The Seven of The Lucky Seven
Summary: Skinner brings news of a shipment of billiard tables to the tavern and he gets to scope out the new place in the process. Not only that, he gets to meet all of June's six sisters and try a few of their beers as well.
Location: The Lucky Seven, Ista Weyr
Date: 4-22-09
Note: This scene is a long one. And has some minor language. It is also a little future-dated with regards to the IC timeline; the tavern is actually about 2 IC months away from being completed. But I wanted to try out my shiny new NPCs!
Cut into the vibrant greenery is a structure of fresh stone, each individual rock gleaming slickly in the humid afternoon following a night of rain. The new tavern is quaint and unimpressive next to the overwhelming giant that is the Weyr, but it has its own appeal. The deep covered porch out front offers a swath of shade that makes it quite refreshing in the sun and the first room, wide and tall with stairs leading up to a concealed second story, has just enough of a feminine touch to make it cozy. Raw wood tables are shrouded with the rosy color that Skinner may recognize, and about half of the windows are covered with the green, keeping out the strength of the sun. A deep laugh, answered by a higher pitched giggle rings out and then the owners of both appear from a doorway behind the dark, polished bar. One is older, her wrinkles placing her easily in her early forties, with a wavy shock of blond hair and a pale tone that mark her as anything but a native Istan. The other is young enough to be her daughter, but her dark hair and blunter features make it highly improbable that that's the case. Together, they move out with the rest of the green fabric bolts in among the tables to find one to work on. Completely absorbed in whatever intensely interesting topic they're discussing, they are oblivious to all but the needles they begin to flash.
Skinner takes him time getting into the bar, pausing to evaluate the use June made of his cloth and then once again to enjoy the shade on the porch. "Knock knock," he announces, doing just that on the frame of the open doorway. He steps through with a smooth smile, his gaze sliding easily from one woman to the other. "June around?"
The brunette is the first to look up, but the blond follows suit as soon as she's finished the stitch she's working on. She smiles at him warmly, though her younger companion does nothing of the sort. She just stares at him with an indifferent but judging stare, her mouth pursed just slightly as she considers him. "Uh. Yes. She is," the older woman answers him, with an overtone of faint confusion. "But we're not open yet, sir." She gestures at the obvious emptiness of the place, with it's unstocked bar and upturned chairs. "End of next month."
Skinner makes himself at home, pulling one of those upturned chairs off its table and flipping it the right way up. Don't worry, ladies - he sets it down gently. "Believe me, I'm counting the days. You've got some fine beer and I'd like nothing more than to swill it. But I'm here on business. Not in a rush, though, so whenever you've got a moment, would you tell her Skinner's here?" He broadens his smile to include both of them, and discovers the brunette's evidence suspicion. "Forty," he confides to her, with a wink. Forty what? Maybe she can figure it out.
The brunette looks almost petulant as she regards Skinner with a healthy mix of evident confusion and disapproval for his enigmatic comment. "I'll go get her," she tells the older woman, her voice turning out to be sweet despite all of the sourness being shot at Skinner. She pushes herself up off of her chair with a single shove, turns with a swish of her skirt, and trots nimbly up the stairs, shouting June's name when she's no more than halfway up. "Thanks, Chee," the blond mutters in her wake. Her hands twitch toward her sewing again, but she resists and instead folds them, one over the other, in her lap. After giving him another quick once over, she asks in her huskier voice, "Would you like anything to drink? We still have a few bottles from our latest test batch."
"Sweet of you," Skinner tells the brunette when she offers, and his cheerful smile remains just as cheerful when she starts shouting up the stairs. This time, though his wink's for the blonde; they can enjoy the brunette's laziness in secret. "That depends, love. Have I got to /pay/ for my drink?" He turns out a pocket, one of man on his bizarre set of clothes. This one, at least, is empty of all but lint. "Because I can't right now."
"First one's on the house," the blond replies warmly and with a smile, to a chorus of, "June! Jun-a-VIE!" She gets up from her seat, leaving her hemming unfinished for the moment to disappear behind the bar once again. The brunette watches from her perch, and is just about to mount another few steps when June appears, looking as put together as ever though she's dressed in much more casual clothes (wide-leg trousers, and a scarf tied over her smoothed up hair). "Well," she says in the tone of the greeting, pausing at the top of the stairs. "It's Skinner." Another girl, dark-haired, small-faced, with a natural tan, appears briefly behind her, peering down over her shoulder, but then disappears again as soon as June begins to descend. "Get the man a drink, would you Chidiree?" "Ruesse already went," the brunette girl replies shortly, preceding June down the stairs with a quick couple of leaps. She retakes her seat as well as her sewing quickly and leaves June to deal with the newcomer now. "What can I do for you, then?" June asks him in her silky smooth voice, wandering over to lean a hand on the table he sits next to.
"Beautiful," Skinner tells the blonde. "My thanks." His eyes skim to the stairs, arriving there just as June does, and he grins broadly as he stretches his arms out in greeting. "The very same," he tells her. "None the worse for wear, either. I've got the tables you asked for, and a few more you didn't, but might be interested in." Leaning forward, he splays his fingers across the (regular, dining) table they're sitting at to help her form the beginning of the image in her mind. "Billiard tables. Great ones. Level as a pond, and not a scratch on the felt."
"They'd better be," June replies quickly, giving him that bare slant of a smile to indicate the joke in her dry tone. Meanwhile, blond Ruesse has returned to plant an uncapped beer in front of Skinner with the simple finesse of a long-time server. It's a dark bottle with the lingering coolness that comes from a constantly dark and interior room of stone. "You know this one?" she questions June without any regard for the fact that she's talking about Skinner right in front of him. "Business partner," the redhead responds with that same slant of her lips, not moving except to flick her green eyes up meaningfully to her 'sister.' While Ruesse returns to help Chidiree out with the rest of the curtains, June tells him, "We have a back room you can bring them to." She nods to an archway on the far side of the room, exactly opposite the staircase on the left, the bar spanning the space between the two landmarks. "For gaming. Not much room for extra, though," she hints with a tilted eyebrow, delving deeper into his mention of those tables she /didn't/ ask for.
"They'll be worth it," Skinner assures her. He didn't mind at all when the two ladies talked about him to his face, just waited patiently and with a smile for the conversation to come back round to him again, which it eventually did. "You know Javeri? Bluerider? I mentioned her, the girl with the boat. She's got gambling tables. Different tables, but hey, tables. But she /can't/ have billiards. Not on a boat." He stretches back, flinging an arm behind his head. The other one brings the beer to his lips. "Besides, the more reasons people have to visit this place, the better, right?" His eyes flick towards Chidiree and Ruesse, and his brows perk up for a second, but all he comes back to June with is his simple smile.
June nods her understanding in a single, simple motion. "We'll see what we can fit." She doesn't turn to confer with her sisters, but Ruesse calmly offers up some advice, without looking up from her swift sewing. "Could take those extra benches out to the porch with the rest. Move thhe darts out here, or out there," she notes, with a short jerk of her head in each direction, "to free up that space." June listens without turning her head, then nods slowly as she ponders the switch, eyes unfocused on the wood grain visible between her fingers. "It could work," she decides, pushing herself up straight again, arms crossing languidly over her waist. She looks back to Skinner. "You're going to be our muscle, aren't you?" she asks him, a hint of a helpless pout appearing at the edges of her lips. "Help us little things get those heavy tables into place?" Chidiree doesn't bother holding back her snorting laugh, though she doesn't raise her gaze to meet June's smiling eyes as they're turned on her.
A sparkle of amusement enters Skinner's smile, and he squints his eyes at June. "You're really trying to warm up your hostess charm, buttering me up." He lifts his beer, gives it a wiggle. "Four more of these, on the house, for your good friend Skinner, and your good friend Skinner will be happy to help you with the tables. Just between us," he leans towards June, with a dramatic pause, "I come kind of cheap." He leans back with a chuckle. They both know it's not true, and that he'd live up to his name in a heartbeat if she didn't keep such a keen eye on her budget.
June's lips curl gently into a smile, but she says nothing in response to the supposition that she's merely buttering him up. She leans in, mirroring his posture and then his words when she tells him in a low voice, "And just between us. I can't resist a good deal." She straightens and turns all in one motion, heading to that same door behind the bar that Ruesse used earlier, calling over her shoulder as she goes, "Feel free to take a look around, I'll get beers for all of us." Ruesse accepts him as part of the scenery by now, and serenely continues her sewing. Chidiree on the other hand, starts to stare at him again while her hands work at her more inexpertly placed stitches. "So, what are you?" she asks him bluntly, indifferently. "Some kind of trader?"
