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 Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:18 pm
It was evening at the cafe, which seemed to be open at all hours. Georgina was staring into the milky brown surface of her coffee pensively; she couldn't have brought herself to drink it before dumping several little cups of the prepackaged cream from the wicker bin of sugar packets and other condiments designed for beverages. She also couldn't shake the feeling that this whole dating idea was nothing more than a ruse to get her to patronize the cafe, which had very little activity despite being right on the street and had not a thing posted on the doors indicating when (if ever) it closed. There were only half a dozen other people in the building at this hour of the night, which was seven thirty, how ungodly, and sitting alone at the table made her feel nervous. The nervousness had ruined her last date, and she tried to dispell it with a mental recitation of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star', which helped a little but made her feel like a five-year old.
Georgina was inside, sitting by a window alone while she waited for the next man the mysterious dating service had suggested to her. There was an unseasonable chill in the air despite the fact it was well on the way to summer and she had, rather foolishly, outfitted herself in... a bridesmaid's dress. It had admittedly been lifted from a thrift shop, and it was a milky white, very psuedo-Victorian-looking thing with a gauzy skirt and a low decolletage and a red sash stitched into a permanent band around the waist, and it offered little protection from the breeze so she had moved inside from her spot at one of the sidewalk-bound tables. Besides, people passing by had been taking second looks at her as if to say, 'Who let you dress yourself today?'
The coffee's steam had totally dissapated, and she frowned at it before taking a sip. It had gotten cold, she'd spent too long staring into space. "Stupid," she gave out to herself, muttering so as to not attract any unwanted attention, but a passing waiter glanced at her anyway. "Not you," said Georgina weakly, not wanting to make a bad impression on the staff, but too late, the busboy had already hurried back through the double doors leading to the kitchen.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 10:26 am
There was the sound of a throat clearing behind her. "Pardon, Georgina?"
He looked like he might have stepped out of a period illustration. Tall, russet-haired, and with eyes a sharp, bright shade of orange that bordered on unnerving, Anthony Arthur Andrews was probably the only date who was capable of making Georgina's dress choice look positively contemporary. Her dress was faux-Victorian, his was accurate-to-the-stich early 18th century, and impressive stitching at that.
He had a box of chocolates half-extended towards her, not sure if he had the right person, squinting faintly as if he could not quite see her correctly -- the Dream taint. With very little self-consciousness, he prattled on despite his uncertainties, saying, "I hope you don't mind chocolates, I would have brought flowers, but, ah, I'm allergic." He smiled lopsidedly, unintentionally charming. He spoke with an accent, discernibly British, but with a mix of something else in there, and his earlier pardon had been in perfectly-accented French.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 3:10 pm
The visitor out of the blue startled her, and she nearly slopped coffee down her front in surprise. "Yes! That's me!" Georgina said, setting the cup down on the saucer with a graceless clatter before turning to face him. Don't be nervous, don't be nervous, she said in a mental mantra, but the chocolates made her break into a smile and a warm flush. If she noticed the squint, she said nothing, and let him speak before reaching to take the box.
"Wow, thank you... I wasn't expecting this..." That was quite true, and her nervousness dissolved into delight; he'd found two of her weaknesses, which were respectively sweets and old-fashioned romantics. Georgina tried to sit up straighter and look like a proper lady, gazing up at him attentively. "It's alright about the flowers. Though, if you're allergic to those and to bees, it sounds like your gardening habit is an ill-advised one," she added, remembering the little profile that came with his photograph. That bit had made her laugh when she first read it.
"I suppose you're Daub? Do you mind if I call you that right away? Double-A makes me think of batteries, but if you'd rather have that, or your other names, just say so," she said, sweeping her eyes over him more thoroughly than her first glance. She noted the color of his eyes, very unusual, and wondered where he had acquired his outfit. It looked so genuine. Must've been expensive.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 3:56 pm
"Oh, please do, nobody ever calls me anything differemt," Daub said, sliding into the chair opposite, now trying to relax his eyes instead of squint. It was more comfortable, but Georgina still looked hazy. "Though I wouldn't say it's exactly my habit to be in the garden. It's more my daughter's hobby. I mostly watch the garden through the window. Do you have any? Hobbies?" His words were like a tumble of blocks falling over one another, rushing together in a jumble of consonents and vowels, a slight bit of nervous stammer creeping in around the edges.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 4:14 pm
"Daub, then," replied Georgina, trying to be enthusiastic but not bank-teller caliber chipper, which was annoying. It was a little hard to get a word in edgewise, and she found herself physically ducking in small increments in an attempt to reply.
