2021-05-13 - Tea Party

There is a tea party happening on the deck of the Twofer tonight. Or rather, it's Bennie sitting out there in a poofy dress that makes her look like a cupcake drinking whiskey out of a tea cup, because she's a mother-freakin' lady. Tourist season is edging towards full swing, but Bennie's in her own little world by the fire pit.

The night may be cold but it's not colder than the person who enters. It's Cassidy. She is wearing a professional get up of light gray with a pastel blouse. Her hair is up with a chopstick.

To those watching, she entered with an expression of irritation fading to a mild relief to be arriving at the usually quiet bar to a sort of stunned confusion when she spots the tourism crowd. They are not supposed to be here! But even Cassidy can't command bodies to stop existing (or can she).

Then it's eyes caught by the ornate cupcake with the tea and Cassidy is suddenly not sure this was the place to go for an after work wind down.

While there are bodies bumping into each other inside, the threat of a thunderstorm means the deck is relatively quiet for those seeking a bit of respite from their day.

At least Bennie's chosen a seat where she can keep half an eye on a business she's purported to have some interest in despite her 'day' job as an EMT and when she sees the ADA looking like a miffed off deer in the headlights, Bennie raises her tea cup to the woman through the plate glass window in a bit of hullo.

There's the crunch of boots on the gravel and sand of the beach, then the creak of the wooden stairs. Joe's apparently chosen to walk along from a night spent on the little sailboat, in a harbor crowded with the influx of tourists. Is he a tourist any longer? It's been nearly a year and a half, and he's a changed man, in so many ways. Looking comfortably scruffy in jeans and t-shirt, hands in his pockets. No cigarette, though.

The thunderstorm might as well be passing behind the hard gaze of her blue eyes. She looks back to the crowd, then back outside. Okay, Cass. It's either play human pin-ball with the unwashed tourists (who came here? of all places) or meet the woman in the pastry dress.

The latter is the choice but it's going to require a cigarette. She digs into her purse and finds one.

Where others might politely weave their way through bodies, Cassidy parts the sea of humanity by looking where she wants to go, lasering an 'excuse me' to the crowd and then proceeding with a brisk walk that's going to bulldoze someone if they don't move. She crosses the glass threshold to the other side of the and steps onto the deck. Her cigarette is lit in mere seconds. "It's fucking busy in there."

"It's what keeps us in business through the winter!" Bennie says in a sing song voice to Cassidy, swaying her tea cup back and forth. "And whiskey is what keeps us sane during tourist season." The languid stroll of that shadow coming up to the docks could only be one man. "Heeeeey sailor." She greets amicably, nudging a bottle out from beneath the tulle of her skirts. "Whiskey's on me, or you can take your chances trying to flag down the waitstaff."

"When have I ever said no to whiskey?" drawls the sailor in question. Joe's got a ridiculously slow Georgia drawl, utterly out of place on the Pacific coast. He's standing comfortably hipshot by the stairs. "You always carry whiskey under your skirts? Nevermind, don't answer that question," he says, with a grin.

Then he's looking to Cassidy, inquiringly. "It sure is," he agrees. "Don't think I've met you before. You just in town for a visit?" No particular distaste shown for the cigarette.

At the mention of income lasting the winter, Cassidy side-eyes the tourists. Nope. She still feels the same about them. This while she's taking a drag.

She lowers her cigarette and puts her hand on the wooden rail of the deck and dips forward to project the smoke out and away from the overhang.

"Cassidy," the short blond says to Joseph - with also a look back to Bennie to include her in the introduction. "No. I lived here for about a year, about a year ago. I left. Now I'm back."

There is a suggestive brow waggle at Joseph for his not-question question, Bennie feeling safe about delivering it to the intended target for a myriad of reasons. "She used to be the ADA." She supplies some more information about Cassidy, proud for a moment she remembered something! "Wait, are you still the ADA? How does that work? Well, I hope you are, you seemed good at it. Or at least the stern staring part I think all ADAs are taught in lawschool."

