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 Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 6:46 pm
America Jones was what is commonly know as a Pretty Girl, though that's a bit of an understatement in her book. But even she had to admit, squinting at her reflection in the darkened shop window, that she was kind of a terrible sight at the moment. She hadn't slept since waking up to Officer Friendly rapping on her truck window, shouting Miss? Miss?!There had been reports to file and an emergency room to visit and towing to arrange. Not to mention an insurance company to deal with. Even still, it hadn't been near enough time for the damn auto place to be open just yet. Big Ben, her ancient tank of a truck, could be seen sitting in the back, but it looked like it'd be awhile longer until she could fill out the forums, walk to the campground she'd gotten Betsy towed off to, and collapse for maybe a week. " Jesus wept," she sighed at her reflection, all bandaged head and black eye and curls rioting freely.
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:05 pm
Time crawls, and perhaps the most startling thing about the sound of a garage door being heaved up on the other side of the building is that it comes out of nowhere, unheralded by even footsteps, let alone a vehicle. It slams back down again seconds later, still five minutes til the sign's due to be flipped, and there's a couple of offended boof-boof barks from somewhere. A shadowy shape moves through the still-dark front of the shop, and pauses to glance toward the door. What little is visible isn't in much better shape than she is, truth told--of a sort of spidery thinness that's unsettling and suggests unhealthiness if not outright unwholesomeness, with deep shadows gouged under cheeks and brow bone. The figure pauses, regarding her; there's a phone-screen flare that lights up a rough and sun-brown and stubbled face as he checks the time, glances pointedly at the shop hours, and then turns his phone off, tucks it back into his pocket, and disappears wordlessly back into the back again. Well, ******** you too. A door opens somewhere, closes; a few seconds later she's joined by a liver-and-white dog that might have been charitably described as a spaniel if it weren't for the curly tail and lopsided ears. With the air of old habit it folds itself up onto the sidewalk, heaves a sigh of sympathetic fellow-suffering, rests its head on its paws, and proceeds to broadcast side eyebrows to the general universe, even when the front door suddenly opens. "No one's here but Tim'll be here in five minutes or so," says the stranger bluntly, in a voice much softer and gentler than his appearance--even rougher up close--would suggest. "No sense waiting outside, though, and if you can wait about two minutes there's something they try to tell me counts as coffee." He glances at her bandages and doesn't try to pretend like he isn't, but makes no comment as he ghosts silently back into the room and sets about the awkward task of opening up the office and trying to avoid speaking or being spoken to.
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:18 pm
Whatever ire she might have dredged up from the depths of her Give A Shits was easily soothed away by the dog, who, beyond a drawled thanks, received the rest of her conversation. "Hey honey, what's your name? I bet it's Poppy Sparkles," she decides quietly with a subdued smile. America settles gingerly into a waiting area chair. "Are you here to get your car fixed, too? Not that green thing out in front, I hope? I'd peg you for a Range Rover, myself." Despite the throbbing head, the girl's eyes crinkled up at her own joke.
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:28 pm
The coffee may as well have been manifested by a ghost, when it arrives with a handful of sugar packets and creamer. He leaves her to the dog, who is engaging in the typical Stealth Dog (tm) tactic of crawling slowly and by subtle degrees, guerilla-style, into a place where she isn't supposed to be, her tail thumping all the while. For his part, the guy--who vanishes into the back again and when he re-emerges has shed his jacket and is wearing a grease-stained shop shirt two sizes too big with a nametag that suggests, rather incongruously, that his name is Pedro--leans against the counter engaged in some mysterious business with a calculator, barely glancing up for a pickup to rival America's in age and sturdiness as it scoots into the back parking lot, apparently bearing the fabled Tim. "I thought I told you to keep the dog out of the office," he says, before turning to America with a bright smile and a greeting and an outstretched hand. The glare "Pedro" gives his back speaks a volume, but he obediently calls her--her name is not Poppy Sparkles, it is Ivy--and vanishes into the back one more time, from which he does not emerge, although when America leaves she'll see Ivy has re-adopted her post by the door, this time curled up on what is very recognizably the guy's jacket.
