Music Selection: Blackbird, by the Beatles - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAgceen153I
<XS> Back Porch
The back patio is a restful place to sit and relax, in most weather. Ample seating comes in the form of umbrella'd deck chairs and a cushioned porch swing, and the neighboring gardens attract butterflies and hummingbirds to make the viewing pleasant. The hot tub is usually open for use, though in snowy weather the transition in and out is a shivery one!
Weather-wise, it has been a pleasant day, sunny and warm but not too hot, with the air breezy and not yet into the thicker humidity, just like a late spring Sunday ought to be. Stefan has made his way back out to the porch to enjoy the evening as things cool off, with a small pitcher of lemonade and one of his guitars to pass the time. Its an acoustic, a cutaway classical with six strings, and he plays it while sitting on the porch swing, one leather flip-flop shod foot firmly planted on the ground to keep the bench still while the other silently taps out the beat. The song of choice at the moment is the Beatles' Blackbird. He half-hums, half-sings the words as he plays, singing voice huskier than when he speaks.
Alexandrine has been enjoying the weather, wandering in from the gardens as she hears the music. She can't quite help singing along, though her voice is quiet. She's in a long sleeved, flowy sundress in watercolor washes of purple and rose, a hint of green and summer yellow. She's got sandals on, not the best for dancing, though she's up on her toes, turning and doing simple steps along her path back to the house. Red hair is loose catching hints of light here and there as it flares out with her lazy dancing steps.
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly, all your life... you were only waiting for this moment to arrive. You were only waiting for this moment to arrive.." Blue eyes finally focus on the musician, leaving the repeated last line to drop away. "Evenin'."
She may sing quietly, but it does not escape the notice of Stefan. He looks up in time to catch those simple steps, a bit of a smile hinting at the corner of his mouth when he does. He stops his humming-singing to focus on the guitar and to allow her to supply the vocals, and plays the song all the way through, with a brief and fast-played sweet-noted melody shift into All You Need is Love for a kind of finale.
After, he sits back from his guitar-playing hunch to look at her more directly and be more open to conversation, hand splayed on the guitar to keep it seated on his lap. "Hey there," he greets, mellow.
Alexandrine smiles brightly, stepping forward to offer a hand, bending just a touch. "Alexandrine Reynaud. Ah'm guessing you're one of the new teachers?" She straightens after the handshake, her smile barely dimming as eyes stray from his face to look over the instrument in his lap.
"Ah teach dance, choreography, and history, myself. Still trying to find ways to split time between here and the city. But Ah love bein' here. Teaching, the kids, not having to worry about being outed, that sort of thing. Where are you from, originally?"
He shakes hands with her, easy and firm, calluses at his fingertips. "Yeah, hey. Nice to meet you. Stefan Soames. I'm taking over music with the start of the summer term," he says, and there is almost a laziness to his words, but then maybe it is the fine weather and the fact it is a Sunday. He brushes brown hair in need of a trim back out of his eyes, though it looks like it will just fall back into place sometime soon.
As for the guitar, it looks to be a very nice one, made out of excellent quality wood and with a pleasant nutty color, though it also shows some wear here and there, not out of lack of care, but rather from seeing a lot of play and love. "Oh? You still live in the city, or..?" he asks, sitting back more so that his back rests against the back of the bench of the porch swing. "Oh, I grew up around Portland, Oregon. What about you?"
Alexandrine gathers her skirts together and turns to take a seat on the steps. Hands lift, twisting red hair together to bring it all over one shoulder, though it will likely unwind and spill back over her shoulder and along her back. "New Orleans. Lots of music." There's mini-shrug."It's a lovely instrument. Must be a favorite. " She hazards a guess on the spots of wear, leaning a little bit to look at it better.
"Ah'm guessing if you're teaching here, you've probably been playing a long time, huh? Ah've been dancin' and things since Ah was a little girl. Never could go a day without it, much to my mother's dismay." There's just a hint of mischievious little girl peeping out with that grinning expression as she leans forearms against bent legs, watching his face.
Stefan watches as she takes a seat. "Want some lemonade?" he asks, with a tip of his head towards the pitcher that sits nearby. "Never been to New Orleans," he admits, with a mixture of regret and interest to his tone that suggests it is on his list for a some day trip. For the guitar, though, he looks down to it and smiles, warm and fond. "Thanks. And yeah. 16th birthday present from my folks. Though all of mine are favorites, really."
