Välkommen till IKEA (part 2 of 3)
[Players: serenityw and
mai_lovely]
[Scene: Oh, the slings and arrows of outrageous retail! (for those of us who don't have a fortune and have to shop on the economy, as it were.) Our ladies head out to the Brooklyn Redhook Ikea on Grand Opening day and wade through a mob of fellow shoppers, seeking treasure in the form of household goods. Will they survive? Will Ikea? Will they return sounding like the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show? We shall see. Backdated to June 18, 2008.]
Part 1; Part 3.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
"Beard 'n Otsego," announced the bus driver, a heavyset man with an equally heavy chunk of Brooklynese in his drawl. "You want Ikea, this's your stop. If," he added unnecessarily as he bumped the curb, "y'couldn't tell'r something."
Not... likely, thought Serenity as the doors accordioned open. Not unless you were blind.
The place was, well-- 'large' didn't really do it justice; 'fricking huge' might work, or 'monopoly;' the expanse of blue-and-gold logo was just a little intimidating. "Welcome to IkeaLand; please have your passports ready for the border-guards to stamp," she murmured to Mai as they gathered their things.
"My Swedish isn't very good. I hope they have interpreters," Mai jousted back with a smirk. "I wonder if my birth certificate and two forms of ID will do."
The day had been off to a cheerful start. At first Mai thought herself all alone outside Union Station and wondering if she took the train at the wrong time, but a few quick texts between the women fixed their location problems. Serenity had met her with a smile and had handed over the bag with Mai's bagel in it like this meeting was a morning ritual. It was encouraging to see someone who didn't seem to mind the hustle and bustle ahead; Mai was still nursing her coffee and half of her breakfast after they had boarded the semi-crowded Coney Island-bound F train.
The blonde followed her petite redheaded colleague off the bus, which seemed to lose a lot of passengers at this port of call. She had heard of the water taxi that ferried customers over from the mainland, and was actually curious about it, but it seemed like it would have to wait another day: she wasn't going to risk being late opening the Phoenix in order to go drifting on the Hudson. Maybe a day when I'm off, she told herself.
The entrance was indicated by the thick stream of people flowing into the massive building. As they stepped inside the doors Mai felt as though she was being put into a pinball machine. It was a spacious atmosphere, one that buzzed with energy. One pull of the plunger, and she might be sent flying towards the knick-knacks, bouncing off walls of flat pack furniture in the process. "I've never seen so much furniture in my life," she marveled.
And that was just the displays on the bottom floor. An escalator took them up in a herdlike mass of humanity (Serenity sternly suppressed the desire to start making mooing noises; if her brothers had been with her, the suppression probably wouldn't've happened but the mooing would've.) It was a feature of the store that you couldn't just leave when you'd found what you wanted; you had to go through the whole thing, thus increasing the chance that you'd pick up a few more items. A good marketing strategy, the young woman supposed; she wondered what Seto Kaiba would've thought of it, and if he'd ever been in an Ikea in his life.
Not... likely. Again. Interesting thing to consider, though.
They seemed to be visiting the land of couches, end-tables, and a multitude of sharply-angled bookcases and storage units just now; plain wood and painted metal shelves hung like objets d'art on a nearby wall. Glancing at Mai as she picked up a throw pillow, studied it, and carefully replaced it, she asked: "So what're you shopping for today?"
"I'm not looking for much," Mai said, examining the side table that looked like a inverted top hat. Glancing at the tag, the name said it all: Hatten. If she was following the same line of logic as suggested, she was already mentally pointing out the Sofar and the Tablur. She began to smile. "Clear cut, Swedes," she mumbled to herself, fully allowing herself to jab insults as a privilege of her Scandinavian lineage.
"I want to at least get a small item, a vase or a magazine rack." She stood back up from her crouched stance. "A souvenir," she smirked. "Are you looking for whole sets or just pieces and parts?"
Serenity made a totally (well, mostly) undeserved face at the same piece of furniture. "Whole thing, actually, so long as they deliver. My mattress's okay, but the rest... it wasn't worth fixing. So yay, new bed time..." She blinked at the 'Hatten'. "That's, um, kind of interesting." Not her kind of interesting in general; it reminded her just a bit of a three-legged spider-- she'd expect it to skitter nervously sideways if bumped-- but the price was definitely low. "Why're all the names in... is that German?" Serenity vaguely recalled looking at the website's food menu earlier; it had contained meatballs, the kind that came from-- "No, wait, Swedish, right? Swedish. Huh." She gave the red-topped 'Hatten' another look before moving along.
