2019-12-14 - Let People Enjoy Things

It is evening on the weekend. The sun sat a few hours ago and the days become progressively shorter as the Winter Solstice draws near. It's cold, dark, and generally a depressing time of year and what better to cure the soon-to-be-winter blues than some pizza?! Beth is already seated at the table with a pitcher of cheap domestic beer. Because places like this don't do craft brews. She is already halfway through her first mug. She has probably worked today, judging by the lack of winged liner and how her hair has been pulled back into a neat bun, but she had enough time to at least change into some leggings and throw a long oatmeal colored sweater over it all.

Ciprian arrives, thanks to some free babysitting courtesy of Beth! Not that Beth is babysitting. Obviously not. If she were doing that she'd be a pretty terrible babysitter since Ciprian's daughter is nowhere to be seen and also she's drinking. So let's just make that clear.

Anyway.

He looks around, and when he sees her he smiles, starting over that way. He is wearing what probably passes for off-work clothes for him, but would likely be considered 'business casual' by anyone else. And yes, the shirt does have buttons. "Hi," he says as he sits down. "Sorry, Ashira wanted to play one more round of Boggle before I left. She still thinks she's going to beat me." How cute.

The door opens and in steps Quyen, still in her work clothes -- blazer, blouse, trousers, and heels, rather than her more casual jeans and leather jacket that she prefers off hours. She looks like she might just head up to the counter to order, but doesn't quite approach it to address the employees. Instead she studies the menu, head tipped thoughtfully as if there's some great inner dilemma -- to pepperoni or not to pepperoni, perhaps. Her phone chimes, so she steps back out of what might be a line, if there was a line, to read and answer the text.

When she glances up, she notices Beth just as Ciprian heads to her table to slide in, so Quyen simply lifts a hand in greeting but doesn't interrupt.

Beth lifts a hand to wave at Ciprian so he can see her just as he starts that way. She lets out an amused huff, "Aren't you supposed to let her win or something? You know builds confidence or something. Also she's eight?" She looks up just as Quyen lifts a hand in greeting, and she lifts her own to wave at her energetically. She must notice that she seems a bit lost because she calls out, "Quyen? If you're not meeting anyone come sit with us." She settles back in her chair before she explains to Ciprian, "Quyen was our neighbor when we were kids."

Ciprian scoffs at the idea of letting Ashira win, and he shakes his head. "It wouldn't be meaningful if I let her win," he declares loftily, with all the conviction of a parent who's probably relatively competitive himself and doesn't actually want to get beaten by a child even if that child is his own child and he's doing it on purpose. "Learning how to lose builds character." Duh, Beth.

He smiles, though, and he starts to say something else, but then Quyen is introduced, and he looks up at the new arrival. There's a sort of vague recognition one has when one has probably seen a person around but doesn't know them, but he doesn't dwell on where, just says, "Hi, Quyen. Ciprian. Nice to meet you." He scoots his chair a little bit over, even though he doesn't strictly need to, since she could just sit in one of the two other chairs at the table -- but it's probably symbolic of him inviting her to join them, as well.

"Hey," says Quyen when she's greeted, and she gives another glance to the menu before moving closer to the pair at the table. "You sure? I was just going to order something and take it home. I don't want to interrupt anything."

She offers a hand to Ciprian. "I think you use the same grocery store as me," she says with a nod of recognition as well. "I think you should let her win sometimes," she says, having rudely overhead their conversation. "My parents never let me win, and clearly I need therapy."

It's said fairly solemnly, but then finished with a smirk. "I'm kidding. I do probably need therapy, but not for that reason. I'm sure she'll be fine. Is Boggle the one with the letter dice? Or is that Yahtzee?"

"Of course we're sure." Beth says before she shakes her head. "The only thing you're interrupting is me giving this guy shit about his completely reasonable, logical, and sensible choices." She grins a little at Ciprian before she picks up her own menu to look through it. "You should let her win at least like one out of ten. It's not exactly a level playing field considering you are many times her age, have more years of education than she has been alive, and you know. All that." She grins a little, "But I guess I'd probably do the same if I had kids."

"Oh, right, I think so." Ciprian's eyebrows raise at Quyen's admission, though -- that is, until she says she's kidding. Maybe he was about to feel bad. Now he's fine, clearly. Or maybe he still feels a little bad. "It's the one with the letter dice," he confirms. "She's actually pretty good at it. She slaughters all her friends and none of them want to play with her anymore." Clearly they never had a dad who never let them win so they got used to losing.

