Fandom Island and Town

Well, now that the new furniture had come in and the lobby had gotten itself a facelift, Rachel could sigh appreciatively as she looked around at her creation and set to the task of not only appreciating it, but also maintaining it.

She was dusting. Sort of. Dusting in a fashion that mostly involved drifting around in nice clothes and brushing a ridiculous feather duster over things that weren't even old enough to have collect dust anyway. But it made her look like she was.

Mid-century modern, was what it was called, and that just tickled her, because what a perfect title for herself. The mid-century modern woman. She stopped a moment to relish in just being her for a moment before bouncing back to the task for keeping house. Well, keeping lobby, anyway.

[[ open! ]]

Rachel had some work to do at the lobby desk today, some of it regarding a complete redecoration of this lobby, some of it much more boring, which is why the pauses to sigh and look around the place with vacant daydreaming happened quite a lot. She still couldn't get over it. All those nice flowers, just poof! Gone. Unexplainably. She thought about going to the police about it, if only to have someone complain, but, really, those tacky streamers had gone with the flowers, and the flowers were probably dead by now anyway, so she'd just have to schedule a trip to the bar and complain to whoever was there instead.

Still, they were nice. She should maybe think of ordering some more to show up and decorate the place until the new furniture came in, and she could sign them from a secret admirer and then just won't everyone be jealous that she kept getting anonymous flowers like that.

But for now there was just a lot of paperwork, and a lot of sighing over the heavy burden of it all.

[[ open lobby is open! ]]

Working on a Saturday. Jeez oh man. Rachel, however, would bravely bear the trials of being an important businesswoman and landlady proudly, with only minimal complain and sighs. After all, she was definitely in the loop enough to know that new teachers for the school's semester would be arriving today, and she had an apartment that was open for rent, and she wanted it filled right up. If there were new people moving in and it didn't get rented up, well, then, that was just a big stupid failure, and she couldn't have that.

She even went and made sure the apartment was all decent and presentable after Devereaux moved out, too.

Now to just wait for someone to come in, looking for a place, and take it.

[[ Open! MCA Info, and the last apartment has been claimed! ]]

Since she was going to the beach tomorrow, Rachel had considered taking some of her 'work' outside with her to try and get a little bit of a tan, but she knew as soon as the thought waltzed through her head that it was a bad one. Sun and Rachel were not a good combination. Even just the slightest bit over too much, and she'd have a migraine up to high heaven and her face would be as red as a ripe tomato, which would not be cute, believe you me. So she'd have to make sure to get herself a nice shady hat and some serious sunscreen before tomorrow.

For now, though, she had a lobby well-lit by the changed bulbs and, to treat herself for the job well done on those, she was flipping through a mail-order catalog and pondering redecoration ideas. She had never heard of this IKEA before in her life, and felt all the more deprived for it. Some of this stuff was just seriously boss.


[[ open! Info! Please let me know if there are any spots on there freed up by exiting teachers ]]

Occasionally letting the sway of the jazz coming from her record player swing her head and her shoulders a little, Rachel was in a pretty darn good mood as she sat behind the lobby desk to take care of the usual work that just came right in hand with owning a successful apartment building. That was no small amount of work, really, and there were plenty more things that she wasn't even getting to, which was why the sign on the door alerting passersby of the employment opportunities was still there.

The good mood was almost directly related to how things had gone during that three minute dates thing. Sure, it was totally not her style, but it had been interesting, and the fact that every one of hers had been at least normal on the three-minute surface gave her faith that this place might not be so bad at all. Win some, lose some, but there was room to work with here!

[[ open! MCA Info ]]

With music playing quietly again on the record player as she sat behind the front desk of the building, Rachel seemed to be engrossed in some very deeply thoughtful work. Her light eyebrows were furrowed just slightly over her intent blue eyes, and her right hand alternated between twirling around a pen and tapping it on the counter a little as if that could tap into getting the brain juices flowing. There was a notebook in front of her, and the top had been marked with a title: TO-DO LIST

So far, it seemed that the only thing she could think to do today was More cocktails (?).

"Oh!" Inspiration struck like a brick.

"Find. More. Things. To. Do," Rachel said as she wrote the words down, and then smiled proudly at the addition, thinking herself very clever.


[[ open! MCA Info! ]]

Lordy, what a trip. Rachel was half wondering if the little vacation back home for her birthday wasn't just a terrible idea, if she should have just stayed the heck here where at least she could expect things to be weird instead of just spending what she thought would be a nice visit home with her mother but just wound up being a big pain in her rear end and having her mother constantly pestering her about talking too much.

Well, excuse her, Mother, she couldn't exactly be as creepy and silent as Golden Adah with her fancy medical degree.

Who, by the way, was apparently too busy to come over for cake and ice cream for her big sister's birthday. Rachel didn't seem to care that she was practically immobile right now. Birthdays only came once a year, and how often would it be that they'd be in the same area together? She could have borrowed a wheelchair or something.

Either way, uncaring sisters aside, Rachel was back to the island that morning, throwing her suitcases into her apartment to deal with later, and then settling behind the lobby desk to see if anything happened while she was gone. The building hadn't burnt down, and everything seemed in ship-shop shape to her, so back to business as usual.

