(He walked. He got out of the house without any trouble, and if he's lucky he'll get back in without any event, either. There's no way Sal won't notice that he's gone, not when there's no one else in the house, but there are days she's less abrasive with him than others.
Before leaving the apartment, he spends a good five minutes in front of a cracked mirror, not out of vanity but out of self-doubt and in part, self-derision. What would she want with you?)
His hair is combed in a way that suggests making himself presentable isn't something he has cause to worry about often, wearing a sweater pulled over a button-down shirt whose collar only just peeks out. In his hands is the model boat, a foot or so in length and incredibly elaborate for not having been built off of any sort of template, evidence of his meticulous care fully evident. As soon as he spots Phillipa, Francis makes his way over, hesitating for just a moment before taking the seat across from her, placing the boat (and a rudimentary sort of stand) down on the table between them, then simply tucking his hands into his lap. ]
[ She's not entirely sure what she's meant to do when she first sees Francis appear in the doorway; whether or not she should stand (too formal) or help him (too pushy) or just sit there patiently and pretend she's not relieved to see him (too not her). In the end, she sits on both of her hands to keep from reaching out to touch the model, her fingers squished resolutely underneath her thighs, right behind each knee -- stubbornly pinned.
The temptation is to simply stare at the boat, to marvel at its meticulous detail and all of the things about Francis it must imply. But for now, she does none of that, forces herself to look at him across the table, her mouth forming the faintest curve upwards.
When Phillipa smiles at him, it's with her eyes. And unlike her mouth it's not just a suggestion, it's a proper smile. ] Hello, Francis.
[ Only just barely audibly: ] I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long. [ Where his voice is solely timid, there's a quality of something close to hopefulness in Francis' expression (in the fact that he meets her gaze at all), as if he were seeking out her approval.
[ Phillipa shakes her head (no, not long) and then shrugs once, very lightly, with a single shoulder. Beneath her thighs, her fingers wiggle impatiently so she liberates them, only to fold them at the very edge of the table -- as far as possible as she can get them from the boat without being strange or rude about it. ]
Tired, [ she tells Francis with oddly resigned cheerfulness. Her attention flickers to the boat and stays there, her eyes growing large and inquisitive (much like the way someone opens their mouth that much wider in the hopes of consuming more than they would otherwise). If the way her mouth crooks as she peers is any indication, her answer is yes, yes I do and it is. ]
Y-yeah. [ Francis bobs his head, as if to accentuate the point. ] I've been g-good.
[ His hands remain in his lap, one folded over the other. They're restless, too, but for nothing in particular. He has nowhere else to put them. (Or maybe that's a lie One of them rises to run over the back of his neck before falling again. An indication of sheepish relief, this time, at the look on her face.) ]
Have you? [ (No, I haven't and yes, you may.) Phillipa's eyes say as much in the brief flicker from the ship's prow to Francis and back again. Those hands of hers have begun to creep across the cracked linoleum of the table between then, fingers tucked under in an attempt to still keep them to herself despite all their wandering. She lowers her face down, so low that her chin practically bumps the table as well, as she studies the ships silhouette, tries to imagine the hands that made it (sandpaper, toothpick, glue and knife). Francis's hands.
When she speaks it's half to herself, mumbled out of the corner of her mouth, distracted. ]
Not yet. [ Although his gaze darts to it, Francis doesn't pull the menu over in his direction yet, instead choosing to watch the girl sitting across the table. When Phillipa speaks again, he goes still for what seems like the first time since they met. He blinks a few times in rapid succession, the rat-tat-tat of a Gatling gun, squinting as though he were staring into a very bright light, or trying to pick out some minute detail. (He isn't; he's just surprised.) ]
Thanks. [ The word catches, although not in the usual way. It catches on the dryness in his throat (again, nerves), not on his tongue. That said, his chin tips down, his eyes still following her from under his brow.
(The boat won't break if you touch it, you know.) ]
[ If there's one thing that college has taught Phillipa it's that artists can be finicky creatures when it comes to the things they create. ("Give it space. It needs to breathe. Don't touch that. That's mine.") So even when she sees something like permission in Francis' expression, her hands remain reluctant to accept the offer, instead clenching into tiny fists for a moment before splaying flat against the tabletop, fingers spread. ] You should order something.
[ Her own menu remains ignored at her elbow but Phillipa comes here often enough that they know her as a regular. Unsurprisingly, she orders the same exact thing every time no matter what time of day it is. A Belgian waffle with a side of bacon (extra crispy), coffee light and sweet, and if she's really hungry, a muffin for the road.
There's a lull that follows, not unlike the gaps of silence that dotted their conversation over the phone. Phillipa doesn't seem to mind, though; she's perfectly satisfied looking at Francis and his boat and marveling at each quietly in turn. Everyone's life is mired in secrets, she knows this if only because her own is practically drowning in them. When Phillipa stares at strangers, tries to reconstruct some pantomime of their lives in her head, it's in an attempt to capture some of those secrets -- to hold them, quite literally, in her hands. It makes her feel both less alone and completely alien to the outside world.