Bookshelves and storage-bins, strange lamps and oddly 80s-style backdrops; it was a little like Frank Lloyd Wright had decided to go into business in the cheap furniture market, with an emphasis on clean lines and wood veneer. At one point Serenity found herself trying out what could loosely be called a rocking chair that quite possibly had a bit of feline scratching-post in its ancestry; half-laughing, she attempted to struggle up off of the contraption. "Help?"
Mai joined in the amusing ruckus, giving her friend a hand up from the wobbling furniture as a couple of other customers looked on in an intrigued way. She laughed as it took a full pull of her strength for Serenity to escape the rattan clutches of the chair, which tried its hardest to keep her in the seat by rocking the girl's weight backwards. "I am not trying that," Mai said, pointing an accusatory finger at the piece.
The blonde looked around at the numerous sets that clustered themselves into fashion like herds of flowered or striped or pink sheep. Everything in the faux rooms looked styled and so organized to fit together. It was as though the company was shaming her for bringing together a nice-looking apartment by dragging together tchotchkes and secondhand furnishings; why have that when you can have it all from prepackaged coordination? Mai wasn't buying their tactics so quickly, but there was still something admirable about their response to the customers' wants. "So, do you see anything that tickles your fancy? Maybe that one?" she said, voice raising like a small balloon.
Her companion turned her back on the offending piece of rattan and wandered slowly down the aisle. There was an awful lot of black-and-white combos as well as the flowers and wood and stripes and general 80's-ness; "Nothing so far, b-- oh."
It was just a pillow; there were several of them, arranged artfully on a blindingly white couch. "I kind of like this." Serenity picked it up, flipping the multicolored thing over and running her fingers along the smooth fabric. "It's not like it wouldn't match, 'cause my apartment's decorated in Early Garage Sale," she murmured, and checked the pricetag. Her eyebrows rose; two of the pillows and then a third denuded the couch, and the redhead snagged one of the store's enormous yellow shopping-bags to hold her newfound accessories. She grinned a little at her boss; "I kind of like bright colors," she muttered.
Mai nodded her head in agreement. It was amazing how she could learn about a person by their choice of pillow. This one seemed to fit Serenity to a tee, although it wasn't something she could readily verbalize. Reflecting on her own choices, she wondered what it said about her if she was eyeing up the conveniently drab brown cushion at the corner of another couch. Perhaps it just said that it fit the color scheme of her decor. She was hoping. "Maybe it's time to move to the next room," she suggested.
"That'd be good," agreed Serenity, hiking her bag's straps a little smugly over one shoulder; she was feeling altogether possessive about her pillows.
The next room paid homage to the Dining Experience, and while it was less eclectic than the previous 80's shrines, it made the redhead wish she had room for a proper table; Ikea was big on blond, smooth wood surfaces, and some of the furniture was really nice. Foldable, too; Serenity considered that maybe they didn't have much room in Sweden and wistfully ran her hand across a joined-wood sideboard. "You need a table?" she asked Mai, glancing at the other woman.
"Maybe a new bedside one," Mai said. "How much room do you have in your apartment for a dining table?"
"Not enough." Serenity shrugged and allowed her hand to drop. "You know that thing about 'too small to swing a cat?'" She left the rest unsaid. "It's okay, though, 'cause mostly it's just me and the cat for dinner anyway except for when Tristan and Joey come by. Not much happening on my social calendar lately." She brightened a little at what else Mai had said. "I think bedroom stuff's next, though."
A few more items joined Serenity's pillows as they moved through the well-lit aisles: a French Press to replace one broken several weeks before, a small kitchen-floormat, a bedspread that went with the pillows. "They shouldn't let me in places like this without a keeper," admitted the young woman sheepishly, adjusting the straps of her bag.
"Shopping is shopping. You're doing what you came here for," Mai replied. As the straps came to rest higher on Serenity's shoulder, Mai was reminded that she should pick up a carrier of her own. She had told herself that she wasn't going to spend a lot, but picking up a few things shouldn't clutter her apartment. She snagged a sack from the corner of the endcap and followed her companion down the next aisleway, which contained a good amount of people. A couple more passes down corridors and they found themselves coming to another large, open space with more furniture: this time it was beds and accompanying pieces.
Mai looked around the bedframes and headboards. Some were turning her off; one in particular looked like a wire basket one might carry eggs in. (There was some chicken joke there, but she wasn't finding it.) The Sylling looked convenient, if not a bit flimsy, but it was a fold-away. As she passed her eyes over the groupings, a bedside table caught her attention, which was sitting next to a plain-looking bed.
