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 Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:42 am
A closing shift at the mall could be utterly exhausting from being downright bored or very busy. For a small shop like Imperium Greetings, there was no need for more than one person manning the store and, despite there being a manager, said supervisor was usually off someplace else. It was a mutual understanding when he was hired that he would essentially be running the store himself, and he preferred it that way. On the slow days, he could get away with doing a crossword and when it was busy, complain about the lack of help.
At night, he usually expected a few passing kids to come by, and of course the last minute gifter desperate to grab something for an forgotten anniversary or a quick way to apologize. Nothing said I’m sorry than a glass dolphin, a bundle of roses, and your best puppy-dog look. It happened all too often, but it was easy to load on more flowers and suggestions on a frazzled man desperate to make up his wife or mistress in order to get some.
That wasn’t to say he had better things to do.
Turning off the lights, giving everyone a glance over, Darien pulled down the gate to the store front, locked it, and pocketed the keys before making his way to the front exit. His car had been forced to part further away and he wasn’t looking forward to the walk. With recent reports of crazy people running about in the dark, even a guy had to worry about wandering the streets.
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:35 pm
Why did the till not balance out tonight? Mrs. Ortiga made Yvette stay behind after closing to tend to this issue. Her boss was more than kind about the whole ordeal, but the dark-haired girl grew increasingly agitated as they ran through the numbers. There were reasons, but the girl kept her lip buttoned as they ran through the till.
She was 7 dollars and change over.
Mrs. Ortiga sighed as her friend's daughter seemed to squirm in place. "It isn't all that uncommon to have the till not balance out. I know you rarely have to deal with it, but do you really need to act like a kindergartner who needs to pee?" To get her point across, she tapped a pencil quite sharply against the desk.
Yvette let out a little "Eep!" before swallowing a lump in her throat. Her eyes began to drift down before she felt fingers grab her cheeks and lift her face up so Mrs. Ortiga was all she could see.
"You know better than that! If something's bothering you, then tell me! You're a big girl, so act like one! Use your words!" Her tone was sharper than usual, but at the same time, it only sounded like how a teacher might scold a student.
"...um... my bus schedule..."
With a shrill "Oh!" the woman stood up in an almost flustered manner, releasing the girl. "Go, I don't want your mother getting upset at me because you missed the bus!"
With a slight squeak, Yvette reminded the woman "M-my till?!"
"Worry about it tomorrow... come in earlier and we'll work on it then!"
With a skittish hop, the young adult was on her way out the door. With a steady clip-clop of her shoes against the tiles of the empty mall, she attempted to jog towards the public entrance to the mall. If she missed the bus, she was going to be in so much trouble. She was already mentally going over the list of things that would happen. If she missed the bus, she'd be out of luck, since it was the last bus in the area until the morning. Mrs. Ortiga would have probably been willing to drive her home, but Mrs. Ortiga usually left pretty quickly as well. She could call Topher, but then again, he tended to sleep a lot, so he might miss her phone call. And she didn't want to burden Eva either.
Perhaps with all of those thoughts running through her head, the poor girl couldn't concentrate on the simple task of jogging, and soon enough her ankle twisted awkwardly. It wasn't anything painful, just a basic misstep. Simply a reminder for her to pay attention to what she was doing.
Her eyes shyly looked around, hoping nobody saw. And unfortunately, there was the man who worked at Imperium Greetings right there in the immediate vicinity. She honestly didn't know if he saw or cared, but something in the back of her mind was telling her he obviously saw and probably thought she was an idiot.
Falling back on one of her favorite sayings, she simply uttered "I'm sorry..." in the young man's direction. What was she even apologizing for?
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 9:48 am
This girl was an idiot. That was exactly what Darien thought when she was racing in shoes she clearly didn't know how to wear or at least know how to run in. Just because you could prance slowly in a pair of heels didn't mean you could do a marathon run in one. He had met enough women who had hurt their legs in heels, and a select few who could wear them as if they were a worn, comfortable pair of converse sneakers. Personally, he felt there was an age when girls should wear heels. Just entering a sense of womanhood showed a strong sense of confidence and respect for appearance IF they wore fitting closes. Anything else made them looked like low-grade prostitutes asking to be felt up by some geezer on the bus.
