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 Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 9:30 pm
Hairy Pete's outraged howl made Vanessa's eyebrows fly up into her hairline and, making a mental note to buy Pete some more tuna the next time she went grocery shopping, she glanced in the direction of the noise for only a moment.
"He doesn't like cats much," she said to Fallon with an informative nod. Then she laughed, "Its no problem. I wouldn't have made you go ask him yourself- he's my friend, after all. Even Pete might think twice about buying alcohol for a girl he doesn't know, but he'll get it for you if I ask him. Easy as pie."
Then, she changed her mind. "Wait. I tried to make a pie once. It was kinda difficult- uh, but this won't be. Pete'll like you. He's got a soft spot for damsels in distress, and I'll give him some change as a tip."
The auburn haired girl considered Fallon's question carefully for awhile, and put more thought into her response than was usual. The craziest thing she'd ever done for a friend? The answer wasn't as obvious as she would liked it to have been. Most of her life had been dedicated to attempting to look after her brother and her father, as well as working at Big Willy's. Her family meant a great deal to her.
"We were robbed once," Vanessa glanced around the store, "Well, Willy was robbed once- before I was old enough to work. Somebody broke the window and stole a bunch of stuff. Willy was real upset about it."
Fallon didn't talk very much, and that left a lot of opportunity for Vanessa to flap away.
"I quit sleeping at night, and stayed up with my flashlight for hours trying to catch them," the smile on her face was a wistful one, "I wanted to stake out the place, so that I could catch those buggers, but my bed time was pretty early back then and dad likes to get his way. He had a hell of a time getting me to stay off the balcony, though. I caught a pretty bad cold because of it- lack of sleep and all that jazz."
She paused, and pointed at the apartment complex across the street. It was visible through the front window of the store. "I live there. Third floor."
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Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 6:42 am
Was Fallon a damsel in distress? She didn't think so. But she did like pie. She was also pretty thrilled that Vanessa was volunteering to do her dirty work with Pete too. Fallon wasn't the world's best communicator, especially when talking to someone she assumed had no concept of order, rules, or manners. Vanessa seemed to be communicating all over the place. It must be nice to be able to articulate so, um, freely?
"Pie isn't bad. You just have to be very precise with baking. Too many people try to eyeball it. The first time I made a pie I oversweetened the crust." She said this like it was a grave offense against the good name of baking. It was all she could think of to add to the conversation, but that didn't seem to be an issue as Vanessa kept talking.
Fallon busied her hands over the racks of shirts, spacing them evenly along the bar. It looked much better that way. Why didn't everyone else see that? "I've never been robbed," she said, sliding another shirt along the rack. "I don't think I would take it well either." That was an understatement. Fallon's room was an extension of herself, and anything done to it was like a physical assault on her person. She even asked that the custodial staff at Crystal Academy never enter her bedroom solely to preserve its sanctity.
When Vanessa pointed, Fallon leaned out the window to check. An apartment? When she was younger, her family lived in a one bedroom apartment in Destiny City. It had been a miserable time. Fallon never had her own space, and if she were more introspective, she might put two and two together with her childhood living situation and her present obsession with having personal space. Her father got his patent and transformed the family's living situation overnight, but it was something that she carried with her through the years.
But that was too personal to share. "I stay at Crystal Academy, but its on the outskirts of DC. Do you go to Meadowview?" She didn't recognize Vanessa from classes. Purchases in hand, Fallon moved slowly toward the cash register. "Maybe I should check out," she said, but it wasn't a suggestion.
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Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:22 am
Of course Vanessa had tried to eyeball it. She was too impatient and reckless to bother reading all of the directions, and even overlooked the ones she had read in favour of baking the pie her own way. This hadn't seemed like too awful of an idea, really, until she'd attempted to eat it and discovered it to be about as edible as the fork she'd held in her hands. The baking failure embarrassed her, and Vanessa wasn't about to share that with Fallon. She didn't like sharing things that made her vulnerable.
She cocked an eyebrow, amused, as the other girl arranged the hangers on the metal rack just so.
"You like things clean, hey?" There was no judgement in her voice, just observation. John Jr was a little like that. Everything in his room had its own special place. Vanessa was quite the opposite. At any given time, nothing she owned belonged anywhere other than where it happened to be.
"We never caught the guys who did it," Vanessa sighed unhappily, "I wish we had. But Willy lives upstairs now, and he's a very light sleeper. There haven't been anymore break-ins since then."
Forgetting about the record players in the back room, Vanessa nodded and allowed Fallon to lead the way to the register. "Yes, I do go to meadowview. I guess I should have known you were a Crystal girl- I've never seen you at my school."
She slipped in-between the counter and Big Willy, who'd sat his great bulk on a stool and currently had his nose stuck in a mystery novel. Tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated, Vanessa fiddled with some buttons on the register. It buzzed and whirred with the work it was being made to do.
"That'll be $16," she smiled kindly at Fallon. Big Willy paused, glanced at the pair of them over his book, and then shrugged and went back to his reading.
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Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:27 am
"You like things clean, hey?"
Fallon glanced up, smiled. "It looks better." She followed Vanessa to the register and handed over the shirts. Her mind moved past the record players too -- had it ever really been there? -- with little hesitation. Fallon was throwing darts at a board with her ideas for Andeon, and Big Willy's wasn't the first store she had even tried. Vanessa just happened to be the most helpful out of the bunch. Much better than the girl who asked Fallon to wait while she finished painting her nails, or the fat man who asked Fallon if she'd ever experienced the thrill of shoplifting. Granted, it turned out the latter didn't actually work there.
Painted nails dipped into her purse and pulled out a thin wallet with more compartments than a Tupperware factory. She pulled out two crisp ten dollar bills and passed them over to Vanessa. "You've been very helpful," she said, loud enough for Big Willy to hear. Fallon had no problem giving credit where credit was due, especially when someone was making her life easier. Perhaps she had misjudged the spunky salesclerk? The talking wasn't even so bad. As long as Vanessa kept talking, Fallon could focus on whatever she wanted.
After she checked out, Vanessa and Fallon headed to the alley to proposition Homeless Pete (as Fallon dubbed him). Vanessa did all the talking, and Fallon just mostly glanced at him warily. By the end of it, Pete got some extra cans of tuna, Fallon got two bottles of alcohol, and Vanessa got the change from the purchases. Win-win, ne?
Now the only hurdle would be winning back Andeon, and with competition like Mackenzie, it was going to be a tough battle -- but one Fallon knew she had to win.
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