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 Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:06 am
Trace's Dry Erase Board I am a bit under the weather and am consoling myself with the company of Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart. You are welcome to join me. Come get some culture. Trace was Angry. Angry about Colds. Also, he was Angry about repetitive narrative structure. If his internal narration made the observation that he was Angry one more time, he was going to track down whoever it was that was writing his life story and strangle them. Bizarre existential thoughts of homicide aside, Trace hated being sick. It had come on quickly, but ever since the weird reaction of the mouth swab he'd been feeling a bit out of sorts. After frantically googling the symptoms of Bacterial Meningitis that morning and assuring himself he had none of them, he'd staggered through his classes and returned to the dorm to try to self-medicate with hot tea, Airborne (nasty but terribly effective), an enormous bowl of red grapes (Trace couldn't stand popcorn), and his collection of classic movies. He'd already finished A Streetcar Named Desire, and was now starting on The Maltese Falcon. So far no one had volunteered to join him, which was disappointing. Movies were better with company.
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:14 am
Aggie was not entirely sure who Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart were.
Sure, she'd seen a few old movies, but mostly it'd been a long time ago and she hadn't been very interested at the time - alright, the people in them might've gone to lots of exotic places in their many travels, but she figured the script-writers must've had hay in their heads or something like that, because all the information about the local landmarks and the culture always seemed diluted, and at times totally wrong! It was a travesty, and after a rather horrifying movie-showing in English class she'd sworn off all movies that hadn't been made in the last 20 years. (With a few notable exceptions, of course. And it wasn't like she could stand most modern movies, either.)
All in all, Aggie had never put much stock in the art of movies, but even she had a vague note that she ought to know who this 'Marlon Brando' and 'Humphrey Bogart' people were. Possibly some sort of shipping tycoons? But that wouldn't explain why someone would 'console' themself with these people while feeling under the weather, in their room, at a school. Kinda odd, if anyone cared to ask her.
But honestly though, this was the most interesting thing that'd happened all day, and she wasn't about to pass up an opportunity for something more interesting than wandering the school and waving to people that didn't wave back. Or trying to start conversations with people that always seemed to, suddenly, have some sort of pressing engagement in the opposite direction of Dagmar Thorsen.
So she knocked, determinedly ignoring the bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. What if the offer didn't extend to her? It didn't seem to be addressed to anyone in particular, but maybe it really was and she was a doofus for being the only one to not know. (That'd be really, really awful. Like really.)
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 11:50 am
It would appear that someone had finally answered his request for company. (That or it was Sue here to make fun of him. That was also a definite possibility.) Trace put Private Investigator Sam Spade on pause and got out of bed. Still carrying the bowl of grapes, he answered the door.
He nearly dropped the bowl. It was certainly not Sue. But it was not really anyone he'd been expecting, either.
"Hi," he said, recovering and trying to nonchalantly shift his grip on the container. "Aggie, right?"
Silly question. He knew her name. They'd only been going to school here together forever. Definitely forever. "Would you like to come in?" he asked, still mentally berating himself. Smooth one, Trace. "I'm watching The Maltese Falcon," he informed her. "It's a classic."
He held the door open for her.
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Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 11:54 am
It didn't actually occur to Aggie that she probably should've checked whose door she was knocking on until said door was already halfway open. She had a sudden, dreadful premonition of one of the school bullies standing on the other side.
Trace was a bit of a relief, actually.
"Hi! Um, right - you're Trace, yes?" Of course he was! They'd gone to the same school for years (right?), and they even had a few classes together.
And, well, he was kind of handsome. Kind of a lot handsome. Which was probably why Aggie was blushing like the schoolgirl she was and spent some time fidgeting with the hem of her shirt before answering his second question.
"Oh, can I?" She'd long ago perfected the art of puppy-eyes, even if she tended to use them somewhat unconsciously (and, arguably, irresponsibly often). "I mean, I'd love to, if it's alright, but I d-don't really know anything about movies and I'm not very interested in wildlife documentaries, but I heard they're very popular and there was that one about the penguins, weren't there? Um."
And that wasn't the slightest bit awkward, right. Nervousness was taking a hold, but all the same she took a small step into the room, effectively preventing him from changing his mind in any case and closing the door on her. Aggie felt like a slightly triumphant rebel, but mostly she just felt nauseatingly nervous.
"Do you need me to hold the bowl or something? I don't mind, really." Aggie had a lot of experience holding stuff for other people - sometimes for hours at a time.