"What about this one, Serenity?" Mai said, walking over to a pine-colored nightstand. "I think it might go well with my bed."
Serenity had also been surveying the expanse of bedframes, and in her case with some dismay. They were all so white. White pressed wood, white-painted metal, white slats, white sheets... Her eyes hurt. The one thing you saw a lot of when you moved into a new place was white, because most landlords preferred to paint the walls either eggshell or linen or ecru or any of the many, many shades of just that: white. You got really tired of it after a while.
It was with relief that she saw that Mai's choice was anything but-- nice wood-tone, a pretty soft oak or pine piece of furniture (she never had been good at telling one from the other, but at least it wasn't white.) "I like it; it's not all--" Serenity waved a hand at the looming sea of angular whiteness. "Good price too."
The beds, were, for the most part, designed to display the Swedish love of clean lines and compact design; which was, really, fine... but Serenity was beginning to wish for a can of bright purple spraypaint; no wonder most of the bedspreads Ikea was selling were primary colors. Though, talking about spraypaint-- white didn't have to stay white, did it? The redhead paused with her hand on a metal frame, wondering if she'd void some warranty if she turned it hot pink or some other color in a fit of rebellion.
They wandered around, occasionally trying out a mattress or pulling out a drawer; a lot of the beds had storage beneath or attached to the sides, something Serenity hadn't considered. God, do I need storage, she thought, intrigued. She'd never been big on shopping for furniture, but it was easy to get into the spirit when your current bedframe was occupying an alley dumpster.
And there was this one bed... "What d'you think?" she asked Mai.
Mai looked over from the bed she was sitting on, a few sets over. She had propped the bag with her new nightstand in it against her legs. "I think it would look nice. Are you going to be using it as a couch and a bed?"
Serenity poked at the mattress. "Wasn't planning on it, but... I like it. Blue or teal?-- uh, I'm... I don't really want white, so I'll paint it," she said, slightly embarrassed. "Or maybe black, even? No, not black."
"I think that if you paint it black, it'll look dull," Mai commented. "Teal would look pretty, but blue would go better with more. You seem like a decorator type that could make teal work," she nodded, thinking back to the colorful pillow that was stuffed in the bottom of Serenity's bag.
The redhead grinned at her boss. "You wouldn't say that if you saw my place," she answered, thinking of mismatched towels and sheets that ran the gamut from vaguely earth-tones to a really horrifying yellow paisley. When your worldly goods had been reduced to what would fit in the backseat of a Honda, well... beggars couldn't be choosers, and thrift-shops were your friend. "Blue. I could do blue."
"I'm sure your place is fine." She thought of her own abode, which was not perfectly matched by her own will, but of her mother's; she insisted on having Mai's apartment having the overstuffed-furniture, dark-wood, baroque style of the Valentine home back north. It had been tweaked since then, but elements still lingered. "Blue would be nice. But I'd advise against making it Ikea blue," she said, remembering the hue the building was awash in.
Serenity made a face. "Uh, no. Maybe, I dunno, like a deep sky blue? And dark blue for the knobs." Having something that resembled a couch for a bed wouldn't be bad at all; kind of narrow, but... well. It wasn't like she'd been needing a large bed for anything in way, way too long a time.
...dammit.
Sigh.
The number of the furniture got jotted down; and she wondered just how hard it'd be to carry the pieces up the five flights of stairs. "Okay, got it. What's next?" Serenity consulted the small fold-out map she'd tucked in a pocket. "Wardrobes, storage, bathrooms."
"You might be able to find something to go under the bed," Mai pointed out as they stepped into a forest of armoires dotted with sprigs of boxes and totes. "It would save space."
God knows I need it, thought her employee. Now if her paycheck'd just stretch a little bit further... and her stamina, which was beginning to get Ikea'd out.
There were indeed under-the-bed storage things-- bins? compartments? Serenity was uncomfortably reminded of person-sized Tupperware in a few instances, but she had to admit that they'd come in handy, so long as she could keep Bear from entombing himself in them like some sort of feline pharaoh. They slid, rolled, tracked on rails and tiny wheels and somehow looked just the least little bit disturbing in a coffin-like way, especially the Tupperware ones. "You could hide a body for months in one've these," Serenity joked, nudging the plastic container with a toe. "Might have to squash 'em a bit, but you could."
