2020-09-12 - A Nice Day at the Park

It's a lovely, warm late summer day. The weather has been surprisingly kind to Gray Harbor as the summer winds down into fall, and a lot of people are taking advantage of it. The park has several groups of kids, a few families, and some artists attempting to capture the bucolic pleasures of the small town Pacific Northwest. Mostly by painting the carousel. A lot. There are seriously like four canvases pointed at the damned thing, and the artists are frowning as if they're going to make the next Mona Lisa.

Alexander is near one of the artists, sitting on a bench. His left leg is stuck out awkwardly - not because he's trying to be an asshole who trips people. But because it's in a cast. From the faint sheen of sweat on his features, and the crutches, walking here wasn't that fun, but he has an apple, and a thermos of something, and he's cutting pieces off of the fruit with a small, sharp knife, and watching people. Oddly, he doesn't get the usual creeped out looks; instead, people enthusiastically greet him. He clearly doesn't know how to handle this.

Magnolia is decisively in jeans and a light zip-hoodie, her hands buried into the pockets of that aforementioned jacket. She's meandering, the strap of her camera crossed across her torso, and the heavy and professional-level device bobbing against her lower back as she walks. She keeps glancing beneath the brim of her baseball cap toward a man who is moving with a bit more hustle. He's headed for the carousel, and so Magnolia ends up sitting on the same bench as Alexander as if she had meant to sit there.

"'Sup, Alex." It isn't meant to be a needling greeting, but she probably guesses it is about half a second later because she amends, "--ander."

"Miss Jones," Alexander greets as she sits down, his expression freezing in that half second before she adds the rest of his name. Then his face unthaws into a smile. "Nice to see you again. It's been a while. Keeping busy?" He angles his cast away from her so she has plenty of room - and so he can casually take a look at the man her eyes seem to shift to. He looks back at her, one eyebrow lifted in a curious question. But he tilts his body towards her, giving her the cover of apparent conversation with a friend, while shifting so that (hopefully) he isn't breaking her line of sight to her target.

Kailey comes walking up the path at a slow pace. Clearly out for a stroll and enjoying the weather and the park itself. Wrapped over her normal attire is a baby sling, the small contents a lump against her chest. In one hand she has a red popsicle that is half eaten and will soon be entirely devoured.

Following a grimace, a tall bruiser mingles shoulders and head over others. His long, dark hair draped over his black leather clad shoulders, green eyes dart from person to person with distrust. Beneath his Brando-style leather jacket, and over his green tee-shirt, an empty sling is worn diagonally across his chest. It's colors look like it was assaulted by a rainbow and lost. Someone bought this assault on the eyes. Or, more likely, made it.

One hand tucked into his dark jeans pocket, his right holds on to a disposable cup, he glances down at Kailey and to the bundle she carries. Fussing. Peeking. When the Carousel is close enough, the thug nods, from Kailey to the structure. Then he makes grabby hands at her belly.

The unthawing causes Magnolia to tilt a smile at Alexander. "Nice to see you." She then adjusts her camera into her lap, and she nods her chin toward the spinning, undulating horses and other animals. "Cheat scout." She casts a dubious smile at Alexander. "Easy money, checking to see if someone is committing some infidelities." She sucks in a breath through her teeth, and then her shoulders roll. "Figured I'd keep my head down for a while." Then she quirks a smile at him. "I see you've been busy." Her eyes drift meaningfully down to his cast. Then back up, and just in time to see a couple more folks come along near this little corner of the park.

"Ah." Alexander's eyes light up, and he takes another glance towards the man and the carousel. His eyes snag on Kailey and Everett; admittedly more the latter - the man does tend to stand out in most settings, but particularly family friendly ones. He tracks him for a moment, then his eyes trip to the woman with the baby, and he smiles briefly, before turning back towards Magnolia. "Keeping your head down isn't a bad choice. Anytime, but especially lately." He gives a rueful little sigh as she points out the cast with the glance. "Yes. It popped." A pause. "Or, I popped? Difficult to explain. We were trying to look into -- have you noticed that people remember things differently than you do about some things, of late?"

Kailey's lips a bright red from popsicle and she licks at the sweet stain as Everett makes grabby hands. Her expression doesn't change much. One brow raises and the opposite corner of her lips quirk up. "Use your words, dear," She says with warmth and sarcasm. Her eyes flick to the carousel and back. She is about to say more, mouth open, when the tail end of Alexander's words reach her ears as they walk past. That has her pause and turn to look at him with a frown, "Like the Pourhouse?"