This boat, she figures, is something like a secret. At least, that's how it feels when she looks at it.
With a delicate finger, she touches the very tip of the tallest mast and when she does she exhales lightly. An abridged sigh. ] You must have very steady hands. [ It's the only way he'd be able to get so much detail. ]
My f- my father did, [ Francis says, as if this is a sufficient explanation. (His hands are steady when he's alone. In company he cares about, he shakes.) He opens up his menu as he speaks, eyes falling to read over the myriad of options presented to him.
To a certain extent, he understands the attempt to piece together someone else's life from the barest of clues. In part, it's natural curiosity, he thinks. There's no one who doesn't at least hypothesize. But more than that, it's a desire to know that someone is doing better, that better is possible. (Of course, then it's a matter of somehow getting there, but the knowledge that a better sort of life exists is nice in itself.) The nerves he feels on a regular basis compound as such, exacerbated by the knowledge that the secrets he's keeping are particularly ugly, and that it has to be only a matter of time before someone finds them out.
With a questionable degree of success, he tries to focus his attention on the menu, turning the pages carefully (as carefully as he'd tried to retrieve the pages that had fallen from her sketchbook).
His mouth twists as he keeps looking over the options, one finger running down the words, keeping track of how far he's gotten. He pauses only once.
The word sticks to the inside of Phillipa's mind because personal experience has taught her the power of past tense, the implied meaning of it (she uses it all the time). Sometimes it's a cry for help, a look at what I've lost, please comfort me; other times it's as impenetrable as five-foot wide wall of concrete, separating her from whomever she's talking to, a you don't know what I've been through, you can't possibly understand. She doesn't know Francis, so she can't tell what it means coming from his lips, but a few more lines shade themselves into existence in the sketch of him in her mind. A sick mother, a past-tense father, that averted gaze -- Phillipa gathers all of it.
She has both hands on the hull of the boat (gentle palms; she's a sculptor so her hands are steady too) when she recalls the cache in her knapsack. It gets her to start very slightly -- another caught breath -- and then she's sitting back, attention turned to rummaging. ] Oh. My. I almost forgot. I brought you something.
[ The single sheaf of cardstock doesn't tremble when she finally offers it across the table to him. A ship sinking into the ocean, awash in a burning sunset. ] When you mentioned ships, I--
[ Phillipa shrugs. --I thought of you and just had to dig up this old thing from my notes because I was convinced you had to have it? The rest of her sentence plays out awkwardly in her head and so she doesn't bother with it, just presses her lips together expectantly in the hopes that Francis doesn't mind the gesture. She says for the second time since meeting him: ]
You-- [ A hesitation. ] --you don't have to take it.
[ In Francis' case, whether Phillipa picks up on it eventually or not, 'did' isn't a word that swings either way. Instead, it's simply an it happened. I can't change it now. (But, oh, how he wishes he could. And if he can't, that God would.)
When she offers him the card, he hesitates, much in the way that he did on the bus, before taking it from her. Slowly, he brings it up close to his face, peering at it as if he could see the grooves of each brushstroke on the printed surface. It's the colors that strike him, first (darkness in the water and blood on the horizon - whose blood?), and then the shackled hands. (He almost imagines that one of the hands is reaching for him.) ]
Thank you, [ he says, a pause following his words before he looks up. (When he gets back home, he will prop it up next to the lamp that sits on his nightstand, alongside a red and white baseball cap, a handful's worth of change and a few other knick-knacks.) ]
You really didn't - have to. [ There's no trace of complain in his voice; only that of guilt, for lack of a better word, that she's given him anything at all. ]
[ She watches and wonders: what do you see, Francis; the question sits flat on her tongue like a heavy coin but she doesn't spit it out (doesn't swallow it either), just lets it sit so that the silence can grow full between them. ]
I know, [ Phillipa tells him, her mouth quirking something of a reassuring smile. ] But I did.
[(And I'm not sorry, so please don't be either.) ]
☈ ACTION | and this is what happens when your word processor freaks out :|falsitiesJuly 19 2011, 17:51:27 UTC
[ Recognizing what goes unsaid, Francis offers up a slight smile instead, gaze falling once more to the menu. ]
Thanks, [ he tells her again, with less discomfort in his demeanor, although his shyness persists. There's still a hint of his usual apologetic manner to the single word, but he manages to keep it fairly contained.
