fandomtownies | Fandom Post Office, September 24 (Tuesday)

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Fandom Post Office, September 24 (Tuesday)

Éponine probably shouldn't have been so entertained by Jack's tribulations with the phone yesterday, because today the post office phone wouldn't stop ringing. While she was in the middle of helping customers, or when she'd just come back in from a delivery run, or -- it just wouldn't stop ringing.

The worst part was that she couldn't even have the satisfaction of finding some new way to tell them to go away, because every time the phone rang and she picked it up all she got was an ear-piercing shrieking noise that she wouldn't recognize as someone trying to send a fax to the wrong number.

Every time.

As a result, she was looking fairly cranky well before lunchtime even rolled around; she was giving serious thought to whether swearing a blue streak at the noise on the phone might be worth a try.

The HELP WANTED sign was still up in the front window, and every now and then she'd pause and make an unnecessary attempt to straighten it out.

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Mmmm, line-waiting.

Because if she's talking to someone she doesn't have to pick up the stupid phone.

So Mike had had the makings of a bedframe waiting around the house for a while now, but he'd just... Well, somehow he'd been pretty busy lately. So he was only getting around to visiting the post office again now, some papers in hand.

"Hey there," he greeted Éponine, before eying the ringing phone. "Uh, do you need to get that?"

[La la la I've been meaning to do this for a month, no lie. SP may also be a thing.]

"It can ring all it likes, and I won't be bothered about it," Éponine grumbled a bit irritably, but her demeanor changed when she looked up from the magazines she was sorting and smiled. "Oh! It's you, Monsieur Mike, good day."

"First time I've been called that." Although Monsieur Mike was classier than Magic Mike any day of the week, but he wasn't going to comment on that. Just let out a low chuckle. "And good day to you too, Miss Éponine. How's it going?"

"I'm tempted to throw that thing --" she pointed an accusatory finger at the phone -- "out the window, but I don't know if that would stop it. Every time I pick it up there's a noise like cats fighting, and nothing else."

She spared a brief venomous glare for the demonic contraption, which coincidentally stopped ringing when she did, so she seemed pleased when she turned back to him.

"There, that'll be a minute or two of peace, at least. How have you been?"

Mike was raising an eyebrow at the phone again. "Think it might be someone trying to fax a number that's not actually a fax machine," he offered. "We had that problem back at the office in Tampa for a while."

The back office of a strip club, he meant. But, irrelevant. He shrugged.

"Anyway. Been good, thanks. Busy. Was supposed come by like three weeks ago but I don't know where the time went."

"I'd tell them to stop except I don't think there's anyone listening at all," Éponine said, with a slight scowl that suggested it was probably for the best no one would have to hear that little speech.

"I'd been meaning to stop in myself, but I've had the same problem," she admitted. "It's tricky, time is, gets away from you quick if you don't keep an eye out. Is the work coming along all right?"

"Yeah, I've had most of the materials for a while," Mike said, shrugging just barely, "I've just been held up on actually coming here and showing you the plan."

Which was a perfect time to pull out the papers and put them on the counter between them. "Here's what I got." He wasn't an artist, by any means, but he'd still drawn a decent enough picture to get the idea of the bedframe across. It was pretty basic, with approximate measurements scribbled on all sides. "What I really wanted to check was whether you have any specifics on the size. Oh, and whether you want some kind of headboard or not."

"So many questions," Éponine said after a moment of bewildered blinking, though she did seem to be suitably impressed with the drawings. "Good lord, so long's it keeps the mattress in place and up off the floor I'm happy, but --"

But just because she'd gotten used to making do for years didn't mean she didn't want her indulgences. She bit her lip, then took a breath and nodded.

"I'd like that, yes. What's the point, after all, of having it made special if I can't have it to my liking? As for the size -- I s'pose I'll have to measure the mattress, somehow, won't I?"

"I've got measuring tape for that," Mike offered. "Not with me right now, obviously, 'cause I didn't think that far ahead. But that is definitely a way of measuring it."

Sometimes he said dumb things. Mostly because he didn't care whether he sounded dumb. It didn't stop him smiling.

Compared to most of the people Éponine had been hanging around for the last few years it was still a massive improvement.

"Are you saying you'd need to pay a call to take a look at my bed, monsieur?" she teased.

Mike smirked because that was just what his face did, really.

Then he chuckled. "Yeah, I think I am. In a purely professional sense, of course."

She'd only meant it as a joke, of course, but it wasn't until she felt tension going out of her shoulders that Éponine realized it had, on some level, been an actual worry.

But when she did realize it, she laughed. "I think I can trust you to be a proper gentleman. All right, then."

"I am a perfectly perfect gentleman." Well, he had the capacity to be one, which was good enough, even if he wasn't one all the time. "I'm free, like, most evenings that aren't Friday, so I can basically swing by anytime."