"Especially lately?" The PI's ears almost tingle. Magnolia pivots more toward him, half-ignoring the cheater who is now meeting with a pretty redhead near the carousel. She squints at him. "You popped. Like..." Now she arches both her brows, opening her expression a bit more; then her brows reverse course and she's frowning. "Remembering things?" She scratches slightly at the corner of her mouth. "Huh, maybe. I mean... a little? Like, I've just thought that Mom was getting forgetful, but she's been saying odd stuff." She sounds a bit guilty. "Wondered about dementia." She glances over toward Kailey. "Pourhouse?"

\His chastisement is answered with a grunt, and followed with more grabby hands; grabby hand-and-a-half, what with the one occupied. "Gimme da babah," he adds after a few seconds, Everett's usual deep tones made rough with a silly, gruff voice that fades after he nods his head towards the carousel again, "You can look at the painting. Participate even."

His attention drifts with Kailey's, his brows lifting up. Lips purse, and rather then add anything more, Kailey's given a poke to the right love handle with a fore-finger holding his paper cup. Eyebrows lift expectantly. Pay the troll, then cross the bridge.

"Yeah. There's a...lot of things going on," Alexander allows, with a rueful sort of laugh. "And not all of them are even the fucked up sort. But people are remembering things wrong. Half the town thinks Byron's dead and Lilith killed him, for instance." There are babies here! He doesn't seem to care, although his gaze does snap back to Kailey when she speaks up, and he points at her, leaning forward in a way that he probably doesn't INTEND to look aggressive as all hell. It still kind of does. "How do you spell it?" he snaps out to her. "P-O-U-R, right?"

Kailey gives Everett a distracted, and amused, smile as she begins to pull their babe from her sling. Vaguely awake Morganna grunts and then sighs as she is passed off to her daddy. "Naw, don't have my stuff and they look -far- too serious for my taste," She tells him with a glance for the painters. Turning back to Alexander she doesn't seem intimidated. But look who her babe's dad is? She nods her head and says, "Yeah. I thought it was weird. And...I hadn't heard about Byron and Lilith. Really?" Her nose wrinkles. "This place is -so- weird." Gaze distracted by infant and daughter. She pulls out her phone and begins to swipe to her camera.

Now Magnolia's eyes widen, and she's staring at Alexander for what might be a very uncomfortable length of time before she is grabbing her phone, yanking it out to immediately begin to type something. "Well, I can believe Lilith killing him. I mean, we are all capable of it at some point given the right triggers. I've thought about it." Magnolia is joking, right? Surely that dry tone should give that away. Then again, Magnolia has known Byron since they were kids; she probably has considered where she would bury his body the next time he asks her to dig through someone's trash--real or metaphoric. She sends out the text, and then looks at Alexander, and then Kailey. "You new?" Perhaps because most everyone else has already gotten over how weird this place is. Her gaze ticks to the daughter a moment, and then back to Alexander. "How exactly are people taking to a Not-Dead Byron then?"

Standing still while the precious pink payload is passed betwixt presumed parents, Everett leans, over to Kailey and down. All the better to cover his mouth with the back of his hand and stage-whisper as though that's as low as his timber gets, "I heard too that Vyv has cockroaches in his store." The listing ceases as he straightens tall, his green eyes looking to the sky while he murmurs, "Never mind I tried to get that rumor started for a while myself." The momentary consideration passes, and Everett offers Kailey, "Thought someone came in, thinking we sold shoes."

The large man looks down at his precious cargo, lifting his hand and slipping it into the bright sling presumably to comfort. Having what he wants, Everett turns his back and from his direction and definitely not from him, while he looks down and his long hair curtains around, soft, soothing sounds emerge.

Alexander huffs out a relieved breath, and offers Kailey a brief smile. "I don't know who you are, but I am relieved to see you know how to spell the damned bar's name correctly. I don't care what the signs say. And Byron isn't dead. At all. He's fine." He gives a helpless sort of look to Magnolia. "I...think they just get very confused. Some started talking about Byron having a secret twin brother. And while he can be," a pause, "difficult at times, if Lilith hasn't killed him by now, I don't think it's ever going to happen."

A glance over - and up - at Everett as he takes the baby. Now it's Alexander's turn to say dryly, "Anyone who has ever met Vydal would have trouble countenancing that. He's the tidiest person I've ever met." A pause, then a sigh. "But the problem, of course, is that having a good portion of the town convinced of that, even if it's entirely untrue, is hurting his business, I imagine. And some of the things people are convinced of are even more ridiculous."

