"Like an albatross, I tend to, er, hang around."

[hazlogs]

5/24/04

Currently the moon is in the waxing Crescent Moon phase (38% full).

Dark Wine and Roses - Cafe(#2116RJM)

This room is bright and airy. The walls are still a cheerful white, and the
      floors, moldings, and beams are identical to the ones in the bookshop. An 
      oak-and-marble counter is set close to one wall, and a bar can be seen 
      behind it. A swinging door next to the bar leads into the kitchen, which 
      can be glimpsed when the door is opened. In addition to the lights 
      hanging from the ceiling, several fans are also visible. Large windows 
      open onto the patio outside. Tables and booths of various sizes are 
      scattered around the room. 

A glass door on the west wall leads out onto the patio, while the archway to
      the east leads into the bookshop proper. The door to the kitchen is 
      behind the counter to the north.

The sun's quite low in the sky, but traces of daylight still remain on this
      late spring evening. The bookshop cafe's doing good business in college 
      types of all ages, students, grad students, and professors alike, and an 
      almost unrecognizably _scholarly_ looking 'Flash' Gordon Romero is 
      sitting at a little two-person table near the patio. He's sipping tea and 
      reading a battered copy of _Dubliners_.

        He's tall but gawky, a rail-thin, bit-over-six-foot beanpole with
      short, bleached-blond hair and muddy blue eyes. While he's not 
      out-and-out ugly, his youthful, nerdish features are not particularly 
      handsome, either, and depending on what he's wearing he looks to be 
      anywhere from his late teens to his mid-twenties. His tenor voice, which 
      tends to rise in octave when he's worked up, has an accent that's hard to 
      pin down.

        His attire makes him look like a young college professor of English or
      Philosophy or perhaps history. Something bookish and fussy, not too 
      well-to-do and vaguely absent-minded. The tweed jacket has elbow patches 
      and the khaki pants are just an inch too short for his tall, gangly 
      frame. His white collared shirt sports a red bow tie, and his brown and 
      white shoes are scuffed. His short hair's been combed but haphazardly so, 
      and the rectangular wire-rimmed glasses are perched halfway down his nose 
      usually.

Natalie comes into the cafe with a rolled magazine clutched in one hand; a pair
      of college students on their way out through the bookstore decide 
      suddenly that the evening's nice enough that they'd really rather use the 
      patio instead. Nat snorts mildly and heads up to the counter, 
      deliberately hanging back to give the barista behind the counter as much 
      room as possible. "Rice bar," the Galliard says, her request clear in the 
      quiet room. "And... do you have hot chocolate? One of those, please." She 
      digs into her back pocket as the woman gets her order.

Flash looks up from his collection of James Joyce short stories and brightens.
      "Ms. Baker! Hello!" Closing the book on his finger, he gets up and heads 
      over to her with his tea.

The primate behind the counter flashes an appeasing grin at Natalie as she
      hands over the rice-crispie-on-a-napkin and Nat's wax cardboard cup. Nat 
      returns the smile - carefully -not- showing her teeth - and turns just as 
      Flash calls out. Her gaze skims right over him before returning; she does 
      a doubletake before offering him a disbelieving grin. "Well look at what 
      the cat dragged in. What brings you to this part of town, Mister - or is 
      it Doctor now - Gordon?"

Flash chuckles in an abrupt, fussy sort of way. It's not just the clothes; his
      whole demeanor is... different, and it's not difficult to imagine him in 
      front of a classroom with his fingers stained with chalkdust. "Gosh no, 
      not _doctor_, not yet anyway. Say, care to join me?" He waves his book 
      over at his table.

Natalie considers for perhaps half a second before offering a simultaneous
      shrug and, "Sure." She waits for him to lead the way and falls into step 
      behind. "My mother always warned me about older men, though."

"I promise that your virtue will go unassailed," says the Stargazer as he heads
      back. He pulls a seat out for her.

Nat's an inch or two over average height for a woman, perhaps five-seven or
      -eight. She's built rather reminscent of a brick, with a square face and 
      jaw, and broad shoulders that have no need of padding. Nondescript 
      brownish hair is only a few inches long, and the ten-dollar cut makes her 
      face look even wider. Blue-green eyes are widely set under a pair of 
      thickly stroked eyebrows; her nose and lips are proportionately large. 
      She wouldn't catch any eyes if it weren't for the eerie way she has of 
      staring, or the suggestion of prior and pending fist-fights in the small 
      scars pocked across her face and hands. Her accent is flat Midwestern 
      unobtrusive, her age roughly twenty.

Dark indigo jeans nearing an honorable retirement top dark brown steel-toed
      work boots. A pale green tee-shirt with a faded band logo - OILE I LEA 
      above a splat of blue-steel 'lead' centered on her belly - finishes the 
      outfit.

Natalie takes the seat without comment, popping open the little drinking hole
      on her cup as she smirks up at him. "Tease. So what have you been up to? 
      I hear that your tenure might be in danger from that little stunt you 
      pulled. The President wasn't very happy at you, even if you -did- return 
      her what her sorority had lost."

Flash's face falls. He resumes his own seat and sips his tea; the book gets put
      to one side. "Oh, dear, that bad, is it? I've been absorbed in studies 
      and haven't had a chance to speak with her since Mister, er, Burns 
      dragged me into her office."