Bennie flips open a wicker picnic basket at the side of her chair, pulling out a delicate flowered tea cup and holding it out for Joseph to come and pour his own drink.

The other thing that keeps them in business, of course, is tequila. And the cop who almost singlehandedly buys up Easton's supply. He's been a little scarce around here lately, though it's likely no real surprise what's lured him back. Besides the Patrón, that is. The Mexican's fiddling with his phone as he shoulders his way inside, expression amused as he pauses just inside the door to compose a reply to something. Then he shoves his phone away and ambles off for the bar. A glance goes to the outside deck where a few locals are congregated, and his gaze lingers there a few moments as he knocks on the counter with his knuckles to place an order.

He'll drink his whiskey from a teacup. Knowing Joe, he's drunk from worse. He accepts the teacup, holds it out with a worn finger through the loop to let Bennie pour a measure of whiskey in. He's even got his pinkie out.

"ADA?" he wonders. Then it dawns on him. "Oh, I got it. Thinkin' of somethin' else," Used to a different bowl of alphabet soup, this one. "That so? I got here 'bout eighteen months ago...but then, I don't generally move in legal circles these days." He catches the other man's gaze through the window, holds up four fingers. A Four Horsemen it is, once he's had his courtesy cup of whiskey.

"Yes... Still in the DA's office..." Cassidy answers Bennie before her next drag of the menthol cigarette. "I took a position in Seattle last year." Cassidy waves a hand to yadda-yadda the middle of the story, "And they needed me back here enough to work out a transfer. Usually you don't swap people around. You see? They are their own offices." But stranger things happen in Gray Harbor than inconsistencies concerning State beaurocracy.

The stern staring part was heard, but only got an amused look partially hidden while she blew out the next billow of smoke. Again, away from the deck and into the open air.

The tourists must think that Bennie is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, dressed as she is, drinking hard liquor (that she doesn't seem to terribly enjoy by that nose wrinkle when she sips) and now thrusting her arms over her head and inexplicably calling, "Dela La!" As she follows Joseph's gaze.

Her attention goes back to filling Joseph's teacup, even if he is ordering a replacement drink by proxy. "Watching her and Javier face off about cases is, like, my favorite Daytime Soap. It was tragic when it went off the air."

Catching the gesture from Joe, Ruiz hitches his chin to the 'tender and tacks on to his order. A Four Horsemen. Because it's going to be one of those nights, by the looks of it. He digs a crumpled bill out of his wallet to pay for them both, and gracias murmured low before he pushes off the bar to head for the deck. Faded grey tee shirt, snug black jeans and battered boots, and an even more battered leather jacket still spackled with rain from when he came in. His ballcap is tugged off so he can scruff knuckles through his hair, then scooped back on again as he shoulders his way outside.

"Bennet," is greeted without an accompanying smile. Joe's shoulder gets a thump with his own; and Bennie, an upnod in mute hello.

Joe is, ridiculously, already drinking some unnamed whiskey from a delicately painted tea cup, pinkie out. Well, Javier's known for decades that Joe's a princess, apparently he's just decided to own it. It will most definitely be one of those nights - like the song goes, what can you do with a drunken sailor?

"Well, looks like that show is back on," Joe opines, with a lazy little smile, as Javier emerges. "Thanks, sugar," he says to the cop, bumping him, even as he holds up the cup for a sip.

Cassidy doesn't have the time to give Bennie the 'excuse me but do we known each other?' routine, because no sooner after alighting that curiosity does Ruiz set foot out on the deck. This is going to require another cigarette.

The blond stuffs the current fag into a nearby ashtray (assuming one is there) and pulls out another from her bag. It's lit. She drags. Holds. Exhales. Then addresses the police chief, "Captain." ...

cricket

"We still need to talk." Then she's looking at Joseph's opining with a haughty frown like 'who are you again?' but she doesn't verbalize the question.