Skinner's grin just grows broader at that confidence from June. He hops neatly out of his chair and immediately begins to take June up on her offer, bringing his beer with him so he can sip it while he peers at the design of the place. "Not a trader," he corrects Chidiree, sending his most charming smile her way. "A salesman. I have no history and no caravan, so the traders don't like me stealing their word. What're you, sweets?" He comes over to examine her stitches, peering over Ruesse's shoulder since she doesn't seem to mind.
"I'm the fucking Lady of the Hold, what do you think?" Chidiree answers him with a sarcastic slant to all of her sweet-voiced words. Ruesse glances sharply at the younger woman, but her words are tolerantly calm when she speaks. "You'll have to excuse our little Chee here." The brunette is ruffled only slightly by the diminutive nickname, but she wrinkles her nose at Ruesse then ignores it and focuses on the curtain in her hands for a moment instead. "Her welcomes sometimes leave something to be desired. Do you like it so far?" she asks of the tavern as a whole a beat later.
"That's kind of my point, sweets," Skinner tells her, in exactly the same friendly tone. Once again, he leaves her to ponder the enigma: he turns to Ruesse right after. "Oh, I do. I admired it from the porch, too, on my way in. Well laid out and all the works." He gestures at her stitching with his beer. "June said you had a good seamstress in your little family. I take it that's you?" Now he gets to drink the beer.
Chidiree laughs shortly but without restraint, saying before Ruesse has a chance to respond, "No, that would be me, right here." The joke seems mainly for the older woman's benefit, for Chidiree focuses her squinted eyes on her, and smiles broadly for the first time since Skinner entered. Ruesse echoes the expression in her own sedate manner, even chuckling softly. "Yes, we have a would-be weaver right in our midst, don't we?" she says, leaning over the section of table between them to get a glance of that slow-coming, mostly straight line of Chidiree's hem.
June returns then, a small crate half-full of clinking bottles carried in her arms. Following her is another of her so-called sisters, the only one so far to look like a believable relation, carrying another similar crate. "Valenia, this is Skinner, one of our suppliers," June introduces while she clunks the crate down on the empty expanse of the bar. "Very nice to meet you," the new girl, looking slightly older than the young Chidiree, greets with a shallow bob of her head. Though her features carry the same touch of elegance as June's, her red hair is more natural, with a dusty orange glow, and her frame is willowy to counter June's curves. "I brought the two types we have available now," June tells him, "for you to choose your four from." In case he forgot, the deal was four and just four. But she, she can take as many as she likes; she starts with one from the crate she was carrying. "This is what you have now," she tells him, shaking her own bottle as she uncaps it against the crate's side. Even her swig is sophisticated, a calculated and smooth movement without a drop of spillage.
"Seamstress, nah," Skinner remonstrates with Chidiree. He settles against the table, his eyes still up on the architecture. "You're the lady of hold. Don't think I've forgotten." His gaze comes back down to greet June's reappearance, with the beer, and he smiles at this new red-haired addition. Such a lucky man to befriend all the whores. "Well, that's easy. I'll pick the other kind next, try two of each, and if you're sharp enough to catch which one I pick for my fifth bottle you'll know which beer I like better." His eyes sparkle with laughter as they peer at June over the rim of his current beer, which he's already gone back to drinking.
While Skinner is surveying the ceiling beams and arch angles, Chidiree just rolls her eyes dramatically at Ruesse, who smiles indulgently at the younger woman and makes a faint clucking noise before turning her face to her curtain completely. June's smile bends around the mouth of her bottle as she slips in another gentle swig. "I'll let Valenia here do that for me," she tells him, waving a dismissive hand at him before letting it fall gracefully at her hip. "She's the sharp one." June's eyes fall to the new girl and even though the others ignore the show being put on, Valenia blushes as if she has a full audience. "Sharp as a spoon," she responds with false bravado, laughing it off with a slight and wavering chuckle. Her fair hands dip into the crate she was carrying, the darker, second type of beer, and grabs two, one she keeps for herself and one that she ferries over to Chidiree. Ruesse is left to her curtain without refreshment. "So, how's business these days?" June asks him, one elbow leaned against the bar to give her body a languid line.
Skinner's just taking in everything, and when Valenia begins to hand out the beer, his gaze moves to her long enough to take note of who gets what. He smiles at June. "Spectacular. Do you mind a braggart? I've been doing pretty well for myself," though he hasn't much to show for it, still in those ratty, multi-pocketed clothes he wears everywhere. "This island's rich and bored, June, the two best things any salesman could hope for. You ladies will clean up once you get this place open."
"If the competition doesn't become to steep between now and then," June comments, her tone almost indifferent to the prospect of that happening. They do have tricks up their sleeves, after all. "What with that boat you're doing so well with." Conflicting interests pointed out, June smiles charmingly at him and indulges in another long drink, pushing off of the bar after it's done to wander over to peruse the progress with the drapes. "Fucking boat," is Chidiree's sweet-voiced commentary on that topic, followed by a short hiss as she pushes the needle a bit too far and into the tip of her finger. She drowns the pain by slamming back a swig of the beer that Valenia's set down next to her. "It won't really matter, I don't think," Valenia tells her, voice quiet enough that she could be addressing just Chidiree.
Conflicting interests noted, and chuckled off. "Got to make a profit," he answers June, without a touch of concern in his voice. She's a businesswoman herself, she must understand. "Javeri's after a different sort of clientele. Fruity-tooty, hoity-toity, and her local friends. Far as the competition goes, her cruise ship's just a drop in the bucket when you've got the Sandbar just down the way." He kicks his beer up, takes a deep swig. "But you already know how I feel about that. It's bubble gum." That must be for the girls, who don't yet know how he feels, and now get to puzzle out what 'bubble gum' means in terms of expression an opinion. Chidiree's mental workout for the day, perhaps.
While Chidiree is well on her way to ignoring him, Valenia does take on the challenge, mouthing 'bubble gum' against the rim of her bottle before taking a drink. While she ponders, June nods at him, turning away from the little congregation around the curtains. "I'm not too worried," she shares with a sly little hitch of her smile that disappears quickly. Apparently she just wanted to hassle him. "Plus, we'll have the billiards." She tilts the neck of her bottle at the darkened archway that leads to the supposed game room. Valenia pulls his attention then, with a soft throat clear to do away with the lingering effects of that last sip of beer. "Do you think that, well, this," she waves a hand at the curtains, frill-less, but still curtains, and then at the arranged tables and their cloth covers, "is too... 'bubble gum?'" Even Chidiree and Ruesse glance up at him for that question, for perhaps their first outside opinion. "I mean, it's a little difficult," Valenia continues, justifying her input into the conversation, "with all women making the decisions."
Skinner winks at June. "You mock them now, but you'll be thanking me when you discover how big a draw they are." His attention is easily lured away by Valenia, whom he considers frankly. "I'm not going to lie to you, doll," he says, "it's a little rich." Not bubble gum, this time, but rich. "The Sandbar's different. It's got this happy-go-lucky thing going on that makes a man feel out of place if he's just there to get shit-faced. How can you, with all these perky chicks and gays hopping around wondering what's wrong with you? I'd tell you it's different, love, but I could see it going the same way."
"See, that's what I thought," Valenia mutters a bit sullenly before dipping into another drink of her beer. Chidiree, prompted perhaps by that mutter or by Skinner's use of the word 'love', turns her face up to Valenia, who is standing just behind her chair, and gives her a brief face: scrunched nose, pursed lips, one raised eyebrow, the works. June responds after a moment of thought, her own lips pursed gently and thoughtfully. "We're not trying to leave out the perky chicks and gays. We just want them to enjoy /our/ kind of fun." She glances around, as if confirming this little mission statement with the rest of the women. No one contradicts her. "Do you think if we did away with the tablecloths, and had raw wood instead," she inquires of Skinner specifically this time, "we could keep it from going the same way?" Inquisitive eyes turn to him again, June's own peering at him from above her bottle, which rests gently against her bottom lip.
