2020-10-05 - Please Read Another Book

What's a few bullet holes and boarded up windows when there's still beer on tap and plenty of undamaged bottles of booze on the shelf behind the bar. So, this is where we find Magnolia Jones, occupying a stool and carefully organizing what few french fries are left in her basket into organized rows. She must be hanging out here during a lull, maybe after dinner time and before the late evening nightcaps. She has her phone on, propped up against the pint glass, and there's a young girl's face captured in the FaceTime screen. She is reading a book out loud, and by the snippet, some might recognize it as the second chapter from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

There's something that sounds a lot like the creaking of wood, some illfitting structure not quite cooperating with the will of the operator. But eventually, Rose manages to shove the temporary wooden door closing off the porch from the rest of the lower floor of the bar, without needing to get all capital-w Weird about it. A few slight curses under her breath later, the woman with a camera slung around her neck finds herself a stool one down from Magnolia, hopping up on it. Getting a bartender's attention, she orders another apple cider, pushing the empty bottle back towards them in exchange.

Subsequently after casting a glance in Magnolia's direction (or perhaps the direction of the woman's lingering french fries), Rose adds on an order of tater tots as well.

"Alright, kid... I told you I can only give you ten minutes of read aloud time. Your Dobby voice is perfect, but you gotta go pester Burt now for more attention. Kevin should be home soon, so please just don't get into any trouble that I wouldn't approve of." Magnolia finishes eating one more french fry as Lark says something mostly inaudible, perhaps because she's sighed and groused out some response like she's twice her age -- so, fourteen instead of seven. Magnolia just smooches at the screen, and then bids her kid farewell just in time for Rose to order herself some tater tots. "Those sound good, but do I really want to dwindle more of Mr. Potato Head's family for them... should just settle on some jalepeno poppers." She slides Rose a casual, easy smile.

Rose isn't so nosy as to verbally interject into what she can only presume is storytime, given the selection of book and the glow from Magnolia's screen. But she's hardly one to shut up when being addressed directly! "There's something strange about the tots here.. my affinity for potato-based starch products is likely at least partially due to genetics, though. I haven't tried the poppers." Given her local accent and dark skin, what those genetics actually are likely isn't clear to a casual observer.

One more brief glance towards Magnolia's book, and Rose tacks on, "I suppose that she enjoyed the first book well enough? How old is she?"

"Potatoes are like the Skittles of the tubers... you can't have just one, and they come in various colors, and people are always trying to find inventive ways to eat them." Magnolia sets down her phone, screen down, as she invites Rose into the conversation with a turn in her stool toward her. She glances toward the kitchen beyond the bar, and then pops another fry into her mouth. "The poppers are good... but I'm still angling for peanut butter stuffed jalepenos. They are far superior."

Her gaze drifts down to the phone, and then back up to Rose. "Oh, she ate the first book up like it was rolled in sugar. She's enjoying this one okay enough, but I'm of the opinion it is the weakest book. I'm more looking forward to book three. I like the werewolf professor guy. I get him... plagued with shit that he didn't want, but trying to do what's best in the end."

"Carbohydrates in one form or another tend to be like that. Heaps of corn syrup and various starchy products.. we know our biology well enough to cause trouble, and not a whole lot more. I hear they make french fries in the shape of smiley faces, now. I hope they don't try to go too far down the list of emojis." Her cider and tots arrive, Rose immediately taking a sip from the cider, then sliding the tots down the bar halfway between the two. The mention of the jalapenos gives her a brief pause, a smirk curling at the corner of the woman's mouth. "Peanut butter, huh. That's a new one to me."

"I don't really remember much from the series.. the main characters, sure, something about a ghost in the bathroom, flooding.." Rose's shoulders rise and fall in a quick shrug. "The librarian at my high school was really insistent on me reading the first one when it first came out, though I couldn't quite get past the first few pages in the confrontation.. the movies are when it really seemed to explode in popularity." Her eyebrows furrow briefly, then her hands to go the fancy looking camera around her neck. She lifts it, aims, and takes a quick snap at the tots on the counter, then sets it back down against her chest. "I saw online once that the author claims that the werewolf thing is supposed to be an analogy for HIV? I don't know if I believe that, but.. I think we're all sort of burdened with some aspects of ourselves that we don't want. It's the other part that's important, the best thing and all that."

"Smiley fries." Magnolia is down to just three french fries as she slowly eats one more. "Could be worse, I guess. They could have picked the poop emoji." The one that she still tells Lark is just chocolate ice cream, because look, there's a pink one, too, and who has pink poop? Lark got creative with that-- who knew that unicorns pooped pink? The offered tots do distract her, and she takes two with a nod of thanks; they are popped one by one into her mouth. She at least chews before she talks again. "They're good. Had them once in Colorado when I went there for a case on some missing rock collection."

