ArchivedLogs:Honestly?

Honestly?
Dramatis Personae Jim, Melinda
In Absentia	2014-01-30 Jim and Mel are not good at this.
Location <NYC> Montagues - SoHo
Montagues harkens back to the day when SoHo was filled to the brim with artists, with its mismatched furniture, all plush and decorated heavily with carved wood, but remains trendy enough to keep its newer patrons by making sure that furniture is clean, in good repair and inviting. The antique tables all have been reinforced to seem less creaky. The real draw of the cafe is the smell: fresh roasted coffee mingles with perfectly steeped teas. Spices from crisp pastries mingle with the tang of clotted cream but don't overwhelm too much the scent of chalk on the menu boards. The problem with having a ride home from work is that there is so much work to do when that ride seems to not show up. Despite the fact that Melinda is supposedly off the clock, she seems utterly able to just sit in a chair and relax. There is a table set up, housing her coat, but not her purse. There is some paperwork on it along with a cooling mug of milky tea. The half sandwich on the plate next to that has one, maybe two bites removed from one edge, but it is likewise waiting for her. The cafe manager herself is behind the counter, measuring tea into small pots, adding preheated water to the correct degree to each afterwards, a small timer turned on to keep everyone aware of how long it's been steeping. She is dressed comfortably, wearing a couple layers under a pair loose gray maternity pants, with a warm baggy purple sweater over the top. Once the tea is done, she moves flags over someone to deliver them and then takes herself over to her table to take a long drink of tea. Jim's shoulder slams into the door with a dull thud, withdraws, he steps back, and the PULLS the door open for entry. Parked at the curb behind him is a beater rental station wagon with a dented door, lucky rockstar parking - and only 45 minutes late and probably a dollar short. He wears a brown corduroy jacket, patched elbows, fraying jeans. By now, the overgrown scruff around his jaw is essentially a noncommital and ultimately grizzled beard. Standing in the doorway for a moment, letting in the icy air from outside, he ignores the few people turning their heads to meanmug in his direction in favor of tracking down Melinda behind the counter. Then he's OFF, letting the door fall shut behind him, heading towards the counter, "You ready?" Melinda turns around and spies a Jim cooling off her customers. Eyebrows raise somewhere between surprise, amusement, and annoyance, but the last dissipates quickly enough. She nods and finishes her tea, leaving it in the dish reclaim bucket before leaning over, slowly, to grab her bag. "Yeah, just gotta grab some stuff," she remarks as she snatches a piece of waxed paper and skirts the counter once more, heading to her table. The sandwich is quickly wrapped, tucked inside the paper to keep it from smearing something all over her paperwork, before it is then placed on top of her paperwork. Then, she shrugs into that red coat of hers. She doesn't button it. She ... possibly could, but she refrains from trying out of comfort. "You run into any trouble?" she asks, looping her purse over one shoulder and gathering everything else into her arms. "Into. Over. Through. /Backed up/ over. Who you talkin' to." Jim prowls along behind Melinda with hands crammed in his pockets. "How the hell aren't you ready yet." Maybe he was late on PURPOSE. He's helpful like that. "Entropy, Jim." Melinda remarks, her eyes rolling.  She takes her armload of stuff and heads toward the door and Jim, ending up somewhere between the two, pausing to see if he's following.  "You leave a thing alone long enough, it'll fall apart.  Did you really think I'd be all buttoned up and waiting for forty minutes?" "Story of my life, sweetheart." Jim makes it a race to the door, his gnarly-malformed hand locking on the knob or handle or whatever keeps the damn thing shut and gripping it just long enough to be obnoxious. Then shoving it open. KIND of like opening the door for her. Or just taking his aggression out on it. SHOVE. "How's work." Melinda stiffens when Jim holds the door closed, turning her eyes to give him a long look before letting out a sigh and waiting.  When he opens the door, she walks through and heads for the car.  "Work ... " she clams up again, frown turning into a pursing of her lips once again.  "Another employee quit.  It was personal.  I'm not happy." She waits by the car door for him to open it. Whether there are unlock buttons on his key fob, Jim still goes for the tried and true method of unlocking a door and jams his mother fucking KEY in it, hauling it open for Mel without a lot of thought in the motion, "What, another? Who was the first?" Who's the /second/. Presumably Melinda gets in the vehicle, so Jim can close it and blunder over an icy patch at the curb to get around to the driver's side.  Melinda waits until Jim is inside the car, settling things on her knees and in the well around her feet before putting her seat belt on and pulling her paperwork to her lap.  "The plague took out a couple, people leaving the city went after that.  It was mostly new people, low level, nothing special.  We have a fair bit of high turn over, given the nature of the job.  Then there were those who got hired at nicer restaurants and got better jobs just because so many damn people were killed by zombies."  She stares at the dashboard like a sleepy person longing for a pillow.  "Then Shane quit." The car wheels /squeal/ when Jim abruptly slams the gas, muscling into traffic to an eruption of horn honks and muffled yells from the contents of other drivers inside their vehicles. Jim doesn't turn his head from glaring out the front window - just presses a middle finger against the driver's side window and one-handed cranks the wheel to skip over two lanes of traffic to catch a left on a yellow light, "Thought he loved that job." Yeah, he'll say it like he's about to /argue/ over it. "He did.  Said that he had to focus on school work," Melinda replies, displeased.  "Though, I got the feeling that it's because he is mad at me.  But he can't confirm it, because he's been forbidden from talking about my pregnancy to me."  Huff.  Her chin dips low as she hunkers in her seat. "Told 'im, huh?" Jim doesn't /exactly/ slam on the breaks, but he employs them HEAVILY to let an aggressive cabbie sail past, then heaves the car sideways to fill the wake just behind it, following it through another yellow light. They squeak through with a short enough margin he finds himself kissing his fingertips and thumping them up against the roof of the vehicle. His jaw is tight - hard to tell if it's because of the topic, or because he's straining not to commit vehicular homicide. "Told him?" Melinda blinks for a moment.  "I didn't really have to tell him.  It's kind of becoming obvious.  I suppose I could have tried to hide it longer, but that would require me to bind my stomach and that can't be good for the kid."   She lets out a sigh and purses his lips.  "It came up because of the housing.  They were asking me what I needed or wanted because they're building anything and everything they can... we can afford.  So yeah.  Said a kid's play area would be useful for me, too." "Hey. I didn't say a god damn thing about /binding/ anything, that's all you," Jim growls, caught up at a red light, between a Chevy and a fruit truck. His head is turned away to mutter towards the Chevy, "For the love of /Pete/..." He swings back around, "Guess that explains why Hivey was mentioning a play area." He's side-eyeing the Korean driver in the fruit truck. The driver is eyeing him back. As the seconds of the red light tick down, both of them are leaning further over the wheel. Jim almost doesn't seem aware he's still talking, straight and gravely, "So they uh. Also know. Y'know." The green light sends them leaping back into acceleration. Women in bundled coats and men walking fluffy dogs fly by on the sidewalks. "About you?" Melinda takes a deep breath and thinks it through.  "Hive might.  He kind of gets most things whether he wants to or not.  He said he wasn't going to tell, and I believe him.  I didn't expressly say it to Jax, Micah, and Shane.  Was kind of annoyed at the phrasing when they asked.  You know me and my feminism.  Said the father knew.  That'll rule out Dusk as I doubt he's been behaving differently."  Her eyes shift to the world flashing by around them, grumpy.  "Did you not want me to tell?" "The fuck's feminism got to - y'know what, I don't even wanna know." Streetlamp, post box, two well-bundled kids on skateboards, breathing frozen clouds of air as they slide down the three-step railing outside of a bank. All flashing by at warp drive. Whoosh whoosh whoosh. "Why." Jim's hands are locked at ten and two, offering nary a side glance, "--You don't wanna?"  "I -- I don't actually care."  Mel shrugs moodily, one hand reaching out to the door, starting to white knuckle the grip there.  "I would respect your wishes.  I just - I just don't want to hide shit."  She shifts in her seat, falling silent. "Who the fuck asked you to--" Jim scores a lucky break on a right turn, and he full on goes for it, the back half of the car sliding sideways on its wheels in a slight fishtail. Gritting his teeth like it's by pure MUSCLE that he keeps them right, Jim corrects their trajectory without killing a little old man OR his dog standing miserably at the curb, "-hide anything? You're the only one /here/ taking about god damn /stomach/ binding." Jim is looking at MEL now. Not the road. FUCK the road.  "For fuck's sake, Jim." Melinda grips the arm rest a little harder, "keep your eyes on the road."  She takes a breath and then continues.  "Look, I was being sarcastic about the stomach binding.  I'm freaked out, scared, and full of hormones that are driving me crazy.  I. Don't. Like that someone isn't allowed to talk about this.  I hate that he's mad at me and can't even be honest.  There's nothing I can do about it, and that frustration is coming out as some desperate attempt to be honest about shit to everyone." Oh right, the road. Jim jerks his head back around. That hobo's cart half-way across the street? He scoffs at that, for making him have to brake. "Alright," he grits through his teeth, turning back to Mel now that they /are/ stopped. And he throws open his hands AGAINST the steering wheel. It's a very sarcastic motion, "So be /honest/." "Honest?"  Melinda's lips purse, a few deep breaths give her a moment to think.  "Yeah.  I can do that.  You can be honest, too.  Tell whoever you like.  Honesty's always best.  I think it helps everyone in the end."  She exhales and looks out the windshield to get a grasp on where they ended up.  "Thanks for the ride, Jim.  I'll see you later?"  They are at her place after all.  She adjusts her paperwork, unbelts herself and opens the door. "Yeah." Jim mutters, drumming his fingertips on the wheel. "I'll uh." Try to work up the nerve, Jimmy? "Yeah. Night." When the door closes, he pulls away from the curb, motor roaring off into New York traffic.