Skinner raises his eyebrow at them - them, collectively; all the women - and then looks at the tablecloths. He shrugs. "This doesn't make an ounce of difference to me. I'm a guy. The only decorations I notice are naughty lamps." He sets his beer down and stretches his arms out, hands locked together and pressing each other out until the knuckles crack. "I can only guess what /your/ kind of fun is, but I don't know how you're going to introduce it. If the same kinds of people come into this kind of a nice-looking place, I don't see what's convincing them to act differently than they would in the Sandbar. If you tell me, I may be able to help you recruit that sort of customers to set the mood when you first open. For a price, as you know." He looks at each and every one of the women for this, coming to June last, but spending equal time on all of them. They are a family, after all, and families make decisions together.
They're all with him, listening carefully, at least up until he makes an offer out of the whole thing. Then, while the rest exchange confused, June just laughs, tossing her head back in a gentle gesture, a rash one for her, but more refined one than others who might toss their heads back. "How silly of me to entertain the idea," she starts slowly, enunciating every word, "that you would come without a potential sale in your pocket." She shakes her head at him, but it's almost admiring. Ruesse chimes in with her two cents, lifting her attention from the curtain that her swift hands have almost finished. Calmly, without malice or antagonism toward Skinner himself, she says, "We can do that on our own." "True," June notes, giving her a single nod to thank her for her opinion. Not that it's erased her interest completely; she turns to Skinner again and asks, "What was it you had in mind, exactly?"
Skinner grins in the face of June's laughter, absolutely unabashed. "I don't carry them in my pocket," he corrects her with a roll of laughter. "I just pluck from out of the conversation, like low-hanging fruit. Anything can become a sale," but there's emphasis on the /become/. He winks at Chidiree - because she likes him, you know - and turns a smile to Ruesse. "Well, then you don't need me and you probably don't need to worry about your tablecloths or anything else. I was thinking," he scratches his moustache with the tip of his forefinger, "people like me. Travelers, wagoners. Low class people, but if you're in for a rough kind of fun (and I'm only guessing), they're the kind of people who look for it. That and sailors, but the Sandbar's cornered the market on those, being so close to the docks." He flicks a hand dismissively out the window, in the vague direction of said docks.
Blank-faced, Chidiree fields that wink, while Ruesse returns his smile with a thin one of her own. Then she looks at June, who returns the gaze, for a long moment, without saying anything, as if they were communing psychically or through subtle signals, like that lift of June's eyebrows. Silent decision made, June turns to him again. "Could you get us the sailors?" A tall order, everyone knows, to draw them from their dockside haunt. Chidiree has even been convinced to abandon her hemming, so she can cradle her beer for a while and watch the exchange with more interest than she's shown the whole time.
That surprises Skinner as well, which is rare. It even shows on his face, both eyebrows lifting straight up while he sits in silence for a moment. "Maybe," he answers finally, dismissing the whole tension that surrounded the question with a careless sip of beer. "I could certainly get you some. How much do you want them?" he asks, raising only one eyebrow this time - a controlled response. This time he leaves the looking around at the other women to June alone; his gaze zeroes in on her and stays there.
June smiles widely, showing her straight teeth, for a second before responding, "Probably not enough to match what you want for them." The ball is tossed back at him, but just to make sure he knows that, she adds after a brief sip of beer, "What is it you'd want?" Those bargain-hunting eyes of hers meet his single-minded gaze with a guarded interest.
Skinner holds the eye contact in silence for a beat before naming a price. For a moment, it's a surprising price - not super low, but decidedly reasonable. Then, "And I get free service whenever I'm here. Not the whores." He tips his head towards the other ladies in the room, a polite gesture that seems almost out of place, but doesn't look at them. Maintaining that eye contact is all important. "But the drinks, the billiard tables, things of that nature. It's free for me and any clients I bring. We'll pretend I have a tab, and I won't do anything lavish."
It's a good thing he specifies, for June's expression subtly hardens when he first mentions free service. But it swiftly drops with his next words. The other women lift their eyes, as if called by name, but otherwise don't bat an eye at the label assigned to them. They're more interested in the wagering June's about to do, for they can tell surely, from the shift in her stance to the appearance of her tongue, just a flick at the corner of her lips, that she's about to agree. "At least... ten, ten of your rowdiest sailors... first night, and you've got your open tab. Whatever you like. You can even advertise our select services if you think it'll help get them here." As if sealing the deal, she drinks on it, one long, slow drink that halves what she has left in her bottle.
She's so serious about her dealing! Skinner becomes smiley as soon as he sees the first signs of an agreement, lifting his beer to her in an offered toast. "At least ten. For you, I'll try to do better, but I'll be damn sure you get the ten." His eyes squint up with amusement and he leans forward, bringing his drink even closer to June's so they can clank the bottles on it a semi-official deal sealing way.
Once he's agreed, June's manner lightens significantly, though not completely. That may have something to do with the slight shake of Ruesse's head as she turns down to finish off the last two inches of her sewing. June's bottle extends forward, though she makes him do most of the work, and hits his with a satisfying clink. Deal sealed. "Well, once we have a few sailors and Petra finishes up that big brew, I think we're all set," June supposes. Valenia contends gently with a list, "But the rooms still aren't painted, and the staining job on the bar was botched, so we have to..." June cuts her off with a good-natured click-click of her tongue, "Little things, they'll all fall into place. No worrying. Another beer?" she asks, tilting the top of her own beer bottle toward Skinner's.
Skinner takes a drink after that toast, sealing it in the eyes of the gods, and falls lazily into the back of his chair. When June asks him about another beer, he squints into the bottle he already has, tipping it up to see what's left. Then he finishes it. He grins afterwards, setting the empty down with a nod. "Please. One of the other kind." He waves his fingers vaguely. "That I haven't tried yet."
June nods and steps over to the bar, taking her time with it, so she can do somme damage to her own bottle along the way. While she's on her little errand, Ruesse finishes off the end of her curtain hem, snapping off the excess thread with her teeth, then snaps in the direction of Chidiree. Understanding without any elaboration, the youngest woman surrenders the unfinished curtain she herself was working on, happy to work on her beer instead. Plus, it leaves her more attention to spare for blank stares in Skinner's direction. Valenia drops to lay her arms over the back of Chidiree's chair, so that she's nearly laying her chin on top of the other girl's head. "So has June introduced you to everyone else?" the red-haired girl asks him, attempting to keep up the conversation in June's absence; the other two clearly have no intention of doing so. June pauses to finish off the rest of her lighter beer, so that she can grab another of the same for herself in the same trip.
Since he just sealed a deal, and now gets to dream of money, Skinner's pretty comfortable with silence. As Ruesse works and June goes to get beer, he just sits there watching everything with a perfectly content, in fact almost smug, expression on his face. "That she has not," he answers Valenia, snapping back to awareness with a spreading smile. "Do I get to meet everyone else? I'd hate to interrupt them at their work, but it sounds like Petra, at least, needs to be thanked." He taps his empty bottle with a wink.
"I don't see why not," Valenia answers, though she sends a glance June's way to check and make sure that she has no reason why not to give her. June turns, a bottle in each hand, already aware that she has the attention of her sisters. "Sure, we can all use a break." "I don't think Livi'd be too happy if she found out we were having a beer without her, either," Chidiree contributes, contemplating the gleaming side of her own bottle. "I'll go get Petra," Valenia volunteers, then asks of Chidiree, over her shoulder, "You know where Livi is?" Chidiree shrugs, but Ruesse offers easily, "Bottling," gesturing for the same doorway that Valenia is heading toward. So off Valenia goes, to fetch two of the rest, and June takes care of the last, telling Chidiree, "Call Danta down." The girl does so, sounding almost musical in the way she loudly shouts, "Daaaaan-ta!" Then, after another short swig, Chidiree turns to Skinner with another shred of interest and asks him directly, "You sell everything then?"
See? She likes him! She can't hide it. Skinner winks at Chidiree and goes into his patter. "Anything and everything. If I don't have it now I'll have it soon, and at a price you'll like." He leans forward in his chair, an expression of sudden discomfort on his face. He scratches at his back, only to come up with - a glittering black hair clip. "Yours at the price I paid for it, sweets, if you like it enough. One thirty-second. It can't get cheaper." He drops back to let her contemplate.