The talk of Harry Potter distracts her from talk of poop, fries, and peanut butter. "Eh, they're written for the kids the same age as the characters. They grow up, the books grow up. I don't know... I took some joy in the latter books, even if they highlighted how teenage boys are little shits." She takes a swallow from her beer, having let it sweat for a bit longer than she'd like. The snap of the photo catches her attention for a brief moment, almost trying to recognize the camera before she gives the photographer more focus. "Um. Hadn't heard that one, but maybe... but, yeah, people are all about finding analogies that make them feel good about themselves or shitty about others. Pretty sure Lupin is just a werewolf who is good at his job, but gets shown to the door because we're all afraid of monsters." She hesitates. "So, maybe it is more about prejudices than HIV."

Rose smirks at the direct mention of the one particularly cursed emoji. "That was the one that I had in mind, yes." She picks up one of the tots from the basket, moves her arm to plop one into her mouth.. and then gives it a look for a moment. And then no more, into the gaping void it goes. "Missing rock, huh. Sounds like a real thriller. Detective, is it?"

"The movies certainly took an awfully dark turn in the last few, at least. I imagine the books aren't all that different, just.. moreso?" Another tot disappears into her mouth, disappearing from this earth before too long. "He seemed like a man who believes in doing the right thing, in any case. A werewolf? Werewolf man. Were..man." Rose blinks a few times, giving her head a little shake. "Sorry. But yes, I think I like that concept."

Hey look, here's someone who used to be a teenaged boy. Kevin has a North Face jacket on to combat the drizzle outside, but he unzips it to reveal a t-shirt with the WASD keys and the words 'is what moves me.' Looking around, he spots Magnolia quickly enough, lifting his brows when he sees that she's not alone. Still, he heads straight in that direction, leaning in to press a kiss to the blonde's temple and then giving a wave to the other woman, "Hey howdy." Pointing to his chest, he adds, "Kevin. I belong to her," and the finger turns to Magnolia to indicate her. "What's more about prejudices than HIV? I always figure that good art, the really good stuff, means whatever you want it to believe, whatever it makes you feel." The addition of the werewolves causes him to blink, and he chuckles and shrugs helplessly, "I mean, that probably is about prejudices though. And maybe HIV too?"

"Private Investigator," Magnolia says, in a tone that suggests that her title is somehow both superior and also inferior to being a detective. She sobers slightly, nudging around her beer with her fingers. "Thought about going legit... actually thought about it a lot lately." She mumbles that all loose without realizing that a total stranger just overheard her lamenting about how she's not a real detective, like some damn Pinocchio. Then there's a Kevin showing up, and she snorts out a short laugh. Finally, she introduces herself, "Magnolia Jones." She then points to Kevin. "Kevin Walters."

Then she hums her breath slightly, thinking. "Or it's just a kid's book." She tips her beer slightly toward Rose with a little, if not slightly exaggerated Ah-ha!.

Rose chews on tots as Kevin approaches Magnolia, eyes following him as he enters, taking watch adjacent to his partner. "Good evening! You know, the werewolf professor in Harry Potter, all that.. it is a kids' book, though, yes, and most of them seem to try to wrangle in some sort of metaphor. Rowling seems to make up more after the fact than she originally put in.. oh well."

"Oh, Private Investigator! My mistake." A smirk curls onto her lips once more, a slight tone of her own slipping out as of to enunciate the unseen capital letters of the phrase. "Does that put you in leagues with.. ah.." Her gaze shifts, darting to one side until she can place the name. "Clayton? Alexander, I think it was?" Rose returns the tip of the drink towards Magnolia, her cider bottle sloshing slightly, prompting her to take a sip from it.

"Ohhhhh," now Kevin understands what he just barged into, "Professor Lupin." Of course he knows who that is. "Remus Lupin." Just a little unconscious flex of his geek cred. The point about the author adding more meaning afterward gets a nod, "Yeah! Totally. Like, she just keeps adding new things that yeah, you can totally read it that way, but I'm also pretty sure that no one read it that way before." He leaves it up to Magnolia to say how much she's in league with Alexander, adding instead, "She's got her own company -- Sneakers Investigations."

"Oh, Alexander," Magnolia sighs out a short, amused breath. "I mean... I'm not sure anyone is in the same league as Alexander, let alone in leagues with. He's a pretty unique." There's genuine affection and appreciate there-- after all, Magnolia likes Alexander. "But, I don't think we quite work the same sort of cases. He's more Sherlock Holmes, I'm more David Addison from Moonlighting." It's an undersell, and Kevin would know it. Which is probably why she smiles broadly when Kevin mentions that she owns her own digs, and she nods. "Yeah, over on Spruce."

