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Ylaine walked through the double doors into the dining room and headed straight to the kitchen entrance, a bit of bounce in her stride, Magdelen and Sam trailing behind her. She had the Tupperware in hand before she was even at the kitchen door. When she entered, she found exactly who she expected to, working in his apron as always. He smiled to see her and she pretended not to notice or care, putting on an air of disaffection. "As-Salaamu Alaikum, Ylaine," he greeted.

But Magdelen and Sam were still behind her and as she set the Tupperware down beside the sink the entered and Ylaine's return greeting fell dead on her lips. They were following her like puppy dogs. Worse, her alone time with Miguel was being stolen.

"As-Salaamu Alaikum," Miguel said to Sam and Magdelen. He was entirely too good-looking, with yellow-brown eyes both kind and deep and a dusky Mediterranean complexion. His was the kind of handsome women went to Spain to take as lovers.

"Be my guest," said Miguel, raising an eyebrow at Ylaine in a way that made intelligence seem to dance across his features. She only sighed in response. C'est la vie. He turned on the sink and began to wash the Tupperware, sensing that perhaps her day had been a bit stressful.

Eyeing the pots and pans, Sam stayed near the kitchen entrance. Too many times had he found the kitchen to be a place of calamity and disaster. This was possibly one of the reasons Ylaine chose the kitchen: it was not a place Sam often went. "I'll just, um, go and... back to what I was doing. It was a pleasure to meet you, Magdelen."

Ylaine might have wanted to get rid of Magdelen and Sam, but it was not so direct a desire as to want to be rid of Magdelen in an overtly uncaring manner. Not in front of Miguel, anyway. She pulled up the stool she had used in the kitchen ever since she was very small and Miguel had given her half an olive to eat. She had no trouble pulling herself up onto it now, though it was tempting to ask Miguel for help anyway. "I suppose that would depend on the question," she said levelly, resting her elbows on the metal cooktop and looking at Magdelen with half-lidded, contemplative eyes. In this position she could have been a wise and knowing older sister instead of a selfish and unfriendly stranger.

Miguel was watching with curiosity as to what Ylaine would do, hands busy scrubbing out the Tupperware. Ylaine was one of those people you watched because you simply could not help it. She was very entertaining. As Magdelen seemed to have discovered.

"You may ask four questions," Ylaine said, managing to make what was an attempt at generosity sound like she was taking something away from the other girl.

Ylaine had not expected all four questions to come spilling out at once, but she probably should have. If the questions had been one at a time, she would have taken more care in answering them. "Do you always rush?" she inquired of Magdelen, but did not wait for a response and launched straight into her answers: "I change my hair often, I live by myself, I do not require any schooling but I am forced to attend, and I find my clothing in stores or have them custom-ordered."

Smiling, Miguel turned off the sink and put the last of the Tupperware pieces on the drying rack. He turned around and leaned against the side of the sink, elbows resting on the edge, and looked at the two girls. It was nice to have some feminine presence in the hotel besides Ylaine and to hear a child's questions for a change.

"Did you want to know anything else about the kitchen?" asked Miguel. Apparently the four questions restriction did not apply to him, as he was always happy to share whatever limited knowledge he had with inquiring minds. (As opposed to Ylaine, who hated to share her near-limitless knowledge with anyone, though she sometimes seemed unable to resist the compulsion.) "I should probably start fixing dinner soon but I make exceptions for company. Or-- I can show you a knife trick."

Ylaine might have gotten upset about the fact Miguel had never offered to show her a knife trick but she was instead momentarily caught up in the brief thought of being grabbed and pressed against the counter in a hungrily desperate kiss, some sort of clever one-liner about being on the menu for dinner tonight, and then being laid across the cold metal countertop...

"It would be my pleasure," said Miguel with a sweeping bow, the kind you always imagined in the courts of old when a suitor asked a favor of a lady. He went to the giant industrial refrigerators and opened the left one, reaching down into one of the bins for something. "Let me see here, what would be good. Ahh, an orange, a cherry. Maybe not a grapefruit. A peach, then." He placed each of the fruits in his apron as he named them, with the obvious exception of the grapefruit. "Now I take these... Ylaine?"

Ylaine was still rather distracted by the ongiong fantasy in her head and it took her a moment to register that her name was being spoken in reality and not as part of the rather graphic exploits of her own imagining. Flustered, she exclaimed, "What!"

Miguel's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You seemed distracted."

The reaction was so familiar it bordered on automatic: "If I am, it's no concern of yours," Ylaine said, realizing her own idiocy even as the words were leaving her mouth. She looked away, covering her face with one hand to hide her expression from Magdelen and Miguel and pretending it was only to brush the pink hair of her wig from her eyes.

Miguel looked at Magdelen and shrugged, crossing over to the other side of the kitchen with his fruit to set up the trick, which involved placing two cutting boards in the corner against the wall and lining up the fruit in order of size.

Ylaine pressed her hand against her forehead as if experiencing a headache, which was not far from the truth. Not that she hadn't said or done anything she wouldn't have done normally, just that with Magdelen's eager presence her own bitterness and rancor seemed magnified in comparison.