"You could," Mai replied, voice trailing off. Thankfully no one in their presence was bugging her enough to warrant a pointing-out, although some of the outfits she was seeing around her made her think there must be a clothing division of this store. It looked like a couple customers used their old drapes and tablecloths for patterns. If someone has told Mai there was a fabrics division, she wouldn't have believed them. "Are you going to get any of it here?" She moved alongside Serenity, lowered her voice. "You might be able to find this stuff cheaper at other stores."
The same thought had occurred to the other woman; she nudged the container again and then stepped back, running one hand through her red bangs. "Think you're right. One thing at a time, anyway-- I don't want to kill the delivery guy." Serenity shook her head in mock sadness. "My place's elevator doesn't work."
"That's unfortunate," Mai said sympathetically. She was unconsciously making her way through the plastics to the door leading to the next room: bathrooms. It wasn't the hordes of people that were making her move, but some sort of pull towards the finish line. "Judging by the map," she said, glancing at the prominent graphic, "we're going through bathrooms, work, and kids' next. I think we should skip ahead- if you don't need to get anything- and check out the first floor. What do you think?"
Serenity was only too happy at this point to head downstairs. You could get just a little tired of Danish Modern after a while.
'Downstairs' seemed to be a fairly random mix of household goods and the large warehouse-- aisles and aisles of boxed furniture. It was a little intimidating but very well organized; you brought your item's number to Customer Service, forked over your address (and your money) and arranged for delivery. It too was very well organized, and Serenity glanced towards Mai as she tucked her credit card back into her wallet. "You hungry?"
"I am getting hungry," Mai admitted, having already checked out. She was carrying the box with the nightstand and a bag with her other small items- a vase and a picture frame- to take home on the bus with her. Even though she would have to drag them to work and then home, it would be better than having to wait for delivery. "Restaurant, anybody?"
The Ikea Restaurant and Café was as packed as the rest of the store, with the line being ten deep as they walked up to towards the counter. The line was moving quickly, however, and so they moved along at a good pace. It was hard to spot a clear table when first looking at the open room, but one could tell the turnover of customers was high by the amount of people bobbing up and down from their clean-lined metal seats. "I haven't had Swedish meatballs in ages," Mai commented as she looked at the menu. "I think I'll get that."
The redhead opted for chicken, but eyed the desserts longingly; if there was one thing she had a weakness for... She picked out something cheesecakeish with lingonberry jam on the side, which looked (and tasted) remarkably like cranberry sauce. "Tasty," she commented, forking up a bite after they had found seats.
All around them people were eating, chattering, flipping through catalogues and checking out their purchases; it was anything but peaceful, but after the hyperorganization of the merchandise areas, Serenity rather liked it. "How're the meatballs?"
"They're good. Not as good as Gram's, but they'll do," Mai said, smiling her teasing smile. It was nice to sit down and eat with somebody. She hadn't had lunch with a person in some time, which wasn't a sad thing but just fact. She also couldn't remember the last time she'd had a girls' day out, if she had ever had one at all. Serenity was not only personable but seemed like she was genuinely getting into their adventure, which was rare for Mai; in their job it was all too easy to fake caring for an hour-long interaction with the person in front of the bar. Genuine: that was the word for Serenity Wheeler. She looked at the young woman picking up the crumbs of the cake with her fork, and her smile lost any sourness. "Hey, Serenity, will you need any help putting together that truckload of furniture you just bought?"
"Definitely," Serenity answered with gratitude. "Trade you lunch for the help? They're delivering in," she checked the receipt she'd been given, "two days. You haven't been to my place before, have you?" she asked a little shyly. "I'd really love the help."
"Nope, I haven't," Mai said, realizing she only had a vague idea of where each of her underlings lived. "Tell you what, how about instead of lunch you come over and help me put together"- she tapped the box with a fingernail- "this nightstand? I haven't had many visitors lately, and the television gets pretty boring."
Serenity tilted her head, putting down her fork onto her tray and smiling. "Deal, but lunch's on me anyway." She had no idea where Mai lived, but she was curious; and, frankly, she welcomed the chance to get to know Mai better.
"Likewise," Mai agreed.
The blonde pulled out her phone and looked at the clock on it. There was plenty of time to get back to Manhattan and to the Phoenix. This didn't mean she felt like wandering the Ikea anymore, though. If she didn't have as much stuff they might have been able to squeeze in time for a walk, but as it was she didn't want to be carrying any boxes, no matter how compact they claimed to be. "Let's jet," she said as she picked up her tray and belongings, headed for the trash can. "I think we've been Ikea'd out."
