2019-12-20 - The Cleaning Fairy

It's 1:01PM, and a knock comes at the door. Three times, evenly spaced, in rapid succession. A small hand with hard knuckles. "Cleaning service," a rather ebullient voice calls from beyond the door. "You asked for me at 1:00? I apologize for being late!"

It's a lazy day for Evie, but worek has finally called. The building itself has been quiet, with the cart of cleaning supplies making more noise than most of the tenants combined. Of course, the average tenant is away at work. Most who call for cleaning service simply leave permission to use the manager's copy of the key.

"Oh. Oops." Lilith murmurs to herself while sitting in the middle of a mess with wrapping paper in pieces and cuts and folds and rolls around a collection of boxes and presents, eyeing the door and knock with a bit of a startle. Yes, she knows Byron has a cleaning service and he's in a meeting for the moment and she came over for lunch to get a leg on wrapping things while he's occupied, but aren't you supposed to not have a mess around so they can get to the actual dirt? Lilith isn't sure, she's never had a cleaning person! She starts to clean up for the cleaner automatically on the way to the door, grabbing some of the frustration wads of wrapping paper to carry against herself while going to open the door for Evie to come in.

Today, she's wearing a black halter dress with booted heels decorated by silver accented straps and buckles kicked off by the couch somewhere, so feet are currently red toenail painted and bare. She does have her long, plush and mottled smoky wrap sweater on around the little casual dressy dress to winterize it, though, still, and her hair has been sloppily twisted up and stuck through with a pen to hold it, probably for label making, though she's turned it into temporary hair-stick. Bustling to get the door open, she lets Evie in with a lopsided smile of apology to see the mess by the decorated tree, explaining, "I swear, this is the only real mess, the kitchen and bedroom and bathroom are fine for polishing. I just tried to get a lunch break of wrapping in while the mister is out. Hi. Sorry. I'm Lilith. Landlord's girlfriend."

It seems that the maid doesn't have a dress code to speak of. She wears an apron over her clothing, but beneath it is an o-ring zippered buttercup yellow sweter and a knee length gingham skirt, also checked in the same golden yellow. The maid herself is a blue-eyed girl with honey blonde hair styled in a french braid and tied back with a dark ribbon.

"I hope I'm not interrupting?" Evie asks in a rich, slightly raspy tone, like liquid smoke or coffee brewed black as night. It doesn't quite match that absolutely effervescent grin. "Oh! Let me take that for you." Question answered?

"Just... Go about what you were doing? It's alright, really. I've got everything." The cart is left outside but Evie- hands adorned in nitrile gloves- quickly reaches out for the wrapping paper. She does have a can for it on her cart. "Do you have a particular way you want things arranged? Otherwise, I can follow what you already have here. Um..."

The young woman wiggles a little, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. Like she's actually excited to be cleaning another person's apartment. There's no point in embarrassment any longer. That bright-eyed gaze is clearly already rearranging everything silently in advance of the main event.

There are a couple of coffee cups from that fancy espresso machine partaking sitting in the sink, along with a couple of rinsed breakfast dishes, lots of surfaces to dust, two orchid plants that require water in the living area and bedroom hallway, an unfolded throw blanket on the couch, etc, all the normal things that entail a clean-but-needs-maintenance-due-to-working-inhabitants. And general size, of course, the wrapping mess and boxes by the large decorated tree in the main living area aside. She readily hands over the trash for the cart and gives Evie room for her supplies while holding the door, then closes it up once the other woman is in, "I think it's all... pretty in order the way things usually are, just needs the detail, more or less all around. The dusting and vaccuming and straightening and watering and things we don't get a second to do. But..."

Lilith takes a moment to size the other female up, the bright demeanor, then she rubs a hand at the side of her neck while looking back at the wrapping paper and boxes, "So. I know I could youtube this, but I'm stubborn. I just... haven't wrapped a lot of presents over the years. Are you any good at it? Not that I want to take you from your work, I know you're probably on a schedule, but..." Okay, she looks just a tinge hopeful after eyeing one of the presents with excess wadding and tape at the end of the box, efficient, but not pretty, "Kind of funny to be fussy over something we're just going to tear off, but I feel like pretty presents to go under this tree in this apartment are... obligatory, somehow."

Someone might be Christmas stressing on the sly a little.