Chidiree blinks heavily at him, a drink put on pause while she listens to his chatter and watches him reach for that 'scratch.' The time he gives her for contemplation is spent giving June a look, a look that isn't so much begging permission, but asking a different question: Seriously? "I think I'll pass," she tells him frankly, finally pushing that delayed drink past her lips. Ruesse glance up to see the clip, but other than a thin-lipped, "Hm," she shows no more interest than Chidiree. Another potential sale appears at the top of the stairs, clinging to the banister at the top. "What?" Danta asks simply, voice carrying barely down to them. "Come have a drink with us," June says, her voice part entreaty and part order. Responding to one or the other, the newcomer descends. So far, she's the woman best-fitted to blend in with the Istan islanders; her skin carries a natural tan and her face carries an exotic, tropical touch. Her dark hair falls forward to curtain each side of her face. Without a word, she eyes Skinner, eyes the beers, then heads for the latter. "Skinner, this is Danta," June introduces casually.
The look Skinner sends June - because everyone seems to be sending her looks - is bemused. "They're as hard to sell as you, aren't they? Ladies, a little vanity never hurt anybody. Not for a thirty-second of a mark, at least." With a snort of laughter, he recovers the clip and tucks in back into his pocket, which takes a bit longer than it took to produce it, since he has to position it carefully lest it break. There are more women to meet, but opportunity waits for no one. "Nice meeting you, Danta," he says, his voice still rich with laughter from the total rebuff he received. None of the others got a 'nice meeting you' line; none of the others caught him so amused.
"Not all of us," Chidiree comments with a faint snort, but catches a small and easily missable shake of June's head, so drowns that train of thought in her beer, turning her concern to Ruesse and the curtain afterward. After she's retrieved her beer (a light one like June's) Danta gives Skinner another glance. That's it. Then she takes up a chair near Chidiree. She leans over to whisper in the younger girl's ear, and Chidiree returns the favor, their murmured words incomprehensible. Meanwhile, June is answering him, "Vanity has hurt my marks purse, though. Choked it, starved it. It was quite brutal."
Skinner is impervious to social harm, so if the ladies want to look at him and then start murmuring to each other, that's fine with him. "Has it?" he asks June, his steady smile untroubled. He won't fake sympathy, but the interest is there. "No wonder you're so wary of me. Well - dismissive, really," he amends, dropping her a wink. "What happened?" He cracks open his new bottle of beer and takes a sip. His expression doesn't change: they get no hints about which he prefers. That wouldn't be playing the game.
"Dismissive?" June repeats, her tone grown a touch incredulous. She turns to her girls and asks of them, "Did I, or did I not just take him up on one of his offers?" Of them, only Ruesse bothers to respond, and even then it's a distracted, "I think that you did," that she delivers while completing the finishing and tying off the final curtain. She returns to him smiling and, when he delves deeper into the subject she only touched on, flicks a few dismissive fingers. "It was a general downturn, really, nothing spectacular to speak of. Other forces in play besides vanity. But it was a factor. The Crossroads was suffering after those unexpected 'falls, and in this business, with us growing older..." Her slight gesture is for Ruesse alone. "It was a challenge to keep up." June shrugs gently then slides her beer up for a sip. It happens to everyone once in a while.
Skinner only smiles, his eyes scrunched up with amusement. "Well, sure, when I can offer you something of /practical/ value," he responds with a snort of laughter. "But try offering you a pretty bauble and I'll get shrugged off faster than you can say 'fifty percent off.'" He studies Ruesse for a couple of moments, sipping his beer while he does, then returns to June. "Know what you mean, though. That comet set my business plan back a couple turns, made my eastern route unworkable. Thank Faranth for Ista, hey?" With a grin, he lifts his drink to salute Ista - lazy, wealthy Ista.
June can drink to that, and she does, tilting her bottle up in a casual little toast, echoing, "Thank Faranth." Valenia returns from her errand all by her lonesome, a bit of a flounce in her step that disappears once she passes the bar. "They're on their way," she promises, explaining her lack of companions. Confirming that promise, the remaining two women appear a minute later, as Ruesse is rising, crossing the room to dress the naked windows. The taller and darker of the two enters first. Her eyes fall on Skinner right away and she gives him an easy, welcoming smile. She finds herself one of the lighter, test beers (priorities after all) then returns to him, offering a warm and inquiring, "Hello." Her attempt at a greeting, though, is interrupted by the woman behind her, who has also collected a bottle of the paler ale and has already tucked into it with a vigorous drink. "I still think it lacks something. Not full enough," she says, as if continuing a conversation that started out of sight. "Not every brew needs to have the same hoppiness," the long-legged woman retorts, "not everyone likes that as much as you do. Hello," she retries, this time walking away from the second woman to extend a dusty hand to Skinner, "I'm Livi. And this is Petra." Petra lifts her heavy, dark brow at him, but lifts her bottle in welcome. And so the Lucky Seven is complete.
Skinner's eyes flick between the two women, following the thread of their conversation as best he can. "Don't look at me," is all he offers about the beers. "I'm not an educated drunk. Best I can tell you is I like what I'm drinking, and offer my compliments to its maker." He tips the beer towards Petra, then swiftly sets it down so he can take Livi's hand. He puts on his most charming smile. "Skinner. Pleasure meeting you both. Well, all of you." He reclaims his beer to toast the Lucky Seven at large, his eyes moving from one female face to the next. "Gang's all here, huh? And here's me by my lonesome." He laughs, unbothered by it. Being the only man in a room full of whores isn't something he can get too upset about.
June nods, cradling her beer bottle close to where her other arm folds across her waist, and surveys the spread of the girls, much the same way he did. Ruesse and Valenia hanging curtains, Danta sitting quietly with Chidiree, Petra and Livi stepping over to join them, taking over chairs not yet claimed. On the way, Petra lifts her beer again, silent acknowledgement of the compliment Skinner passes to her, though Livi beams over at him, too, as if she were just as involved. "Seems that way," June agrees conversationally, admiring her brood with a slight smile playing on her lips, then turning a smoother version of that smile on Skinner. "I wonder if you would know someone who could supply a new dress or seven for the night we open?" She clearly means that someone to be him, but she skirts around it, playing with the issue of her purchasing loyalty. Teasing him with the sale, she retreats a step, adding, "Or do you think that's too much?" She pauses for another survey of the girls; they're in their work clothes now, but her eyes are looking beyond those. "Vanity and all," she jokes, returning to Skinner with a hitched eyebrow.
Skinner hitches an eyebrow right back at her, but his lips are a-quiver with amusement. "I know someone who could supply seven handsome dresses and some fine accoutrements to go with them. Of course, by handsome, I probably mean 'revealing,' just short of 'tasteless,' because that does seem to be the Istan way. Hot sun and all." He winks at June over his beer. "Would you be interested, then? I assume you'll want them a bit before opening time, so Ruesse can make alterations. As necessary." He opens up his smile, showing off those pearly whites.
Ruesse turns away from her task when she hears her name, smiling shortly down at Skinner from the somewhat steady perch of the chair she stands on. "I can't have my dear sisters overheating," June explains matter-of-factly, nodding slightly to encourage him to continue. When he's finished, she allows, "Of course. And in any color?" Danta leans a few whispered words over to Chidiree again, after which the younger of the two pipes up. "No pink, June. This place is going to look like a giant fucking cream puff with us twirling around in ruffles and lace." June, caught in the middle of a sip, finishes it before she relays this to Skinner. An emphasis, perhaps, that all of the deals come through her. "No frills or ruffles then. And no pink," she hands down the orders.
"I hate pink," Skinner assures her, but he makes no such statement about ruffles and frills. In fact, he lets his gaze slide to Chidiree, sparkling with a hint of unmistakeable mischief, and then back to June for a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. "Any color. You know your girls, though, and who looks good in what, so write me down some recommendations on that and I'll keep them in mind. My next trip's in a couple of days, and knowing where I'm going, I'll probably come back with at least three dresses you can get an early eye on, see how you like them."
Chidiree's gaze drifts over to Skinner on its way down to her beer bottle and sticks there. And he gets his first taste of a full expression from her, in the form of a tight little frown, etched with warning. June catches the exchange, but of course when she turns her regard on Skinner, he's playing innocent. So she ignores it. "That would be good. Bring three different styles, and we'll see how much I can trust your fashion sense."
It's not hard to guess how Chidiree's glare affects Skinner: not at all. He's still perfectly cheerful, especially now that he has two agreements on the table with June. "You can trust it very much," he assures her smoothly, "don't let my clothes deceive you." He tugs his pocketed thing. "It serves a purpose, but I have a perfectly keen eye for what looks good on a woman." He eyes the group of women before him, clearly making some quick mental evaluations. By the time he returns to June, he's put it all behind him, and he moves on to desultory conversation that takes up a good hour more as he finishes his beer and gets to know the prostitutes.
