2019-08-28 - Conversation Over Cookies

"Trust me. The madeleines here are amazing." Julia enthuses to Teresa. The pair are seated at one of the tables, apparently having something of a mini girl's day out, or perhaps just a meetup of would-be could-be friends. "But don't order them from Trey; the one who looks like an old movie star? He'll start talking about Proust and you'll slip into a coma."

The aforementioned staffer at the counter pouts, because it's true.

"I tried Proust once," Teresa says with an easy drift of a smile. "Think the hero was waking up, perhaps. Read twenty pages, he was still waking up. That was enough for me." She turns that smile on the staffer in question before flicking it back to Julia. "Good madeleines might be worth a small coma, though. What have you been up to?"

Abby walks into the shop and walks to stand in front of the display cases. There she stops, eyeing the pastries with a hesitant, uncertain gaze. Her fingertips alight on her jaw, the other hand holding a phone to her hip. "Hello!" She interrupts her browsing to offer staff a friendly smile. And everyone else. Everyone else gets a friendly smile to go with the greeting as well. Then it's back to the pastries, a tiny crease growing across her brow as she leans forward, then back again, glancing over her shoulder and stepping aside just in case she's holding up a hypothetical future line.

Julia offers a wave of her fingers to Abby. There's some familiarity in her expression while doing so, and she asides to Teresa, "She works at Addington Memorial...I've seen her when I've taken my mom in. And you know, the usual. Keeping the family business going, taking care of mama. Trying to have a life." She rolls her eyes. "I'm twenty-five years old and I already sound like an old lady."

Teresa raises her hand toward Abby. A wordless greeting. "At the hospital?" she asks with a glitter of interest. "Now. I'm older than you, and I know my mind's starting to creak. Although I've no family, really, to speak of, and no responsibilities except for myself. Doesn't make me feel any younger."

Abby's own hand comes up, fingers wiggling. Then, tentatively, that same hand stretches out and hovers very close to the display glass. "I think I would like one of these. That one. With the layers. That looks good, doesn't it?" She babbles a little as she chats to the staffer behind the counter, who helpfully informs her, "That's a mille-feuille." Which Abby immediately massacres. "Well, that mill-full looks delicious! Thank you so much!"

Abby then heads for a table, inspecting the pastry curiously, as if pondering how exactly to approach it. In passing, though, she smiles at Julia again. "Hello. How are you doing? I hope everything's well, I've been down at the ER, mostly, so I haven't been around very often."

"Yeah, you're an old hag. You're practically one of those ladies in church who wear all black and look like they want to whip young people with their rosaries." Julia cackles a little, and then smiles affably up to Abby. "Hi. And no worries. Mama's doing alright. I'm Julia...this is Teresa. Is this your first time here? The owner's a master patissiere, trust me, you can't go wrong."

Teresa draws lines down the sides of her mouth. "Drawn and wrinkled, withered and aging, one foot in the grave." She draws out the last word, then glances up at Abby. "Nice to meet you. I'm trying to learn a little bit about medicine myself. Or, failing that, pastries."

"Oh, that's great to hear," Abby replies to Julia's news with a genuinely glad smile. She looks to Teresa then, hesitating just a fraction of a second before raising a hand. "It's really nice to meet you too. Really?" Her eyes widen slightly, then she leans in. "Go with pastries," she recommends in a playfully lowered voice, punctuated with a wink. Then she glances down at her pastry. "It /is/ my first time here. It just looks so fancy, you know? Everything is so pretty I almost feel bad for eating it."

"Well, cooking and baking are as much about artistry as craft." Julia says philosophically, asiding to Teresa, "Abuelita had me bring over some mango pastelitos. Vyv about lost his mind. I think he's planning on trying to sweet talk her into telling him where she gets the mangos." To Abby, she suggests equally playfully, "Take a picture, then you have it preserved forever and can eat it guilt-free."

"It /will/ only rot if you don't eat it," Teresa says toward Abby. "Everything fades. Save the memory." That -- might be over-grim for a little pastry conversation, especially when Teresa promptly lightens it with, "I would /love/ a mango pastelito. I'd love a mango anything, really."

Abby sets it down in the next table over and pulls back a chair to take a seat with a slight wiggle for comfort. Then she holds up her phone. "Oh, I am going to take a picture, sure! But it's not the same," she says as she aims the rear camera at the mille-feuille, fiddling with a few settings on her phone before snapping a couple of shots. "I'm not even sure how you're supposed to eat it," she adds in a confessional tone, "But I thought I'd treat myself. And more seriously, what sort of medicine are you looking into?" She asks of Teresa. Still not eating, just slowly rotating the pastry in front of her.

Julia nibbles on a madeline, and offers her expertise. "You want a fork. But don't try to cut it with the edge of the tines, just spike it and it'll break without spooging the cream everywhere." She eats, and she knows things. "I'll grab a few for you when we make the next batch." she promises Theresa.