He does laugh then, though, at Beth's reply, looking toward her. "Yeah, yeah," he says, waving a hand as though dismissing the concern. "She beats me at this princess game she has, so I think she'll turn out okay."

Quyen takes a seat when she's assured she's not interrupting, choosing the one beside Beth. "Just don't play that one with a Welshman. They can make words out of any gibberish. W's as vowels -- what madness is that?"

The mention of the princess game draws her brows up. "That would be fun to watch. Do you have to be a princess? Which one do you choose -- let me guess. Belle? She's at least not just looking for a husband for the entirety of her movie."

Quyen shakes her head. "I can't think of the last time I played a board game. A lot of video games, which I'm awful at. Be sure to let her play those sometimes, so she's not at a deficit later on. No one tells you it'll be the major social activity you do throughout your twenties when hanging out at people's houses. Don't let her go into that world unprepared."

"Oh, none of them play with her anymore?" Beth asks in a I-wonder-why-that-is sort of way. The waitress comes over to take their drink orders, and Beth asks for two more mugs. Because she's not drinking this pitcher of very beer flavored beer by herself, friends. She laughs at what Quyen says, "I think I'd rather be actively looking for a husband than, you know, a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, but I guess that is true?" She puts the menu down to ask, "What kind of pizza are we going to get. I'm starving so we can do two because I will eat at least half of one." This is said with the frankness of someone know knows she can put back a lot of pizza.

"None of them play that with her anymore," Ciprian clarifies. "They play other things. She has friends." BETH. But they'll have to take his word for it, since his daughter is not here to tell them otherwise. So there.

As for the princess game, he shakes his head, and says, "It's a board game where you need to collect all the jewelry. Whoever gets the most by the end is the most beautiful princess and wins, no matter who finishes first. And before you ask, yes, I do put on the jewelry, because otherwise she accuses me of cheating." As for the type of pizza they're getting, he says, "Veggie for me."

"Valid point," Quyen says regarding Stockholm Syndrome. "Hadn't thought of if that way."

She laughs at Ciprian's admission to putting on the princess jewelry. "I"m sure you look beautiful by the end. Even if you don't win," she says with a grin, before adding, "I'm good with anything. You two pick the two pizzas and I'll just steal a slice of each and pay you for them. How's that? Better than taking home a whole one and then forgetting about it for a week, which is my usual M.O. I throw out my weight in carry out every month, I swear."

"Oh, just that game." Beth says, and she hides her little smirk behind her mug of beer as she lifts it to take a drink. "If we get chicken Alfredo can you eat it?" This seems directed at Ciprian. To Quyen she says, "Thankfully the tens are the time of women and we now have cool ass princesses like Moana. No man unless you count Maui, and she doesn't marry him in the end." She nods her head in acceptance of Quyen's offer. "Why don't you just leave tip? It'll be the same. And yeah same. I have turkey in my fridge I have to throw out from Thanksgiving that is starting to get super sketch."

"I really do," Ciprian confirms with a little smile to Quyen, and he makes a gesture as though he's tossing his hair over his shoulder, though of course, he does not have hair to toss over his shoulder so it doesn't really work that well. The idea's the important thing, though.

He reaches for one of the mugs that has been brought, pouring himself a beer, but he shakes his head at Beth's question. "No," he says, "but don't worry about me. Get what you want." He does have to add, "Also, be glad Ashira's not here, because she would point out that Moana is not a princess, she's the daughter of the chief, which is apparently way cooler than being a princess. Who knew?"

"Definitely getting better at the girl power thing," agrees Quyen. "Took long enough. To be honest, I don't even mind the old school ones, except Snow White was terrible because she had that little baby girl voice that drove me nuts. But they started getting better in the '90s at least. Definitely the 21st century Disney girls are much more kick ass."

She glances down at her phone, swiping away a text message, before adding, "I remember arguing with a girl in my class that Tinker Bell shouldn't be in the Princess Line because she isn't a princess but a tinker fairy. She fixed pots and pans and doesn't marry a prince. But whatever, at least she has a personality unlike some of the princesses. Right, Ciprian?"

He probably didn't expect to have this conversation on a night away from Ashira.