Location: The Lucky Seven, Ista Weyr
Date: 4-22-09
Note: This scene is a long one. And has some minor language. It is also a little future-dated with regards to the IC timeline; the tavern is actually about 2 IC months away from being completed. But I wanted to try out my shiny new NPCs!
Cut into the vibrant greenery is a structure of fresh stone, each individual rock gleaming slickly in the humid afternoon following a night of rain. The new tavern is quaint and unimpressive next to the overwhelming giant that is the Weyr, but it has its own appeal. The deep covered porch out front offers a swath of shade that makes it quite refreshing in the sun and the first room, wide and tall with stairs leading up to a concealed second story, has just enough of a feminine touch to make it cozy. Raw wood tables are shrouded with the rosy color that Skinner may recognize, and about half of the windows are covered with the green, keeping out the strength of the sun. A deep laugh, answered by a higher pitched giggle rings out and then the owners of both appear from a doorway behind the dark, polished bar. One is older, her wrinkles placing her easily in her early forties, with a wavy shock of blond hair and a pale tone that mark her as anything but a native Istan. The other is young enough to be her daughter, but her dark hair and blunter features make it highly improbable that that's the case. Together, they move out with the rest of the green fabric bolts in among the tables to find one to work on. Completely absorbed in whatever intensely interesting topic they're discussing, they are oblivious to all but the needles they begin to flash.
Skinner takes him time getting into the bar, pausing to evaluate the use June made of his cloth and then once again to enjoy the shade on the porch. "Knock knock," he announces, doing just that on the frame of the open doorway. He steps through with a smooth smile, his gaze sliding easily from one woman to the other. "June around?"
The brunette is the first to look up, but the blond follows suit as soon as she's finished the stitch she's working on. She smiles at him warmly, though her younger companion does nothing of the sort. She just stares at him with an indifferent but judging stare, her mouth pursed just slightly as she considers him. "Uh. Yes. She is," the older woman answers him, with an overtone of faint confusion. "But we're not open yet, sir." She gestures at the obvious emptiness of the place, with it's unstocked bar and upturned chairs. "End of next month."
Skinner makes himself at home, pulling one of those upturned chairs off its table and flipping it the right way up. Don't worry, ladies - he sets it down gently. "Believe me, I'm counting the days. You've got some fine beer and I'd like nothing more than to swill it. But I'm here on business. Not in a rush, though, so whenever you've got a moment, would you tell her Skinner's here?" He broadens his smile to include both of them, and discovers the brunette's evidence suspicion. "Forty," he confides to her, with a wink. Forty what? Maybe she can figure it out.
The brunette looks almost petulant as she regards Skinner with a healthy mix of evident confusion and disapproval for his enigmatic comment. "I'll go get her," she tells the older woman, her voice turning out to be sweet despite all of the sourness being shot at Skinner. She pushes herself up off of her chair with a single shove, turns with a swish of her skirt, and trots nimbly up the stairs, shouting June's name when she's no more than halfway up. "Thanks, Chee," the blond mutters in her wake. Her hands twitch toward her sewing again, but she resists and instead folds them, one over the other, in her lap. After giving him another quick once over, she asks in her huskier voice, "Would you like anything to drink? We still have a few bottles from our latest test batch."
"Sweet of you," Skinner tells the brunette when she offers, and his cheerful smile remains just as cheerful when she starts shouting up the stairs. This time, though his wink's for the blonde; they can enjoy the brunette's laziness in secret. "That depends, love. Have I got to /pay/ for my drink?" He turns out a pocket, one of man on his bizarre set of clothes. This one, at least, is empty of all but lint. "Because I can't right now."
"First one's on the house," the blond replies warmly and with a smile, to a chorus of, "June! Jun-a-VIE!" She gets up from her seat, leaving her hemming unfinished for the moment to disappear behind the bar once again. The brunette watches from her perch, and is just about to mount another few steps when June appears, looking as put together as ever though she's dressed in much more casual clothes (wide-leg trousers, and a scarf tied over her smoothed up hair). "Well," she says in the tone of the greeting, pausing at the top of the stairs. "It's Skinner." Another girl, dark-haired, small-faced, with a natural tan, appears briefly behind her, peering down over her shoulder, but then disappears again as soon as June begins to descend. "Get the man a drink, would you Chidiree?" "Ruesse already went," the brunette girl replies shortly, preceding June down the stairs with a quick couple of leaps. She retakes her seat as well as her sewing quickly and leaves June to deal with the newcomer now. "What can I do for you, then?" June asks him in her silky smooth voice, wandering over to lean a hand on the table he sits next to.
"Beautiful," Skinner tells the blonde. "My thanks." His eyes skim to the stairs, arriving there just as June does, and he grins broadly as he stretches his arms out in greeting. "The very same," he tells her. "None the worse for wear, either. I've got the tables you asked for, and a few more you didn't, but might be interested in." Leaning forward, he splays his fingers across the (regular, dining) table they're sitting at to help her form the beginning of the image in her mind. "Billiard tables. Great ones. Level as a pond, and not a scratch on the felt."
"They'd better be," June replies quickly, giving him that bare slant of a smile to indicate the joke in her dry tone. Meanwhile, blond Ruesse has returned to plant an uncapped beer in front of Skinner with the simple finesse of a long-time server. It's a dark bottle with the lingering coolness that comes from a constantly dark and interior room of stone. "You know this one?" she questions June without any regard for the fact that she's talking about Skinner right in front of him. "Business partner," the redhead responds with that same slant of her lips, not moving except to flick her green eyes up meaningfully to her 'sister.' While Ruesse returns to help Chidiree out with the rest of the curtains, June tells him, "We have a back room you can bring them to." She nods to an archway on the far side of the room, exactly opposite the staircase on the left, the bar spanning the space between the two landmarks. "For gaming. Not much room for extra, though," she hints with a tilted eyebrow, delving deeper into his mention of those tables she /didn't/ ask for.
"They'll be worth it," Skinner assures her. He didn't mind at all when the two ladies talked about him to his face, just waited patiently and with a smile for the conversation to come back round to him again, which it eventually did. "You know Javeri? Bluerider? I mentioned her, the girl with the boat. She's got gambling tables. Different tables, but hey, tables. But she /can't/ have billiards. Not on a boat." He stretches back, flinging an arm behind his head. The other one brings the beer to his lips. "Besides, the more reasons people have to visit this place, the better, right?" His eyes flick towards Chidiree and Ruesse, and his brows perk up for a second, but all he comes back to June with is his simple smile.
June nods her understanding in a single, simple motion. "We'll see what we can fit." She doesn't turn to confer with her sisters, but Ruesse calmly offers up some advice, without looking up from her swift sewing. "Could take those extra benches out to the porch with the rest. Move thhe darts out here, or out there," she notes, with a short jerk of her head in each direction, "to free up that space." June listens without turning her head, then nods slowly as she ponders the switch, eyes unfocused on the wood grain visible between her fingers. "It could work," she decides, pushing herself up straight again, arms crossing languidly over her waist. She looks back to Skinner. "You're going to be our muscle, aren't you?" she asks him, a hint of a helpless pout appearing at the edges of her lips. "Help us little things get those heavy tables into place?" Chidiree doesn't bother holding back her snorting laugh, though she doesn't raise her gaze to meet June's smiling eyes as they're turned on her.
A sparkle of amusement enters Skinner's smile, and he squints his eyes at June. "You're really trying to warm up your hostess charm, buttering me up." He lifts his beer, gives it a wiggle. "Four more of these, on the house, for your good friend Skinner, and your good friend Skinner will be happy to help you with the tables. Just between us," he leans towards June, with a dramatic pause, "I come kind of cheap." He leans back with a chuckle. They both know it's not true, and that he'd live up to his name in a heartbeat if she didn't keep such a keen eye on her budget.
June's lips curl gently into a smile, but she says nothing in response to the supposition that she's merely buttering him up. She leans in, mirroring his posture and then his words when she tells him in a low voice, "And just between us. I can't resist a good deal." She straightens and turns all in one motion, heading to that same door behind the bar that Ruesse used earlier, calling over her shoulder as she goes, "Feel free to take a look around, I'll get beers for all of us." Ruesse accepts him as part of the scenery by now, and serenely continues her sewing. Chidiree on the other hand, starts to stare at him again while her hands work at her more inexpertly placed stitches. "So, what are you?" she asks him bluntly, indifferently. "Some kind of trader?"