Natalie waves a bit of steam off her cup. "I'm not sure, actually. I /know/ she
      wasn't pleased. She hadn't decided what, precisely, she was going to do 
      with you yet." She stretches her legs out into the space between tables, 
      but no one calls her on it. "That's why I was suprised to see you here, 
      actually. I figured you'd be on academic probation, at the least. But 
      nope, here you are." Her magazine makes another attempt to slither off 
      her lap; she traps it on the table by holding it down with her snack 
      plate: Popular Mechanics.

Flash pushes his glasses up his nose and grins in a crooked, self-deprecating
      sort of way. "Like an albatross, I tend to, er, hang around."

"Isn't that where they put anchors, as well?" Nat grabs her own throat with one
      hand, then takes a mid-sized nibble from her It's-Not-A-Rice-Krispy bar. 
      "I don't suppose you've had a chance to talk to my nephew? Though he's 
      been remarkably quiet the last couple of days - I'm gone before he gets 
      up, and when I come back he's gone."

Flash blinks owlishly behind the wire-frames. "Which one? The young boxer or
      the fellow from back east?"

Natalie says "The former." She tings a fingernail against the plate. "I'm
      afraid he's just going through the motions, actually. I think he'll be 
      leaving school as soon as classes are over, and not returning.""

Flash looks mildly disappointed. "I can't say that I'm surprised," the Gazer
      says with a shrug and another sip of tea. "Maybe he'll try for another 
      major?"

Natalie grimaces and takes a pacifying sip of her hot chocolate. "Oh, he will."
      She grimaces again, this time at the grimness of her tone, and 
      deliberately leans back in her chair. Relaxed. "It'll just be a damn 
      shame. Now that he isn't kicking and screaming, or going out of his way 
      to skip classes, he's a far sight easier to live with."

"Think he'll abandon his urban culture studies altogether?" Flash asks, head
      cocked. "I remember he was very interested in the, mm, agricultural side 
      of things. Wanted to be a park ranger, didn't he?"

The Galliard's nostrils flare, mocking her outward calm. She deliberately
      doesn't look over at the Stargazer, save for a single glance to ensure 
      he's still there. "Native American studies," she grunts, sweeping her 
      cocoa off the table to cradle it against her chest. "Which is, as I said, 
      a damn shame. He'd be of more use if he did continue his current major."

Flash nods, looking sympathetic. "I assume you've, er, talked to him?"

"I'm trying." Under her baleful eyes a pair of college students at the next
      table decide that they're done studying after all. "I'm -trying- not to 
      push. Since he is, after all, an adult now. Plus I think it was pushing 
      that made the problem in the first place. Or maybe it was not pushing - 
      maybe it was just his... problem. I don't know. He had... issues before I 
      took over his education."

Flash nods again. "So I hear." He sips his tea again. "Well, you know, my own
      philosophy tends to be fairly... open to the idea of choosing a different 
      path. I think there are as many in my department who used to study 
      something else as those who were with us right from freshman year."

Natalie turns back to him, her tone polite if displeased. "I'm hardly one to
      argue, considering that my old professor changed majors himself. It's 
      just... gah. We -need- more people in urban studies. Not social workers, 
      and not the ones who minor in it. Hard core urban studies." She sets her 
      cup down to tear her bar roughly in half, and slide the smaller bit 
      across the table.

Flash utters a soft sigh and finishes off his tea. "I know," he says quietly.
      "I know." His mouth takes on a wry twist. "I really do wish you luck on 
      that. If there's anything I could do, short of transferring myself of 
      course..." He chuckles briefly.

Natalie gnaws petulantly at the gooey dessert. "They'd think you were crazier
      than they do already." She doesn't say a word about how she'd feel about 
      it, however. "...Can I give you a lift back to your place, when you go? 
      It's getting dark, and this part of town is no place to go pushing back 
      any curtains."

Flash smiles warmly, and while he's not the most handsome or charismatic guy
      around, he's got a nice smile when he wants to use it unmockingly. "I'd 
      be delighted."

"You're a decent guy to talk to, /Doctor/," she twists the title until it
      winces, "Gordon." She studies him wryly, sidelong. "You still living in 
      that barn of a place, or have you upgraded - or should I say downgraded - 
      to some hole in the ground?"

Flash wrinkles his nose. "The former, though I'm looking for a room closer to
      the university. That is, in-town."

Both of Nat's eyebrows head hair-wards. "Oh? How soon are you looking? There
      might be a studio opening up in my building in the next couple of weeks. 
      I've got to refinish the floor, but it ought to be done by mid-June." 
      It's a good thing, really, that there's no one around to closely follow 
      their conversation, or that mysterious eavesdropper would probably get 
      whiplash.

Flash brightens. "Really? I'll have to try to weasel my way into that." He
      grins, a bit impishly. "The rent's not steep, is it?"

She waggles a hand. "So so. I manage to keep a roof over my head by working
      part time. And, of course, refinishing the floors as the apartments come 
      open. It's in the Montrose district, so they understand starving artists."

"And starving philosophers too, I hope?" Flash chuckles.

That coaxes a small smirk from the Galliard. "You'll have to ask and see. I
      don't see why not. If you're interested I can talk to my landlord and see 
      if she's got any nibbles for the place. I don't think so, but I can ask. 
      You could also check with... hmm. You know Mrs. Winters, right? There 
      might be something in her building. She lives next door to Dr. Jackson, 
      head of her department."

Flash nods, though a flicker of regret and unease passes across his face at
      mention of 'Dr. Jackson'. "I think their place is a little too upscale 
      for a threadbare fellow like myself."