"Thank you," Teresa says to Julia, with some feeling. "Sometimes think I've been living on salads and vending machines. A little liquor." To Abby, -- well, she pauses before addressing Abby. When she does, it's low and a little careful. "More hospital administration than medicine proper, I suppose. Hospital history. I keep hearing of a hospital gone missing. Strange, huh?"

Abby picks up her small fork and nods. "Right! It does look too flaky for cutting. So, I'll just..." she lets her mouth hang open for a second as she pokes the mille-feuille with her fork, wiggling it a little as she tries to separate a bite-sized piece for herself. "Oh?" She grimaces ever so slightly at Teresa's mention of hospital administration, then smiles again. "That's a pretty good field, though. I'm - wait, a hospital gone missing?" That derails whatever train of thought she was on regarding the market for hospital administration.

Julia looks vaguely horrified at Teresa. That sounds just terrible. "Girl, when was the last time you had red beans and rice?" she asks though the question seems rhetorical as she adds, "You're coming over to dinner soon." And then there's mention of the missing hospital. "You mean that place upstate?" she asks. "I can't remember the name." This is not a lie.

"Possibly? I don't know much about it," Teresa says between Julia and Abby. "It almost sounds like a dream. But a dream that takes people. A dark story of a Doctor Marshall." She shakes her head. "But enough of this. I-- hah. Yes. I should visit," she says to Julia. "For better food. For remembering how to cook."

Abby manages to break off a piece, not without a shower of flaky pastry going everywhere. There's more as she brings the piece to her mouth and bites, a hand under her chin to prevent any filling mishaps. She still gets a lot of pastry on her. "Hmmmmm." The sound of pleasure she makes, and the blissful expression that goes with it, are only slightly marred by the baffled look she shoots between Julia and Teresa at the story about a missing hospital. But her mouth is full, so it takes her a moment to pipe up, "That's... odd! But what isn't, I suppose?" This time the cheerful smile feels just a little forced.

Julia smiles over at Abby. "Told ya." she says, and then waves a hand airily. "Just another one of those spooky Pac Northwest stories. Like Sasquatch."

Teresa laughs suddenly. "Florida has plenty of those. Cryogenically frozen Disneys and haunted Super 8s."

Abby brushes some flaky crumbs off her shirt, taking a second to dislodge some that may have fallen into a pocket, then delicately attacks the pastry with the fork again. "It's really good," she confirms with a sigh. "I suppose there's a lot of those, I just don't think I've ever heard about the hospital thing. Oh, you're from Florida?

"Do they really have underground tunnels in Disneyworld?" That's what Julia wants to know. She finishes her madeleine and nudge the plate of cookies toward Teresa encouragingly.

Teresa's smile glitters. "Of course! Otherwise, how could they maintain the cryogenic chambers? And manage all those hybridization experiments?" She reaches toward the plate of cookies, drawn and tempted. She takes the top one and turns her smile on Abby. "Yes, Florida. Long way from home, some of us are."

Abby takes another small bite, and just rolls it around her mouth, forcing herself to actually savor it rather than gulping the whole thing down. "Hmmmm. Right! There are a lot of people from all kinds of places, aren't there? I mean, for a town like Gray Harbor," she comments thoughtfully, but almost immediately flashes a friendly smile. "I mean, I think that's a good thing, I'm glad you're here."

Julia rolls her eyes at Teresa, but seems amiable enough over the whole thing. "I'm glad she is too. There's a very short list of people who can make a decent mojito in this town, and she's one of them."

"You doubt," says Teresa, "but I have seen crocodile men crawling over the walls." She duly makes spooky fingers at Julia with the hand that isn't holding the cookie. Then she laughs again, lower. "I'm glad the two of you are here, too. Easy to get lonely in a new place, isn't it?"

Abby doubts. "I've never had a mojito either," she admits as she carefully breaks another piece of flaky pastry and brings it up to her mouth, pausing there for a moment. "It can be, a little. I've settled in okay, but it's not the same. I could be home in thirty minutes, if I wanted to." She smiles, but her nose wrinkles subtly before she closes her mouth around the forkful of mille-feuille.

"I'm sure that can be changed." Julia says reassuringly. "Mojitos are great. Rumchata even better." She has her fingers around a new cookie herself. "And I read that bit of the Hunger Games books, Teresa." She pronounces it with an accent. Teh-ray-za.

"Come to the Pourhouse. I'll set you up." Teresa stands. She eats down her cookie. "All the rum and rum-drinks you could ever want. I should get going. Steal more ideas from more Hunger Games. Daydream of old homes. I'll catch you both later?"

Abby lets slip a soft laugh and makes a face, "I don't drink very often. I'm sure anything with rum in it would go to my head a little too quickly," she muses between bites, then perks up as Teresa stands. "Oh, that's not too far from me, I live on Spruce," she says, then breaks into a bright beaming smile, eyeing Teresa for a second. "It was really nice to meet you. I'll drop by some time for sure!"