A kiss is blown to Ruiz, because Bennie'll be damned to give up her tea party throne. Instead, she curls up her feet to the seat of her chair beneath the poof of skirts and cradles her tea cup between two hands and takes a sip. There is a muffled little snicker from behind the rim as Cassidy spins up with needing to talk. "See?" She mock-whispers to Joseph.

Javier, apparently, is also going to need more nicotine for this. He's already got a cigarette tapped out and tucked between his lips, and halfway to being lit by the time his title pops out of Cassidy's mouth. It takes a couple of tries to ignite the damned thing, but he manages it eventually, and takes a long drag before finally addressing Joe. "There's a lot wrong with this picture, but why don't we start with what the fuck you're doing with your.." He waggles his little finger.

The cup, however, he accepts after a moment's hesitation. Sniffs at it. And downs a sip of it before handing it back. "By talk, you mean you've got something you want to bust my balls about," he mutters to the ADA. "And if the lack of a fucking badge didn't clue you in, I'm off the clock right now."

Who are you again? Some kind of trouble, and that trouble attached to the newly arrived let's-just-call-him-Chief. Joe's apparently the one to do the smiling, in contrast to the reserve of the newly arrived cop. Grinning like a fox, in fact, as he raises his teacup to Bennie in salute. "Mmhmm," he agrees. "I sure do."

Then Javier addresses him, and the sailor assumes an expression of positively angelic innocence. An expression belied by the wicked glint in the blue eyes. "Baby, that's how you drink out of a tea cup, 'specially when you're a fancy bitch like myself," he explains, in honeyed tones. Then he turns that look on Cassidy, and says, "I'm Joe Cavanaugh." Says it as if he expects she might well have heard of him.

Cassidy just kind of looks at Joe through the haze of rising cigarette smoke. "Yeah. Ok."

When Ruiz speaks her free hand at her side balls into a little fist but she calmly takes a drag and then says slowly for the police man, "I didn't say right now..." Cassidy looks to Bennie, "Did I say right now?" as she reaches to open the door back inside.

After seeing the distance to the bar, and the sea of tourist flesh between here and there, Cassidy just yells into the establishment, "Can we get some service out on the deck? I want a white cab..." She begins to let the door close than has a look like she forgot something, opens the door again, and shouts inside, "Please!"

Okay. Now the door can close.

Bennie's favorite little game is fill in the blanks for people who don't know each other, it seems by adding irrelevant little details at times. "Joe lives in a boat because he's a water spirit like me. And has an affinity for ex-marines, like me. So we are basically soul siblings." A pause. "And fancy beotches."

Pretending to read back the transcript of the 'trial', Bennie concurs. "The ADA did not in fact say right now."

Well, half the fun of hanging out with Cassidy is seeing if he can make that vein in her temple pop. Which it hasn't, yet, so clearly Javier needs to work harder. "How's Easton been?" he opts to ask Bennie, for a change of subject. A drag off his cigarette, and he settles against the back of one of the fireside chairs, booted feet kicked out in front of him. He's wondering where his own drink's gotten to, judging by the surreptitious glances he keeps sending the doorway. And then it appears on a tray attached to a pretty server, and he manages something resembling a smile for about point five seconds, as he accepts both glasses.

Joe gets a nudge with his booted foot and a murmur of, "Baby," as his drink's held up.

Joe's expression is still impish, like there's a joke in the air and he's waiting for the punchline to fall. He finishes the tea cup of whiskey in a hasty slug, before offering the cup back to Bennie. Holding it with the care it deserves, even as his eyes dart to that balled fist.

Then he's settling into a seat at Ruiz's side. "Well, I live on the boat in the summer," he admits. "But....otherwise, yes." His real drink appears, and apparently that tea cup was just the warmup; what Ruiz hands him is a mess of bourbon. "Thanks, sugar," he says, leaning over to take it.