[[ open! ]]

The record player was still shut, it's lid firmly immovable for the time being. Although the quietness of the lobby was getting to Rachel, she would suffer the silence if it meant being able to avoid any undue singing and dancing.

One day, maybe she'd get over last week, but it was unlikely to be any time soon. In the meanwhile, though, she was just going to sit behind the desk of the lobby with a stack of modern women's magazines and celebrity tabloids, reading up on everything important to know in modern society in lieu of paperwork for the apartment, and feeling very impressed with the direction that Cosmopolitan had taken since the Sixties. This magazine was amazing!

Considering how much she'd been dancing and shimmying and...well, Rachel didn't even know some of the adjunctives she could have used to describe what she was doing yesterday, she decided she needed to get the heck out of Dodge and take a break from the lobby and maybe explore the town a little. That lead her into the quaint little cafe for a latte and as she gave the barista her order, she was looking over the baked goods on display. "And what's this scone?" she asked, pointing to one in the basket, vaguely, despite the fact that, without holding it up, the barista couldn't exactly see which scone she meant.

"Oh, that's peach, very go--"

But barista was cut off before she could finish, as Rachel made a face and very distinctly said, "Yeeech! Blech. No thank you!"

About two minutes later, Minsc, who had been enjoying (well, he couldn't say he was enjoying it, but it was a manly drink, anyway) an espresso, Boo in hand (which the baristas were okay with as long as he kept out of the food and sometimes the coffee bags), came up to the counter, picked up the poor peach scone and said, "Do not worry, peach scone! Minsc will consume and enjoy you! Do not feel bad by the lady's unfounded disgust in your existence."


[[ so, I'm at work and everyone is always hating on the peach scones. So I felt inspired to be giving the peach scones some love. Minsc modded with permission; open for all your coffee shop neeeds; void where prohibited; tip your friendly baristas! ]]

Rachel was actually looking forward to being in the lobby and working at the desk, if only because of the record player she'd picked up at the resale shop, now taking up a spot with all her papers and the never-used computer as she switched out a few records from a time where she had to hide them all under her mattress because her father would make her write Bible verses about the deviancy of music or some other stupid thing like that if he found them.

Jeez oh man, it took her back. She liked it. This way, she could almost pretend like Africa never happened at all.

The little cocktail hour, Rachel decided, had been rather successful, even if it a little small on numbers. That just meant less work and more booze left over, really, and it also meant that the most unattractive thing in the room had been Wilhelmina's clothes. Not shabby at all. A far, far step away from the embassy parties, but it was such a tiny little island.

The success put her in a good mood as she settled behind the desk in the lobby to get some work done, wondering when might be a good time to host another little get-together, and thinking about how this place really needed a nice record player.

Rachel had somehow managed to figure it out that the semester calendar at the school had it so that there would be some new teachers coming in this weekend for the new session, so she made sure that she was ready and available at the front desk in case any of them wanted to take out any of the vacant apartments, as few as they were. Really, she'd just be content to rent them to anyone who didn't have spots, which she felt was a very fair restriction, really.

Well, boy howdy, here it was. After a very unexceptable delay of the last leg of her flight and a rude cabdriver who kept looking at her in the rear view mirror with eyes that said he was trying to see straight through her poison green silk blouse, Rachel Price had made it to Fandom Island. And good riddance, too! There was hardly anyone to help her with her luggage as she made her way toward where she could only assume the building was, and while she had packed lightly, it was still a lot to carry. No wonder it was called luggage! There had been that man in the park, could probably lift the whole of it with his pinky, but, let's face it, the man was weird and ginormous and talked to a hamster. And the hamster probably had rabies! So no thank you! Really, saying no was probably the best idea Rachel had ever had. If she'd have said yes, she'd probably be dead and mutilated under a dumpster somewhere instead of scoping out her new business and property.

Her new business and property. Looking around, taking it in. Rachel was able to forget her narrow brush with doom, death, and danger, giving a proud sigh of relief. If her friends could see her now! If Bethlehem High could see her now! A successful, step-forward woman on her own accord, without even a man, especially not a scumbag like Eeben. It didn't seem to matter to her that she'd bought the place with Eeben's money; as far as she was concerned, she earned that money fair and square and ten times over. Being married to him all those years, she deserved it, believe you me!

Carefully, weaving out of the sea of luggage at her feet, Rachel ran a gloved finger (a lady needed gloves) over the edge of the front counter and was pleased to see that it came up only slightly dingy. Still, the place would need a face life, a woman's discriminately touch. She fumbled for her keys and dragged a few things into the manager's apartment, grateful to find it extremely nice. A bar and everything! Rachel had hit paved dirt.

She was tempted to start unpacking now, but she sternly reminded herself that she was a business professional now, a right modern woman blazing the trail and blah blah blah. A modern woman dove right into the task at hand. Which was why Rachel was behind the front desk in the lobby, trying to sort things out already.

And giving the computer monitor weird looks. "Why, this is the strangest television set I have ever seen..."


[[ and the new landlord is officially in! Post is very open, though subject to SP in a few hours. However, SP is always love! ]]