"Got it," said Serenity gratefully, gathering up her belongings. She grinned at Mai, tired but happy. "Hope the border guards'll let us through."
mai_lovely]
[Scene: Oh, the slings and arrows of outrageous retail! (for those of us who don't have a fortune and have to shop on the economy, as it were.) Our ladies head out to the Brooklyn Redhook Ikea on Grand Opening day and wade through a mob of fellow shoppers, seeking treasure in the form of household goods. Will they survive? Will Ikea? Will they return sounding like the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show? We shall see. Backdated to June 18, 2008.]
Part 1; Part 3.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
"Beard 'n Otsego," announced the bus driver, a heavyset man with an equally heavy chunk of Brooklynese in his drawl. "You want Ikea, this's your stop. If," he added unnecessarily as he bumped the curb, "y'couldn't tell'r something."
Not... likely, thought Serenity as the doors accordioned open. Not unless you were blind.
The place was, well-- 'large' didn't really do it justice; 'fricking huge' might work, or 'monopoly;' the expanse of blue-and-gold logo was just a little intimidating. "Welcome to IkeaLand; please have your passports ready for the border-guards to stamp," she murmured to Mai as they gathered their things.
"My Swedish isn't very good. I hope they have interpreters," Mai jousted back with a smirk. "I wonder if my birth certificate and two forms of ID will do."
The day had been off to a cheerful start. At first Mai thought herself all alone outside Union Station and wondering if she took the train at the wrong time, but a few quick texts between the women fixed their location problems. Serenity had met her with a smile and had handed over the bag with Mai's bagel in it like this meeting was a morning ritual. It was encouraging to see someone who didn't seem to mind the hustle and bustle ahead; Mai was still nursing her coffee and half of her breakfast after they had boarded the semi-crowded Coney Island-bound F train.
The blonde followed her petite redheaded colleague off the bus, which seemed to lose a lot of passengers at this port of call. She had heard of the water taxi that ferried customers over from the mainland, and was actually curious about it, but it seemed like it would have to wait another day: she wasn't going to risk being late opening the Phoenix in order to go drifting on the Hudson. Maybe a day when I'm off, she told herself.
The entrance was indicated by the thick stream of people flowing into the massive building. As they stepped inside the doors Mai felt as though she was being put into a pinball machine. It was a spacious atmosphere, one that buzzed with energy. One pull of the plunger, and she might be sent flying towards the knick-knacks, bouncing off walls of flat pack furniture in the process. "I've never seen so much furniture in my life," she marveled.
And that was just the displays on the bottom floor. An escalator took them up in a herdlike mass of humanity (Serenity sternly suppressed the desire to start making mooing noises; if her brothers had been with her, the suppression probably wouldn't've happened but the mooing would've.) It was a feature of the store that you couldn't just leave when you'd found what you wanted; you had to go through the whole thing, thus increasing the chance that you'd pick up a few more items. A good marketing strategy, the young woman supposed; she wondered what Seto Kaiba would've thought of it, and if he'd ever been in an Ikea in his life.
Not... likely. Again. Interesting thing to consider, though.
They seemed to be visiting the land of couches, end-tables, and a multitude of sharply-angled bookcases and storage units just now; plain wood and painted metal shelves hung like objets d'art on a nearby wall. Glancing at Mai as she picked up a throw pillow, studied it, and carefully replaced it, she asked: "So what're you shopping for today?"
"I'm not looking for much," Mai said, examining the side table that looked like a inverted top hat. Glancing at the tag, the name said it all: Hatten. If she was following the same line of logic as suggested, she was already mentally pointing out the Sofar and the Tablur. She began to smile. "Clear cut, Swedes," she mumbled to herself, fully allowing herself to jab insults as a privilege of her Scandinavian lineage.
"I want to at least get a small item, a vase or a magazine rack." She stood back up from her crouched stance. "A souvenir," she smirked. "Are you looking for whole sets or just pieces and parts?"
Serenity made a totally (well, mostly) undeserved face at the same piece of furniture. "Whole thing, actually, so long as they deliver. My mattress's okay, but the rest... it wasn't worth fixing. So yay, new bed time..." She blinked at the 'Hatten'. "That's, um, kind of interesting." Not her kind of interesting in general; it reminded her just a bit of a three-legged spider-- she'd expect it to skitter nervously sideways if bumped-- but the price was definitely low. "Why're all the names in... is that German?" Serenity vaguely recalled looking at the website's food menu earlier; it had contained meatballs, the kind that came from-- "No, wait, Swedish, right? Swedish. Huh." She gave the red-topped 'Hatten' another look before moving along.