The forehead vein is all fun and games. It's when her jugular and subclavian veins become distended that it's time to seek cover. Luckily we are several defcons away from that.

Cassidy gives Bennie a bright-eyed look when the lady has her back. It's the kind of look that after you see it you don't really want the little firebrand to look at you any other way. And since the boys are settling in to their own rapport, she asks Bennie in a naturally curious (if a bit airheaded) tone, "What is a water spirit? Is that, like, a tarot thing or whatever?"

"He's just peaches." Bennie replies to Ruiz' inquiry after Easton, with that dreamy little smile reserved for when talking about her One True. "Surprisingly so after returning home from dealing with his family where he stayed sober the entire time. Presumably so he could be on his top game." And probably not surprising to another ex-marine that she and Easton haven't exactly talked details of the trip. "He should be around here some where. I can't hear his booming voice, so he must be in the office."

She takes the tea cup back from Joseph, letting the ribbon thin handle dangle from her forefinger while she gestures with it. "Right! Part time! But I can't speak to the sandwich arrangement, of whether you're meat or bread!"

Her lean towards Cassidy is convenient enough to both replace the teacup and drop her voice to conspiracy levels. "Less tarot and more about what element your soul is drawn to. You can also have a secondary element and his is most assuredly air, where I'm water and fire. I can also read auras!"

Joe's drink is handed off, and a trickle of it licked off Javier's thumb. And suddenly they're talking sandwiches and aura reading, and he squints slightly like he's wondering what just happened here. What the fuck? he mouths to the scruffy sailor taking up a lean next to him, followed by a slug of his drink, and a drag off his smoke. As if that's going to help illuminate what's going on here.

Itzhak rolls on in, all lanky swagger and schnozz. "Marshall!" But, oops, there's no Marshall. "...Oakes!" he amends. And smiles in a brilliant flash at Ruiz, and Joe with him, and moseys on over thataway. Also he fingerguns at Cassidy. "Watch out, boys, here comes trouble."

Joe, for his part, looks puzzled. "Meat or bread?" he wonders of Bennie. Not parsing that one, either. He listens to the discussions of tarot and elements. "I s'pose water and air are mine," he concedes. "I got a few tarot decks myself, but mine aren't for tellin' fortunes. They're European-style gaming decks. Used to work with a German named Max who taught me a bunch of the games you play with 'em."

He's got his fingers wrapped around one of those big whiskey drinks, a Horsemen. A little shrug for Javier's silent question - I dunno. Itzhak gets a grin. "Here it come," he agrees, even as he nudges over a deck chair, holding up his hand - HOLD - for a fistbump.

Cassidy sucks in a breath and leans in toward Bennie, "You /can/?" She turns and stuffs the rest of her cigarette out and hops back over, spinning into a chair next to the human cupcake.

The tall guy's finger might as well be an unwarranted dick pic, if Cassidy's look at the gesture has anything to do with it. That 'look' only lasted a moment though, she's much more into finding out about different types of spirits and things.

"Do you have to do something or does it just come to you?"

Bennie beams all thousands watts of her smile to the arrival of Itzhak, "I'm sorry, Misses Marshall is across town with his mistress." Which only makes sense if you know about the bowling team compromised of Easton, Geoff, Harper and herself. Like a Raven who's just spotted something shiny, Bennie's attention wanders off from sandwiches leaving those many questions unanswered as she turns back to Cassidy. "Mm, good question. I used to have to concentrate, but now it comes so clearly like I'm looking through a kaleidoscope." And her head tilts slightly, a little 'huh' given as she realizes something. And realizes she shouldn't realize it, and then goes about pretending nothing is out of sorts as she gives the most nonchalant whistled tune while she refills her tea cup. Of whiskey. In her party dress.

"What!? Ohmygod did you see something?" Cassidy stage whispers to Bennie with immense curiosity and hanging on a thread of suspense.