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:47 pm
The coffee goes down like water, a hot piece of nothing, which was likely for the best. What had they said about caffeine? America can't remember what they'd said, and strangely, that's the moment where it gets hard to breathe, where the upset of what had happened and what was happening really started to seep in. She was good at remembering conversations, she was a good listener when something was important and she couldn't even recall... Tim seemed nice enough if not doggy-nice-enough but the sound he made looking over the truck was definitely not the sort to inspire hope, even if tried to put an optimistic face on it after he'd had a moment. It looked like she'd hit a tree or a big metal pole and he got a doubtful look when she'd said it was something that had ran out into the road and that look felt like the gentler prequel of what the insurance agent was gonna say. It was a no way, Jose sorta look. Trucks like hers didn't crumple like that in the face of a stray deer. But after a moment there's a sigh and surprisingly, a kind of acceptance, same as Officer Friendly after a quick breathalyzer. The cost or repairs was gonna be up there, the insurance was going to be a battle, and even if she had money on the spot, it'd take time for him to be finished. These things she accepts without alarm because it's nothing she hadn't been expecting. The forms are filled and some small town accommodation is made concerning payments and her current situation: unemployed, not from around here, no place to keep the wreck in the meantime. He'd keep it as a slow work in progress, there was room and her deposit would do for now.
There's a lot places friendly about hiring around here, he assured her. She goes back out into the sunlight while Tim goes over the forms and verifies her license and registration and all the office business. Still not remember the advice about caffeine, she gets a rootbeer from the vend and considers the walk to the little campground just outside of town, at the edge of the forest. Tim had offered a ride and Officer Friendly had left a number just in case she needed help out to her trailer, but she thought she might walk anyway, despite everything. The sun was really nice.
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 4:39 pm
She's apparently not the only one to think so. Pedro's voice breaks the silence from the edge of the building where he's huddled over a cigarette, and he looks a bit like an elderly dog in a sunbeam, simultaneously enjoying the light and the heat and not even remotely deriving enough comfort from it. Despite the weather he looks like he might benefit more from the jacket than the dog, but his scrawny arms are bare, freckled with sun spots and a couple of tattoos. "I heard," he says quietly, not even trying to pretend like he wasn't eavesdropping, "that there's a bunch of help wanted signs downtown around Poplar." And then, as he puts out his cigarette and turns back for the shop, he echoes what she's thinking: "Coulda chosen a worse day to walk around," he says. "It rains a lot here." And then: "Stay safe. You really ought to have a dog."
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 4:50 pm
Glancing over at him she offers a friendly, if tired smile. "Yeah, once I'm not all..." she gestures to her face, "I'll have to start looking. But I guess I'll be around for awhile, so what kinda dangers are there 'round here, Pedro, that I'd need a..." and here Ivy peered out to inspect their loitering and America's voice instantly switched over to doting doggy-woggy tones. "...a fluffy puppy, who is so pretty, soooo pretty. Hi, my name is America, are you sure you're an Ivy?"
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:03 pm
"She's sure," he says flatly, without acknowledging her name although there's a suggestion of a raised eyebrow somewhere in his voice, somehow. "Ivy because she's clingy. To me," he finishes, satisfied in a way that might or might not be a put-on show but in any case refutes the idea that she'll be running off with his dog, at least. Nor does he answer her question about staying safe. In his experience he doesn't need to--as soon as she starts talking around town the gossip and rumor mill are gonna froth right up to her ears. And he's interrupted, anyway, by Tim hollering a name that definitely isn't Pedro, and ghosts back inside. "Don't steal my dog," he says, by way of a goodbye. lizbot skippity skip skip? maybe...
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 6:57 pm
---
Taym, 25
Georgia transplant. The cats aren't mine. The dog is, though.
That's as much as he'd been willing to jot down and it hasn't seemed to do him much good, although that might be the fault, he thinks grimly, of the pictures. The first one isn't too bad, but then again there's not much to be gleaned from it--that he's sleeping on someone's couch and loves cats nearly as much as they apparently love him--but the other one, by Taym's standards, doesn't have much to offer, especially as he's being upstaged by Ivy.