Almost on cue, a woman easily in her thirties comes by and waves enthusiastically at Alexander. "Mr. A!" She ignores his twitch, to continue, "Oh god, it's so good to see you! I still miss your class - the time you dressed up as Paul Revere was so cool! I wish you were still teaching; I have a son who's just about the right age--" Alexander shrinks into his oversized flannel and mumbles something desperate and meaningless until she moves on. He rubs his face with a shaking hand.

Kailey snorts in amusement as Everett comments about Vyv's place, her green eyes rolling. This might be a thing between them, as couples tend to have. To Magnoliar she opens her mouth and then closes it, thinking. "Not really new. Just...it keeps surprising me," She says with a shrug. From Everett's hands she takes the cup and a sip from it. "I haven't been out much the last month. I just thought the Pourhouse changed it's name for some reason, till folks kept insisting it always was spelled P.O.O.R. Which is a poor name for a bar compared to pour."

"Oh, I'm Kailey," She says casually and with a bob of her head. Quieting as the woman appears to chatter at the obviously uncomfortable young man. A brow raises and she watches the exchange. When the woman moves on she asks, "What was that about?"

It takes a few minutes, but then Magnolia's phone buzzes with an incoming message. She tugs out her phone, reads the message, snorts and eyes Alexander suspiciously. She carefully types out a message, sends it, and then types out a second message with a bit more speed. She drops her phone, face down, in her lap, awaiting the next response. "He's alive. I mean, I think so... I asked for proof of life. We will see how this shapes out."

Then she squints between Kailey and Alexander. "Who doesn't know that it is a P-O-U-R-house? I went to online school and even I know that." She looks at her phone again, and snorts. "I knew it! He gave away that Revenge of the Narwhals shirt. Who doesn't love a pair of narwhals using their horns like lightsabers? Seriously." Again, the phone is in her lap. She is about to say more, but Alexander is getting accosted by a woman who thinks he dressed as Paul Revere. She turns toward him. "Ride, Revere, ride."

She frowns to herself. "Is it just memories? Like, if I went back and read my diary, would that have changed to match my false memories?" Then she quirks a smile to Kailey. "Hi. Magnolia Jones. PI."

A short series of kiss noises follow the hoodlum huddled over his heir before he lifts his attention up from the sling to the adults while his free hand adjusts the small knitted cap on the sleeping baby, his expression returning to a flat expression. "I thought it was a play on words. It always struck me as a sorta dive," Everett offers about the bar. Rather than inquiring, he smirks a little.
Mr. A.

As for Vyv, Everett shrugs a large shoulder, before offering, "I'm sure he does fine," then covers his mouth when he looks away and adds, "even if they taste stale," to his statement. From Hell's heart, I stab at thee.

"People think I was their favorite social studies teacher in middle school, even people who are far too old for me to have ever taught them in any capacity," Alexander mutters. "It's very...very distressing. I don't want to talk about it," he says, firmly. A sidelong look to Magnolia as her phone buzzes. "Of course he's alive. It's a false memory. They're all false. The Pourhouse. Byron's death. Vydal's shop. Itzhak and the astronaut being," he rolls his eyes, "Russian fucking spies. Reality as rewritten by an excitable child. And the Poorhouse, at least, had all its signs and things changed to match it. I don't know to what extent other false memories are supported."

He gives Everett an amused look. "Also in the pastry business?"

Kailey reaches out and lightly thwaps Everett in the arm. Stale indeed. She shoots him a look. "Wait...astronaut being?" For a second she frowns, then shakes her head and sips the drink in hand. "Heh, more ice cream than pastries. Sweet Retreats on the Boardwalk," She supplies for Alexander with a flash of her chipper smile. "And...that sucks. People thinking you're someone else. Is it related to the other stuff you think?" Musing over this she turns and offers her hand for shaking to Magnolia and then Alexander. Even though she didn't get his name yet. This woman is friendly and maybe a little hungry for adult human contact that isn't the glowering gorilla behind her.

