Logs:Untrained

Untrained
Dramatis Personae Desi, Lyric, Ted
In Absentia	2019-06-21 INTERVIEW LATER. NOW FOOD.
Location <NYC> Washington Square Park - Greenwich Village
Behind a majestic white marble arch, a smaller cousin of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, this beautiful green space is a popular destination for the young, the hip, and the artistic. A huge circular wading fountain is the centerpiece, ringed by benches, playgrounds, dog runs, gaming tables, and lush green lawns. In fair weather, the park is almost always crowded with tourists, students, chess enthusiasts, and local families come to tire out their children and dogs. It rained sporadically all morning, but as the afternoon wears on the sun has shone just fiercely enough to dry the world off, but not fiercely enough to turn warmth into oppressive heat. Even so, the park is not excessively crowded today--perhaps the unpredictable weather has kept away some who might otherwise linger in the glorious spring sun. The lush green lawns, especially, have been left mostly unpopulated, since the grass is still somewhat damp. This has not deterred Desi, whose green gingham picnic blanket is miraculously dry and laden with a light afternoon tea. In addition to the actual tea itself in a silver thermos and some mint lemonade in a glass jar, there are little cucumber-hummus sandwiches, cubes of several different kinds of cheese, salted watermelon, and a mix of red and white grapes. Desi herself is perched primly at one corner of the blanket, wearing a green flared tunic with off-the-shoulder sleeves, legs folded under herself in a graceful pool of gauzy purple skirt. She has a stack of papers in her lap that she makes a point of ignoring in favor of her Arnold Palmer. Though she presently sets the mug down, her hands moving in stilted but more or less comprehensible American Sign Language, 'I want to work less, now, yes but--hard. Because people go summer. Vacation.' The young dark-skinned hijabi woman tucked neatly onto the blanket alongside Desi looks kind of poised there, posed there, impeccably made up (in the kind of natural-look makeup so many men think of as Not Wearing Makeup At All), stretching in a languid drape and plucking delicately at one plump grape with long rosy-polished fingernails. Lyric is dressed in flowing turquoise pants, a long-sleeved cream-colored blouse, an equally flowing sheer half-sleeved turquoise tunic over top; the pink and green and white headscarves she wears are tucked and layered intricately together over her hair and down beneath her neck. Beside her there's a striped handbag. She pops the grape carefully into her mouth. Her own signing is far more fluid, a native signer's ease and expressiveness to it although she takes it a good deal slower than she otherwise might. 'I suppose just not coming in isn't an option?' A small amused smile has curled onto her face. 'And no bites on Facebook? I thought you had all of New York there. Did you not try it, yet?' Until a minute or two ago, Ted had been engaged in an enthusiastic game of Ultimate that ignored equally the rain and the sun... well, as much as possible, anyway. That said, wet grass did not make the best running surface, so ignoring the rain had involved a number of long slides, spills, and faceplants that ran the gamut from awkward to outright embarrassing. It was only when he'd finally tapped out, replaced his mudspattered shirt with a clean one from the gym bag he carried (leaving the equally mudspattered sweatpants untouched), and started his way out of the park that he spotted Desi and her friend, and changed his course to approach them. As he approached he belatedly recognized what they were doing as sign language, so he waved cheerfully but silently when he reached them, not sure if it was rude to interrupt such a discussion with vocalized speech. 'Not good option, but,' Desi allows a wry smile, 'look better more and more. Facebook, I try soon. Problem, maybe then get too many apply.' She taps the stack of papers. 'I have to read all.' She catches sight of Teddy approaching them, and in the brief moment between that and recognizing him her shoulder tense. But then relax in the next instant. "Hello, Ted," she says with a smile, answering his wave in kind, then signs to Lyric, 'You know him? He go also NYU.' Aloud again, "Do you know each other?" 'Too many sounds like the better problem.' There's the briefest moment as A Strange Man approaches that Lyric tenses reflexively, too; but like Desi she relaxes again as well once her friend recognizes Ted. Her smile follows Desi's, bright and easy, and she waves cheerfully. A shake of the head, a curious: 'Your friend? We haven't met.' She's leaning back, dragging her purse nearer so that she can pull out a slim black tablet from within it. She unclips a small stylus from the top of the tablet, prints on its blank surface in neat large all-caps: HI I'M LYRIC. Ted shakes his head affably, awkwardly signs something probably recognizable as 'hi,' or as close to it as he can recall from a high-school performing arts class that included a four-week sign-language module. At the time he'd been able to sign the Lord's Prayer and stumble his way through an awkward conversation about libraries and cats well enough to get a passing grade, but 90% of that was lost to the same pit that contained what little calculus he'd ever managed to understand, the formula for calculating an ionic buffer solution, and the capitols of the fifty states. He reads the tablet screen and nods, makes an aborted gesture towards the stylus as though to reply in kind before realizing that's silly, and nods again. "Hi Lyric... hi Desi! I'm Ted." He approaches more closely, but doesn't sit. "Um. Nice to meet you," he adds, shoving his hands in his pockets. 