"Well, a chieftain is the same thing as a King. It's just that chieftains rule over tribal people while kings rule over kingdoms." Beth states reasonably as she puts her menu down. "Do you want pepperoni and olives or supreme?" She asks Quyen when Ciprian gives her permission to order something with delicious pork products on it. Not that she needed his permission.

"But did she, though?" Beth wonders aloud about Tinkerbell. "She lierally didn't even speak, and her personality consisted of being sassy and being in love with a boy who was destined to never grow up. Which is odd." She takes another swallow of her beer. "I always liked the Little Mermaid. Yeah, I know, she throws everything away for a man...but she was already interested in the surface world. And she chose to give up her voice. She wasn't some victim of cercumstance. It was like...well, this is what I want, and I know the costs of getting it so I will take those."

Ciprian nods when Quyen says this about Tinkerbell -- and he shakes his head at Beth's counter. "She was fun," he says. "She may have been in love with Peter but she was still her own person. Even if she didn't talk. And Moana self-identified as the daughter of a chief, not a princess, so I'm going to stick with that." His smile widens at that, though, and there's certainly amusement in his expression as he looks from one to the other. He definitely didn't expect to be having this conversation on a night away from Ashira. But hey, at least there's beer.

"Either's fine. Dealer's choice," Quyen says. She's about to speak in defense of Tinker Bell but Ciprian beats her to it. "And she saves Peter, remember. It's a little sad, the unrequited love thing, but she has more agency than Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella, at least. I'll give you the Little Mermaid, though. She did know what she was getting into. The book version's sadder."

Because who wants to turn into sea foam?

"What was your favorite animated movie as a kid?" she asks Ciprian. "Doesn't have to be a princess movie." You're welcome.

"Well, Tigerlily is still racist." Beth counters, and the So There! is unspoken but heavily implied. She nods her head in agreement with Quyen about Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinerella. "I mean...at least Cinderella isn't kissed awake and taken away as a prize, but the Prince shows up and she's basically like oh I guess I'll go with you. And besides the good woman in those stories don't have agency because they are a cautionary tale about what supposedly happens when women have agency because the women who do have agency are the villains."

When the waitress returns she orders a supreme pizza and leans back to look at Ciprian to wait for his favorite movie.

Beth's 'so there' does not get an argument from Ciprian -- instead, he nods, taking another sip from his beer. "That's very true," he says once he's set the mug back down on the table, and he leans back, listening to the other two talk about the various Disney princesses, still with a little smile on his face.

When Quyen asks her question, though, his expression shifts a little thoughtfully. However, it's not long before he replies. "Did you ever watch that animated version of The Hobbit?" he asks. "I really loved that movie. I watched it so much we had to get a second copy because the tape wore out."

"Well, yes. And it's all very sexist, too, but I still like Tinker Bell," Quyen says with a shrug and a laugh. "If we didn't watch anything that was sexist or racist, we wouldn't be able to watch anything from before ..." she pauses, trying to decide on a year where anything was made that was neither of those things. "I don't know. You get my point. Even things that were ahead of their time in being progressive were still problematic. Like Mark Twain."

She turns to listen to Ciprian's answer to her question and smiles at the revelation. "My dad had a copy of that," she says, "and I tried to watch it when I was too young to understand it. I didn't like it. But later when I read the book, I remembered it, and it helped me picture what was going on. I should try to find a copy of it again."

"2010, probably." Beth supplies helpfully before she adds, "But that's the whole of media and not just Disney cartoons. I watch comedies from the aughts and think holy fuck people would riot today."

"They had an animated version?" Beth asks, sounding surprised. "You know what has always unreasonably offended me? Led Zepplin's Ramble On. Cause Gollum wouldn't give a shit about stealing some dude's girlfriend."

"I have a copy," Ciprian admits with a little chuckle. "I can lend it to you if you'd like to watch it. You might appreciate it now. I'm trying to get Ashira to like it. She'll watch it sometimes, but I know it's mostly because she's indulging me." His tone is a little bit wry, though he still does sound amused.

He looks over at Beth then, his eyebrows raising, and for a moment he looks confused, before his expression clears and he says, "Oh, that's what they were saying! You know, I never really listened to the lyrics. I agree that doesn't make much sense."

Quyen too looks confused at the mention of Led Zeppelin, then purses her mouth into a little silent o as realization dawns on her. "Yeah, I never really paid any attention to that, either," she admits.