Bookshelves and storage-bins, strange lamps and oddly 80s-style backdrops; it was a little like Frank Lloyd Wright had decided to go into business in the cheap furniture market, with an emphasis on clean lines and wood veneer. At one point Serenity found herself trying out what could loosely be called a rocking chair that quite possibly had a bit of feline scratching-post in its ancestry; half-laughing, she attempted to struggle up off of the contraption. "Help?"
Mai joined in the amusing ruckus, giving her friend a hand up from the wobbling furniture as a couple of other customers looked on in an intrigued way. She laughed as it took a full pull of her strength for Serenity to escape the rattan clutches of the chair, which tried its hardest to keep her in the seat by rocking the girl's weight backwards. "I am not trying that," Mai said, pointing an accusatory finger at the piece.
The blonde looked around at the numerous sets that clustered themselves into fashion like herds of flowered or striped or pink sheep. Everything in the faux rooms looked styled and so organized to fit together. It was as though the company was shaming her for bringing together a nice-looking apartment by dragging together tchotchkes and secondhand furnishings; why have that when you can have it all from prepackaged coordination? Mai wasn't buying their tactics so quickly, but there was still something admirable about their response to the customers' wants. "So, do you see anything that tickles your fancy? Maybe that one?" she said, voice raising like a small balloon.
Her companion turned her back on the offending piece of rattan and wandered slowly down the aisle. There was an awful lot of black-and-white combos as well as the flowers and wood and stripes and general 80's-ness; "Nothing so far, b-- oh."
It was just a pillow; there were several of them, arranged artfully on a blindingly white couch. "I kind of like this." Serenity picked it up, flipping the multicolored thing over and running her fingers along the smooth fabric. "It's not like it wouldn't match, 'cause my apartment's decorated in Early Garage Sale," she murmured, and checked the pricetag. Her eyebrows rose; two of the pillows and then a third denuded the couch, and the redhead snagged one of the store's enormous yellow shopping-bags to hold her newfound accessories. She grinned a little at her boss; "I kind of like bright colors," she muttered.
Mai nodded her head in agreement. It was amazing how she could learn about a person by their choice of pillow. This one seemed to fit Serenity to a tee, although it wasn't something she could readily verbalize. Reflecting on her own choices, she wondered what it said about her if she was eyeing up the conveniently drab brown cushion at the corner of another couch. Perhaps it just said that it fit the color scheme of her decor. She was hoping. "Maybe it's time to move to the next room," she suggested.
"That'd be good," agreed Serenity, hiking her bag's straps a little smugly over one shoulder; she was feeling altogether possessive about her pillows.
The next room paid homage to the Dining Experience, and while it was less eclectic than the previous 80's shrines, it made the redhead wish she had room for a proper table; Ikea was big on blond, smooth wood surfaces, and some of the furniture was really nice. Foldable, too; Serenity considered that maybe they didn't have much room in Sweden and wistfully ran her hand across a joined-wood sideboard. "You need a table?" she asked Mai, glancing at the other woman.
"Maybe a new bedside one," Mai said. "How much room do you have in your apartment for a dining table?"
"Not enough." Serenity shrugged and allowed her hand to drop. "You know that thing about 'too small to swing a cat?'" She left the rest unsaid. "It's okay, though, 'cause mostly it's just me and the cat for dinner anyway except for when Tristan and Joey come by. Not much happening on my social calendar lately." She brightened a little at what else Mai had said. "I think bedroom stuff's next, though."
A few more items joined Serenity's pillows as they moved through the well-lit aisles: a French Press to replace one broken several weeks before, a small kitchen-floormat, a bedspread that went with the pillows. "They shouldn't let me in places like this without a keeper," admitted the young woman sheepishly, adjusting the straps of her bag.
"Shopping is shopping. You're doing what you came here for," Mai replied. As the straps came to rest higher on Serenity's shoulder, Mai was reminded that she should pick up a carrier of her own. She had told herself that she wasn't going to spend a lot, but picking up a few things shouldn't clutter her apartment. She snagged a sack from the corner of the endcap and followed her companion down the next aisleway, which contained a good amount of people. A couple more passes down corridors and they found themselves coming to another large, open space with more furniture: this time it was beds and accompanying pieces.
Mai looked around the bedframes and headboards. Some were turning her off; one in particular looked like a wire basket one might carry eggs in. (There was some chicken joke there, but she wasn't finding it.) The Sylling looked convenient, if not a bit flimsy, but it was a fold-away. As she passed her eyes over the groupings, a bedside table caught her attention, which was sitting next to a plain-looking bed.