Human cupcake is about right. Javier's looking at Bennie like he's wondering if he can contract diabetes just by being in the proximity of that dress juxtaposed with the girl wearing it. Itzhak's arrival distracts him from this terrible line of thought, fortunately, and he lifts his glass (of tequila, obviously) to the tall musician in greeting. And informs him that he, "Missed Cavanaugh drinking whiskey out of a fucking teacup. With the pinky finger and shit." Then Bennie's going huh, and he looks back over cautiously.

Itzhak tosses his head back, laughing in unrestrained delight. That response he got from Cassidy was apparently beyond his wildest expectations. "Oh you bettah believe it all comes to me. What, Oakes, his mistress? What am I, chopped liver?" He daps Joe--his own knuckle ink reads DOWN on that hand. "Yeah? This true, Cavanaugh, you fancy old queen?" Then he insists on leaning over to kiss Ruiz hello, with a low murmur just to him. He's in life-of-the-party mode, it seems. Everybody is gonna get charmed whether they like it or not.

At least Joe's just sipping that drink. He's not in full flight from reality and into the welcoming arms of Jack Daniels. Not yet, anyhow. "I was," he allows, serenely. "Matter of fact, I still will. Hand me that tea cup, if you would," he says to Bennie, setting down his glass and then extending a hand for it. Though there's a curious glance between Bennie and Cassidy. Far be it from him to argue that ability. "Itzhak, you know I am the fanciest old queen in this town....but only 'cause I'm followin' your example as the fanciest young one."

"Nothing!" Bennie squeaks to Cassidy. "Nothing. Which. I mean. You might want to let a little rainbow touch your life once in awhile. Ask yourself, what makes you truly happy and then you should totally find a little piece of that." She looks around to the boys, eyes wide like she's stuck in the headlights and her little doe tail is twitching nervously. A little help for the girl who forgets there are actual normal people who live in Grey Harbor?

"Uh. Maybe some yoga or something." She mumbles into her teacup.

Itzhak, for the save! "No, Misses Marshall is Geoff, I'm Easton's Mistress, Harper is Geoff's Mistress and you're Easton's cuddle bumpkins." Bennie explains like she's been over this a thousand times before as she replaces Joseph's teacup happily.

Less than thrilled at Bennie's psychic assessment, Cassidy kind of deflates. "Oh...Not exactly Miss Cleo caliber stuff there. But keep practicing!" Cassidy seems hopeful that Bennie can achieve her ESP goals.

The kiss is accepted, if a little self-consciously. Like Javier's perfectly aware that's the ADA standing there, waiting in the wings with something untoward to offer up. He flickers Itzhak a smile though, and hastily downs a big sip of his tequila like he's going to need it.

Does Itzhak care, though? Does he ever? Enough to not press Ruiz further on it, anyway, and to let him go with a returned sidelong smile, before he's yelling at Bennie with volume that rivals Easton's. "Whatever, quit spreading this vile slander about me and gimme a fuckin' whiskey sour! ...Whaddaya talkin' about, with the rainbows and the kaleidoscopes?" Oops, not so save after all. He downright smirks at Joe. "Don't you forget it. Well? Go on!" He's waiting for the pinky thing.

Joe meets Bennie's gaze guilelessly, even as he pours some of that drink from the glass into the tea cup. Glances at Cassidy, looks back at Bennie...and then he's doing a double-take back to Cassidy. There's pity in his face, as if he'd just realized she suffered from some awful disability. Apparently Bennie is not the only one, try as Joe might to hide it behind the pink and blue flowers of the tea cup's rim. Yep, pinkie extended. There it is

"Cuddle bumpkins?" he asks, looking over the cup at Itzhak. A warm glance after Ruiz, then he meets the younger man's eyes, does a flick of his gaze and a tip of his head at Cassidy. Very much in that not in front of the children sort of way.