"Thanks!" she says to Ciprian at the offer of borrowing the tape. "I'd be terrified to ruin it though, and also I don't own a... what are they called? V something... VCR?" Her smirk lets on that she's only teasing -- at least at the name of the device. She definitely doesn't own one.

Beth finishes off her beer and reaches for the pitcher to pour more into her mug. She also refreshes Ciprian and Quyen's mugs before putting the pitcher on one side of the table because here come the pizzas! The waitress helpfully plops the first piece onto plates with the serving spatula, and she picks up her piece to have a bite. "I guess it's not the sort of song most people pay close attention to."

Ciprian eyes Quyen skeptically, his eyes narrowing just slightly. "Don't you dare," he says, shaking his head. "You Millenials. And anyway, I have it on DVD. I assume you know what that is." There's still plenty of humor there, though. He leans back a little bit then when the waitress comes, and he reaches for his pizza slice with a murmured thank you, taking a bite from it. "Mm," he says once he's swallowed, nodding once in satisfaction. "I needed this today."

"To be honest, I haven't used my DVD in two years, I don't think. Everything's on Netflix or Hulu, right?" Quyen says with a grin. "That's really not because I'm younger than you. I'm just lazy. It takes effort to put the little disc in the little holder."

She does take, as promised, one slice from each pizza, but she starts with the veggie. "Could do with some jalapeņos, but it's pretty good," she determines, chewing thoughtfully. "Definitely beats the two-day old chow mein I was going to eat if I didn't stop in here. Glad I did, for the company as well as the food."

Beth picks up the shaker of red pepper flakes to shake some onto her pizza. "Did you read that op-ed in the Gray Harbor Gazette where the assistant D.A. got called out?" She wonders aloud to Ciprian, who is part of the D.A. office himself. "About the Kruger murders?" She picks up her own pizza slice to have another bite, and lets out a sigh despite the heavy topic she just brought up. "I should bug my ex. He's a cop and now I'm curious. This is all becoming..." She motions with her free hand, "Theater in a way. The reporter actually mentioned high rollers getting paid blowjobs. In the paper my grandpa reads." She looks to Quyen, "You know my grandpa so you know he choked before cackling for an hour."

Ciprian snorts, replying, "Well, maybe you can stream it on Amazon Prime or something." He doesn't say anything else about it, since Quyen is invested in shooting down all his ideas. All of them. Rude. He takes another bite of his pizza, but it's then that Beth mentions the whole thing with the A.D.A. His mouth twists, but he has to nod. "I read it," he confirms. "It was more or less required reading at the office. That was a fun day."

"Jesus. It's good my parents moved away. I can't imagine my mom reading that in a newspaper," says Quyen with a laugh. "Gray Harbor's the Port Charles of the west coast, clearly. Tiniest town with the weirdest and most corrupt shit going on. I mean, why should Chicago and New York get all the fun?"

She takes another bite that finishes her veggie slice and moves on to the supreme. She shakes the parmesan cheese over it, then glances at the shaker. "Did you know parmesan cheese isn't completely vegetarian? I won't tell you why, because it's kind of disgusting. But don't tell all your friends who are vegetarians who eat it, or they'll be horrified."

It doesn't seem to bother her, though, as she takes a bite of the parmesan'd slice anyway.

"I can't, either." Beth says to Quyen, and her lips twitch upwards a bit at the thought. "But yikes it's a local paper not medium.com. You can't just write about a casino that isn't open yet offering high rollers blowjobs from prostitutes and then call out the entire police department and the D.A. office and expect to...I don't know. Do well at your career?" She shrugs a little before asking Ciprian, "I mean...the D.A. office just looks at evidence and then decides if there is enough to press charges, right?" She takes a swallow of beer. Quyen's comment about parmesan not being vegetarian gets an amused look. "Well, considering the cheap stuff is made from wood shavings or something that probably is. But not kosher. Probably too many bugs."

"Yeah," Ciprian replies with a look at Quyen, still with the wryer semi-smile. It's not a real smile -- well, it is, but it's more resigned than anything else. "And yeah, it isn't as though we're investigating anything. That's the police department's job. But who knows, maybe we'll be making some indictments soon."

That's probably all he's going to say about it, though, and for good reason. Instead, he lets out a laugh at the comment about whether parmesan is kosher, shaking his head. "Let people enjoy things," he says, looking back and forth between them, and the rest of their conversation, while perhaps not letting people enjoy things, is not focused on murders, the D.A.'s office, or Disney princesses.