"I love wrapping presents," Evie replies, that grin of hers broadening slightly as she does. "And no problem. Won't rearrange a thing. I'll just---" It's a bit like magic for the uninitiated. Where Evie goes dust vanishes, items right themselves in small gestures of frankly tiny hands. The petite maid is much shorter than Lilith- despite the lifts in her shoes- and attacks the 'mess' with the sort of abandon most people reserve for consuming their favourite snack or playing a game.

Evie is exacting as well. Items are moved aside, dusted under, and straightened. Dishes are set aside as she fills a half sink of water. One of the clean cups is pulled out and set aside because the glassware has water spots. "Your place is in great shape!No worries at all, ma'am."

With that last, Evie flashes Lilith another smile and winks once. "My name is Evelyn, by the way." So sayeth the nametag on that apron of hers. "People usually call me Evie. Presents are in no problem. I'll fold laundry too. My job is just to make your life easier for an hour or so. You know?"

Lilith grins a little bit to herself while watching Evie and returning to cross-legged sit on the floor next to a box and a roll of wrapping paper that is apparently giving her shit. She likes efficiency and given her run of employees lately, ugh, it's nice to see it in Byron's building for a spell. That and the other female seems to actually like what she's doing, which makes Lilith herself feel a little less awkward about sitting while someone cleans the dirt around her. She's not quite accustomed to that as yet.

After getting settled, Lilith works her bottom lip between her teeth and eyes the collection to let the blonde do the tending around and talks, "I like the nickname Evie, it's cute. Not that Evelyn is a bad name, it's just... older, I guess. Evie seems to suit you better." She pauses, tilts her head, gets stubborn about unwrapping the box that isn't perfect so she can try again quite visibly, then stops and throws her hands up a little, "Okay, so for the sake of the Christmas experience, I'm very much into wrapping the collective, you don't have to waste your scheduled time doing that or anything, I just... would you mind wrapping this one so I can watch you from scratch? I know it's about angles, and I get that and can see it, but the folding, especially when things aren't symmetrical..."

"Asymmetrical presents. Ugh." Evie wrinkles her nose at that, but then she's back to smiling almost instantaneously. The girl is humming as she sets everything in order, quickly runs through the dishes and lays them to dry, and soon makes her way back out into the living room. "It's not a waste of my time. But- sure. I'll teach you how to wrap presents.

"I don't mind at all. So! Here we go. We'll start with this way. Because it's the easiest, right? ANd it looks really nice. The first thing to do is lay out the papper. Put the present in the middle here and then bring it over so you can overlap a few inches on both sides. ine both edges with tape beore you start. Then we're actually going to fold up the bottom to create a triangular shape here. When you fold in the corners we'll actually make a bottom for it- almost like a bag..."

As Evie works she goes through all of the folds slowly, miming securing each with tape. "And then we slip the gift in the other side and tape it shut, right? This way people can't guess what's inside." Evie demonstrates by sliding a gift into the bag. It fits- and then the paper unravels, having been left unsecured.

"If you don't like doing it that way we can also do it a couple of other ways to get a more form-fitting kind of shape. What do you think? I can teach you how to fold at weird angles to get those weird edges and corners. Or we can just cut the paper as we go and /make/ it fit. Right?"

Lilith was leaving herself way too much slack and extra paper with the cutting in the name of having something to fold while measuring, and she seems to see that immediately once she's shifted from cross-legged sit on the floor up to kneeling sit on her heels for attentive watching. That and some of these boxes, like the suit jacket box marked from Nordstrom's, it has straight stylized angles for the garment to fit nicely in the box without being an absolute rectangle, making it more of a slight trapezoidal shape or something because fancy stores just can't be simple sometimes.

Tilting her head off to one side, she nods a couple of times at the bag tip, especially while eyeing the package that has a fancy thermal coffee cup with temperature control built in, in one of those bubble packagings instead of a box, "That... way actually looks perfect for doing the ones like that. I think I'm just leaving myself too much paper-noose to hang myself with when it comes to folding, even though I get the idea of it, so yes, let's see all the ways." She tugs over that suit box next with the slanted angle corners instead of straight L box angles to show to Evie, then claims with a slight smile, "In shop class back when, the teacher always used to go on and on about measuring twice and cutting once. I assume that applies here, and I kept telling myself that, but then, when you're not measuring to proper scale for tactic, I guess it's a bit... mm."