"Aww, Mister A... I remember you now." Magnolia is too old to be one of Alexander's students. "I really loved when you dressed up as Eleanor Roosevelt." She taps out a few more text messages back to Byron, and then she shakes her head. "I know he's alive, but I just wanted him to verify that he has ice cream in his fridge. But he's at work. Like a lame adult." Says the lame adult who is still trying to track her mark who is now enjoying a lovely date with his mistress. She lifts up her camera now, spotting the two through the viewfinder. She snaps a picture, a bit half-heartedly. She's not really into this part of her job apparently. "My memory is naturally perfect, so nothing is wonky with me." That she knows of--

The domestic violence gets Everett's attention for a second. Smirking down at Kailey it's passed on to Alexander where he strokes his nose with a thick finger. Everett murmurs, nodding Kailey-wards to agree with her, "Sweet Retreats. He's the closest thing I'm allowed to have to a rivalry. I mean," he adds quickly as an afterthought, "as if his desserts could even compare." An amused, sideways glance is given to Kailey, perhaps testing to see if he's retreated just to the line yet then holds out his hand for the cup she's stole from him. "I wonder what else people are getting confused about. Kinda rare to see an effect this far reaching," he adds while asking for the container.

"Um. Joseph Cavanaugh. He's new in town. Nice guy. Not a Russian spy." Alexander's hands retreat from Kailey's offered hand, although he does mumble, apologetically, "Alexander Clayton. I don't really touch people. Most people. It's not you. I'm sorry. Nice to meet you." His hands fidget nervously with each other. "Sweet Retreats? I think I've had ice cream from there. It's good." And then Magnolia teases him, and something very like murder flashes across Alexander's face. His hands clench into fists, and the glare he turns on her is hot and furious.

For a second. Then he closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. "I would. Please. Don't do that. I don't enjoy it." He opens his eyes again and looks down at his knees - well, one knee and one cast. "He works too much. But, yeah," a brief nod to Everett without looking up, "this is all very unusual. We, a couple of us, tried to go over to the other side to see if we could find out what was twisting things." A pause. "We got turned into balloons and then we got popped." He gestures at his leg. "But there may be a circus or something? Didn't get a chance to see much before being exploded. But it wanted us to accept the false memories."

Kailey pulls her hand back and is totally unphased when Alexander declines her hand. If anything her smile grows to settle his ease and she nods her head. "No worries. Nice to meet you," She says and sounds like she means it. Turning to Everett she hands him the cup. She is all smiles until Alexander explains exactly how he invesitaged. Vague horror and wide eyes greet him. "That's...awful." And she shudders and steps in close to Everett. Eyes turning to their little bundle in his multi-hued sling. "I never cared for the circus. Clowns...creep me out. Not scare me, but creep me out."

Magnolia's expression softens, and she gently nudges her shoulder into Alexander's. "Yeah, I know. Sorry. You should tell Byron he's a big forking apple." Apparently she's still working on her abundant use of explicit language. She sighs out a breath before she looks through the viewfinder again to snap another picture.

She takes a breath, and then puts down her camera. She chews at the edge of her lip. "You got turned into balloons? And this has to do with this memory stuff?" She squints at Alexander with a frown. Then she glances up at Kailey. "Don't say that too loud, or They will hear you and you'll get clown dreams for months." She glances slightly toward Everett. "Oh no. He's getting my Cherry Garcia. It's part of his proof of life deal." Then she mumbles loudly, "And I'll get him a new forking shirt."

The giant stands, dumb-founded. "Huh," he offers after a second. There's a glance down at the full multi-chromatic sling across his chest then across to Kailey. He opens his mouth, and then thinks better of saying what's come across his mind. Rather, he reaches to his back pocket, pulls out his phone and writes a memo to himself to remember to bring the baby to a circus. In a few years. When she can appreciate it.

And before he can save the entry, there's a pause, a rolling of his head to Kailey at his side and the careful, fat-thumb pressing is cancelled far easier than he could have entered the entry. "Circuses, who needs 'em?" Everett asks, while he puts the phone back. The question rhetorically, he takes a sip from quite possibly his cup. When the cup lowers and he's swallowed, Everett offers, "Still. Some of the memories, not that bad." He glances at Kailey, "But I'm not changing the store's name to Expeditious Retreats and selling shoes. What kind of ballons?" he asks Alexander, "long ones, animal ones, ninety-nine red ones?" To Magnolia, Everett smirks, "I appreciate you curbing your language. But if it's for her benefit, I don't think she'll remember."

Alexander smiles at Kailey. "It wasn't...fun. No. And clowns are pretty terrible." He flinches a little when Magnolia nudges him with her shoulder, but recovers quickly. He even manages to chuckle. "I think he already knows he is." He doesn't seem at all surprised that Byron suggested the tease, just a little resigned. A bob of his head. "Balloons. I was blue. And just...regular balloons, I think," he mentions to Everett. "Like you'd see floating anywhere. We had names, though, of some of the things that were changed, written on us. And if we believed them all, then we could go back. If we refused, then...pop." He grimaced. "I think we all popped."