Speaking of, there was probably only a few reasons a girl would be running this late at night. If she had her own car, she wouldn't be running, and if someone was picking her up, they would wait for her to come out. Seeing as this wasn't the case, he had a feeling she was rushing to catch a bus or subway.
Looking down, he checked his Rolex, a birthday present from his parents ages back. A rose imprinted with red, elegant hands that ticked away the time. Bedtime for the girl passing by, but a pretty open night for him.
He only tore his eyes away when she apologized, a phrase he associated with people who had no confidence or self esteem, as she passed. "Are you apologizing to me or your leg. Either way, saying sorry isn't going to make you run or..." he looked at her legs. "...break your legs any faster. The bus is already gone and I wouldn't go to the subway this time of night dressed like that." She was too young and dressed far too nicely to not get some unwanted attention.
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 11:57 am
Oh, how he struck a nerve in the girl by mentioning broken legs. It wasn't so much the fact he was insinuating she'd break her own legs at this rate, but more the memory of how her Daddy had to tend to a badly broken leg for about 6 months. He wasn't able to work, was stuck at home doing practically nothing, and even when the cast was removed, he still had to go to therapy to get his leg back to proper working order. It had been quite hard on her family during that time, and even now, they were finally starting to get adjusted to how life had been before that strange attack. Yvette probably wouldn't have been nearly as important if she had suddenly broken her leg, but it would still cause her family lots of problems.
So for several seconds after the mention of it, all the girl could do was frown a bit. It wasn't because of the teasing. It was because of the memories that had decided to follow his words. However, it was only after he had mentioned the bus that she let out any sort of sound. It sounded like a miniature yelp, followed by a string of "Oh no no no no..." All of those bad things that she had been thinking of were starting to come true. She couldn't go back to Elizabeth's Secrets now. The area just over the bridge of her nose began to turn red as she attempted to fight off the sniffles that came with her eyes getting a bit watery.
She rubbed at her eyes a little bit, as if trying to banish any tears from flooding her face, then approached Mr. Imperium Greetings. "Um... I... I'm sorry, b-but... a-are you certain the bus already left?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 12:17 pm
"It's really hard to hear you when you're mumbling like that." He pointed out, moving the sleeve to his jacket up once more to check his watch, making sure it caught the light and, if she cared to notice, could admire it. "Even if the bus hasn't left by now, there is no way you are going to make it. Not unless you take off those shoes, and seeing as I walk the parking lot each day, there is enough glass out there that even if you ran barefoot, you're feet would be destroyed." Not to mention downright filthy. The entire situation was really no concern of his, but a crying girl kind of pulled everyone into the situation. Espeicaly when said crying girl was still in the maul where he worked and her sobs, no matter how small, were ehcoing. No matter how respectably you were dressed, and he that, you still looked like a scumbag when you were standing in front of a sobbing girl. Blame was almost always placed on the guy, especially the older one, and it did him no good to leave now. Running made you look guilty, and he wasn't about to make himself look bad on the security cameras later.
So why, Darien Masters, did you not help this girl when she was clearly distressed? He could hear the police officials asking him this very question days after the disappearance of this sobbing adolescent.
Through a sigh that was far louder than anything this girl managed to say, he looked around in hopes of spotting someone to take her home and then looked back at her. She didn't look ready to turn off the water works anytime soon. "While I'll say for the record that you shouldn't drive with strangers, you don't see to have anyone here to take you home. That about sum it up? I doubt your river of tears is going to whisk you away to your house." He watched as her face turned splotchy from her crying. It was a good thing she wasn't the type of young girl to wear tons of makeup or else it would have looked worse. Yet, not that he was paying more attention, he felt he saw her a few times at the food court. There were few places girls worked in the maul. Clothing stores for the most part and seeing as she was wearing heels, not anywhere she'd need to lift anything heavy or move about too much.That fact she was here after the mall closed also helped.