Being one all the time would be boring, wouldn't it?

"I like to wander about a bit, late at night, but the evenings ought to be all right for me," Éponine told him, and anyway it wasn't as if she had to wander off at night to avoid her family. It was just habit. "Only you have to promise me not to laugh when you see the place, all right?"

"Here to bug you. Hiiiii," Kenzi said as she wandered in, and then stepped on the freight scale to see if she could be shipped to Abu Dabi.

"A postage stamp across your forehead won't look very attractive," Éponine informed her without missing a beat.

The phone rang again, and she made a rude gesture at it.

"Stalker or heavy breather?" Kenzi asked, jumping off the scale. "And excuse you, I'd look adorable if we put the stamp on my cheek."

Stalker? Hey, no, Éponine kind of resembled that remark.

"Shall we ship you off overseas then, see how true that is?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips and arching an eyebrow. "No, it's just some stupid person, I expect. It's only a lot of noise -- something to do with a fax machine? That's what Mike said."

"Ohhhh," Kenzi said knowingly, then snickered. "Heh. Bet they're getting more and more peeved that it won't go through. Doofuses. I wonder what they're trying to send? Their boss will probably be thrilled." She considered and said, "Would you send me somewhere, if I had an idea of where? 'Cause that might be cheaper than Portalocity sometimes." Hmmm!

"I've seen how the bigger parcels get tossed about into carts and such. I'm sure you wouldn't like it," Éponine said, feigning mild indignation. "And who's to say you wouldn't get misplaced along the way, hmm? Chewed on by some giant creature like the ones who try to eat some of our post?"

Which was not to say Portalocity was that much more reliable, but catch her saying so.

"...ew." Kenzi made a face and pulled herself up onto the counter. "Okay, okay. Valid. I don't want to be shipped to the Jurassic era or whatever." She sighed. "Maybe a car, if I wanna go back to Canada for some reason again. I can acquire more material goods, yessss." Take that, DOOM.

"I won't ask," Éponine said promptly, because it was always important to make sure your ass was covered. "But I don't think I can help you with a car."

And now Kenzi was considering finding where DOOM had a car, then stealing it. Way to inspire, 'Ponine.

"Sometime, we need to go to Baltimore so I can show you stuff," Kenzi decided. "I've been jacking cars since I was 14. Just for practice." Until she found one she really liked.

"But," Éponine said once she'd managed to parse out that sentence (slang for criminal activity was somehow always recognizable as such even if you weren't sure of what the word meant at first), " what did you do with them after?"

It did sound like a tempting prospect, the keeping in practice and learning new tricks . . .

"Left 'em somewhere far away, if we were just joy-riding. Took 'em to a chop-shop, if one of my cousins was looking for something specific. I don't know where those are in Baltimore, but... bet we could find someone who'd want one." Kenzi grinned. "Could be fun?"

"Could be," Éponine allowed. Was that a thing decent people did? Did anyone get hurt, and if not, did that make it all right? She wasn't sure. "But I wouldn't have the first idea what to do with one anyhow."

If by decent you meant 'law-abiding', not even close. If by decent you meant rich, well, Kenzi knew a few of those guys, too.

"Enh. We'll figure it out. Do some reconn first, just find a good place to scope out some cars." Kenzi grinned. "Didja enjoy the party on Friday? Alouette looked so cute in that tiara."

Decent as in not a horrible person; law-abiding was irrelevant if the law was stupid anyway.

"She's still angry about it," Éponine admitted, "or that's what I take from how much she likes scratching my leg. It's all right, though, she was pretty and I got pictures."

No one should have let her figure out how to work a phone camera.

"It was a nice time, though. I'm glad I went."

"I'm glad you came! I kind of want to throw another one. Maybe for Halloween... did they have Halloween, back in Paris in your time?"

Not even remotely; it hadn't become a thing in France until the late 20th century.

"Well --"

The blank look on Éponine's face said it all.

Okay, more blank than normal.

"Costumes, candy. October 31, All Hallow's Eve, aka Halloween." Kenzi grinned. "Little kids go around asking for candy and getting it, and if they don't, then tricks are so owed. Trick or treat!" She threw her arms in the air. "And if you're too old to get away with that, party-hearty while dressed up."

"And if not-so-little kids were to ask for candy?"

No reason for asking, really. Just curious. Really.

"I think around here, that depends on who you ask," Kenzi said, looking thouhghtful. "Bet the bars will have stuff to give out."

"We'll see, then," she decided; she wasn't entirely sold on the holiday idea yet, but if there was a chance of getting free things . . . "Lord, so many holidays here, I can't keep track of them all -- though we don't get the day off work for all of them. Ridiculous, if you ask me."

I'm hoping I haven't just doomed myself to a day of this for real.

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Fandom Post Office, September 24 (Tuesday)

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OOC [FPO 9/24]