He picks up his glass of lemonade, which is actually in a red solo cup and not a glass, and takes a sip before answering. "Yeah, guess you could say that," he says, a glimmer of knowing humor in his blue eyes about playing for a long time. "Bet you're really good at dance, you love it that much."
"Ah would love some, if you have it to share, thank you." Alexandrine replies with southern smooth manners, elbow finding a knee so a palm can become a chin rest. That smile remains, glancing at the instrument with a curiousity. "My sixteenth birthday present was a car my father had fixed up. It's a gorgous, beautiful '65 Mustang, currently sitting in a garage in New Orleans. Maybe now that Ah'm here, and can park it somewhere, Ah'll bring it up.
There's a smile full of pride, blue eyes faintly aglow. "You should go, you love music. So much, on the streets, everywhere. Always music in the Quarter." She flushes a bit. "Ah'm pretty good, Ah guess. Never prima ballerina, though."
"Sure," he says, and sets his guitar carefully aside so that he can lean over to grab the pitcher. He splits off a spare solo cup and pours it full before offering it over her way, though he pauses in the process to just look at her. Then, his expression shifts to an amused disbelief, and a chuckle escapes him. "You're kidding me," Stefan says. "I have a '67. My grandmother's, she gave it to me."
With the lemonade handed off, he sits back again with his own drink, free arm propping on the back of the swing bench. "Yeah, I'd love to go. Lot of good music in the nooks and crannies down there." He nods a little at the ballerina comment. "Sometimes I play with the NYC Pops. But. Well, here I am now."
Alexandrine blinks at that look at her, head tilting just a little and letting red roll out of that twist to hang along her shoulder. "That's amusing. Yeah, Daddy told me it was his mid-life crisis car, but he always meant for me to have it when Ah turned 16. " She shrugs, accepting the lemonade with a quiet, "Thanks." She's got an amused little smile. "Dark blue, white racing stripes, white soft top. Convertible was the only way for his little girl."
She takes a couple slow sips of the lemonade, before the cup is set carefully on her far side so there's no confusion on which cup belongs to his. "Well, maybe if Ah head down to get mine, you can come with me. Have an experienced tour guide."
Stefan's chuckling continues around another sip of lemonade. "Ditch the stripes and swap dark for light, you have mine," he says, amused and a little pleased. But then, you really can't go wrong when you find someone with similar car tastes. "Have mine here, in the garage," he mentions, cup set on a knee and held there by a hand that can't quite keep still, fingers lightly tapping on the plastic now and then. "Pretty glad for that garage, actually." After a beat, he adds, "Lot of really nice rides in it, too."
With the idea of a road trip, he smiles, and there's something reminiscent of a lazy summer Sunday breeze in it. "Yeah, maybe."
"Oh, Ah bet yours is that super pretty light blue that my momma wanted him to paint it. But Ah liked darker blues as a kid, so.." Alex shrugs with a smile. "You do, huh? Might have to ask you to let me visit her now and then so I don't miss mine."
There's a chuckle with that, sitting back and sipping more lemonade "Ah think we have time maybe after summer session, we could fly down, drive back in my car... weather should still be warm enough to have the top down."
"Brittany blue," he confirms, as if it would either help to confirm the color her mother wanted or not. Not that it probably much matters. It's just a random little fact. "You can visit her anytime," Stefan offers after that, a spark there to his eye to hint at maybe just a tiny tease to it. His fingers continue to tap on the plastic cup, littles flourishes of rhythm here and there.
As for the road trip idea being more than just a fleeting idea, he mulls over the thought of the gap between summer and fall terms. "Guess it would depend on how much it rains, really. For the top being down."
"See? Even the name is pretty." Alex teases, face flushing slightly, eyes bright. "Ah might visit her. Ah might even /sit/ in her, if she's unlocked in the garage." Oh, what a dire threat! Red is brushed back, but a stubborn strand falls forward again, dangling in a curl against her cheek.
"We'll have at least some decent weather. And don't worry, the top never gets stuck." There's a cheekiness to it, as she studies him a bit. "So the Pops, huh? So you're beyond good. You're like /gooooooood/."
Some men might grow wary at the idea of someone who is still an acquaintance touching their classic car. Stefan, however, just shrugs a shoulder and says, "Just don't scratch it," with mild amusement. It isn't as if he wouldn't have far to go to look for a culprit if something randomly went wrong with his car here. He takes another sip of lemonade, and then sets the cup aside so that he can set his guitar in his lap again. Though it looks like his fingers itch for the strings, he doesn't play it, though, but uses it more as an arm rest. For the moment.