Skinner's grin just grows broader at that confidence from June. He hops neatly out of his chair and immediately begins to take June up on her offer, bringing his beer with him so he can sip it while he peers at the design of the place. "Not a trader," he corrects Chidiree, sending his most charming smile her way. "A salesman. I have no history and no caravan, so the traders don't like me stealing their word. What're you, sweets?" He comes over to examine her stitches, peering over Ruesse's shoulder since she doesn't seem to mind.
"I'm the fucking Lady of the Hold, what do you think?" Chidiree answers him with a sarcastic slant to all of her sweet-voiced words. Ruesse glances sharply at the younger woman, but her words are tolerantly calm when she speaks. "You'll have to excuse our little Chee here." The brunette is ruffled only slightly by the diminutive nickname, but she wrinkles her nose at Ruesse then ignores it and focuses on the curtain in her hands for a moment instead. "Her welcomes sometimes leave something to be desired. Do you like it so far?" she asks of the tavern as a whole a beat later.
"That's kind of my point, sweets," Skinner tells her, in exactly the same friendly tone. Once again, he leaves her to ponder the enigma: he turns to Ruesse right after. "Oh, I do. I admired it from the porch, too, on my way in. Well laid out and all the works." He gestures at her stitching with his beer. "June said you had a good seamstress in your little family. I take it that's you?" Now he gets to drink the beer.
Chidiree laughs shortly but without restraint, saying before Ruesse has a chance to respond, "No, that would be me, right here." The joke seems mainly for the older woman's benefit, for Chidiree focuses her squinted eyes on her, and smiles broadly for the first time since Skinner entered. Ruesse echoes the expression in her own sedate manner, even chuckling softly. "Yes, we have a would-be weaver right in our midst, don't we?" she says, leaning over the section of table between them to get a glance of that slow-coming, mostly straight line of Chidiree's hem.
June returns then, a small crate half-full of clinking bottles carried in her arms. Following her is another of her so-called sisters, the only one so far to look like a believable relation, carrying another similar crate. "Valenia, this is Skinner, one of our suppliers," June introduces while she clunks the crate down on the empty expanse of the bar. "Very nice to meet you," the new girl, looking slightly older than the young Chidiree, greets with a shallow bob of her head. Though her features carry the same touch of elegance as June's, her red hair is more natural, with a dusty orange glow, and her frame is willowy to counter June's curves. "I brought the two types we have available now," June tells him, "for you to choose your four from." In case he forgot, the deal was four and just four. But she, she can take as many as she likes; she starts with one from the crate she was carrying. "This is what you have now," she tells him, shaking her own bottle as she uncaps it against the crate's side. Even her swig is sophisticated, a calculated and smooth movement without a drop of spillage.
"Seamstress, nah," Skinner remonstrates with Chidiree. He settles against the table, his eyes still up on the architecture. "You're the lady of hold. Don't think I've forgotten." His gaze comes back down to greet June's reappearance, with the beer, and he smiles at this new red-haired addition. Such a lucky man to befriend all the whores. "Well, that's easy. I'll pick the other kind next, try two of each, and if you're sharp enough to catch which one I pick for my fifth bottle you'll know which beer I like better." His eyes sparkle with laughter as they peer at June over the rim of his current beer, which he's already gone back to drinking.
While Skinner is surveying the ceiling beams and arch angles, Chidiree just rolls her eyes dramatically at Ruesse, who smiles indulgently at the younger woman and makes a faint clucking noise before turning her face to her curtain completely. June's smile bends around the mouth of her bottle as she slips in another gentle swig. "I'll let Valenia here do that for me," she tells him, waving a dismissive hand at him before letting it fall gracefully at her hip. "She's the sharp one." June's eyes fall to the new girl and even though the others ignore the show being put on, Valenia blushes as if she has a full audience. "Sharp as a spoon," she responds with false bravado, laughing it off with a slight and wavering chuckle. Her fair hands dip into the crate she was carrying, the darker, second type of beer, and grabs two, one she keeps for herself and one that she ferries over to Chidiree. Ruesse is left to her curtain without refreshment. "So, how's business these days?" June asks him, one elbow leaned against the bar to give her body a languid line.
Skinner's just taking in everything, and when Valenia begins to hand out the beer, his gaze moves to her long enough to take note of who gets what. He smiles at June. "Spectacular. Do you mind a braggart? I've been doing pretty well for myself," though he hasn't much to show for it, still in those ratty, multi-pocketed clothes he wears everywhere. "This island's rich and bored, June, the two best things any salesman could hope for. You ladies will clean up once you get this place open."
"If the competition doesn't become to steep between now and then," June comments, her tone almost indifferent to the prospect of that happening. They do have tricks up their sleeves, after all. "What with that boat you're doing so well with." Conflicting interests pointed out, June smiles charmingly at him and indulges in another long drink, pushing off of the bar after it's done to wander over to peruse the progress with the drapes. "Fucking boat," is Chidiree's sweet-voiced commentary on that topic, followed by a short hiss as she pushes the needle a bit too far and into the tip of her finger. She drowns the pain by slamming back a swig of the beer that Valenia's set down next to her. "It won't really matter, I don't think," Valenia tells her, voice quiet enough that she could be addressing just Chidiree.
Conflicting interests noted, and chuckled off. "Got to make a profit," he answers June, without a touch of concern in his voice. She's a businesswoman herself, she must understand. "Javeri's after a different sort of clientele. Fruity-tooty, hoity-toity, and her local friends. Far as the competition goes, her cruise ship's just a drop in the bucket when you've got the Sandbar just down the way." He kicks his beer up, takes a deep swig. "But you already know how I feel about that. It's bubble gum." That must be for the girls, who don't yet know how he feels, and now get to puzzle out what 'bubble gum' means in terms of expression an opinion. Chidiree's mental workout for the day, perhaps.
While Chidiree is well on her way to ignoring him, Valenia does take on the challenge, mouthing 'bubble gum' against the rim of her bottle before taking a drink. While she ponders, June nods at him, turning away from the little congregation around the curtains. "I'm not too worried," she shares with a sly little hitch of her smile that disappears quickly. Apparently she just wanted to hassle him. "Plus, we'll have the billiards." She tilts the neck of her bottle at the darkened archway that leads to the supposed game room. Valenia pulls his attention then, with a soft throat clear to do away with the lingering effects of that last sip of beer. "Do you think that, well, this," she waves a hand at the curtains, frill-less, but still curtains, and then at the arranged tables and their cloth covers, "is too... 'bubble gum?'" Even Chidiree and Ruesse glance up at him for that question, for perhaps their first outside opinion. "I mean, it's a little difficult," Valenia continues, justifying her input into the conversation, "with all women making the decisions."
Skinner winks at June. "You mock them now, but you'll be thanking me when you discover how big a draw they are." His attention is easily lured away by Valenia, whom he considers frankly. "I'm not going to lie to you, doll," he says, "it's a little rich." Not bubble gum, this time, but rich. "The Sandbar's different. It's got this happy-go-lucky thing going on that makes a man feel out of place if he's just there to get shit-faced. How can you, with all these perky chicks and gays hopping around wondering what's wrong with you? I'd tell you it's different, love, but I could see it going the same way."
"See, that's what I thought," Valenia mutters a bit sullenly before dipping into another drink of her beer. Chidiree, prompted perhaps by that mutter or by Skinner's use of the word 'love', turns her face up to Valenia, who is standing just behind her chair, and gives her a brief face: scrunched nose, pursed lips, one raised eyebrow, the works. June responds after a moment of thought, her own lips pursed gently and thoughtfully. "We're not trying to leave out the perky chicks and gays. We just want them to enjoy /our/ kind of fun." She glances around, as if confirming this little mission statement with the rest of the women. No one contradicts her. "Do you think if we did away with the tablecloths, and had raw wood instead," she inquires of Skinner specifically this time, "we could keep it from going the same way?" Inquisitive eyes turn to him again, June's own peering at him from above her bottle, which rests gently against her bottom lip.