Asking a girl to come for a ride wasn't something he expected her to accept right away, or he hoped not. "Darien Masters. I work at Imperium Greetings. And you are?" He said, offering his well-manicured hand to her.
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 12:46 pm
Even with how logical his answer was, it didn't mean that the short girl had to like the answer she was given. She didn't like it one bit. Her fingers just had to rub at her eyes a bit more to try and get rid of the water, but they just kept flowing against her will. Yvette was there crying and now had someone with a front seat to the show. A show that Yvette didn't want to sell tickets to in the first place. It just made her feel worse and worse. It wasn't like she was doing this on purpose. The more she cried, the more she wanted to huddle up into a little ball.
Alas, the dark haired girl just remained standing there, crying in her place. His summary, unfortunately, was not 100% accurate. She shook her head from side to side, but her voice didn't say anything to try and clarify what the actual situation was.
When he offered his hand, her hand loosely curled around it for a failing attempt at a handshake on her part. "My name is Yvette Weaver..." she offered lamely. She could have added where she worked, but even after working for Mrs. Ortiga for so long, she still couldn't help but feel embarrassed admitting she worked where she did. Taking her hand back, she began to fiddle a bit with her purse. It was a large, obviously handmade thing which didn't even remotely fit the sort of clothing she was wearing. The way she fussed with her purse, it was easy to tell she was looking for something.
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 1:08 pm
Everything about her screamed someone who was prone to crying, breaking down, and lacked any sort of backbone for their own thoughts, opinions, and presence. Then again, he could have caught her on a bad day, but missing the bus usually didn't mean bawling your eyes out. While he was thankful for the fact she wasn't a sassy b***h, he wasn't for this either.
Returning his hand from what could barely be called a handshake, he inspected his now slightly damp hand and reached back, procuring a white handkerchief with a small, red fringe. The initials D.M. with a petal were inscribed on the corner, and he dried off his hand. Usually he didn't keep a handkerchief, but traveling had shown it to be a great asset when a bottle of Purel wasn't available. He also didn't like the bulky, plastic crinkle of a packet of tissues.
Hand now dry though he told himself to remember to wash it, he watched her fiddle with her rather gaudy purse. It completely clashed with her outfit. Naturally he thought she was looking for something to mop up the mess she made of her face.
Fighting off the compulsion to sigh again, he realized that being calm and offering help was not going to work. This girl needed comforting, and he was stuck in the situation that said he was obligated, to some extent, to help. If she found a way home, that was fine, but if he had to stay here to help her, he wanted to get her back to whatever state she usually was in (he was guessing very timid and quiet).
"Here." He said, offering her his handkerchief. "There is no need to cry. It's not the end of the world. People miss the bus all the time." His voice was smoother and softer than the slightly irked monotone he had before.
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 1:59 pm
When her fingers finally exited her purse, there were no tissues or handkerchiefs or other varieties of tear-mops. Instead, she had a rather unattractive cellular phone that looked quite outdated. It wasn't nearly as bad as those giant 90s cellphones, but it was obvious that someone did not have a camera on her phone.
Of course, she was not really in the condition to make any phone calls yet. She'd need to calm down. However, the more she thought about calming down, the opposite feeling of anxiety seemed to overwhelm her. When a rather pristine handkerchief was held out in her direction, she looked at it briefly like a puppy dog who wanted something, but was uncertain as to whether or not to take it. Hesitantly, her fingers eventually snuck forward and claimed the hanky. Her hold on the piece of square cloth was very delicate, and she only brought it up to touch the corners of her eyes. She sniffled a bit, determined to not get any nose goop on such a nice handkerchief.
