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 Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 11:59 am
[ ooc :: isn't that the name of an old song? xD This RP is for myself and Casi. ]
"Hello! What can I do for you?"
"Why yes, we have those today."
"Is there anything else I can get for you?"
"You can also get three for a dollar..."
"I can check in back."
It was a busy Saturday, which was not unusual, but Audley was feeling tired already. Before he even got to his lunch break (although technically there was no official lunch break, it was more or less whenever he could take a bite off the sandwich in the back room), he found he was already wishing the day were over. Or at least, wished for a lull in customers. As the day wore on, the wish became a silent pleading.
Luckily for Audley, good things come to those who wait. Several excruciating hours later the hum of customer interaction became quieter as the late afternoon crept close and pulled tired fingers on the door of the shop. The city was bathed in a soft muted gold, not yet ripe for sunset. Inside the shop, the caramel-color of the walls glowed and bakery seemed more inviting than it had ever been. The strawberry-blond wonder Audley himself, however, was nearly collapsed over the counter and his pink sidekick looked quite concerned. Thank goodness the shop was, for the moment, empty.
"I'm sorry, Annette," Audley muttered as she tugged on his arm. "I'm just feeling a little poorly, it's nothing."
If only he weren't practically working at home, he might have felt less guilty about the idea of taking a vacation. But he couldn't close the shop, not even for a week. He couldn't afford that. With a little effort he persuaded the tired muscles in his back and arms to pull the rest of his torso upright, propping up his head in his hand.
"Closing time is only another.... two hours."
Hahaha. That seemed so funny. Except it really, really wasn't right about now.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 3:55 pm
It appeared to be a modest shop. Pez had come across the quiet bakery close to dusk - she'd been walking around the area nearly all day job-searching to no avail. She'd been in a foul mood, she'd even had someone tell her straight to her face that they wouldn't take her because of her missing eye. It was just her luck... and that always seemed to be terrible.
So it was with only half-heartedly that she pushed the door open, pleased for a moment by the jingle of distant bells marking her entrance. She deserved a treat after such a rough day, right? Pez stuffed her hands in her pockets, slouching in a manner that made her look even more worn as she glanced around.
There was a man slouched across the counter and a girl standing beside him. There was a twinge of jealousy for just a moment... frills, pink, ribbons and fluff. This girl was the definition of femininity. With a small 'hmph' to herself she walked further in search of the products.
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Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 7:38 pm
Audley struggled to right himself as a new customer entered the shop. Hopefully one of the day's last. He offered her an exhausted but well meaning smile. "Hello~" Oh god, he was tired. "Err- Good afternoon." It was short, maybe not very sweet, but something told him this girl – err, that was a girl, right? – was not in the mood for any chitchat. Not to mention he was drained. He'd probably just say something stupid.
Although he did not mean to be rude, Audley could not help but let his eyes wander a bit. The eye patch this new girl (yes, the face was far too feminine for any man not on a healthy dosage of estrogen) wore caught his attention. It had Annette's too, for a moment, but she was far too busy running around tying up his loose ends to really give it much thought. Perhaps also too simple. It could not occur to her the way it would to him that something terrible, likely painful, had to happen for her to be missing an eye. Annette could look at the world as it was. Audley wanted to read into it. He envied her.
Staring at customers missing body parts was likely to mean they wouldn’t be customers very long; he instead took an avid interest in whatever was going outside the shop's glass windows. Really, there wasn't much.
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 6:08 am
Even if she didn't know if it were true or not, Pez imagined that she felt them both staring at her. She scowled a little darker before trying to tell herself to ignore it. Be smooth... be cool. Let it roll off your back, they weren't staring at her because she was mangled, they were staring because she was new and they didn't know her.. probably wanted to ask her how they could help her like most pesky over-zealous customer service people had a tendency to do.
She felt herself sinking lower and lower into the mood she found herself in more often lately. With a sharp bite to her lip to remind herself to stop being so darned emotional, she looked up at the man behind the counter. "Thin's ain't too fresh this late at night, eh?" She couldn't expect a bakery to work at these late hours to make hot pastries and breads. They got up early enough as it was to start baking, didn't they?
Just her luck though... she felt like kicking herself for deciding to come into a bakery at dusk expecting fresh product. Oh well, something half-stale would have to do. It'd suit her life just perfect.
Frustratingly disappointing.
What was this? Why was she being so sour today. She decided to tack a smile at the end of her words, trying her best to look like someone approachable. 'If he doesn't stare at my eye then I'm not a failure.' A challenge that expected to lose, but the wage was already set and made.
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 4:52 pm
Ah?”
Her comment, seeming so sudden, broke him out of his haze. Now she had made contact, this was going to be the hard part. Just his luck, that he’d be in a strange fog on the day someone he should be especially kind to came into the shop. He had to think clearly or else he’d end up humiliating himself and poor Annette too somehow. Although, to some she was already an embarrassment with all that pink...