'New friend, but he cool,' Desi signs. Then switches again to speech, "Not going home for the summer?" She makes an attempt to sign while doing so, only saved by the simplicity of the sentence. "Oh, and would you like some snacks? And tea, with or without lemonade?" She does not repeat this part in sign, but the expansive gesture she makes toward the picnic is universal enough. N-E-D? Lyric repeats this in fingerspelling with a questioning lift of brows towards Desi. And then, slowly, 'Nice to meet you.' She reaches for the food containers after this, pulling them closer to Ted and gesturing towards the blanket as she pulls her legs in under herself to make more room. DOING SUMMER STUDY? She's switched back to writing on the tablet again (a quick press of button at the top has cleared away its first message) for anything more complicated than common pleasantries. And below that, quicker, HOME WHERE? Still plenty legible enough, her more rapidly jotted writing loses some of the neatness of her carefully printed introduction. "No," Ted replies to the question about his summer plans, "I'm staying in town, at least if-- oh... sorry," as Lyric's fingerspelling makes him realize he has been facing Desi as he talks, leaving his lips unreadable. He turns so as to be visible to them both. _Maybe writing on the tablet wasn't a silly idea after all_, he thinks, then continues, over-enunciating his speech in the vague sense that this might help. "No, just staying in town, if I can find something to pay the bills. Turns out people don't pay for research assistance over the summer the way they did during the term... imagine that," he adds with a laugh. "Home is Burlington, Vermont," he replies, frowns in concentration and manages a clumsily fingerspelled "V-S", neglecting to place his thumb properly for the T he intended. "Um... how about you?" he asks, pointing at Lyric and raising his eyebrows the way he'd been taught indicates a question. Desi gives a small shake of her head and spells T-E-D, mouthing the name silently again for Lyric's benefit. She also shifts the food items on her side to make room should Ted decide to take them up on their offer, but does not press him on the matter. Instead, she roots through her own purse, buried under the canvas tote that presumably transported the picnic, and comes out with a 5"x8" notebook, its cover adorned with celtic knotwork in a blue-green-purple ombre, an elegant wooden pen tucked into its spiral binding. Offers this to Ted with slightly upraised eyebrows. "I don't know what kind of work you're looking for, but my shop is hiring." This time, whether owing to the limits of her ASL ability in general or simply lack of practice signing with one hand, her signed version comes out more like 'Don't know what work you see for but I sell welcome.' Lyric's eyes are darting between the other two, lips slightly pursed and brows slightly scrunched. Slightly, but growing steadily more scrunched as the conversation continues. She plucks herself another grape, sucking it into her mouth and chewing over it slowly as she watches the others. She does eventually smile again, quick and amused, and offer Desi a correction: 'My shop. Hiring.' This, before clearing her tablet and writing on it: BOOK SHOP. AND TEA. TEA SHOP AND BOOKS? GOOD MINT TEA THERE. After a pause for consideration, she underlines 'good'. Firmly. Ted accepts the notebook gratefully, starts to write WHAT'S YOUR SH in large letters, then stops when Lyric anticipates the question, nods, then shrugs and adds SELL BOOKS? "I can sell books, I guess?" he says, pointing to himself. "And tea?" His uncertainty is obvious, though he's trying not to show it. Desi nods, accepting the correction with a sheepish smile. "It's called Liber T, and it can't quite decide if..." Her hand turns up, indicating what Lyric just wrote. "You don't have to know about books /or/ tea," she manages to speak and sign this part alright, but then, "we will train you" gets rendered into ASL with the sign 'train'--as in 'a connected series of rail cars'. She pulls a card for the shop from her purse, as well, and passes it to Ted. "You can apply on the website if it looks interesting." 'You can apply Internet if like,' her hands say. Lyric is drawing on her tablet. She's no artist, really, but she's sticking to simple. A stick figure with wide big Os for eyes and a huge shocked mouth, line-arms in the air as it runs from a crude boxy representation of a train. The train gets devil horns and a label along its side: LIBER T. 'HAVE TO DEAL WITH RUDE CUSTOMERS. MORE IMPORTANT THAN KNOWING BOOKS.' The words are a little smaller than her previous, smooshed under the evil runaway train. Ted nods and takes the card, unzips his gym bag, removes a small zippered fabric pouch, unzips that, removes his wallet -- giving Desi a sheepish grin of acknowledgment as he does so -- and puts the card inside before reversing the entire sequence. He's learned, by this point, not to keep anything in his pants pockets if he can help it. "Following instructions, I can do," he says with rather more confidence, starts to write something to that effect, is distracted by the hell-train, which... is how customers from hell get to the store, maybe? He's not really sure, having missed the inadvertent pun. He thinks about Lyric's comment. "I guess I can do that," he says, uncertain again. "I mean, I _did_ almost smash one guy's head in with his own motorcycle, which maybe isn't such great customer service... but in my defense, he was _shooting_ at people, which maybe isn't such great customering, either... which I probably shouldn't be mentioning during a job interview, but, well, I, um, kind of babble when I get nervous, you may have noticed." He flips to a blank page, goes to write something, looks slightly overwhelmed, shakes his head, and points to the diagram on Lyric's tabet and gives a thumbs-up sign while nodding emphatically. Desi's hand flies to her mouth, not really stifling the abrupt laughter bubbling out of her. She holds out the other hand, see-saws it in the air and then . "It's kind of like that. The training." The hand that had been covering her mouth smooths back a few strands of flyaway hair--she's wearing her hair loose today, not a common sight. At Ted's mention of the Purifier attack on the vigil, however, she blanches, sitting up a little straighter. She darts an appraising glance at Lyric. "Fortunately, this is not an interview," she says soothingly, signing the same more or less correctly. "But no, I wouldn't recommend saying that during an interview." This last part she translates somewhat less coherently ('No, I don't give say that angle interview'), picking up her beverage for a long gulp after. Lyric's eyes widen; she signs MOTORCYCLE sort of absently in the air, and GUN, throwing a puzzled look between Ted and Desi. The rest of the exchange she seems to get well enough, though. INTERVIEW LATER, she writes, NOW, FOOD.