"Yup, I'm gonna...gonna keep on trying. That's what I do. Good ole...Bennie the...try-er." Oakes flounders with a forced chuckle at Cassidy, but manages to keep that smile plastered to her face like someone spackled it there with a trowel.

Hey. A save is a save. "Ooh, I only have the whiskey here, but it seems you're sour enough on your own. Bumpkins." She nudges the bottle with the toe of her ballerina slippered foot for Itzhak as she looks for a tea cup of his very own in her picnic basket.

Cassidy narrows her eyes. She gives glances to everyone present. Especially the odd manner of Bennie...the squirmish Ruiz...Joe's odd look.

"Oh...I know what's going on here..." She sighs. "Look - I'm totally supportive. Love is love, okay? I know I can be a hard ass at work but I don't judge things like that." She smiles nicely.

Welp, saved by the DA. The one with the receding hairline who drives a BMW and calls him up at beer o'clock in the evening to talk about.. whatever the fuck the DA wants to talk about. Javier sees his name pop up on his cell phone when it starts ringing (yes, he totally named him Fuckface McFuckalot) and grimaces. "I've got to take this. Lo siento." His cigarette's put out, and he downs about half of his tequila before accepting the call, "De la Vega," and moseying off slowly, so that the rest of the conversation's lost to the patter of rain against the deck.

Itzhak makes a face at Bennie and goes to lean over the bar, reaching with a long skinny tattooed arm behind it. Somehow he unerringly finds a lemon, without even looking. Then a thin plastic cutting board. Is he just raiding the bar prep shamelessly? Sure looks like it. "You got some sugar cubes in there, Oakes?" Or does he have to steal that too, is the subtext there. He pauses in all this thievery to applaud Joe enthusiastically--and also to give him a look as sour as Bennie's calling him. Cassidy gets a squint. "What?" Her statement catches up with him after a moment and he goes, "oh. You wanna whiskey sour?"

Joe's expression isn't quite a pokerface. More the suggestion of it, the way his brows go up, and his lips sort of prim up into a line. He's holding the teacup cradled delicately, pinkie still extended, and slants a dry look at Cassidy. "I don't know that you quite grasp the complexities of the situation," he says. "But that's all right."

Then he's glancing up at Itzhak. "You volunteerin' yourself as bartender?" he wonders, with a little grin.

"Lo Siento." Bennie repeats, dreamily again in that tone for her One True.

Okay, so that tone is for her One True and when men speak in foreign languages.

"That means something sweet, doesn't it?" Bennie asks Joseph and Itzhak with a flutter of her eyelashes like she's hanging all her teenage romantic ideals on their answer. There is a flap of her hand for Itzhak to take what he needs from behind the bar, because her picnic basket apparently was never set up for actual tea.

"Love is love." Like Cassidy is the one who supplied the answer of translation, Bennie muses as she takes another sip of a drink she's adopted because it's Easton's favored. "So who do you love, Assistant District Attorney?"

Cassidy notes that her conclusion about the awkwardness did not resolve the awkwardness. She the look in her eyes that she knows 'something is up' has not been dispelled. Good thing for this social situation that isn't a state crime. Which means the computational power Cassidy is willing to put into solving it is not a lot.

The blond looks back to Bennie and says, "What? No. Lo siento means 'I'm sorry'."

Who does she love? Is this woman kidding? "Uhh...I used to have a cat?" Finally her glass of white wine arrives and it's a shake of her head no on the whiskey sour question.

Itzhak snorts a laugh. "It means 'excuse me.'" He mutters something under his breath, probably about the drink ingredients, and hoists himself damn near flat on his belly on the bartop, reaching wayyyy down. There's a klink! of glass tapping against glass, from several feet away, before Itzhak comes up triumphant with a bottle of clear syrup. It's golden, though. He pops the top to investigate it. "...Oh, this is ginger. Well what the hell."