Skinner raises his eyebrow at them - them, collectively; all the women - and then looks at the tablecloths. He shrugs. "This doesn't make an ounce of difference to me. I'm a guy. The only decorations I notice are naughty lamps." He sets his beer down and stretches his arms out, hands locked together and pressing each other out until the knuckles crack. "I can only guess what /your/ kind of fun is, but I don't know how you're going to introduce it. If the same kinds of people come into this kind of a nice-looking place, I don't see what's convincing them to act differently than they would in the Sandbar. If you tell me, I may be able to help you recruit that sort of customers to set the mood when you first open. For a price, as you know." He looks at each and every one of the women for this, coming to June last, but spending equal time on all of them. They are a family, after all, and families make decisions together.
They're all with him, listening carefully, at least up until he makes an offer out of the whole thing. Then, while the rest exchange confused, June just laughs, tossing her head back in a gentle gesture, a rash one for her, but more refined one than others who might toss their heads back. "How silly of me to entertain the idea," she starts slowly, enunciating every word, "that you would come without a potential sale in your pocket." She shakes her head at him, but it's almost admiring. Ruesse chimes in with her two cents, lifting her attention from the curtain that her swift hands have almost finished. Calmly, without malice or antagonism toward Skinner himself, she says, "We can do that on our own." "True," June notes, giving her a single nod to thank her for her opinion. Not that it's erased her interest completely; she turns to Skinner again and asks, "What was it you had in mind, exactly?"
Skinner grins in the face of June's laughter, absolutely unabashed. "I don't carry them in my pocket," he corrects her with a roll of laughter. "I just pluck from out of the conversation, like low-hanging fruit. Anything can become a sale," but there's emphasis on the /become/. He winks at Chidiree - because she likes him, you know - and turns a smile to Ruesse. "Well, then you don't need me and you probably don't need to worry about your tablecloths or anything else. I was thinking," he scratches his moustache with the tip of his forefinger, "people like me. Travelers, wagoners. Low class people, but if you're in for a rough kind of fun (and I'm only guessing), they're the kind of people who look for it. That and sailors, but the Sandbar's cornered the market on those, being so close to the docks." He flicks a hand dismissively out the window, in the vague direction of said docks.
Blank-faced, Chidiree fields that wink, while Ruesse returns his smile with a thin one of her own. Then she looks at June, who returns the gaze, for a long moment, without saying anything, as if they were communing psychically or through subtle signals, like that lift of June's eyebrows. Silent decision made, June turns to him again. "Could you get us the sailors?" A tall order, everyone knows, to draw them from their dockside haunt. Chidiree has even been convinced to abandon her hemming, so she can cradle her beer for a while and watch the exchange with more interest than she's shown the whole time.
That surprises Skinner as well, which is rare. It even shows on his face, both eyebrows lifting straight up while he sits in silence for a moment. "Maybe," he answers finally, dismissing the whole tension that surrounded the question with a careless sip of beer. "I could certainly get you some. How much do you want them?" he asks, raising only one eyebrow this time - a controlled response. This time he leaves the looking around at the other women to June alone; his gaze zeroes in on her and stays there.
June smiles widely, showing her straight teeth, for a second before responding, "Probably not enough to match what you want for them." The ball is tossed back at him, but just to make sure he knows that, she adds after a brief sip of beer, "What is it you'd want?" Those bargain-hunting eyes of hers meet his single-minded gaze with a guarded interest.
Skinner holds the eye contact in silence for a beat before naming a price. For a moment, it's a surprising price - not super low, but decidedly reasonable. Then, "And I get free service whenever I'm here. Not the whores." He tips his head towards the other ladies in the room, a polite gesture that seems almost out of place, but doesn't look at them. Maintaining that eye contact is all important. "But the drinks, the billiard tables, things of that nature. It's free for me and any clients I bring. We'll pretend I have a tab, and I won't do anything lavish."
It's a good thing he specifies, for June's expression subtly hardens when he first mentions free service. But it swiftly drops with his next words. The other women lift their eyes, as if called by name, but otherwise don't bat an eye at the label assigned to them. They're more interested in the wagering June's about to do, for they can tell surely, from the shift in her stance to the appearance of her tongue, just a flick at the corner of her lips, that she's about to agree. "At least... ten, ten of your rowdiest sailors... first night, and you've got your open tab. Whatever you like. You can even advertise our select services if you think it'll help get them here." As if sealing the deal, she drinks on it, one long, slow drink that halves what she has left in her bottle.
She's so serious about her dealing! Skinner becomes smiley as soon as he sees the first signs of an agreement, lifting his beer to her in an offered toast. "At least ten. For you, I'll try to do better, but I'll be damn sure you get the ten." His eyes squint up with amusement and he leans forward, bringing his drink even closer to June's so they can clank the bottles on it a semi-official deal sealing way.
Once he's agreed, June's manner lightens significantly, though not completely. That may have something to do with the slight shake of Ruesse's head as she turns down to finish off the last two inches of her sewing. June's bottle extends forward, though she makes him do most of the work, and hits his with a satisfying clink. Deal sealed. "Well, once we have a few sailors and Petra finishes up that big brew, I think we're all set," June supposes. Valenia contends gently with a list, "But the rooms still aren't painted, and the staining job on the bar was botched, so we have to..." June cuts her off with a good-natured click-click of her tongue, "Little things, they'll all fall into place. No worrying. Another beer?" she asks, tilting the top of her own beer bottle toward Skinner's.
Skinner takes a drink after that toast, sealing it in the eyes of the gods, and falls lazily into the back of his chair. When June asks him about another beer, he squints into the bottle he already has, tipping it up to see what's left. Then he finishes it. He grins afterwards, setting the empty down with a nod. "Please. One of the other kind." He waves his fingers vaguely. "That I haven't tried yet."
June nods and steps over to the bar, taking her time with it, so she can do somme damage to her own bottle along the way. While she's on her little errand, Ruesse finishes off the end of her curtain hem, snapping off the excess thread with her teeth, then snaps in the direction of Chidiree. Understanding without any elaboration, the youngest woman surrenders the unfinished curtain she herself was working on, happy to work on her beer instead. Plus, it leaves her more attention to spare for blank stares in Skinner's direction. Valenia drops to lay her arms over the back of Chidiree's chair, so that she's nearly laying her chin on top of the other girl's head. "So has June introduced you to everyone else?" the red-haired girl asks him, attempting to keep up the conversation in June's absence; the other two clearly have no intention of doing so. June pauses to finish off the rest of her lighter beer, so that she can grab another of the same for herself in the same trip.
Since he just sealed a deal, and now gets to dream of money, Skinner's pretty comfortable with silence. As Ruesse works and June goes to get beer, he just sits there watching everything with a perfectly content, in fact almost smug, expression on his face. "That she has not," he answers Valenia, snapping back to awareness with a spreading smile. "Do I get to meet everyone else? I'd hate to interrupt them at their work, but it sounds like Petra, at least, needs to be thanked." He taps his empty bottle with a wink.
"I don't see why not," Valenia answers, though she sends a glance June's way to check and make sure that she has no reason why not to give her. June turns, a bottle in each hand, already aware that she has the attention of her sisters. "Sure, we can all use a break." "I don't think Livi'd be too happy if she found out we were having a beer without her, either," Chidiree contributes, contemplating the gleaming side of her own bottle. "I'll go get Petra," Valenia volunteers, then asks of Chidiree, over her shoulder, "You know where Livi is?" Chidiree shrugs, but Ruesse offers easily, "Bottling," gesturing for the same doorway that Valenia is heading toward. So off Valenia goes, to fetch two of the rest, and June takes care of the last, telling Chidiree, "Call Danta down." The girl does so, sounding almost musical in the way she loudly shouts, "Daaaaan-ta!" Then, after another short swig, Chidiree turns to Skinner with another shred of interest and asks him directly, "You sell everything then?"
See? She likes him! She can't hide it. Skinner winks at Chidiree and goes into his patter. "Anything and everything. If I don't have it now I'll have it soon, and at a price you'll like." He leans forward in his chair, an expression of sudden discomfort on his face. He scratches at his back, only to come up with - a glittering black hair clip. "Yours at the price I paid for it, sweets, if you like it enough. One thirty-second. It can't get cheaper." He drops back to let her contemplate.