He seemed uncomfortable or almost guilty as she pointed out that things might not be quite so fresh and tasty at this time of day. After all, he had set out to make things more home styled and personalized. Freshness was one part of that. He looked at her face, then. Not the eye, not anywhere else, when he talked. It took a little effort. The natural inclination of one who has everything they were born with is the ogle someone who does not, or do just the opposite and fixate on the scenery behind that person, or maybe the ceiling or the floor. But he’d be damned if he let one missing eye and a natural inclination stop him from treating a person the way they deserved to be treated.
“I’m afraid not... by this time things are winding down. I try to turn over as much as possible before the next day, you know...” He glanced into the open door to the ovens. “Actually... I have a few lemon tarts in the oven right now.”
He failed to mention this was something he had made for himself and Annette to enjoy. She did not call him on it. Mostly because she couldn't, being mute and all.
“They’re supposed to sit a little while, for the filling to set, but if you have time and still want something fresh I could give you that.”
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 7:59 am
The offer caused her to... soften just a bit. Her posture relaxed, shoulders slouching a little. She paused a moment to consider before nodding her head slightly. "Yeah.. that soun's pretty good." Then, as an after thought, "Ya don' mind me stickin' around to wait? Ya not... like... closin' or anything?"
Pez tentatively took a few steps closer to the man, glancing down along his front idly in hopes to find some sort of identifying tag. The girl standing nearby wasn't given much more than a curious glance. She was pink. She was frilly. She'd been silent the whole time, not much more to think of her.
"Ah.." Something in her wanted to try to push conversation, another portion of that silent, cruel self challenge. If she could keep him talking she'd have better luck. What to say, though?
"Smells good.."
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Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:44 pm
“Nah, nah~” he said rather flippantly. “We were going to be open another two hours anyways. It’s no trouble at all. And it's nice to see a new face. Today has been torture.”
With some close observation he noticed her searching the front of his apron and realizes he probably should get name tags made up. After all, it was no longer just him. Bennu would start working at the bakery too now. And people needed to know his name anyways, even if he was the only one around the shop. Annette too, although she couldn’t really make conversation. She probably wouldn’t wear it if it wasn’t pink, though.
She sneezed.
“I’m Audley, by the way,” he offered with an air of frivolous spontaneousness (which is not a word), extending his hand. “And that’s Annette. Ah, please don’t take it as rudeness if she doesn’t introduce herself, she’s mute I'm afraid.”
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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:30 pm
Pez removed a hand from her pocket and reached out, leaning forward slightly over the counter to shake his. She gave it a firm squeeze, half her mouth quirking up in a smile. "Fer ya and me both. Nice to meet ya, Audley." And then, as an after thought. "I'm Pez." She wouldn't have usually cared about the name of this man, or that he know her name, but there was something about the bakery's atmosphere that almost made it seem like it was right that they should be on first name basis. Perhaps it was the whole 'warm home' feeling that permiated through it.
She glanced toward the pink girl, blinking at her as she sneezed. Mute... Pez felt herself grudgingly make a connection between herself and Annette. A lost voice, a lost eye. She nodded toward the other. "Nice t'meet ya."
That strain of conversation ended she wasn't sure what to say next. Her eyes roved over the walls and eventually the ceiling, lips pressed together as she let her eyes explore the building. "How lon' ya been here, 'f I might ask."
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Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:18 pm
Annette nodded her head in Pez's direction, it was the best affirmation she could give for being happy to meet her too. And since Audley indicated he was going to give up their batch of treats, she went into the back room to make them ready. It didn't bother her really. Even with her limited understanding of the world she knew that Audley gave up things, a lot of things, to keep her comfortable and the shop running. The weariness was in his face now, weary of a routine that never, never ended, never slowed or bent. It was eating up his youth, slowly but surely. Every dollar was necessary, and giving up a momentary pleasure was a small cost.
"The bakery has been around for, ah... almost a year now." Audley said as he shook Pez's hand, hardly able believe it himself. "Time really flies. It seems like only yesterday everything got started."
In a moment the dingy, molding walls and broken ceiling lights replaced the warm hues of the bakery. He saw the spider webs, the dust and the hours of sweeping, scrubbing, painting - mostly alone. Annette was hardly a child then, too young to help him. But he doubt he could have done it if it weren't for her being around at all.
"Ha... we haven’t closed yet. So I guess that's a good thing," he said almost more to himself than Pez.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 1:55 pm
She nodded, lips pursed slightly as her head canted to the side. She gave a harsh, quick sigh, not even conscience that she'd done it. "A year, eh? You lucky b*****d..."
She leaned forward, resting her elbow on the counter, her chin on her palm as she looked lazily at the man behind the counter. She finally forgot, at least for the time, about her own 'problem' and turned her face fully to him as she spoke, a bit gruffly, a bit whistfully. "That's what I wanna do someday... be my own boss. Can' get fired then." She ground her teeth slightly in aggrivation at this thought. One problem forgotten, another turned into sharp focus.
If only she could keep a ******** job. If only she qualified for something more than waitress, ice polisher, janitor, handy-man, construction worker...
"Ya mus' really love it if'n ya been able to keep it all this time. Cuz ya want it, righ'?"
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