2019-05-27 - It Reads The Book or It Gets The Hose Again

It's five o'clock somewhere. Namely here in Gray Harbor. Harper pulls up outside Nicholas' house in her Prius. Fresh from a ten-hour day at the library, she sits in her car for a few extra minutes. "No. -No-. No he won't." She rests both hands atop the steering wheel in front of her and gazes off into the middle distance awhile. "You -say- that, but you just expect the worst." Chartreuse sweater and pale rose, round-necked blouse top a flouncy skirt that ends just above her knees, her jab at the drizzly weather. Knee high boots with a modest heel adorn her lower legs and feet as she absently taps her right toe against the brake pedal a few times in rapid succession, impatient? Nervous? Irritable? "He's not -dead-." In an ironic, chiding tone. "Well, probably not. Just stop with the 'little brother'-ing. I'm getting out now." This pronounced, Harper opens her door, slips her keys into the pocket of her cardigan and stretches across the front seat to pick up a shoebox, two books, and a kazoo. She firmly shuts the car door and then makes her way up the front walk to Nicholas' mysterious house. Mysterious in that she's never seen inside of it. Maybe he keeps secret hostages. A wry little smile crooks her lips at the thought. Like skin-wearing in 'Silence of the Lambs' or like medical experiments in 'The OA'? When she reaches the door she waves a hand at the misty evening air and sets the shoebox between the screen door and the front door proper. Not even ringing the bell. She then opens the top book and rereads the post-it note just inside the cover. It's a library book with a sticker on the cover that says 'New!'. She leans down to rest it atop the shoebox. Did I mention that this librarian's nails are painted black today?

Nicholas is inside the house when the screendoor is opened and the collection of offerings is set on the doorframe. This was the usual time that Ms. Harper pulled up and got out, foisting her homemade banana bread and her library books onto him. As the Prius pulls up in it's creepy-silent-hum sort of way, he looks out from an upstairs window and watches as Harper talks on the phone. At least, that is what he calls it, outloud. Coming down the stairs as she makes her way up the walk, wearing a pair of old jeans, white socks and a sweatshirt of heather grey. Waiting until she is bent over in front of the front door, he jerks it open abruptly and half-shouts, "You sneaking up on me again!?" A reference, each week, to the silent-running electric car, but this time meant to be a horror movie scare moment as he fully expects a yelp and maybe pepper spray.

And... no one has seen the inside of Nicholas' house. Some just say that he has a creepy Dexter thing going in the basement, while others accuse him of being a polite hoarder and that the rooms are uninhabitable. When asked, he always just shrugs and states that it is his home, his alone. So as he steps out over the little altar of offerings, he pulls the door shut behind him before she gets any sort of peek.

Miss Price had hopscotched her way across his front walk, avoiding the cracks there. Now with the abrupt door opening and half-shout she looks up from where she was bent over only to fall back with a thump to her behind on the damp porch, the other book and the kazoo flying through the air to fall as well beside her. "You ... you ..." she begins the possible reactions ranging from amusement to anger. "... are a very bad man." She simply sits there staring up and then up a bit more and finally up to Nick's too-blue eyes. A flicker of her gaze to one side. "He's supposed to be -" Her sparkling-brown gaze flicks back to his face. "You're supposed to be at work -and no, I don't need any help, thank you." Strange. He didn't offer help, at least not yet. Is he growing accustomed to the third party references? Or do they still sit like strange lumps in the middle of a made bed?

He definitely tolerates the barrage of accusations of his gentlemanly demeanor with a frown, "Am not," he says in a mockingly childlike way as he bends to not help her up, but to help himself to the mound of parcels delivered. "I am not at work," he says, helpfully, but certainly distracted as he examines the back cover of the first book brought, "Oh, I like her," he says of the author. Only then does he 'notice' that she's sitting on her butt on the porch, "I have chairs. Come, please," and he is offering a hand. See? Gentleman. It seems that he can sometimes ignore those outbursts, as though she has Tourrettes.