Chidiree blinks heavily at him, a drink put on pause while she listens to his chatter and watches him reach for that 'scratch.' The time he gives her for contemplation is spent giving June a look, a look that isn't so much begging permission, but asking a different question: Seriously? "I think I'll pass," she tells him frankly, finally pushing that delayed drink past her lips. Ruesse glance up to see the clip, but other than a thin-lipped, "Hm," she shows no more interest than Chidiree. Another potential sale appears at the top of the stairs, clinging to the banister at the top. "What?" Danta asks simply, voice carrying barely down to them. "Come have a drink with us," June says, her voice part entreaty and part order. Responding to one or the other, the newcomer descends. So far, she's the woman best-fitted to blend in with the Istan islanders; her skin carries a natural tan and her face carries an exotic, tropical touch. Her dark hair falls forward to curtain each side of her face. Without a word, she eyes Skinner, eyes the beers, then heads for the latter. "Skinner, this is Danta," June introduces casually.
The look Skinner sends June - because everyone seems to be sending her looks - is bemused. "They're as hard to sell as you, aren't they? Ladies, a little vanity never hurt anybody. Not for a thirty-second of a mark, at least." With a snort of laughter, he recovers the clip and tucks in back into his pocket, which takes a bit longer than it took to produce it, since he has to position it carefully lest it break. There are more women to meet, but opportunity waits for no one. "Nice meeting you, Danta," he says, his voice still rich with laughter from the total rebuff he received. None of the others got a 'nice meeting you' line; none of the others caught him so amused.
"Not all of us," Chidiree comments with a faint snort, but catches a small and easily missable shake of June's head, so drowns that train of thought in her beer, turning her concern to Ruesse and the curtain afterward. After she's retrieved her beer (a light one like June's) Danta gives Skinner another glance. That's it. Then she takes up a chair near Chidiree. She leans over to whisper in the younger girl's ear, and Chidiree returns the favor, their murmured words incomprehensible. Meanwhile, June is answering him, "Vanity has hurt my marks purse, though. Choked it, starved it. It was quite brutal."
Skinner is impervious to social harm, so if the ladies want to look at him and then start murmuring to each other, that's fine with him. "Has it?" he asks June, his steady smile untroubled. He won't fake sympathy, but the interest is there. "No wonder you're so wary of me. Well - dismissive, really," he amends, dropping her a wink. "What happened?" He cracks open his new bottle of beer and takes a sip. His expression doesn't change: they get no hints about which he prefers. That wouldn't be playing the game.
"Dismissive?" June repeats, her tone grown a touch incredulous. She turns to her girls and asks of them, "Did I, or did I not just take him up on one of his offers?" Of them, only Ruesse bothers to respond, and even then it's a distracted, "I think that you did," that she delivers while completing the finishing and tying off the final curtain. She returns to him smiling and, when he delves deeper into the subject she only touched on, flicks a few dismissive fingers. "It was a general downturn, really, nothing spectacular to speak of. Other forces in play besides vanity. But it was a factor. The Crossroads was suffering after those unexpected 'falls, and in this business, with us growing older..." Her slight gesture is for Ruesse alone. "It was a challenge to keep up." June shrugs gently then slides her beer up for a sip. It happens to everyone once in a while.
Skinner only smiles, his eyes scrunched up with amusement. "Well, sure, when I can offer you something of /practical/ value," he responds with a snort of laughter. "But try offering you a pretty bauble and I'll get shrugged off faster than you can say 'fifty percent off.'" He studies Ruesse for a couple of moments, sipping his beer while he does, then returns to June. "Know what you mean, though. That comet set my business plan back a couple turns, made my eastern route unworkable. Thank Faranth for Ista, hey?" With a grin, he lifts his drink to salute Ista - lazy, wealthy Ista.
June can drink to that, and she does, tilting her bottle up in a casual little toast, echoing, "Thank Faranth." Valenia returns from her errand all by her lonesome, a bit of a flounce in her step that disappears once she passes the bar. "They're on their way," she promises, explaining her lack of companions. Confirming that promise, the remaining two women appear a minute later, as Ruesse is rising, crossing the room to dress the naked windows. The taller and darker of the two enters first. Her eyes fall on Skinner right away and she gives him an easy, welcoming smile. She finds herself one of the lighter, test beers (priorities after all) then returns to him, offering a warm and inquiring, "Hello." Her attempt at a greeting, though, is interrupted by the woman behind her, who has also collected a bottle of the paler ale and has already tucked into it with a vigorous drink. "I still think it lacks something. Not full enough," she says, as if continuing a conversation that started out of sight. "Not every brew needs to have the same hoppiness," the long-legged woman retorts, "not everyone likes that as much as you do. Hello," she retries, this time walking away from the second woman to extend a dusty hand to Skinner, "I'm Livi. And this is Petra." Petra lifts her heavy, dark brow at him, but lifts her bottle in welcome. And so the Lucky Seven is complete.
Skinner's eyes flick between the two women, following the thread of their conversation as best he can. "Don't look at me," is all he offers about the beers. "I'm not an educated drunk. Best I can tell you is I like what I'm drinking, and offer my compliments to its maker." He tips the beer towards Petra, then swiftly sets it down so he can take Livi's hand. He puts on his most charming smile. "Skinner. Pleasure meeting you both. Well, all of you." He reclaims his beer to toast the Lucky Seven at large, his eyes moving from one female face to the next. "Gang's all here, huh? And here's me by my lonesome." He laughs, unbothered by it. Being the only man in a room full of whores isn't something he can get too upset about.
June nods, cradling her beer bottle close to where her other arm folds across her waist, and surveys the spread of the girls, much the same way he did. Ruesse and Valenia hanging curtains, Danta sitting quietly with Chidiree, Petra and Livi stepping over to join them, taking over chairs not yet claimed. On the way, Petra lifts her beer again, silent acknowledgement of the compliment Skinner passes to her, though Livi beams over at him, too, as if she were just as involved. "Seems that way," June agrees conversationally, admiring her brood with a slight smile playing on her lips, then turning a smoother version of that smile on Skinner. "I wonder if you would know someone who could supply a new dress or seven for the night we open?" She clearly means that someone to be him, but she skirts around it, playing with the issue of her purchasing loyalty. Teasing him with the sale, she retreats a step, adding, "Or do you think that's too much?" She pauses for another survey of the girls; they're in their work clothes now, but her eyes are looking beyond those. "Vanity and all," she jokes, returning to Skinner with a hitched eyebrow.
Skinner hitches an eyebrow right back at her, but his lips are a-quiver with amusement. "I know someone who could supply seven handsome dresses and some fine accoutrements to go with them. Of course, by handsome, I probably mean 'revealing,' just short of 'tasteless,' because that does seem to be the Istan way. Hot sun and all." He winks at June over his beer. "Would you be interested, then? I assume you'll want them a bit before opening time, so Ruesse can make alterations. As necessary." He opens up his smile, showing off those pearly whites.
Ruesse turns away from her task when she hears her name, smiling shortly down at Skinner from the somewhat steady perch of the chair she stands on. "I can't have my dear sisters overheating," June explains matter-of-factly, nodding slightly to encourage him to continue. When he's finished, she allows, "Of course. And in any color?" Danta leans a few whispered words over to Chidiree again, after which the younger of the two pipes up. "No pink, June. This place is going to look like a giant fucking cream puff with us twirling around in ruffles and lace." June, caught in the middle of a sip, finishes it before she relays this to Skinner. An emphasis, perhaps, that all of the deals come through her. "No frills or ruffles then. And no pink," she hands down the orders.
"I hate pink," Skinner assures her, but he makes no such statement about ruffles and frills. In fact, he lets his gaze slide to Chidiree, sparkling with a hint of unmistakeable mischief, and then back to June for a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. "Any color. You know your girls, though, and who looks good in what, so write me down some recommendations on that and I'll keep them in mind. My next trip's in a couple of days, and knowing where I'm going, I'll probably come back with at least three dresses you can get an early eye on, see how you like them."
Chidiree's gaze drifts over to Skinner on its way down to her beer bottle and sticks there. And he gets his first taste of a full expression from her, in the form of a tight little frown, etched with warning. June catches the exchange, but of course when she turns her regard on Skinner, he's playing innocent. So she ignores it. "That would be good. Bring three different styles, and we'll see how much I can trust your fashion sense."
It's not hard to guess how Chidiree's glare affects Skinner: not at all. He's still perfectly cheerful, especially now that he has two agreements on the table with June. "You can trust it very much," he assures her smoothly, "don't let my clothes deceive you." He tugs his pocketed thing. "It serves a purpose, but I have a perfectly keen eye for what looks good on a woman." He eyes the group of women before him, clearly making some quick mental evaluations. By the time he returns to June, he's put it all behind him, and he moves on to desultory conversation that takes up a good hour more as he finishes his beer and gets to know the prostitutes.