part one
WHO: Irma Perkins [THUMBELINA] and Skip Blumstein [THE WOOD PIG]
WHAT: Irma meets a shady man in front of an Asian fusion restaurant.
WHEN: Friday, 7 March, late enough in the evening for dinner at fancy Asian fusion restaurants. After, it should be noted, this exchange in the Compendiums.
WHERE: Aja on 58th Street and 1st Avenue.
RATING: R for the existence of either character within each other's general vicinity.
Figured that some cunt that Norma would pick would ask her to go to such a pretentious place for a meal. What was wrong with a sandwich and coffee when you were first meeting a person? Hell, cut to the fucking chase and get her a drink or five at the bar, even. But no, these jackshits always seem to want to wine her and dine her before she closed her eyes and forgot that the guy that was sticking it in her was old enough to be her dad (and if anything about her sketchy origins was to be as she believed, probably older), and so Irma Perkins put up with the situation with her normal level of irritation and maximum amount of cigarettes. If she could've stood in front of Aja with a flask of Grey Goose in one hand and two or three of her Djarum Blacks in the other, she would, but Irma felt that it probably would be a little prudent to hold off on the entire "let's get blitzed enough to make the guy hate my cunty face" routine until she was at least pretty sure he'd buy the meal. Shit like this don't come for free.
Tap, tap, snub. Light. Fourth cig since Irma had arrived at the ashtray stationed in front of the restaurant's entrance, and she was pretty sure that it was a good fifteen minutes after she should've showed up inside the establishment to redeem the reservations. Either some schmuck was inside waiting and wondering if he was stood up, her date was late, or the guy decided to choose the option of standing her up. It was, to Irma, the most ideal of situations; if she never had to look at Bob the Hawkfucker in the face, she'd be thrilled, pleased as punch, and all those other little quaint sayings that were helpful euphemisms for being supremely overjoyed that she'd be able to go home to her apartment, turn on a good porn flick, and enjoy getting herself off on her own terms. And if he was waiting? Well, it would be the start of a horrifically short relationship, and Irma was more than alright with that. A little less porn, sure, but maybe she'd be lucky and be able to dodge next Friday.
She took a drag and let it fill her head, savoring the mix of clove and tobacco and tar on her tongue before letting it out ever-so slowly. The cloud was like a ring, really, the worst halo in the seediest town. 'Enjoy this one, bitch,' Irma couldn't help but thinking, 'because for tonight, it'll probably be your last.'
If Skip Blumstein had any idea of Irma Perkins' inner monologue, he would have laughed. As it was, though, he was just on the verge of faggish giggles that came from being very pleased with himself. Of the many stupid, cruel, and outright dangerous ideas that the college sophomore had throughout his miserable twenty year existence, he had to believe that this was one of the better ones. After all, the bitch had no idea what he looked like. Hell, based on their brief, compendium-based acquaintanceship, the only thing that she really knew about him was a profound love of pussy jokes and his low tolerance for people who had somehow gotten the notion that their debate skills were actually on par. (Poor Amelia; sometimes he genuinely felt sorry for the old hag. And then he remembered that her best defense was talking to someone in another language-and then, he promptly got over it.) He didn't like to think what he was about to do as asshattery, per se, or even really douchebaggish-really, he was doing Perkins a favor by intercepting her blind date. Shit, who knows; he might even get a good lay out of the deal, if she was as feisty in the sack as she was on paper.
The question was: How to go about it? Skip had spent the past few hours mulling over that one essential part of the plan. He had to get rid of the actual blind date, first, and there were only so many ways to go about it that didn't involve getting his ass kicked. At first, he thought about sabotaging the man's car-but that took too much effort on his part for a bitch he didn't even know. The next thought was posing as Perkins' angry lover and bombard the man with furious voice mails, but Skip didn't have the time to call all 577 Peregrines listed in the phone book. Then, he contemplated posing as a meter maid to distract the poor bastard, but that was far too convoluted. The best approach was the simplest one, Skip decided.
"Peregrine? Reservation for two?" Skip said in his best 'I'm a poor college student working as a maître d' voice. (The actual maître d had stepped away from the podium for a moment, due to a small fire at the bar Skip would later claim he had absolutely nothing to do with.) There was a brief shuffling of pages in the reservation book, before he looked up with an faux-apologetic expression. "Oh! Yes. Here it is. I-hm. Did you receive the message from Ms. Perkins? Oh. She canceled; there was a family emergency and she'd like to reschedule. Would you like to be seated now, sir? No? Well. I'm terribly, terribly sorry sir. Have a good night."
And he was in. A quick circle to the front of the restaurant and the switch was made. He looked at the crowd of people at the entrance with an expression he hoped would resemble being lost, or overwhelmed, before sitting beside some chain smoking bitch against the wall. As soon as his back touched the wall of the alcove they were nestled in, he felt that familiar tug in the bottom of his stomach-another Tale.
Gotcha.
"Excuse me, lady. You got a light?" he asked Irma Perkins as he removed a cigar from his breast pocket. "I've been waiting on my date for some time now, figure it's going to be a while before she shows up. You know how women are."