Kailey looks at Everett worriedly and says, "I would hope not! I'd miss your double chocoate cherry ice cream." Her and a few other people if they remembered. A nod to Magnolia and she says, "Yeah..." A sigh, "Good point." Her nose wrinkles faintly. A whince when Alexander describes more. "Ugh. Yeah, that doesn't sound good..." Another worried glance into the colorful sling around Everett. "How long till your leg is healed?" She asks, changing the subject only mildly.

Now Magnolia huffs out a breath, and she rolls up to her feet. "Alright. I got two hours to dig into this mystery before I go raid Byron's freezer." She swings her camera back into place. "By the way... don't bring the girlfriend you're trying to hide from your wife to the park. Do you know how many forking people there are here?" She then smiles toward Kailey and Everett with a lazy salute. "Free tidbit from your resident Dick Tracy." She then gives Alexander a lame thumbs-up. "Don't worry. I'll make sure that no one calls you Mister A... at least while I'm around. Take care of your leg, Alexander. And no more balloons. Bad for the environment. And you." Then she starts to drift off, tugging down the bill of her cap down further over her eyes beneath the Gray Harbor sun.

Seemingly intrigued, the brute purses his lips from his little tease. Is that the smoke from deep thought? "The things written on your ballon-body? Where they you specific, or did they relate to you or things you know at all?" He looks down to Kailey for a second, while using a forefinger to smooth his long hair back and around his right ear before his attention returns to the faux-teacher in a cast. "I'm just wondering. Because if they were thinks that didn't involve me, a less self-centric person might be more inclined to agree just to get the torture to stop. Right? But if its about stuff you know, or are pretty sure you knew, to be true. Well."

Everett pauses as he glances his green eyes up; a different shade then Kailey's. "Mm. They're asking us to redefine reality. So, what? If we believe it does it become true, then?" He turns his gaze at Kailey then Alexander. And then he scratches his nose with his left thumb, rather than saying more.

Until the free piece of advice. He grins at Kailey and murmurs, "I guess no bringing You-Know-Who here. Maybe unless I distract you with ice cream."

Alexander gives a helpless sort of shrug to Kailey. "It sort of...exploded. But I usually heal pretty well. It'll be okay." He tries to reassure her with a smile, but it just looks weird and foreign on his face, this time. His attention returns to Magnolia. "I appreciate that. Don't die," he tells her, very seriously, as she stands up and drifts off. Then, he starts to lever himself to his feet as well, reaching for his crutches. "I don't know what was written on me. But it didn't matter. I'm not...I can't start believing things that aren't real. I'm...it doesn't end well," he says, simply.

Then he bobs his head at them both. "It was nice to talk to you both. Please be careful." For the first time, he looks directly at the baby, and his expression softens. "And take care of the kid." With that, he starts away, using the crutches with enough grace that this probably isn't his first time on them.

Kailey frowns at Everett. "I don't need anyone rewriting my reality, thank you! They might take something I don't want them too and I'd never know. That's...unpleasant to think on." Again her pert nose wrinkles in distaste. There's a soft sound from the sling, the first sound of a babe stirring and hungry. She starts to offer her hand to help Alexander up from the bench, but recalls his reluctance to physical touch and the hand drops. "Pffft, she's not a mistress. Can't be. You're not married. Yet," And she winks and pokes him playfully in the side.

"Nice to meet you, Alexander. See you around and stay safe," Kailey says with a genuine smile, before turning to head towards the carousel. "Come on, she's hungry and then we can ride the carousel and take silly pictures for her album."

His attention is divided, between them and his thinking. It's the prod that brings Everett's attention back to Kailey with a questioning, "Hm? Oh. Yeah. Thank you. And you too." he adds to Alexander's back. Taking a sip from his drink, he lets just enough time go by that he's past crutch range before adding, "Mr. A." Then the giant's attention is focused on Kailey with a good-humored frown, "That's not funny. But, yes. Pictures of the baby. That's a must. And you're SURE you don't want to decorate? You're as good an artist as they are. Better even."

Kailey meanders off with Everett towards the carousel. "Nah, I'm good. Like I said, not my kind of scene," She says as she reaches downt o twine her fingers with his. They find a shady spot under which she can feed Morganna. It's a pretty good day.