Lilith clearly has a mind for cutting and angles and folding and the general work of present wrapping, she just seems highly unfamiliar, herself, and probably a little nervous about having it perfect, aside from 'wrapped' for presentation purposes. Which... given the penthouse space and the beautifully decorated large tree that fills the air with the subtle fresh scent of fir and the outdoors, maybe understandable, "You're young, is this a side gig for you? Are you in school?"

"I loved shop class. For me it's... Measure twice, cut at an odd angle, measure twice more, and cut again," Evie replies with a giggle. She looks back over her shoulder at Lilith as she deftly shows how to wrap an unusually shaped box perfectly by folding the paper at the corners into triangles and even in on itself - a trick that draws the paper into a cone or circle to wrap things that don't actually have corners without leaving slack. Small fingers work with a great deal of alacrity, without teaering or creasing.

"Mechanical engineering student. This is just how I pay for classes," Evelyn replies earnestly, her gaze returning to the paper in front of her. "Pretty sure you're going to be amazing at this. Just takes practice, like... Most other things." With this said Lilith will presented another perfectly wrapped present. A bit of tape and it would be ready to go under any tree on earth.

"Don't be afraid to tear a few pieces of paper. If you tear along the edges on these more elaborate ones no one will even see it unless they're obsessive about how they open presents as I am." Evie rises from her knees now, straightens that gingham skirt, and moves to collect some discarded paper. Waste is inevitable, after all.

"I can stick around and hlp you until you're sure you've got it right. SOund goood?"

"Yeah? That's neat. I... used to want to be an engineer when I was in high school. Told myself I needed to go to MIT because that's where girls go to prove themselves for such things, isn't it? Granted, as an adult now, I know the name of the school isn't so very important in a practical sense, but mm. I couldn't decide between chemical engineering and mechanical. I'm good at seeing things to their very tiniest pieces and base components, though, so if I had to guess now, I think I would have went with chemical engineering. Or both, who knows. Things didn't quite go that way, but that's life for you, you know?" Lilith bats her lashes a singular time when Evie mentions mechanical engineering and peeks a glance at the actual female with interest instead of the way she's wrapping and finger-moving with folds and cuts. But overall, she's conversational good-natured and paying attention, and if she's disappointed with herself over past decisions, she's not really letting on.

Anyway, she's sitting in a penthouse wrapping presents with a literal maid showing her how, it's not like she has a lot to complain about outwardly about how and where she seems to have ended up. After slanting a smile at the way Evie relates the wrapping, Lilith nods solidly, pulls in a breath, then waves her hand to let Evie get back to things around the apartment penthouse proper for finishing while she works on the actual presents with tape and measuring and cutting and folding and angles, "I think practice is key, yes, so let's put my hands on it and see what happens." She's a slow kind of meticulous diligent about it and what comes out is passable, but she undoes the corners to re-sharpen them with folding before actual taping to make things just so like a bit of a perfectionist.

"Thank you, by the way. Do you make enough to pay for school doing this? Not to pry into finances or anything, just... curious, I suppose."

"This? ... Nah. " Evie speaks by glancing back over her shoulderw hile she duss another shelf, moves a few more bitso f furniture, in a very thorough and methodical way which somewhat belies the speed with which she works. She ceeases humming once more in order to dedicate her attention to Lilith as an already clean apartment quickly turns immaculate.

"I work this job in he mornings and afternoons when I don't have school, then I put in a few hours at the roller rink after classes, and sometimes I help out with the Student Union store. But financial aid takes care of a lot of it, so I'm making do, you know?" Evelyn laughs at that, apparently unconcerned with a schedule that is swiftly turning out to be improbably busy.

"I'm just about done. I'm going to get this laundry sorted and start it washing. Is there anything else you needh elp with? I don't mind wrapping a couple of those presents. I still have a few minutes before I'm supposed to be off... ANd honestly, I would stay late to wrap presents anyway. I love wrapping paper. No clue why. Do you have any of those little ribbons?"

So Lilith knows the guy that manages the pay roll and Christmas is coming, so maybe that's why she's being a little bit nosy, considering her affinity for Evie's good nature, help, and the particular major she's chosen. Might be worth a conversation with Byron in brief to suggest a bonus given the way she's kind of side-eyeing Evie with a bit of a pensive air to her features while she puts together that schedule with making ends meet. She knows firsthand what it's like even without the stresses of higher education. But she doesn't say anything of the sort, of course. She makes a noise of understanding and mild empathy in her throat after the girl is finished giving the layout of her daily hustle, "It'll be worth it in the end, stick with it. It's good that you want to work for it so hard to make it happen. And thank some kind of higher power for that natural energy of yours, maybe. I'm sure it helps."