She backtracks a bit, noting, "I'm supposed to be talking myself up better, like how I can find anything, anywhere, and know if the lover you haven't even met yet is cheating on you, but honestly... I'm still getting over not being able to find the dude's rock collection." She nods with her chin to Rose's camera. "What about you? What do you do in the beautiful, perfectly normal Gray Harbor?"

Rose points a finger towards Kevin as he seems to comprehend the state of the conversation, as far as it concerns Harry Potter, so far. "I suppose with that under her belt and a fortune in the bank, there's not a whole lot else to do other than try to make her prior work shine a little brighter than it already does."

"Sneakers, hmm? Like the shoes? Cute." That sounds a little more genuine than she often tends to. "Was there something special in particular about the rocks, or just sentimental value? I.. I can't quite say that I see the point in tracking something like that down.. or how it would go missing.. or why someone would have a rock collection in the first place?" Another shrug from Rose. "Me? Photographer. Mostly nature, occasional wedding, that sort of thing.." At the direct prompt, she lifts the strap up from around her neck, over her head, snagging on a lock of her closely cropped hair, but then setting it down once it's free. It's a late model Nikon, but it looks like it's seen the occasional bump and scratch now and then. Well used, likely.

Kevin scoffs loudly as Magnolia denigrates her skills, shaking his head as he does, "She's more like... Nancy Drew plus Sam Spade plus Hercule Poirot plus Veronica Mars." He might be overselling, but it all balances out, right? He nods to Rose, "I kinda think it's like Lucas, actually. The work's done, so she -- or he -- can't resist going back and tweaking things to make them 'better.'" The air quotes are easily heard, but at least he doesn't make them with his fingers, although he does settle in next to Magnolia. "Sneakers like the movie." And probably the shoes. "And are you, you know, actually sure that the rock collection existed, Lia?"

"I guess I need to stop trying to be a detective, and instead become a kid's author. This town gives me plenty to write about." She cuts Kevin a look at his oversell, and she snorts out a little breath at the Veronica Mars bit. "I'd rather be Columbo." Then she carefully picks up the camera, taking care with it as she looks over its details. "Nice piece. I had to upgrade when I started doing this job. But, I had one of these when I first opened Sneakers." She then puts the camera back down again with care. "You got a website or something? Not that I'm looking to hire a photographer, but I kinda miss the old days when I was out there just for fun."

Her arms fold together on the bar, her fries diminished and unwilling to decimate Rose's tater tots. So, she instead just mulls over that Colorado case with that stupid rock collection. "Um. Now, if I got this all right, the rocks were part of some rare fossil collection, and the ones he had were high-value. So, I took the job, but also because it was a paying job, and this is where the Moonlighting comparison comes in." She takes another swallow of her beer. "I guess the guy who took them was a rival rock collector, but honestly, couldn't find the guy or the rocks. Pretty sure it was some scam, but I couldn't prove that either." She nods to Kevin.

"That's, uh, quite the list of references!" Moreso to the detective references than the latter, a blank look coming onto Rose's face as Kevin starts rambling on about Star Wars. That finger of hers comes out, though, as Kevin mentions the rock collection possibly not existing. "Maybe it was a distraction for some other, large, nefarious evildoings.. keep you away from the real big bad?" The blank look is replaced with a wide grin.

"Whatever you need to do to make enough to live.." She takes another sip from her cider, nearly polishing it off. "I can't imagine that there's all that many billion dollar franchises out there like Rowling's, though. Multi-billion? It's probably a lot, regardless." The black woman reaches into her pocket, pulling out a slightly worn business card - it carries several social media outlets and a domain name, all slight variations on a pun based on her name, 'A Rose By Any Other Name'. It's all set over an artsy fartsy nature shot, glossy and all despite the creases to it.

Rose listens to the tale of the rock collection. "Ah, that makes a little more sense, then. Still, though, rock collecting.. doesn't quite sound like the most thrilling hobby. But what do I know?"

Rose finishes her cider, then hops off the stool, scooping her camera off of the counter and putting it back around her neck. "I've got to visit the ladies' - it was nice to meet you both." She shoots the both of them a smile, then heads off in that direction over thereso.

"Columbo's an old dude. You don't get to be an old dude." Kevin has opinions. But he also doesn't interrupt as Magnolia as she geeks out about the camera, "I get the love of the big camera, but sometimes you've just gotta do the best you can with an iPhone." The theory behind the felonious fossils causes him to nod, and then he snap-points at Rose, "Absolutely. Who knows, the guy who got you looking for it might have even stolen it. That'd be kind of stupid, but you never know with criminals. They tend to be stupid." He gives a little wave to Rose as she excuses herself, "Nice to meet you too." He glances to Magnolia and offers out his hand, "Pizza should be ready in five. Ready?"