"I..." She coughed slightly before once more attempting to get some words out. "I know... it isn't the end of the world... it's just... really really really inconvenient for my family if I miss the bus. We only have one vehicle, and Daddy works at night, so he takes the truck...and... and... itmeansI'dhavetocallhimtogetarideandthenhe'dhavetoleaveworkearlyandnotgetpaidfortheday,whichalsoisn'tgood..." She buttoned her lip for a moment, long enough for her to dab at her tears a bit more, drying up what her fingers were unable to do alone earlier.
"...b-but... um... thank you... um... Darien... for... for putting up with me..."
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Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 4:04 pm
He wanted to rub his temple, but knew from experience that didn’t work. What he wanted was to pop an aspirin, but he really didn’t keep that on him. Thinking on it, he probably should for now on for just these situations. While he waited for the girl to come to some sense of calm, he checked his watch again. Now there really was no way in hell this girl was going to catch her bus and seeing as she still wasn’t talking normally, he doubted she’d be calm any moment now to even think of calling anyone up.
“Yvette, you sound like you are in a very big mess, and while I had a car by your age …” His parents had been very kind and had a nice little number ready for his 16th birthday. “…I’m sure you would be driving yourself home as the responsible daughter you are if you could. I’m sure your father doesn’t want you roaming the streets either. Even waiting for him out here would be asking for it. The malls security probably would steal your purse more than watch out for you.” Lazy bunch of slobs.
“So this is what I’m proposing. I’m leaving, but even by the time you manage to call someone, that still leaves you a while before anyone shows up. If someone came to mug you or chase you down, you’ve already proven you can’t run away. Now, to save time and energy that you could waste apologizing over and over for something that’s already said and done, how about I take the short route in all of this and just drive you home? Now..” He held up a finger. “…if you are paranoid I might get fresh with you, you can call someone up and give my name, where I live, and even tell them the numbers of my license plate. If you want, I can drop you off at the bus stop you get off at and you can go home, pretending that the bus was just a little late and your dad won’t worry about you and no one will have to know that you missed the bus. Then, in the future, you can remember that you need to leave earlier so this doesn’t happen again.”
That was all he was going to offer. If she said no, he was walking and leaving her to whatever sleaze-ball came by and wanted to drag her kicking and screaming to the nearest public bathroom.
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 9:31 pm
Darien was thorough, there was no denying that. It was strangely as if he was digging around in Yvette's little brain and finding any potential argument against any offers he made. By the time he had finished with his proposal, the girl honestly looked a little stunned.
"uh... um..." she attempted to say something, but it wasn't working too well on the first go. She ran her thumb over the top edge of her phone. Yvette had been planning on calling Topher to try her luck in regards to getting a ride (she hadn't been making any bets though). Even with the offer of calling someone to let them know his plate numbers, she still didn't think Topher would pick up. Topher was next to impossible to wake up with a phone call. Or two. Or 12 right in a row (she knew, she had done this one time).
As if remembering that she had been crying before, she dabbed her eyes once more with the handkerchief. She then tried to get words out once again.
"Usually my till isn't over... I don't know why, but mine was over today..." The dark haired girl let out a sigh. "I was going to try to call my friend..." Mentally she had added the word "boy" in front of friend. "... but I don't think he would have picked up... past his bed time..." Her fingers began to fold the handkerchief carefully, so that the petal adorned letters were facing out. The stitching looked very tidy and professional, but not the sort of stitching one would find done by a machine. She opened her hand that had been holding her phone out, flat palm so her phone could remain, then set the handkerchief on top of it.
"IpromiseIwon'tbeanytrouble!Myhouseisrightbymybusstop..." Her words already sounded very apologetic, as if she knew she was inconveniencing him. "...b-but... thankyouDarien..." With her rushed quiet words, the young man had his answer.
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2011 5:51 pm
He was NOT going to strain himself trying to hear this girl. He flat out refused to go that far and it was past annoying to try and work her into speaking in a normal tone and s-l-o-w-l-y like any normal person would. It wasn't like she had just been beaten and her purse stolen for her to be this shaken up, and he felt even more uncomfortable around her with her own nervousness coming off of her like toxic radiation.