"Oh. Well. I mean, not guitar with the Pops," he says. "I play piano and cello, too. Better with them, really."
"Well, Ah know not with the guitar. Just figure you had to be good at something more classical. But.. that's like... high level pro. That's way higher than Ah could ever have gotten with my dancing." Alex smooths her skirt, lashes lowered.
"My own fault, of course. Ah wasn't out auditioning, networking.. when Ah should have been. But.. you know... powers don't always show up at a good time. You know, wish they had checked with me for scheduling their arrival kind of thing."
"Yeah," Stefan finally admits for real, about the pro level. "Kinda what I was aiming for since I was a kid. Professional musician." And yet, here he is. There wasn't any real regret to his voice, though, no bitterness or anything whatsoever along those lines. It was more like an acknowledgement. That was a thing. It is still a thing. But it doesn't bother him that he isn't right now performing at some concert instead of being here.
He keeps quiet for a bit, studying her while he thinks on what she said, her apparent troubles with her powers and them potentially getting in the way of her dancing. Eventually, he asks, "What do you do?" He sounds a little tentative about it, worried about crossing some unseen line.
"You sit in with Pops, Stefan. Ah think that makes ya pro. Maybe not world reknowned, but... none the less. Ah probably couldn't even get in the chorus with one of the big companies around here. Too old." One shoulder lifts and drops in a resigned shrug, as her eyes look back off towards the garden.
"Hmm?" She asks with the humming sound in her throat, blue eyes blinking back into focus to look at him. "Psionic. Telepathy, empathy... that sort of thing. You?"
"Well, I mean. I uh... it's been getting harder to land gigs. Private lessons kinda dried up in the city. Word gets around," he says, and where before he seemed none too bothered by his current state of life, this tidbit troubles him, his brows tugging together. He brushes back his hair again and gives a rolling shrug of his shoulders, first one up and then the other after it.
His fingers drum out a staccato set of notes on the side of the guitar, then flatten out and lay still. "Really? Man, I wouldn't even know how to handle that," he says. Then, with the question back on him, he turns his head and tilts it, a finger up to tap lightly at an ear, drawing attention to the earplug tucked away. "Kinda have good hearing. And do some other stuff with sound."
There's a softness to her expression, one hand lifting to land carefully, butterfly light on his forearm. "Ah'm sorry. People can be awful bigoted. An' it's not just where Ah come from. It's not right, and there's not much Ah can say beyond that."
Her eyes follow his finger tapping his ear, brows arching upwards. "People really discriminate you because you have /superhearing/? Seriously? That's silly. That should be a plus, in teaching music!"
Stefan gives another shrug. "Oh, it's okay. Probably my fault, anyway. Never really tried to hide it. Never really had to back home or at Juilliard. Don't exactly go out of the way to point it out, but." Times have changed, the winds have shifted, all that jazz.
He laughs a little at the rest of what she says, though, a warm and mellow sound. "Guess they're worried I'll overhear something, maybe." Honestly, in New York in the right circles, that could be a seriously bad thing. "Not many people know about the rest of it. Beyond the superhearing, I mean."
"Well, why should you /have/ to hide it? In your case, with what you do, Ah'd think it more a gift than somethin' dangerous." There's a pause, as Alex looks at him wistfully. "Juilliard, huh? Is it everything they say it is?" She maybe had dreams, once upon a time, long long ago.
He winces just slightly and rubs the back of his neck with a drawn-out, "Well." Dangerous should probably not be ruled out, given that reaction. "But, I mean... why does somebody hate any group of people, you know? Doesn't usually make sense. Everybody gets clumped together. It's not right."
With talk of Juilliard, though, his expression shifts to something fonder as memories play through his head. After a moment to think on them, he finally nods and admits, "Yeah. A lot of hard work, surrounded by a lot of really talented, creative people." A small slice of heaven for him, apparently, given the warmth to his voice.
"My teacher went there, when she was young. Followed love to New Orleans, all that." Alex said with a smile. "She used to pester me about auditioning, getting into arts schools... " There's still that wistfulness. "Ah'll never know, though.”
Alexandrine tries to shrug that off, offering another, if smaller smile. "Bigotry is stupid. Sadly, it can happen from both sides. There's a guy that hangs out with one of the teachers here, he's just as big a bigot as any anti-mutant protestor. " Fingers slide through her hair, one lock pulled forward to be toyed with. "So what else do you do? Other than the hearing?"