Despite her claim of not needing any help, she does lift her hand to grasp his for the tug upward. She's light, easily pulled to her feet, perhaps pulled too far, who's to say? The book is titled: 'Senlin Ascends'; it's written by Josiah Bancroft. The information on the back cover lists it as one of the best Fantasy novels of 2018. Inside the front cover, she'd placed a post-it that plays of the tagline on the back side. The tagline reads: A quiet man of letters must become a man of action. And Harper has written in her own neat but inimitable scrawl: 'A man of action must become a quiet man of letters. I think you'll like this one. -H' She reaches with her free hand to collect the other book and the ... is that /really/ a kazoo? ... kazoo in her free hand. She's made a game out of trying to find a different container to deliver his banana bread in each time she brings it. This time it's a new-looking shoe-box that is liked with wax paper beneath the sliced banana bread. It's a decent, edible bread, but she's no chef when it comes to such things. "We were just -- why aren't you working?" Almost an accusation, though inherently unintentional at that. She doesn't try to preemptively extricate her hand, distracted by her own question.

Looking inside the back cover as he sits onto the swing, he smiles slowly and closes it, setting it down and laying his hand on it. Freezing when he sees the kazoo, "Oh?" he asks as he leans back, "Orchestra performance coming up?" With a wry smile, he lays down and prepares to be serenaded by the honking goose of the instrument world, tucking an arm under his head. Answering the question slowly, "Because I pulled a double shift, -then- I had to cover someone who got sick. So, a double-and-a-half shift?" Turning his head, he looks at Harper, "Why do you wanna know? You going to break in and raid my fridge?" It's a teasing accusation.

Harper watches Nick peruse the book with a little glimmer in her brown eyes only to whip out the kazoo with her free hand and brandish it as if it were a weapon. She follows him over to the swing and settles on it close enough so that she can toot an eargrinding fanfare Right. Beside. His ear. "Happy Banana & Book Day." Her words are quieter than the obscene fanfare and she simply smiles, the lovely expression melting away a bit as she glances toward her left shoulder, frowns and and purses her lips, whispering, "Go away." She turns back to Nick. "Then why aren't you sleeping?" Today must be third degree day. Without waiting for him to answer she replies to the teasing accusation. "Because I want to have my own chance to demand 'it puts the lotion in the basket'," she lowers her voice for the quote then smiles serenely as if him having a hostage awaiting a horrible death might be an interesting state of affairs like learning he rescues puppies or finding that he's a secret author who writes in complete anonymity. "And that isn't going to happen while you're home, is it?" House off limits. She knows the rule.

"Augh!" he cries out as that kazoo is squalled (one does not simply /play/ a kazoo, sir!) into his ear at such close proximity. Invasion! Scrambling to give her room to sit on the swing, his lie-down is interrupted and with fanfare. Rubbing his ears, he frowns, the book having been knocked onto the floor, requiring a bend and pickup, "Watch it, lady. This here book's been in my family for generations." Clearly, all lies. Dusting off the cover needlessly, he looks at her, "I'm not sleeping because... it's banana and book day! What do you take me for, so cheap lay-about? Wait a minute." Three words run together into one phoenetic breath, it might seem, "Clearly you have your mind on breaking and entering, I see. You don't strike me as a criminal sort, Harper."

Harper's sense of personal space is strangely missing, though it has been that way as long as he's known her since his return from school. She sits beside him on the swing, her skirt-clad thigh lightly pressing against his jean-clad one. She leans back in the swing and gazes peacefully into the misty middle distance. "I didn't -not- watch it," she argues, for argument's sake. The mention of the book and its inimitable history drags another easy smile to her lips, her gaze following him as he leans down, brushes it off, but then disengaging once he's seated beside her again. His legs are longer. If the swing is going to move, it'll be because he decides it should. "I don't know about cheap. I mean, you do accept loaf after loaf of my tolerable banana bread. But lay-about? No. I think when the sirens are on in the ambulance, it means one of you is taking a nap in the back." He speaks of what sort she strikes him as and Harper leans away so she can turn and look Nick in the eye. "You have no idea what sort I am, then, Nicholas Granholm. Why, you're hardly even legal. So much to learn," she tsks.

