsetto he could barely hit, the chorus to "You all Everybody."
"You alll everybody. You all everybody! Acting like you're stupid people, wearing expensive clothes." He stopped short, startled, when he heard a baby squeal next to him.
Merrill turned back to her son, looking for the source of his excitement. She was worried he'd found something from the shelves and grabbed it. This was his first real shopping trip, and Merrill didn't want to overstay her son's stamina. It would be naptime before too long.
She looked up at the startled man, realizing what must've happened. "Oh, sorry," she said, pulling one of Sam's toys out of her purse to distract the baby with. "Don't mind him."
Hurley at first had been startled out of his singing, and then distracted by the baby’s curiously pointy ears. And then the baby’s mother’s curiously pointed ears. And her beauty. He blinked stupidly, and then realizing the embarrassment of being caught singing aloud in public, started to fidget, fiddling with the CD. “Oh uh, no problem. Miss. I just…” he held up the album. “Favorite band. Drive Shaft.” He looked down at the baby, who was grinning up at him when he wasn’t looking at his toy. “He’s adorable. I love kids. I mean, I don’t have any, but for some reason babies always like me. Probably explains why I was always asked to watch my cousin’s kids.” And he was babbling to a complete stranger. Great.
“I’m Hurley. Just moved into the neighborhood.” and he stuck a hand out. It was in the big guy’s nature to be extremely friendly without much reservation.
"Thank you," Merrill smiled, happy to see her son so amused. "His name is Samwise." She didn't have much reservation, either, when it came to meeting new people. She reached out to shake his hand. "I'm Merrill. Are you liking the area so far?"
"Driveshaft? I don't think I've heard of them." Her voice had an odd lilt to it, a hard-to-place accent. "Wait.. Can I see that?" she asked, tilting her head as she looked at the CD.
"Merrill. Cool. Heya, Sam!" And Hurley's big, wide frame stooped a moment to be more eye level with the infant as he waved.
"Town's cool. Big change from Miami. Big." When she asked about the CD, he looked a little surprised. Didn’t seem like the kind of music she’d listen to; it was that kind of Brit Rock stuff that he figured mostly guys were into. “Oh yeah, sure.” And he handed her the CD.
The baby squealed excitedly again, reaching out for the man's curly hair. Merrill moved quickly to intercept, looping her fingers playfully around her son's. There was a reason she wore her long hair back in a ponytail now.
She pointed to the cover of the CD Hurley had been holding. "I think he played at my wedding. He's a friend of a friend."
"Wait, your friend of a friend is the bass for Drive Shaft? Seriously? I mean that's Charlie Pace, man! That's like having Steven Tyler on speedial, dude. That's awesome!" He was totally fanboying but couldn't help himself.
Merrill nodded, smiling. "I think so. Was he the one that painted Obi's car pink?" she asked herself, tilting her head. She hadn't been there for the event, but it didn't seem like something Loras would do. "I don't know him very well, but I've met him a few times."
Hurley wasn't sure who Obi was, only Obi he knew was a Jedi from the Star Wars movies. Maybe it was a nickname. Or maybe the guys parents were one of those kinds of Star Wars fans.
"You met him? What's he like? I only sorta met him at one of his concerts in Miami. He signed my cd." He wiggled the CD. "You know, the one I lost when we moved. Of course."
"We haven't talked much," she said, trying to remember back. "He seemed nice. Down to Earth. I had no idea he was so popular."
"Cool." Hurley was wide eyed with excitement. "Yeah they were an awesome rock band. Till they broke up. His brother Liam was in deep with uh, D.R.U.G.S." He didn't want to say it in front of the baby. "But yeah, great rock music."
He suddenly remembered his abandoned cart and looked at his with the boxers and jeans and suddenly was mortified and then hers with hordes of school supplies. "Wow, uh...really smart baby?" He pointed at the supplies in confusion.
"Oh," Merrill was a little amused. She doubted that, at four months, Sam would have been scarred by the word 'drugs'.
She laughed, shaking her head. "Well, he is, but these are for my school. I'm a teacher, I wanted to help out a little."
“Oh! Cool, cool.” His brow scrunched a moment as he studied the pile. “Didn’t know teachers bought that much stuff for the kids.” Noticing the list in her hands that was mostly scratched off, and where she was in relation to the school supplies aisle, it looked like Merrill was having trouble finding some of her supplies. “Do you need any help? I uh, I’m good on this side of the store, everything else is groceries n’ stuff.”
"Not always, but I had some extra money this year." She looked from her list to her cart. "Well, I picked up three of these," she reached for a pencil case in her cart to show him. "But I probably need to get a few more, and I lost where I found them." That sentence didn't quite make sense, did it?