☈ ACTION | LMAO i was like WHAT IS HAPPENING RN aaaaaaaaatournoieJuly 19 2011, 18:34:10 UTC
[ Instead of answering, Phillipa waves over one of the waitresses milling around at the swinging set of doors that mark the mouth of the kitchen. They all know her here, not by name but by face and order, and when the eldest of the lot -- a wrinkle-faced woman with a lilac-tinged beehive of hair -- answers the wave, she offers first Phillipa and then Francis an easy-going smile. She points at the model on the table between them. ] That one of yours, hon?
[ She's quick to shake her head and indicate Francis across from her, saying: ] Francis made it, not me.
[ That earns Francis an even bigger smile, wide enough to expose most of her teeth which sit too perfect and too white in her mouth to be all real. ] How about him, eh? [ the waitress -- whose name is Marlene -- asks teasingly. ] He one of yours instead?
[ Phillipa crinkles her nose awkwardly and then apologetically at Francis. ]
[ Francis doesn't quite lift his head up all the way, eyebrows climbing his forehead as he looks up at the waitress for all of a second, the smile on his features wavering but still polite. It's the sort of smile a person wears when dealing with unnecessary praise: flattered (for some definition) on the one hand and unsure of how to speak up (no, no, that's not me, I wouldn't presume -) on the other.
Fortunately, he doesn't seem particularly uncomfortable, just vaguely amused as if he were detached from the situation and simply watching it transpire from somewhere other vantage point. His gaze, as it usually does, falls again (although it finds Phillipa on its way down), focusing on the hands he still has folded over one another. ]
[ Marlene clicks her tongue, first at Phillipa and then at Francis as she looks expectedly from one to the other and then breaks into another grin. She waves at them a friendly admonition, a don't mind me. ] Oh, kids, [ she says gustily before -- thankfully -- returning to the task at hand, her fingers moving to pluck the ballpoint pen from where it's stuck behind her ear. ]
The usual for you, sweetheart? [ Marlene asks and Phillipa, who's still looking for her voice (she's afraid if she opens her mouth she might just croak, something like fluster still high in her throat), just nods silently before glancing over at Francis.
(He walked. He got out of the house without any trouble, and if he's lucky he'll get back in without any event, either. There's no way Sal won't notice that he's gone, not when there's no one else in the house, but there are days she's less abrasive with him than others.
Before leaving the apartment, he spends a good five minutes in front of a cracked mirror, not out of vanity but out of self-doubt and in part, self-derision. What would she want with you?)
His hair is combed in a way that suggests making himself presentable isn't something he has cause to worry about often, wearing a sweater pulled over a button-down shirt whose collar only just peeks out. In his hands is the model boat, a foot or so in length and incredibly elaborate for not having been built off of any sort of template, evidence of his meticulous care fully evident. As soon as he spots Phillipa, Francis makes his way over, hesitating for just a moment before taking the seat across from her, placing the boat (and a rudimentary sort of stand) down on the table between them, then simply tucking his hands into his lap. ]
Hi.
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The temptation is to simply stare at the boat, to marvel at its meticulous detail and all of the things about Francis it must imply. But for now, she does none of that, forces herself to look at him across the table, her mouth forming the faintest curve upwards.
When Phillipa smiles at him, it's with her eyes. And unlike her mouth it's not just a suggestion, it's a proper smile. ] Hello, Francis.
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(Do you like it? Is it any good?) ]
How - how are you?
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Tired, [ she tells Francis with oddly resigned cheerfulness. Her attention flickers to the boat and stays there, her eyes growing large and inquisitive (much like the way someone opens their mouth that much wider in the hopes of consuming more than they would otherwise). If the way her mouth crooks as she peers is any indication, her answer is yes, yes I do and it is. ]
And you? Have you been alright?
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[ His hands remain in his lap, one folded over the other. They're restless, too, but for nothing in particular. He has nowhere else to put them. (Or maybe that's a lie
One of them rises to run over the back of his neck before falling again. An indication of sheepish relief, this time, at the look on her face.) ]
Have you eaten? [ (Can I get you anything?) ]
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When she speaks it's half to herself, mumbled out of the corner of her mouth, distracted. ]
This really is something.
[ (And you really are someone for making it.) ]
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Thanks. [ The word catches, although not in the usual way. It catches on the dryness in his throat (again, nerves), not on his tongue. That said, his chin tips down, his eyes still following her from under his brow.
(The boat won't break if you touch it, you know.) ]
Reply
[ Her own menu remains ignored at her elbow but Phillipa comes here often enough that they know her as a regular. Unsurprisingly, she orders the same exact thing every time no matter what time of day it is. A Belgian waffle with a side of bacon (extra crispy), coffee light and sweet, and if she's really hungry, a muffin for the road.
There's a lull that follows, not unlike the gaps of silence that dotted their conversation over the phone. Phillipa doesn't seem to mind, though; she's perfectly satisfied looking at Francis and his boat and marveling at each quietly in turn. Everyone's life is mired in secrets, she knows this if only because her own is practically drowning in them. When Phillipa stares at strangers, tries to reconstruct some pantomime of their lives in her head, it's in an attempt to capture some of those secrets -- to hold them, quite literally, in her hands. It makes her feel both less alone and completely alien to the outside world.