Now he was regretting the offer, but it was too late and she finally managed to take him up on it. FINALLY. Not wanting to spend all night just standing outside of his workplace ( a really sad way to spend your time off ), he turned and started to walk. She'd catch up, he was sure. "My Prius is this way." He pointed, and headed out. While he moved in a smooth stride, it wasn't racing away from her. Still, he wasn't about to slow down if she twisted her leg again. Part of him idly wondered if there were wolves around here that could rush in and drag her off, but knew better to start fantasizing like some loon.
"Are you working to save a car or something else?" He wondered what a girl her age was doing working anyways. Just some cash for clothes and to have some sort of a social life (probably involving her friends doing the socializing while she observed), or was she keeping her family afloat with her father? He was hoping she was saving up for a car.
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2011 3:52 pm
Obediently, the girl trotted after the boy, eyes somewhat lingering to the ground. It more had to do with the fact she still wasn't 100% certain about this whole ordeal than watching her step, but it was a gained bonus that came with looking at the ground. She could not help but wonder why he'd mention what sort of car he had. Normally people would just say that their car was that direction, not the actual car type. Maybe it was a boy thing? Topher didn't do that, but sometimes she had to agree with people in that Topher was not the typical boy.
Yvette was clearly biased though since Topher was her sorta-kinda-boyfriend.
When he asked about what she was planning to do with the money she earned via working, the girl didn't hesitate to answer. "Oh no, I don't even have my license yet." It didn't make sense for her to have a license until she had a car, and a car wasn't really necessary for her at this point. Right now, obviously being the exception. "I'm mostly saving for college actually." She was already at a slight disadvantage thanks to that whole organ ring consuming her life for a couple years. "Graduating" high school at 19 was never part of her plans, but now she had to deal with it. She sighed quietly to herself. "I'd love to be able to save for maybe a car for Mommy someday, but that won't happen for a long time I think..." Yvette didn't really need a car yet, but her Mommy probably could benefit (though the woman would never admit to such).
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 6:27 pm
It was no doubt one of those sad stories of middle income families struggling to survive and having to rely on their children to also bring about some added income. That or they felt responsible enough to take on the burden. Either way, he really wasn't here to listen to the violin-whining story of poor Mrs. Yvette and her hard knock life. Her parents were probably on some hard times and bringing it up would just bring her down and make for some rather poor conversation. It wasn't like he was going to dump out his wallet on her lap to help and even if he did, it would be very awkward and she probably wouldn't accept. His parents needed a better job from the sound of it and he wasn't able to provide it for them. So was life, and since it was HIS life, it was out of his range of concern.
Instead, he moved to the subject of college. Looking to the future seemed to be inspirational enough. "College is a good way to get a better job and get that car one day. What do you want to go into?" He asked, spotting his car sitting alone in the parking lot. As usual, he lifted up his keys and let it blink awake, unlocking, but then turned his head to make sure he didn't see anyone underneath. One could never be too careful, especially if someone saw a car and smelled money.
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 11:34 am
Darien definitely chose a decent subject to proceed with. "I hope someday to go to an art school so I can pursue fashion design... but for right now I am just going to go to a community college to take care of core requirements..." She paused for a moment as the lights to his (rather expensive looking) car blinked. Yvette then couldn't help but add "It's cheaper that way." Saving for an art school really was the tricky part, since community college was significantly cheaper when it came to the price per unit of classes taken. If she kept to her current work schedule though and added classes in the mornings on the weekdays, then she'd surely be able to save up enough in at least a couple years.
Cautiously, she approached his car, trying to not look too presumptuous in assuming it was indeed his car and she expected to sit in the front seat. "You have a very nice car, Darien..." she mentioned briefly before politely inquiring about his own schooling situation. "Do you still go to school, or are you all done with it now?"
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