“Oh, pencil cases? Sure. I could help you find those. I’m like a bloodhound with school supplies.” Okay not really, but Hurley oftentimes blurted things out before thinking them out fully. He grabbed his cart and headed towards the school supplies aisle to help Merrill find her missing pencil cases. “Hmm...lessee, colored pencils? No. Notebooks, no. Backpacks, no…” She was right, this was kinda crazy. People had combed through the aisles and left some of them jumbled messes. “Geeze, I think the Target people need a lesson on how to tidy up the aisles.”
"Oh, I'm sure it's just a busy time for them," she said, following him down the aisle. "As soon as they straighten up, I'm sure shoppers come through and move things around again." Merrill had a bit of experience with that, teaching third grade. "Especially when children are involved," she said, smiling. To illustrate his mother's point, Samwise dropped a box of crayons on the floor. "Yes, just like that," she said, laughing and bending down to pick it up.
Hurley looked back in time to see Samwise's demonstration and smiled. And then his eyes lit up and he pointed to the left of Merrill. "Pencil cases!" They were hidden behind a pink Dora backpack someone had shoved onto the shelf. From Hurley's vantage point he could see them though from Merrill's it wasn't so obvious, which is why he'd blown past the place.
Hurley walked over and started to pull the backpack away to show her when he realized too late it was the only thing keeping most of the jammed up cases in place. Before he could stop it, a waterfall of colorful transparent pencil cases went cascading to the floor in a momentary raucous clatter of plastic around their feet. "Oh. Great ." He mumbled to himself. Hurley was more than well aware he could be a clutz sometimes.
Merrill laughed; not a cruel, mocking laugh, but the same gentle chuckle she'd given her son when he dropped the crayons. A laugh to lighten the mood, and let the person know they hadn't done anything wrong. Merrill bent down to help pick up the pencil cases while still keeping one eye on Samwise. "Thank you for finding these! I don't think I would have seen them."
"Oh, no problem." He said, glad for once he wasn't being laughed at. She was very nice and already Hurley was glad to have met Merrill. "Like I said, bloodhow-ow ow!" And he winced and stopped helping pick up the cases; in the process of stooping down, Hurley had made the mistake of crouching near Sam, and quick as lightning little fingers had found purchase on his fuzzy mane of brown curly hair. "Little dude..wait..wait...ow ." Hurley looked at Merrill with a painful expression but he was laughing at the same time, because it wasn't like this was his first experience, and really he should have known better.
"Oh!" Merrill dropped the cases she'd been picking up and reached for one of Samwise's toys to distract him with. "Look-look-look, let's let go," she called to her son in a sing-song voice. Sam grabbed the rattle with both hands, releasing Hurley's curls in the process.
"I'm so sorry," she said to Hurley once her son was occupied with his noisy toy. "Are you all right?"
Hurley laughed good naturedly. "Nah, I'm fine. Not the first time." He turned to Samwise and grinned. "Definitely not the first time for Uncle Hurley."
He went back to picking up the cases until his big arms were full. "So uh, how many did you need?"
Merrill was relieved. She liked to think her baby was relatively well-behaved in public, but some people were very judgmental. She was glad to find that Hurley was understanding. "You must be a good babysitter," she commented.
"Oh, five or six, I think." A few for the classroom, a few for children who needed them.
Hurley had about twenty in his arms. “Oh okay,” and carefully he dumped six into the cart, then went back to the shelf and tried to dump the rest back where they’d come from. Most made it, but a few slid back to the ground with a clatter. “Gah,” he muttered and picked them up before placing them back. He could hear behind him Samwise was amused.
“Okay, mission completed. Got the pencil cases.” he said when done, huffing a little from the exertion.
Merrill moved to help him pick up the last few. "Thank you, Hurley!" Merrill said, straightening back up and smiling brightly. "I'm sure I wouldn't have found these without your help."
“It’s no problem.” He pushed back part of his curly mass of hair that had fallen into his face. He glanced back at where he left his cart. “Well uh, I better get going. Got a lotta shopping to do. But uh, I guess I’ll see you around? Are you on like, Facebook or some online thing? I’m still trying to find a social network thingie for this area.”
"Oh, I'm not on facebook, but you can check out Valarnet! It's a little different, but the people are friendly there! You might even run into the man from that band." She smiled brightly.
The chance to run into Charlie Pace online? Both eyebrows went up at that, but then Hurley shrugged a little as if it were no big deal. “Cool. Valarnet. I’ll check it out. It’s was cool helping you shop n’ stuff, Merrill.” He turned to Samwise as he headed back to his cart, “Stay cool, little man!” And he waved and went back to his shopping, one and a half friends the richer.