This boat, she figures, is something like a secret. At least, that's how it feels when she looks at it.
With a delicate finger, she touches the very tip of the tallest mast and when she does she exhales lightly. An abridged sigh. ] You must have very steady hands. [ It's the only way he'd be able to get so much detail. ]
Reply
To a certain extent, he understands the attempt to piece together someone else's life from the barest of clues. In part, it's natural curiosity, he thinks. There's no one who doesn't at least hypothesize. But more than that, it's a desire to know that someone is doing better, that better is possible. (Of course, then it's a matter of somehow getting there, but the knowledge that a better sort of life exists is nice in itself.) The nerves he feels on a regular basis compound as such, exacerbated by the knowledge that the secrets he's keeping are particularly ugly, and that it has to be only a matter of time before someone finds them out.
With a questionable degree of success, he tries to focus his attention on the menu, turning the pages carefully (as carefully as he'd tried to retrieve the pages that had fallen from her sketchbook).
His mouth twists as he keeps looking over the options, one finger running down the words, keeping track of how far he's gotten. He pauses only once.
(Well. A bagel, maybe.) ]
Reply
The word sticks to the inside of Phillipa's mind because personal experience has taught her the power of past tense, the implied meaning of it (she uses it all the time). Sometimes it's a cry for help, a look at what I've lost, please comfort me; other times it's as impenetrable as five-foot wide wall of concrete, separating her from whomever she's talking to, a you don't know what I've been through, you can't possibly understand. She doesn't know Francis, so she can't tell what it means coming from his lips, but a few more lines shade themselves into existence in the sketch of him in her mind. A sick mother, a past-tense father, that averted gaze -- Phillipa gathers all of it.
She has both hands on the hull of the boat (gentle palms; she's a sculptor so her hands are steady too) when she recalls the cache in her knapsack. It gets her to start very slightly -- another caught breath -- and then she's sitting back, attention turned to rummaging. ] Oh. My. I almost forgot. I brought you something.
[ The single sheaf of cardstock doesn't tremble when she finally offers it across the table to him. A ship sinking into the ocean, awash in a burning sunset. ] When you mentioned ships, I--
[ Phillipa shrugs. --I thought of you and just had to dig up this old thing from my notes because I was convinced you had to have it? The rest of her sentence plays out awkwardly in her head and so she doesn't bother with it, just presses her lips together expectantly in the hopes that Francis doesn't mind the gesture. She says for the second time since meeting him: ]
You-- [ A hesitation. ] --you don't have to take it.
[ (But I'd like it if you did.) ]
Reply
When she offers him the card, he hesitates, much in the way that he did on the bus, before taking it from her. Slowly, he brings it up close to his face, peering at it as if he could see the grooves of each brushstroke on the printed surface. It's the colors that strike him, first (darkness in the water and blood on the horizon - whose blood?), and then the shackled hands. (He almost imagines that one of the hands is reaching for him.) ]
Thank you, [ he says, a pause following his words before he looks up. (When he gets back home, he will prop it up next to the lamp that sits on his nightstand, alongside a red and white baseball cap, a handful's worth of change and a few other knick-knacks.) ]
You really didn't - have to. [ There's no trace of complain in his voice; only that of guilt, for lack of a better word, that she's given him anything at all. ]
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I know, [ Phillipa tells him, her mouth quirking something of a reassuring smile. ] But I did.
[(And I'm not sorry, so please don't be either.) ]
Reply
Thanks, [ he tells her again, with less discomfort in his demeanor, although his shyness persists. There's still a hint of his usual apologetic manner to the single word, but he manages to keep it fairly contained.
Momentarily: ] D- do you want to order?
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[ She's quick to shake her head and indicate Francis across from her, saying: ] Francis made it, not me.
[ That earns Francis an even bigger smile, wide enough to expose most of her teeth which sit too perfect and too white in her mouth to be all real. ] How about him, eh? [ the waitress -- whose name is Marlene -- asks teasingly. ] He one of yours instead?
[ Phillipa crinkles her nose awkwardly and then apologetically at Francis. ]
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Fortunately, he doesn't seem particularly uncomfortable, just vaguely amused as if he were detached from the situation and simply watching it transpire from somewhere other vantage point. His gaze, as it usually does, falls again (although it finds Phillipa on its way down), focusing on the hands he still has folded over one another. ]
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The usual for you, sweetheart? [ Marlene asks and Phillipa, who's still looking for her voice (she's afraid if she opens her mouth she might just croak, something like fluster still high in her throat), just nods silently before glancing over at Francis.
(Sorry about that.) ]
Reply
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