"What about this one, Serenity?" Mai said, walking over to a pine-colored nightstand. "I think it might go well with my bed."
Serenity had also been surveying the expanse of bedframes, and in her case with some dismay. They were all so white. White pressed wood, white-painted metal, white slats, white sheets... Her eyes hurt. The one thing you saw a lot of when you moved into a new place was white, because most landlords preferred to paint the walls either eggshell or linen or ecru or any of the many, many shades of just that: white. You got really tired of it after a while.
It was with relief that she saw that Mai's choice was anything but-- nice wood-tone, a pretty soft oak or pine piece of furniture (she never had been good at telling one from the other, but at least it wasn't white.) "I like it; it's not all--" Serenity waved a hand at the looming sea of angular whiteness. "Good price too."
The beds, were, for the most part, designed to display the Swedish love of clean lines and compact design; which was, really, fine... but Serenity was beginning to wish for a can of bright purple spraypaint; no wonder most of the bedspreads Ikea was selling were primary colors. Though, talking about spraypaint-- white didn't have to stay white, did it? The redhead paused with her hand on a metal frame, wondering if she'd void some warranty if she turned it hot pink or some other color in a fit of rebellion.
They wandered around, occasionally trying out a mattress or pulling out a drawer; a lot of the beds had storage beneath or attached to the sides, something Serenity hadn't considered. God, do I need storage, she thought, intrigued. She'd never been big on shopping for furniture, but it was easy to get into the spirit when your current bedframe was occupying an alley dumpster.
And there was this one bed... "What d'you think?" she asked Mai.
Mai looked over from the bed she was sitting on, a few sets over. She had propped the bag with her new nightstand in it against her legs. "I think it would look nice. Are you going to be using it as a couch and a bed?"
Serenity poked at the mattress. "Wasn't planning on it, but... I like it. Blue or teal?-- uh, I'm... I don't really want white, so I'll paint it," she said, slightly embarrassed. "Or maybe black, even? No, not black."
"I think that if you paint it black, it'll look dull," Mai commented. "Teal would look pretty, but blue would go better with more. You seem like a decorator type that could make teal work," she nodded, thinking back to the colorful pillow that was stuffed in the bottom of Serenity's bag.
The redhead grinned at her boss. "You wouldn't say that if you saw my place," she answered, thinking of mismatched towels and sheets that ran the gamut from vaguely earth-tones to a really horrifying yellow paisley. When your worldly goods had been reduced to what would fit in the backseat of a Honda, well... beggars couldn't be choosers, and thrift-shops were your friend. "Blue. I could do blue."
"I'm sure your place is fine." She thought of her own abode, which was not perfectly matched by her own will, but of her mother's; she insisted on having Mai's apartment having the overstuffed-furniture, dark-wood, baroque style of the Valentine home back north. It had been tweaked since then, but elements still lingered. "Blue would be nice. But I'd advise against making it Ikea blue," she said, remembering the hue the building was awash in.
Serenity made a face. "Uh, no. Maybe, I dunno, like a deep sky blue? And dark blue for the knobs." Having something that resembled a couch for a bed wouldn't be bad at all; kind of narrow, but... well. It wasn't like she'd been needing a large bed for anything in way, way too long a time.
...dammit.
Sigh.
The number of the furniture got jotted down; and she wondered just how hard it'd be to carry the pieces up the five flights of stairs. "Okay, got it. What's next?" Serenity consulted the small fold-out map she'd tucked in a pocket. "Wardrobes, storage, bathrooms."
"You might be able to find something to go under the bed," Mai pointed out as they stepped into a forest of armoires dotted with sprigs of boxes and totes. "It would save space."
God knows I need it, thought her employee. Now if her paycheck'd just stretch a little bit further... and her stamina, which was beginning to get Ikea'd out.
There were indeed under-the-bed storage things-- bins? compartments? Serenity was uncomfortably reminded of person-sized Tupperware in a few instances, but she had to admit that they'd come in handy, so long as she could keep Bear from entombing himself in them like some sort of feline pharaoh. They slid, rolled, tracked on rails and tiny wheels and somehow looked just the least little bit disturbing in a coffin-like way, especially the Tupperware ones. "You could hide a body for months in one've these," Serenity joked, nudging the plastic container with a toe. "Might have to squash 'em a bit, but you could."