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Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:03 pm
"Wildlife documentaries-" blinked trace, confused. "Oh," he said, understanding her confusion. "The Maltese Falcon's not a wildlife documentary - it's a classic detective movie. Film noir, you know? Espionage and intrigue." He motioned for her to follow him back into the room and sat back down on his bed, setting the bowl on the comforter beside him.
"You can sit wherever," he said. "There's a chair at the desk, or you can take the floor- or you can sit on the bed if you want. I don't bite." Best to dispel that, wouldn't want to come off as the kind of guy who preyed on pretty girls - and Aggie was certainly pretty.
He unpaused the movie. Miss Ruth Wonderly walked into Sam Spade's office.
"He's a detective, see," explained Trace, pointing to the screen. "And she wants to hire him- oh, never mind. You'll get it."
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Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:29 pm
Oh- oh! That meant she'd screwed up again, but he seemed to be taking it pretty well, and he automatically went up by a few points in her book.
"Thanks." Choosing to sit on the floor with her back against the bed rather than at the chair or, goodness forbid, on the bed with Trace, she sent him a small smile: "I didn't think you'd bite, though. You're way too nice for that." She blushed again before diverting her attention to the movie.
If there was one thing to be said for these 'film noir'-things, it was that they had a certain elegance to them. The actress that had just entered the scene - the one that Trace had said wanted to hire the detective - was beautiful in an elegant sort of way. She probably wouldn't have been considered as beautiful now, in the age of miniskirts and dyed hair, but Aggie liked the way she looked; charming. She sighed lightly, not paying much attention to the plot but enraptured by the peculiar way everyone talked. And the odd clothes! And their hair was so weird, and that was coming from a girl with maroon hair, giant pigtails and pink ribbons.
A lot of things were happening on the screen, but most of it was passing her by, really. Trace's estimation of the likelihood of her understanding the plot was looking less and less by the minute.
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Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 9:19 pm
"I grew up on these movies," sighed Trace, rolling over and setting the bowl of grapes on the floor where they could both reach it. They were so... classy! So elegant! Movies today had too much CGI and too little real acting and artistry. Needless to say he didn't like action films so much as quiet, character driven dramas.
"I really wish I'd been born in time to work in the golden age of hollywood," he sighed. Never mind that there would have been very few roles for him then. If there was one thing to be said for the modern age of cinema, it was that integrated film sets and black leading men were a major improvement.
"The plot's really a bit confusing," he said after a few minutes of silence. "But just watch Bogie work - Humphrey Bogart, I mean," he clarified. "The actor who plays Sam Spade. He's really a master. One of my idols. Him and Marlon Brando. Oh, and James Dean, too, but he only ever made three movies."
He trailed off, and then said, "I'm sorry, I'm probably boring you. Not to mention making a total embarrassment of myself."
God. Way to go and make it sound like you were madly in love with dead movie stars, he berated himself, and plugged his mouth with a grape before he could say anything else potentially humiliating and/or incriminating.
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:43 am
Nodding along was one of the arts of people pleasing that Aggie had quickly picked up on and she put her skills to full use while listening to Trace.
Honestly, she wasn't that interested - movies weren't a big thing for her and The Maltese Falcon was quickly losing it's novelty in her eyes. But something that did interest her was Trace, and watching him talk about what was (obviously!) his great passion was very, very interesting. He was animated in his talk, but more than that, he obviously loved what the subject a lot.
So she'd pretend interest for his sake.
"It's not so bad, really. You love them very much, don't you?" Okay, that might've come out slightly wrong, "Uh, what I meant was.. um." She paused, looking momentarily blank in an effort to re-phrase her sentence: "You're very, uh, passionate about this subject? It's not bad, really! It's kind of cute and-"
Aggie paused again, cheeks flaring with acute embarrassment. She really ought to learn how to talk without putting her foot in her mouth, and soon.
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 8:09 am
Secretly, Trace could tell she really Did Not Care. He tried not to let it bother him, but he knew, in his heart of hearts, that he had already made himself look Tremendously Gay for Marlon Brando and James Dean (who, rumor had it, were gay, but never with each other), and in front of a pretty girl, no less. He sighed, rolled over onto his back, sighed again, rolled back over, and said, "My dad died when I was a baby."
This always seemed to earn sympathy, or at least explain things a little bit better.
"He was in the military. He died in the line of duty."
This was not true. His father died when an experimental vehicle exploded. This was not important, and made the story anti-climactic. As far as Aggie needed to know, his father had died while manning a machine gun against terrorists of obscurely foreign origin.
"Mom never remarried, so instead of a father figure I got old movies."