Confusion flits to his face, the lazy teasing banter of sarcasm momentarily wiped away for a serious question, "What do you mean 'barely legal', I -aced- my accreditation tests! I'm certified! Also? Last name usage is a privlege, not a right, so let's keep that under control. You are not my judge nor my mother, and ugh.." he shivers, "That's just creepy." A pause, a narrowing of the eyes, "I warn you. I have waterguns full of holy water inside, strategically placed around the house, just in case someone breaks in. Like in the movies." The swing starts to rock. Because he wants it to.

"Yes, yes..." Harper intones circling a finger in the air as Nick drawls on about how incredibly -certified- he is, stopping when he demands last name usage is far too familiar for their friendship, sarcasm included. "I never judge," she states flatly. And there's a serious weight to that statement, as if judging were perhaps the worst or most fatal of behaviors. "And I'm pretty sure I'd remember if you'd come out of my -- if I'd given birth ... if I were your mom." She makes the last bit sound foreboding. She does pause to watch Nick curiously as he begins his warning. She claps her hand to her chest and utters, "Good -god-, no! -Water- guns? Just think of the collateral damage, not to mention the woman you keep at the bottom of the well." She pauses, lifts a fingertip and taps at her lips thoughtfully for a moment. "You know, Nicholas, I am The Best secret keeper you've ever known." Superlative much?

He arches a brow at that suddenly-serious tone, frowning a moment after, "You took that all wrong. I just don't picture you, Harper, as a criminal. It's a disheartening thought." Shaking his head, he rolls with the Silence of the Lambs references, "If she'd just /do the thing/, I'd let her out. But -no-, it's just hose, hose, hose. I'm starting to think that the woman /likes/ it, it's kind of creepy." There is a long, careful pause before he turns to look at her, searching her eyes for the truth in them. "I just don't like people in my house, Harps. It's nothing personal. It isn't just you, it's everyone. I don't even like calling Mike's Plumbing," he admits, rocking the swing slowly.

Harper leans forward to press her palms down on the edge of the swing on the outside of each leg, her shoulders hunching as she listens. "If I were, you know, seriously a criminal would that be the end of Book & Bananas?" Why that question is so serious might be disturbing. She tries to bite back her mirth as he plays with the SotL reference, but is unsuccessful. "That's one of the risks you take when you try to make your own clothes," she murmurs softly. Then the serious bit, her face turning as he seeks out her eyes with his gaze. And she listens, utterly silent and still. A little too much time passes after he's stopped speaking for most people to be comfortable. But between a pair of pseudo-introverts? Not so much. "I wasn't pushing for an invitation, Nicholas. We all have boundaries and I promise to respect yours." Another pregnant pause. His own sarcasm mirrored back at the end: "Today."

He is quiet for a good few minutes. The nice thing about their friendship is that, of all of things, it is unhurried and understanding. It was something that had developed over the weeks that they had hung out. The banana bread had been a joke, a sarcastic demand that she had fulfilled two days later, utterly surprising him. But the books, well, that is the core of their friendship. "Why does everyone freak out about my house? There's nothing really in there, most would think that it is creepy that I don't have a TV. That alone would start even more rumors," he says seriously, looking at her with a crinkle in his forehead. "And you're not a criminal... but then again, I don't /think/ that mediocre banana bread is a crime, yet, right?" he asks with a shrug.

Harper concludes with a small smile as she watches Nicholas, victim of her quickbread attempts. "You know this town, Granholm. It's /all/ about the gossip."