There's a slight smile there with Lilith's roundabout compliment for Evie's drive and nature, then she looks back at the present heap with consideration once the offer of staying to help is made. Her eyes flit and count the packages, then she checks her phone to see the time with a lean back against her hand to see the coffeetable and reach where it rests. Then she looks at the scissors and roll and... ribbons, yep, she has ribbons and hell, Evie seriously doesn't even seem to mind helping, so that helps her relent a little on the idea of wrapping things herself in the name of Christmas spirit suffering, "Actually... I have lots of bows and ribbons. Some of them are holographic, too. I thought it'd look neat as accent against the icicle shimmer from those ornaments we chose for the tree."

After sitting up straighter and pulling in a breath, she sets to measuring and suggests, "How about you do the ribboning and pretty part for me while I work on the actual wrapping to get the feel down for when you're not here? Kind of like an assembly line, it'll get my practice in and speed things up so I can get back to work. Busy season for loans and purchases, I should take help where I can get it. Thanks." She pauses, then explains a little, "I own the Pawn and Loan shop. Can't get decent help that doesn't make me want to tear my hair out, so I'm glad to see Byron's building has superpowerlevel help. But then, I expect no less from his hiring practices, bless him."

"People don't make Energizer Bunny jokes all the time for nothing," Evie replies with a chirp, those eyes twinkling with mirth as she does. With the light behind her rather than in front blue eyes now appear to be closer to hazel, blending with those golden tresses to give her something of a warm, companionable glow. It's not an unheard of trait, but one that causes the more attentive of people to take a second look at her when they get the opportunity.

"Okay! I love this part. Decorating it is." There's delight and whimsy in that wide-eyed gaze when Evie sees how the holographic ribbons glow when she adjsusts them. A subconscious gesture has the girl drawing her fingers through her golden hair and fingering the ribbon she has tied there when she sees everything arrayed in front of her. Then Evie begins tying presents.

Like everything else the blonde does the ribbons are meticulously measured, cut and tied in bows that are perfectly symmetrical. Each ribbon is set centered on every gift so that nothing could be considered out of place. More than once Evie undoes a ribbon, measures, and then ties it again so that it is more perfectly spaced. Despite all of this, the girl goes through the work at a phenomenal pace. She's quite practiced with her hands, and redoing everything twice doesn't undo the benefits skill and professionalism bring.

"I worked at the Hallmark store for a little bit when I was in highschool. My first job. So this is pretty familiar," Evie relates as she sets yet another gift aside. "Looks like we're almost done. You're really picking this up fast." The blonde pauses for a second, resting on her knees, and turning to face Lilith properly for a moment. She rests her hands against her knees.

"So, um. This might sound awkward. You mentioned needing help at the pawn shop. ...Are you still hiring by any chance?"

Lilith is glad that Evie is on decoration duty and lifts her brows a little at the Hallmark explanation, so she figures she has the making-pretty down in spades to cover up where her packages aren't so very perfect with her still on the learning and practice curve. Ribbons fix everything. So does tape! She tapes the boxes closed too so they don't pop open with contents or bulging, and really, she's accustomed to packing things to ship from out of the shop, so she seems to like securing things with tape. But it looks good by the time the pair of them are finished, so that's great. Maybe not so fun for the people opening the presents later, but she'll figure that out when it's pertinent and probably laugh at their general misery of trying to get INTO the things. 'cause Christmas spirit.

Reaching up with a hand, Lilith pulls the pen from her hair to send it into waves and tumbles so she can label the finished ones in a trio before she goes starting on a new one, complimenting Evie, "Honestly, I did myself a service putting you on decorating duty, I'm not even going to feel bad about not doing it myself. I had some weird idea that the frustration and terrible looking packages were part of the experience, but then you show up like a Christmas Tinkerbell flitting around, and tssst. I know from little girl experience, you don't turn down fairies if you want something to sparkle." She clicks her tongue a few dryly humored times while giving Evie a new nickname for the season.

Then when Evie pauses to pose the question about employment, she pauses too and tilts her head, "Well, yes. A little part time counter help here and there is just as good as steady appraisal help. I don't suppose you know anything about random junk or antiquities on a lark, do you? Which isn't necessary, mind, there's tricks and I can tell a lot of things from pictures when I'm not around personally." A pause, "It wouldn't mess with your other schedules? I'm admittedly pretty flexible and just work the places there isn't coverage myself."