"You could," Mai replied, voice trailing off. Thankfully no one in their presence was bugging her enough to warrant a pointing-out, although some of the outfits she was seeing around her made her think there must be a clothing division of this store. It looked like a couple customers used their old drapes and tablecloths for patterns. If someone has told Mai there was a fabrics division, she wouldn't have believed them. "Are you going to get any of it here?" She moved alongside Serenity, lowered her voice. "You might be able to find this stuff cheaper at other stores."
The same thought had occurred to the other woman; she nudged the container again and then stepped back, running one hand through her red bangs. "Think you're right. One thing at a time, anyway-- I don't want to kill the delivery guy." Serenity shook her head in mock sadness. "My place's elevator doesn't work."
"That's unfortunate," Mai said sympathetically. She was unconsciously making her way through the plastics to the door leading to the next room: bathrooms. It wasn't the hordes of people that were making her move, but some sort of pull towards the finish line. "Judging by the map," she said, glancing at the prominent graphic, "we're going through bathrooms, work, and kids' next. I think we should skip ahead- if you don't need to get anything- and check out the first floor. What do you think?"
Serenity was only too happy at this point to head downstairs. You could get just a little tired of Danish Modern after a while.
'Downstairs' seemed to be a fairly random mix of household goods and the large warehouse-- aisles and aisles of boxed furniture. It was a little intimidating but very well organized; you brought your item's number to Customer Service, forked over your address (and your money) and arranged for delivery. It too was very well organized, and Serenity glanced towards Mai as she tucked her credit card back into her wallet. "You hungry?"
"I am getting hungry," Mai admitted, having already checked out. She was carrying the box with the nightstand and a bag with her other small items- a vase and a picture frame- to take home on the bus with her. Even though she would have to drag them to work and then home, it would be better than having to wait for delivery. "Restaurant, anybody?"
The Ikea Restaurant and Café was as packed as the rest of the store, with the line being ten deep as they walked up to towards the counter. The line was moving quickly, however, and so they moved along at a good pace. It was hard to spot a clear table when first looking at the open room, but one could tell the turnover of customers was high by the amount of people bobbing up and down from their clean-lined metal seats. "I haven't had Swedish meatballs in ages," Mai commented as she looked at the menu. "I think I'll get that."
The redhead opted for chicken, but eyed the desserts longingly; if there was one thing she had a weakness for... She picked out something cheesecakeish with lingonberry jam on the side, which looked (and tasted) remarkably like cranberry sauce. "Tasty," she commented, forking up a bite after they had found seats.
All around them people were eating, chattering, flipping through catalogues and checking out their purchases; it was anything but peaceful, but after the hyperorganization of the merchandise areas, Serenity rather liked it. "How're the meatballs?"
"They're good. Not as good as Gram's, but they'll do," Mai said, smiling her teasing smile. It was nice to sit down and eat with somebody. She hadn't had lunch with a person in some time, which wasn't a sad thing but just fact. She also couldn't remember the last time she'd had a girls' day out, if she had ever had one at all. Serenity was not only personable but seemed like she was genuinely getting into their adventure, which was rare for Mai; in their job it was all too easy to fake caring for an hour-long interaction with the person in front of the bar. Genuine: that was the word for Serenity Wheeler. She looked at the young woman picking up the crumbs of the cake with her fork, and her smile lost any sourness. "Hey, Serenity, will you need any help putting together that truckload of furniture you just bought?"
"Definitely," Serenity answered with gratitude. "Trade you lunch for the help? They're delivering in," she checked the receipt she'd been given, "two days. You haven't been to my place before, have you?" she asked a little shyly. "I'd really love the help."
"Nope, I haven't," Mai said, realizing she only had a vague idea of where each of her underlings lived. "Tell you what, how about instead of lunch you come over and help me put together"- she tapped the box with a fingernail- "this nightstand? I haven't had many visitors lately, and the television gets pretty boring."
Serenity tilted her head, putting down her fork onto her tray and smiling. "Deal, but lunch's on me anyway." She had no idea where Mai lived, but she was curious; and, frankly, she welcomed the chance to get to know Mai better.
"Likewise," Mai agreed.
The blonde pulled out her phone and looked at the clock on it. There was plenty of time to get back to Manhattan and to the Phoenix. This didn't mean she felt like wandering the Ikea anymore, though. If she didn't have as much stuff they might have been able to squeeze in time for a walk, but as it was she didn't want to be carrying any boxes, no matter how compact they claimed to be. "Let's jet," she said as she picked up her tray and belongings, headed for the trash can. "I think we've been Ikea'd out."
"Got it," said Serenity gratefully, gathering up her belongings. She grinned at Mai, tired but happy. "Hope the border guards'll let us through."