WHO:Emma Frost & Kate Bishop WHEN: January 18th WHERE: Victrola WHAT: Emma's wooing a new investment opportunity, where better to go than a burlesque club. RATING/WARNINGS: None/Low STATUS: Complete
Kate was settling into her job at Victrola. She was excellent at multi-tasking, and she’d been trained better at bartending than she’d realized. The place was running like clockwork; things were washed when they needed to be, everyone put things away in the right place and re-stocked when necessary, and so far the customers had been pretty good. Kate was glad for the income, too. Tips were pretty amazing at the club, so she couldn’t complain.
She was behind the bar wiping down a spill, humming along with the music playing over the speakers.
Emma was all about new things, she rather enjoyed sampling a little bit of everything. And when it came to investments, she was very good at seeking out the best thing to woo a possible client with. Currently she was entertaining a very smart, very cautious young man who had a billion dollar idea and several investors on his tail about giving them the chance to syphon off his future billions.
Unfortunately for them, Emma was much better at reading people. Victrola hadn’t really been open long enough to gain the mainstream press, it had been open just long enough to Emma to be mildly impressed and for her to already gauge that young Mr Anderson had very little experience with women. A burlesque club was just short of taking him to a seedy strip joint -which Emma could and would do if needed- to help enamour him to her.
Leaving the boy with a few of the dancers to stun and awe him, Emma made her way over to the bar, a glance back to see that everything was as it should be with the boy and she was set for a drink or two by her lonesome. Waving down the bartender, Emma offered a smile along with her order, “A dirty martini please.”
Kate saw the wave and headed in that direction, breaking into a warm but not too enthusiastic smile. This was a classy place. She didn’t want to seem too eager. “Coming right up,” Kate replied. That was one of the easier things she knew to make--didn’t take too many ingredients or too much effort. She pulled out the chilled shaker and martini glass and started to fix the drink.
“Are you having a nice night?” Kate asked. Making conversation wasn’t frowned upon, but it wasn’t exactly encouraged. Kate wasn’t the kind of girl to wait to be spoken to first before saying something, though. And it’d been a while since she’d had a customer. She was itching to speak.
Glancing back over at her young companion, Emma gave a soft smile before answering the girl at the bar, “A very nice night.” The sort of night that would likely bring future growth for her company and sneer in the face of all those men’s men who thought her reproductive organs made her weak. The idiots believed her to be just another simpering girl with daddy’s money.
“After all, who doesn’t enjoy mixing business and pleasure successfully?” She might not be here to enjoy the women personally, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate the place well enough. And it wasn’t overly busy either, just enough that you could get lost in the people, but not to the point where there was a fight for the attention of some of the lovely ladies. “How about yourself? Busy?”
“That’s good,” Kate said, giving a nod. Her eyes moved over to the young man that the blonde had been entertaining. She assumed they were business associates of some kind, considering the way they’d been acting around one another. But she didn’t give it too much thought, too much stock. It wasn’t her job to know the clientele--not really. It was her job to know what they wanted to drink, but that was all.
“Oh, it’s been a pretty good night,” Kate replied. She was getting used to her job, and finding she liked it both when it was busy and the time flied, and when she had a chance to laze about just a little. “I’ve been enjoying the view.”
The place was fairly well decorated, stylish but not garish, which Emma appreciated. She liked a classy place. “It’s a rather excellent view.” Clearly the dancers were vetted well, burlesque was decidedly different from stripping, and Emma understood the showmanship so well that it was easy to enjoy the tasteful difference.
Her dear little investment was really enjoying the place that was for sure. Which was Emma’s real hopes for the evening. She didn’t have to like it, but he was meant to. “Of course it will be half and half just now, won’t it? Too new for a large clientèle, new enough to have curiosity piqued.” And that was the charm of new clubs.
“It’s too new to have figured out who the ‘regulars’ will be. But so far it’s been pretty busy. In a few weeks, when the place has calmed down a little, I’m sure we’ll settle into something more routine… but for now I’m enjoying the novelty.” Kate wiped down the counter, then put the rag away into a bowl of sanitizer behind the bar.
“Can I make you anything else this evening?” Kate asked, raising an eyebrow. “Keep an open tab for you?”
“Another martini for me,” because Emma rarely dealt with these places without a drink in her hand, “and a bottle of champagne, two glasses. And I’ll take that tab, please.” The beauty of these sorts of bars was that more attention was paid to keeping the drinkers drinking, and a happy client meant tips.
Since Emma was in no way tight with her money either, she had no problem rewarding good service. “If you can make sure there’s never an empty bottle at my table, I’ll be sure to be exceptionally grateful.”
“You’ve got it.” Kate said, and didn’t waste any time in getting to Emma’s drink. And her eyes twinkled at the notion of keeping the bottles full at the table. “I can definitely do that. I’ll bring your drinks to the table.”