"Well, that's kind of what I was going to ask about. I can't stay working at the Student Union forever, so that opens up some time in the afternoons, and I don't mind picking up late hours if you want to get some free time," Evie replies as she's adjusting one of the presents. She eyes the taping job that Lilith has done and her brows furrow, but--- no commentary is made on it other than a judicious pursing of her lips. Evie sticks to covering up clear mistakes rather than rectifying the taping experience.

"What hours do you need covered? My classes are mornings and afternoons Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So I'm... Basically free in the evenings any day except Friday and Saturday, which Roller Derby at the skate rink." Evie smile brightens a bt more as she considers the questions further. She gnaws on her bottom lip for a second before shaking her head.

"...Not a lot about antiques and random junk. No. But I am pretty good at spotting knock off merchandise, fakes, and broken tools and electronics and stuff?"

"I prefer to work during the day while Byron is taking calls and meetings, that and it lets me get packages and orders and other things sorted, field questions, compare for trades with other shops, so on. But I stay late just because loans tend to happen late too, so alternating whatever is fine, really. I have a guy that's terrible at computer that works full time because he's old Barney, but he knows old stuff and is a retiree needing to work so I just... you know, we're trying." Lilith makes a puff of air over her lips in brief that says trying out Barney is also trying her nerves, but she doesn't feed into it, she just considers Evie for a beat before nodding solidly. Then she returns diligently to the next package after making a label that reads ISABELLA in the middle of all the BYRON labels.

And if Evie is doing some pretty up on her behalf, she either doesn't mind or notice, really, it's about the end product and not the pride in something for someone to tear up. Right? Right. She's telling herself that, "Anyway, if you can use a computer to access all the cheater tricks and things I have for lookup and can handle cash, it's generally fine. And given you have varied work experience and you grew up with computers, I'm sure it's all fine to give it a shot. We'll workout whatever hours you want to pick up with the schedule."

Then she catches onto something a little late with interest and stops wrapping, sitting back on her bare heels to look at little Evie there, "Roller Derby? Seriously? Like the knock-em, sock-em kind with the funny names? Please tell me you have an amazing Roller Derby name."

"Oh, I- um. I haven't done any Derby yet. I help out at the rink on Derby night because it's busy but I haven... I'm not sure if I have itme for the team, and I'm pretty sure with how small I am they'd murder me." Evie gives a soft laugh at this, but she flashes Lilith a smile. "...I kind of want to try, though."

With that, the slender young woman squirms just a little bit and finishes setting aside one of the gifts. "I don't know what I'd go with for a name. The other girls usually help pick, I think. Huh." Now Evelyn has stopped working to settle back on her haunches once more and consider the question.

"Anyway. If you like working during the day I'm happy to take up the evening and night shifts after class. That won't get in the way of this job either, so it's perfect timing, honestly."

"I don't know. I'm not very big, but I can manage a thing or two. Besides, small means fast and hard to catch and hit if you're good on skates. Also cool name? Psh. If I was younger, I'd have been all over that for letting out the 'grr'. Not that I'm old, but... you know. Also, fitting in and finding time is certainly a thing." Lilith comments with half-encouragement and a hint of a lopsided grin while surveying Evie.

After getting the last box she has suitable for wrapping out of the way, she sits back and rubs her palms on her thighs with a gust of exhaled air, "Thank you so much. I'll let you get on to your next appointment, I know you didn't have to do this. It was very nice of you and when you have time, stop by the shop and we'll get something set up with some scheduling and training and all that jazz? It's not hard to find there on Elm."

Then after a push to a stand, she looks at the hallway, "I think the rest still needs boxes and is stashed in different places or still at my loft above the shop. But here." Lilith pauses and leans to write her number on a gift label to pass to Evie, "Nice meeting you, Tinkerbell. And thanks again. See you soon?"

"I'm... Smaller than I look." Evie glances left and right conspiratorially before leaning in and shielding her face with a hand as she stage whispers, "I'm wearing lifts." With the same birlliant grin she wore on the way in Evelyn gathers up her things and heads for the door. "See you soon. Same time next week, i nfact. ANd... And the pawn shop, right? I'll pop in tonight and see what we come up with. I know just where it is."

Waving, Evie quickly vanish from sight.