It was all chalked up to smoker's reflex the way Irma rooted through her pocket and surfaced a nicked, battered Bic like others gave away tissues or perhaps spare pens. It was the only acknowledgment she gave for some time; after all, she was pretty sure she's heard the rest before -- shit, least heard it twice just by standing there in the middle of Aja's smokertopia, and whereas other women would probably say something to the point of consoling the poor, poor boy, maybe saying something about the stalwart nature of his patience, Irma was more than content to let him wait his woman in quiet internal contemplation without the benefit of insipid platitudes and asinine small talk. She paused to ash again, biting her lip as she did so out of the orphaned feeling of nothing pressed between the both of them, and it was then when, despite herself, she opened up her goddamn fucking gob.
Figured that it was the smell of the cigar when he lit up that was her undoing. Without her nose full of clove, the wisps of the other person's smoke drifted into her nose rather languidly, innocent in its arbitrary drift courtesy of the slight breeze, but it was just enough for her to close her eyes behind those perpetual sunglasses of hers and remember the one time prior in which she had encountered that very same... well, essence, for lack of better (read: less flowery) terminology. It involved some rich bastard in her dorm at Rhode Island and the first time she actually knew she was fucking, hopelessly addicted to nicotine. Cigarettes might've been a bit of a fleeting social fancy, and the cloves were about the only way she could bear to make the fiscal compromise, but she had taken one hit off of that fucking cancer bomb and had loved every minute. It was too long ago for her to remember the particular brand name, sure, but Irma Perkins' memory would know that scent and the associated buzz until she was six foot under in a pine box, and it was enough to loosen her fucking lips.
"So," she managed, her voice bland and a little brittle, "take your tobacco seriously, do you?"
The light had been a ruse, of course; his proverbial foot in the door. If he had really been so desperate for a smoke, his own lighter rested in his coat pocket - but for now, that's where it would stay, only to be grasped within the silk lining by his nervous hand, as a sort of security blanket. No, asking for a light had been part of the plan, but it had never crossed his mind that the cigar would be the actual start of their conversation. The muted look of surprise on his face could not be dispelled, even as the business end of the cigar glowed into life, but one long drag and his expression faded into nicotine-induced tranquility. For a moment he glanced over to her, as if he was preparing an answer, but thought better of it. That look on her face, two parts nostalgia and one part lust, was a fucking masterpiece if he ever saw one and Skip was never one to interrupt an artist at work with something so crass as a response. Instead, he smoked.
"Nicotine. Tar. Arsenic. Lead. Cyanide," he began, tearing the band from the cigar and throwing it to the ground. "If I'm going to kill myself with these things, I'd rather not half-ass it."
He was afraid that his words were too familiar for comfort, but he felt that anything short of his usual smug and foolish self would not get her attention. Rather than potentially reveal his identity further with more words, he let the heavy, smoke-filled silence sit between them. A few minutes later he allowed himself a glimpse at his watch and a shake of his head. "Shit. Guess the Perkins girl stood me up. Oh well, not the first time, eh?" Another pause, as he flicked some ash to the sidewalk. "How about you, then? You've been here for a while, why not come inside with me? Guarantee I'm a better conversationalist than whoever you're waiting on."
"Bravo, bravo, General," she managed in between succinct puffs, a woman on a mission of her own, "way to soldier on through such a grueling battle to take on cancer by the balls." Irma extracted the shriveled, consumed filter from her lips in a manner as matter-of-fact as her tone, sarcasm barely discernible if not for the tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. "May your blood pressure blitzkrieg be merciless and your blinding strokes all-encompassing. On behalf of every cigarette smoker in America, allow me to say that we only dream of committing to half as many diseases as you. A role model to us all."
For a fleeting moment, Irma idly considered what it said of her character to say such things with a semblance of genuine sentiment, but then she promptly remembered that she was talking to a stranger and that any admiration that she may or may not hold within herself for his blatant disregard for health and safety in lieu of pleasure and a choice taste in drugs mattered little. Furthermore, neither did his interpretation, since she was quite sure that she wouldn't know him beyond that of the few minutes they would continue to puff, or-- well. The invitation certainly drew a bit of a monkey wrench into that particular plan, and Irma found herself counting her blessings for the foresight to keep on wearing her sunglasses into the night; otherwise, that instinctual (if not fleeting) expression of shock would've been easier to read than The Adventures of fucking Dick and Jane. Hell, probably was anyway, but Irma Perkins was nothing if not cocksure in both poker and lying, and that particular confidence was enough to smooth out whatever traitorous movement her mouth had committed to without her express consent.
Still, she had to yea or nay his offer, and until she made her decision, she could lie safe with commentary. "Sounds like you got paired up with quite the cunt," and the possible truth of it made it quite hard (but, to her pleasure, not impossible) for Irma to not break into a shit-eating grin. Perkins, after all, was a common enough name; it was no Jones or Smith, but it was distinctly bland and très Americaine enough to count for coincidences. And, courtesy of the utter size of New York and Norma's preponderance for pairing Irma will all the men over forty that the woman didn't have the balls to claim on her own meant she could afford to be skeptical (or perhaps hopeful, depending on perspective). Either he was an unfortunately named twenty-something or he was not, but regardless of his identity, Irma considered the merits of his company over an overly expensive meal as she fiddled with the lid of her cigarette box. Ultimately, at the root of things, it was choosing between either another cig or some food, and she'd be lying if she said that she needed the former over the latter.
The decision was made on a turn of her heel. "The hell. Why not?"