As if unable to keep completely still for so long, Stefan's hands start to fiddle as he absently tunes his guitar, though it doesn't really need it to begin with. He does so quietly, muting the strings with a hand to keep each plucked note from interrupting their talk. "It's never too late for anything, you know," he says, and he sounds as if he actually believes that, and isn't just saying it.
"Really? Like, anti-...not-mutant?" A thin frown shows for a moment, there and gone, at the idea. "We're all people at the end of the day." With that last question, though, he looks down at the guitar and hunches his shoulders just this tiny bit. "Uh. It's kinda hard to explain. There like... a rock or something?" he asks, looking at the ground by her.
Alexandrine laughs softly, a hint of bitterness to the rest of the amused sound. "Pretty sure Juilliard isn't auditioning twenty five year old dancers, sugar. " Alex says, leaning forward to hug her legs, cheek on her knee as she looks at him.
"He seems to think... well, Ah don't have anything nice to say, so Ah won't say anything at all." Alex puts herself in check, with a hint of a smile that is more teeth clenching than anything. She lowers a leg, nudging a rock off the steps onto the ground. It's small, smaller than a golf ball. "A rock like that?"
"Not everybody was straight out of high school when I was there," Stefan counters. "Other schools out there have really good masters programs in dance, too." As for the individual in question that leads to a certain amount of distaste, well, he keeps mum about it. If she has nothing nice to say, he probably wouldn't either.
"Yeah." He sets aside his guitar carefully and gets up to move over to that rock. It's a long lean down to pick it up, and then he straightens up again, rock in one hand while the other hand removes an earplug. He grimaces a brief moment after, adjusting to the sudden volume change on, well, everything, and then turns his ear toward the rock while lightly flipping it a couple of times in his palm.
"Still. And Ah thought about a Masters, but it would make more sense to get it in something other than dance. With my bachelor's in history, a lot of my professors encouraged me to think about law school. Ah've...thought about it." She shrugs.
Then she's watching that long lean, one brow lifted with curiousity as he flips the rock in his hand.
"Law school?" he questions, voice quieter with the earplug out, and one brow lifted as a teasing smile tugs. "Kinda worlds apart, aren't they?"
But then his attention is all for the rock. He taps it a couple of times with a finger, still with his ear turned to it, listening. Then, he sets it down on the edge of one of the chairs and takes a couple of steps back. "Uh, so... You ever seen an opera singer shatter a glass? Kinda like that," he says. And then he claps his hands. It doesn't sound quite right, though, too sharp and tinny, like all the bass has been removed from the sound. Not even half of a second later, a weird echo of the clap comes from the unsuspecting rock as it practically explodes into little fragments and dust. Shatter is a great word for it, definitely.
"History and law? Not so much." She murmurs, quietly. "You deal with a lot of facts, memory, things that happened before now to build your case.." She drawls softly, stopping as he taps it. "Umm seen it on tv, once." He claps and she's got a confused look at the sound of it, before she's ducking on instinct as it shatters. "Oh wow."
"Meant dance and law," Stefan says. After the demise of the rock, he tucks the earplug safely away back in his ear. He then picks up his cup and the pitcher of lemonade to top off his drink, and resettles on the porch swing. A brief, troubled expression passes over his features like the shadow of a swiftly moving cloud.
But then he shrugs, the motion rolling from one shoulder on to the next."That's what else I can do," he says. "Not the biggest fan of it, really."
"Ah could be the arabesquing attorney. The Dancing Defender. The Pirouetting prosecuter. " Alex manages to joke, offering another smile.
"Ah can kinda tell. You seem more the...mellow type, than the blow shit up type." She says bluntly. "Going on first impressions."
He laughs at her joking, around another sip of lemonade. "Bet you could get a gig on cable with that," Stefan part-teases, part-suggests. As for his less than desireable mutant ability and how it goes against her first impression, though, he gives another shrug. "Guess it can be useful every now and then. Like... lost the key to my bike lock, one time." Otherwise, though, the power for destruction doesn't quite seem to sit easy with the otherwise easy-going musician.
He looks off from the porch, out beyond, though, where the sun has finally gone down and night officially fallen. "Should probably head in, grab some dinner," he comments, off-handed about it.
"Probably. They say eating is important and all. And yeah, Ah guess the Dancing defender couldn't be worse than Ally Mcbeal, right?" Alex jokes, rising as well. "Ah'll carry in your pitcher an' cups, so you can worry about your guitar." She offers with a smile draining her cup and picking up his carefully. She leans a little more, plucking up the pitcher to head inside. "If we hurry and we're lucky, there may actually /be/ dinner left!" She calls over her shoulder before she disappears inside.
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