"Daughter, right, I um, I do a lot of things! I've tried a lot of things, anyway... What I've got now is, um..." She paused, clenching one hand into a loose fist trying to remember what she had done in the past month or so. "I can knit, a little... I can do scarves, nothing too complicated. And I sometimes fly kites by the reclamation center... It's relaxing, if you avoid bothering the people fishing." Satisfied with that, she sat back in her chair and let the box of chocolates rest in her lap, quietly debating with herself whether she should eat one or two and perhaps share, so he'd know she liked them, or save them for later, so she wouldn't look like one of those ever-hungry creatures.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 4:29 pm
"Oh, that's lovely! That you can knit. I'm rubbish with my hands personally. I've even tried and it didn't make any difference. It's, well, it's pretty amazing that you can do something like that." Daub seemed sincere in his admiration for the skill. No one had ever been so impressed with the ability to knit a few scarves before. "But you run a, ah, antiques shop, right?" Kites, apparently, did not much interest him, but there was a definite note of excitement in his voice when it came to the antiques shop.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 4:41 pm
"It isn't that hard... But um, thank you." Georgina raised her eyebrows, not sure if he was being subtly sarcastic or not. The shop talk didn't faze her, and she slipped into that topic with the ease of someone quite used to talking about it. "Yes, that's right. It's kind of a pawn shop, too, I suppose, because I buy things from people who just come in if they bring anything that looks valuable. People bring in some pretty weird stuff... I've had teenagers try to sell me store-bought costume jewelry for ridiculous prices, swearing it's been in their family for generations, and this one German guy landed me with an ichthyosaur fossil in a big hunk of sandstone. It's not usually that exciting, though." That fossil was her pride and joy, and honestly she wasn't sure if she could ever bring herself to sell the thing if anybody made an offer on it.
"How about you? What does a temporal regulator do? I know you don't do that anymore, but... I'm curious. Hope I'm not being nosy..." Georgina traced invisible patterns on the tabletop with a fingertip, and for the first time realized that Daub may be having trouble seeing her. The thought made her forehead crease with concern.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 4:54 pm
Daub shrugged casually. "It's not much, really. You travel through time, prevent damage to the historical record, try and stop thieves from taking a piece of history and selling it, escort tour groups. A lot of the latter, really." He suddenly stopped, looking off as if remembering something, and did not immediately resume speaking.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 5:02 pm
"Oh," said Georgina, who was at a loss for a moment. He talked about it so casually, but to her it seemed frightfully important, at least compared to what she did for a living. With a brief glance at her now ice-cold coffee, she pushed the cup and saucer aside gingerly, in case she swept it over the side of the table by mistake.
"I never knew there was such a thing as temporal regulators," she said, finally finding something to add. Perhaps they taught that in the upper levels of school? Georgina had never attended a university, or even finished sophomore year of high school, a fact which at this point she planned never to tell Daub. Someone so eloquent would probably frown upon her uneducated Circumstances, and she'd hate to drive him away with something so simple to hide.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 5:21 pm
Daub drifted back into the present, gradually at first, and then with a sudden snap. "Oh, sorry," he said, dazed. He blinked to clear his mind, shook his head a little, and took a breath: slow in, quickly out. He refocused his attention on Georgina. In an instant, the haziness was gone, replaced by a calm clarity he had not displayed before. It was almost as if he had suddenly become a diferent person. There was none of the earlier exuberance, none of the fluster. He was quiet, even somber. "Did you have a chance to order yet?"
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:04 pm
"Are you alright?" Georgina completely ignored his question, and leaned over the table, frowning. They had only just met so she was hesitant to touch him, but one of her hands twitched in the old hugs-make-everything-better reflex.
"If there's anything wrong..." She wasn't sure how to end that sentence, but sincerely wanted to help in case something really was amiss. Switching personas so quickly meant either someone had forgotten their medication, or there was a problem that needed to be worked out. She wasn't quite sure which category Daub would fall under just yet, but she hoped it wasn't a medical reason since that'd be a tad awkward.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:33 pm
There was a split second, a moment in which Daub had a choice between two pathways. Each had its merits. Each had its flaws. The only certainty was that there would be no going back and there were no other options. For just a moment, a tiny moment, Daub felt the urge to explain rising in his throat, the call of truth pulling him towards something so vast and freeing it could blow him off the edge of the precipice. Just as quickly, it died, and for the better. "Oh, I don't know," said Daub, a small smile on his face, "but a pretty lady and a table with no food on it? Waiter!" He motioned with his hand for the waiter to come over.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:52 pm
He was dodging, Georgina was... not very certain at all. Was he hiding something great and terrible? Was she overthinking an insignificant thing, in the way women stereotypically did? She decided it was best if she put the change in him out of mind, and she sat back and nodded quietly. "A pretty lady? Where?" she asked, trying to break the serious mood further and lifting up the tablecloth to peer beneath it, feigning puzzlement.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 9:17 pm
Daub opened his mouth and thought a moment before responding with disappointment, "Please don't feign. I've seen two hundred years of that, and I've always much preferred the works of Lady Mary and the Women's Liberation Movement."
He might have continued but for the arrival of the waiter. "What are your specials today?" As expected, the waiter rattled through the list with faked gusto, repeating memorized dish descriptions for probably the thousandth time. Daub watched Georgina carefully as the waiter spoke, evaluating her reactions.
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 9:37 pm
Georgina sat up, then sank down in her seat. "Sorry... I thought it'd help, if I made you laugh," she said, feeling the level of awkwardness raise, though she did appreciate (in a small way) that he was just fine with independent women. It certainly beat him assuming that a woman's place was in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.
The waiter provided a welcome distraction, and she adjusted her slouch so it wasn't quite as prominent. She did her best to look interested, playing with the fabric of her skirt with one hand, nodding here and there when she thought an item sounded worth ordering. Once certain the waiter was finished, she ventured asking for something. "I'd like your soup of the day, and, um, some water, please..." That seemed innocuous enough. If she ordered anything with caffeine, she'd probably be up all night, and a cold drink was good to have with hot soup.
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