The Bauer/Douglas Family (bauerandcompany) wrote in weddedto_sonora, @ 2013-10-21 14:44:00 |
|
|||
Current mood: | energetic |
Connections
Alicia looked one more time over the revised proposal on the table in front of her, looking for anything she might have missed in there, and then said, “Okay, I agree.”
“I agree as well,” said Geraint Crowley, closing his copy of the document they had been working on for two days.
“Then by the power invested in me, I proclaim you husband and wife,” Edward Foxcroft, the chair for the day, said, wearily closing his, too, and drawing a laugh from everyone but Geraint and Alicia, who glared at him. “May you enjoy every happiness assuming the other is screwing you over for so long as you both shall live. The rest of us are going to lunch.”
“I’ll make sure to leak it to your constituency,” Geraint promised him. “Foxcroft Priorities: Lunch Over Legislation.” He spread his hands wide, as though to frame an imaginary newspaper headline.
“Can’t run the country on an empty stomach,” Edward replied easily. He was, she had discovered, almost always laid-back and seemingly blunt, both of which made him seem less with it than he really was. Alicia had still not quite forgiven him or Geraint for week one, or for shutting her pretty firmly, with a few small exceptions when she made it clear she wouldn’t speak for something until they had spoken for something else, out of the dominant alliance all this time.
At least the others were easier to control, and not so sure of themselves. Smarter, too, than they were given credit for; little Jasper had been instrumental to their alliance gaining enough of its ground back for her to even be able to argue with Geraint and Kenneth today, and actually walk away with some of what she – or at least the version of her which appeared in these meetings – had wanted. The big and powerful were always desirable, but they didn’t really want it the way she and Jasper did, the way the underdog always did, so Alicia didn’t see doing well in the program overall with the alliances she had made as an impossibility, though of course, a lot would depend on where they all got switched up to next week.
“Let me guess,” she said to her closest and most open ally so far as she collected her papers and put them back in her satchel. She had decided early on that she could not appear totally alone, as that would be far too suspicious, and Jasper was someone she hoped to cultivate as a long-term contact, rather than just a summer tool. “Ham, turkey, and cheese?”
“Yes,” Jasper said shortly. He always ate the same thing during the coffee break, every day, without fail. Alicia wondered if he thought the excess protein and calcium would help him grow and blend in better or something, as he never seemed to much enjoy it.
“Sounds delightful,” Geraint said behind her, and Alicia turned sharply on her heel to face him. “Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to say, you did really well today, so – well done.”
“And here I’d always heard men dropped the compliments after the wedding,” she said, deciding to risk a little humor. He laughed, and she relaxed. “Thank you, I appreciate it,” she said more seriously, offering her hand. “You did well, too.”
He shook with only the slightest suggestion of a bow. “Yes, well, I try my best,” he said. “I also wanted to ask you – would you two like to join our table today?”
Alicia froze for one second, but then her brain kicked back in. She didn’t look toward her lieutenant, but did silently will him, trust me. She didn’t know that she wouldn’t toss Jasper aside if she thought she really had something better, but she needed him to think otherwise for the moment, especially since, all things being equal, she thought she might do better to stick to her loyalties for at least the next week. Political success, from all she had researched, did really involve a lot of loyalty in the end, with backstabbing only being a last resort. Otherwise, no one would ever trust her and would, accordingly, take her out at the first opportunity, or at best use her as a pawn.
“Ah – sure,” she said, surprised and delighted. “That is – if you don’t mind, Jasper?”
“Not at all,” Jasper said, smiling. It was a truly unsettling look on him. The poor boy really was not pretty at all.
She allowed Geraint to carry her bag, assuming he was up to something and thinking she might as well get something out of it right off the bat. Free labor was a cheap victory, but she would take what she could get until the happy day when she could act like a civilized person and just charm her bags not to reflect the weight of all the books and writing things stuffed into them. “So, how are things with Great-Uncle?” Geraint asked her on the way up.
“Very well,” she said. “He’s a very interesting man, I’ve enjoyed assisting him.”
“He likes your handwriting and your tea,” Geraint informed her, and Alicia laughed.
“Everyone has to have something, I guess,” she said.
“Indeed. Family not least among it. What kind of family do you come from?”
“German,” Alicia said. “My grandfather immigrated around…sometime in the fifties, I think, so we’re very new here.” She had never needed the lie before, in such explicit form, but she had rehearsed it a thousand times, and it flowed smoothly off her tongue, without provoking a trace of guilt. Not with Gerry Crowley, anyway. “My stepfather’s a Douglas, though.”
“The construction family, yes,” Geraint said. “My third cousin Richard had a difficult time with one of them not long ago over a temporary stadium for America versus Germany, actually…odd coincidence.” He frowned slightly, then shook his head, seemingly dismissing the incident. “Or not. Even in a country the size of this one, you can’t help falling over connections every way you look, can you?”
“No,” Alicia agreed, not with any particular pleasure. Connections were good, because connections were how things got done, but for the girl she was or the one she pretended to be, they could be a damn pain sometimes. She was making good ones on her own, she thought, but her family was being singularly unhelpful in setting her up for social or personal or any kind of general success in life with its set. “You really can’t.”
"Unless you don't have any to begin with," he pointed out. "Like the unfortunate Miss Cohn. Have you talked with her at all?"
Alicia thought very quickly. Was he hinting, with the reference to Jessica, that he knew her story was not true, or that he knew she and Jasper had loose control over Jessica? But how would he? So did he think she was stupid enough to team up with someone just because they were a girl? Yes, Edward had gotten the better of her early on, but she had been doing well since then, and had even recovered some of what she'd lost in that initial skirmish. "I can't say I have particularly," she said casually. "But the game's only half-over."
"Very true," he said lightly. "We'll probably all know each other much better by the time it's over."
Alicia gave him her sweetest smile. "I certainly hope so," she said, flicking her eyelids the slightest bit before pushing her hair back behind her ear and looking up again, biting her bottom lip for just one second. Crowley was one she had yet to figure out completely, but today's offer indicated, she thought, a certain level of arrogance, and she wasn't above making him think she found him attractive, within some very strict limits, if it would throw him off his game.