There's something odd in Joe's face, as they discuss that phrase. It might almost be wistfulness. He looks down into the tea cup, as if he might read his fortune there, then visibly shakes himself out of it. "Well," he says to Itzhak. "I like ginger. I don't know that it'd go with whiskey, though. I don't see that workin'," he notes.

Another glance between the women, but he offers no comment on that. Only listening, for the moment.

"Laaaaaaame." The 30-something Bennie groans about the meaning of the Spanish phrase as she throws back her head and cushions it on the back of the chair. It doesn't take long her face to lull back in Cassidy's direction. "Also lame. Not the pet owning part, but the lack of a love life. Oh! I know a guy, if you need your pipes cleaned. He has the cutest stomach. Not to be mistaken with Easton's stomach, which is like WHOA, you know? And it's fuzzy. Tor's, not Easton's. And ew." This because she just realized Itzhak's plan. "No. Just. No."

Cassidy dips into her purse for her phone. She rotates it into position between her thumb and forefinger. Then she's buried in it. "No time." She shakes her head in disinterest. "Besides, there's some YouTube guy who says at my age my eggs are like 90% gone - so there's, like, not even any point." She lifts her phone and snaps a shot of Itz belly down on the bar. Then one of Joe. Then one of Bennie.

"Hashtag 'fun night out'..." Cassidy says to herself with a little head wobble. Then she tosses her phone back in her purse.

Itzhak considers his whole stealing-shit-to-make-a-whiskey-sour plan. "Yeah, ya right. Rum." So now it's rum he's going after. A big streeeetch to the bottles lined up on the shelf, enough to shove a fingertip against the base of one. The bottle wobbles--then tips over, headed ballistically for the floor. "Shit--!" Itzhak lunges after it. The bar blocks what happens next, but he comes up tousled and flushed with the bottle. "...I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear anything about pipe or eggs!"

"Oh, c'mon," Joe says, fixing Itzhak with that look. "Like you ain't laid enough pipe in your lifetime. What're you tryin'a do back there?" Then he eyes Cassidy. "Is making a child the only point of it?" he wonders. "I've always thought it was more the pleasure of it all." He's apparently serious, looking at the ADA across the firepit.

"That's precisely where Tor comes in." Bennie says, though her voice sounds like she's drifted off into the ether and is neither here nor there, but it's drawing later and her whiskey bottle is much lighter than it was at the start. "Wait until we start talking about menstruation!" She calls back to Itzhak, eyes drawn to his antics. "Snuggle bumpkins or not, you break it you bought it. I'm obligated to say that now."

"Ugh. Why did you bring it up? I wish I would bleed already. It's been three days of..." Cassidy makes a face with her tongue protruding out and her hand with fingers half curled in like it's holding a skull. She slumps down in her chair next to Bennie and drinks her wine.

"Please, when have I ever broken anything....of yours?" Itzhak has to qualify that one. "Cavanaugh!" he complains, turning red and glaring at Joe. "Who asked you!" He finds a glass with much less drama, pours into it the ginger simple syrup and rum and lemon juice and, with the forethought of the amateur, ice. After a sip, his eyebrows go up. "Hey, s'good." Then he puts more lemon juice in it.

"What, it's true," Joe says, with that maddening surety. Then he's levering himself up, handing off his teacup to Bennie. "Ladies, a pleasure. Itz, I'll see y'all back at my place in a bit." That's apparently the plan for the evening....at least in his mind. A little two-fingered salute, and he's padding back down the stairs to the beach.

Bennie takes the teacup and sets it back in her basket. There's no telling what else is in there, perhaps the rest of the Mad Hatter's friends. "You know what helps with cramps and PMS? Manual stimulation." She stands and fluffs up her skirts back around her ankles. "And chamomile tea. Not necessarily in that order. Bye Joe! Alright. Time to find my Prince Charming before I turn into a pumpkin."