She's curled up on the bed next to him, and even though there's a NO PETS sign in the lobby both the manager and the owner know she's here and no one's kicked him out yet, probably too relieved that he's paying up on time and staying quiet and not frequented by customers of one kind or another throughout the night, as seems to be the situation with half the remaining rooms.
He isn't sure why he bothers with this, but tells himself it's just a way of killing time. Curiosity to see what the local girls are like. Not expecting anything to come of it. That makes the inevitable disappointment more palatable: the very few matches that don't turn out to be robots; the even fewer that result in an actual conversation that doesn't peter out after a message or two. Which is slightly offensive, because he isn't that bad, and they did swipe right, and he has it on good authority that men are horrible pigs on these things and he has always made it a point to be polite and interested and not solely, he tells himself, because he isn't real sure how to be otherwise and because he's forgotten how to flirt.
He plays Tinder roulette, as it was described to him by a guy he hitched a ride from around Indiana. Right-right-right-right-right until you run out of swipes, and wait to see what bites.
What bites this time throws him for a loop twice: the first time because she's both redheaded and astonishingly pretty and appears to not be a robot, and the second because after a moment he recognizes her, or at least, in the absence of a black eye and a bandage, he recognizes her truck.
He smokes in bed (also forbidden, also ignored) as he pores idly through her photos, feeling strangely voyeuristic to be looking at someone who is, basically, a customer, and then swipes back over to read her blurb (a thing he always does last, aesthetics taking priority) and contemplate whether he ought to say anything or just quietly unmatch, and wondering what the hell had possessed her to swipe right and whether she, too, was a Roulette player.
He does message, after a moment, before she can think better of it and unmatch.
You're after my dog. This is underhanded.
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 7:14 pm
America, 18on a road trip and lookin to see some good sights ;D
She's past the hourly cold compresses and on to the more pleasant warm ones and the painkillers are now the more standard sort, over the counter in their bright red box. She feeling better and she's feeling bored and frustrated as ********. Dealing with her insurance was living up to low expectations and worse, she hadn't been out of her little camper in days. Her phone is the only real entertainment at the moment. No roadside amusements to look up, no plans to make beyond get yourself a job girl and figure out these ********' finances before you're having to sell your sweet little camper and beg for a ticket off Pa or Uncle Malby. She doesn't swipe right on all the local profiles, but she does on the one she recognizes. He seemed all right and a little interesting and kinda striking in his way, though the big sell was, obviously, the dog. depends on what those hands are gonna get under wink
but maybe a little yeah
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:36 pm
There's a long pause before he answers, during which he finishes his cigarette and contemplates the hands comment and whether to pursue it, suddenly questioning his "straight and narrow" tactic.
You mean under Ivy's collar and I am absolutely not fooled.
You're not the first. Pretty sure I should just change my photos to hers.
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:00 pm
She takes an alarmingly little time reply, shameless and unhesitating as she flirts across texts.
i wouldn't mind more of both (:
ive been stuck in this little camper for days recovering so youd be doing a good work
helpin the recuperation of a young lady in need
do you have little tshirts for her
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:05 pm
Well, that one is too easy.
They disabled the photos on this thing ages ago so I'd have to have a number...
I do not have little T-shirts. But I do solemnly swear that I have a picture of her in tiny boots.
And then, with belated concern:
For days? Are you OK?
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:16 pm
She sends him her number easily, without further prodding. It's not exactly how she tends to deal with guys on this thing, but she's not exactly leaving town in a few days. She's not exactly hard to find, either. And besides all that, he seemed to treat his dog real nice and maybe that counted for something. tiny boots omg dont just tease a girl like that how dare you
and im fine swellings gone down and soon enough i wont have to worry about folks offering directions to the nearest womens shelter
im just playing it safe til i can look proper for asking bout jobs
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Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:50 am
The answer comes over the app despite having her number now, although it's accompanied by an MMS of a dog that, despite being alarmingly skinny, is very recognizably an extremely happy-looking Ivy, wearing, as promised, boots. Wherever she is, it isn't Ashdown, or Georgia--a desert landscape stretches off into vastness behind her. Depending on what kind of job you want can't you just leverage the mysterious untold sob story for pity?
Get your foot in the door.Not that he'd know from experience how one managed that kind of thing.
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