He smiled down at her. There might have been a dash of crocodile tears - he was an actor and he was not afraid to use his training for the sake of charming a pretty young thing.
"What about you?" he asked. "What's your family like?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 8:26 am
"Oh!" Say no more, Aggie's eyes were already shiny with tears. "Oh, that's awful! And your poor mother!" Trace might have known how to get off a few crocodile tears but Dagmar didn't, and every tear was a tear from the heart. Oh, poor, poor Trace! She couldn't imagine growing up without her mother or father - and his poor lonely mother, too! In her mind it was starting to sound like a clichéd romance; the brave soldier going off to war and leaving his pregnant wife behind, valiantly dying for her sake in a foreign country behind enemy lines. And the wife, forever left behind, swearing to never love another man and raise the fruit of their love all by herself.
Yep, the waterworks were working well, no doubt.
"I'm so sorry!" She sniffled daintily, turning huge, wet doe-eyes on him. Talking about her family would seem so callous in comparison, both her parents well and alive, if not slightly obsessed with the Old Country. "That must've been so hard for you."
She reached out to pat his hand soothingly. She'd contemplated a hug, but that might be a bit forward and just a bit awkward with the way they were seated. "My family's, um, pretty normal. There's not much to tell."
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 9:09 am
"Mom did a pretty good job by herself, though, I think," said Trace, wiping his eyes like it was a terrible tragedy and he was valiantly pushing himself onwards despite it.
He took a handful of grapes from the bowl and then slid off the bed to sit beside her on the floor. It was awkward to talk on different levels. "Oh, I'm sure there's got to be something interesting about them," he said. "All families are interesting in their own unique way."
It was a bastardized Ibsen quote, and the original was about unhappy families, and she didn't need to know that. He doubted she'd get the reference anyway. "What are your parents like?" he asked, trying to sound genuinely interested. Humphrey Bogart had nothing on a pretty girl.
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 9:25 am
She nodded tearily, still caught in the tragedy of it all. Oh, and Trace was so brave! To be such an awesome person with such a tragedy behind him! Aggie was caught - hook, line and sinker.
"I.. suppose so. Nothing that dramatic, though. My dad's an accountant, which is like the world's most boring job and my mom's runs a daycare in our home for a few kids in the neighbourhood. That's about it. They're pretty boring." Yeah, she really wasn't going to talk about their issues unless she had to. It was Embarrassing, with a very, very capital E.
"I guess it sounds a bit ungrateful, huh? Me whining about boring parents when you haven't even got your dad anymore." She smiled softly, hoping he hadn't taken offense to that. "But I bet your mom must be pretty strong to raise a kid on her own, right? Not that I mean you'd be a difficult child or anything like-- ugh, sorry. I can't seem to stop doing that."
Cue fiddling with her ribbons and an awkward laugh.
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 9:55 am
"Oh," Trace assured her, "my mom's a tough lady."
Trace's mother, as every neighborhood hooligan knew, was the one woman on the block who you shut up and listened to or else she'd whup your a**, even if you didn't listen to your own mother. And she knew who your daddy was and she would have him go to your house and beat yo' sorry a** black and blue. One of Trace's uncles was on speed dial expressly for this purpose, but he had not been called in years.
"Don't worry about it," he said, smiling through the lingering false tears. "It doesn't even make me that sad anymore."
This was a lie. It had never made him sad - he'd never known his father. Occasionally he was filled with sharp pains of regret, but never sadness.
He reached over, hoping he wasn't being to forward, and also fiddled with one of her ribbons. "How do you get these to look so perfect?" he asked. "They defy the laws of gravity."
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:58 am
"Um." She squeaked, a bit shocked and a bit taken aback at the amount of butterflies that suddenly seemed to be swirling around in her stomach. She leaned closer more on instinct than any sort of thought, and suddenly he was very, very close. And he had very, very.. very golden eyes.
Aggie sighed dreamily, taken by Trace's gorgeous eyes and the butterflies before finally regaining a bit of sense: "Practice. And, uh-" What were they talking about again? "A lot of hairspray."
Hairspray, however, seemed entirely inconsequential when compared to him right now.
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:12 am
As someone at least basically familiar with stage makeup, Trace should have seen the hairspray answer coming a mile away. But he still smiled at her like it was the most fascinating and unpredictable thing in the world. He was quite taken with her and her pink hair and her eyes - were they gray, or very, very pale blue?
This was infatuation, or maybe magnetism. He smiled at her, suddenly feeling a bit shy, and moved his hand from the ribbon to just behind her ear.
And then he kissed her.
Humphrey Bogart definitely had nothing on this.
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