Peace and Quiet (Open)
After all of the excitement since she got to town, Maeve definitely felt the need for some peace and quiet. Remembering the garden that was in town she thought that might be the perfect place to find what she needed. She stepped onto one of the paths and began to wander aimlessly through the garden. It was such a beautiful area and the smells from the jasmine and other flowers helped add to the relaxing atmosphere, at least for her.
It was nice to not have anywhere to be or anything to do. Her life was usually so busy that moments like these were rare. There were always phone calls to be returned, and appointments to keep. Luckily for her she'd been in the business long enough that her desire to work at night was taken as an interesting personality quirk and no one made a big deal about it.
Taking a deep breath, she did her best to release the tension that had been in her shoulders and neck since the night of the ball. Finally she found a bench with a spectacular view and sank down onto it. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the nighttime sky before settling back comfortably to enjoy the flowers and the sounds of the night.
She mentally cringed at the question. She really shouldn't have been surprised the question had come up, and she guessed she really wasn't. She'd just been hoping. She shook her head at the smile and returned a wry one of her own.
"I'm not sure that let is exactly the right word for what happened. Under the circumstances, it's not exactly like he took the time to ask my permission. Was more like big boom, me on floor under the table and him. That's actually how I managed to sprain my ankle. Getting suddenly and uncerimoniously pulled off your high heels will do that. I'm grateful though. I mean it could have been a lot worse if he hadn't been there." There truthful, but not drudging up all the after party fun. Safe...she hoped.
Val smiled at the mention of the Aston Martin, she’d just taken delivery on her newest toy a Vanquish S and it was wonderful. Maybe she’d go for a drive later.
“What sort of business are you in?”
It never hurt to ask, connections were wonderful things and if Maeve had enough to be at the exploding ball she probably didn’t run a ‘mom and pop’ shop somewhere.
Val laughed lightly at the picture she was presented with.
“Well at the very least you seem to have made one hell of an impression on him. I’m impressed too, I’ve never thought about using an explosion to get under my dates or get their attention.”
Said seriously, but very tongue in cheek; Val was letting Maeve set the pace. You could say all you wanted about sleazy car sales men but the good ones knew how to listen and respond to the client and they still got the sale. Not that Val had anything to sell right now, it was just how she dealt with near strangers.
She suddenly wondered if she had a vehicle in the garage at the Towers. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd had a car here in Nachton. She would definitely need to check on that one. At least she knew someone she could contact if she found she needed to get a new SUV for her stay here.
The smile she gave now was a bit rueful. "An impression is one way to put it I guess. And I'm sure there are much more fun ways to get a date's attention then an exploding room. Less dangerous too. Not to mention that it's hard to feel romantic when you're dodging sharp flying objects."
Geez, would she even know romance anymore? Why did her her comfortable, safe little world have to get rocked right now? She'd been perfectly happy, and now this confusion. Thanks, but no thanks.
“Well I suppose if you have to have one for work.”
The idea of a designer was very intriguing. Val loved to look her best but had only rarely bought originals, usually satisfying herself with high end off the rack.
“Really that must be fun. I’m guessing you’ve got your own collections and don’t design for one of the department stores or anything.”
The thing with Nic though… Oh, it wasn’t Val’s place and she wasn’t terribly into ‘romance’ but a little fun now and then made immortality more worthwhile. And she’d had some good times with sharp objects flying about, one car bomb in Belfast came very clearly to mind. It had gone off a little too soon and they had been hit with some shrapnel and couldn’t very well go to hospital… Val realized she was smiling rather inappropriately at the memory and covered it by laughing at herself.
“Dangerous has its own rewards, but maybe not on a first date.”
She smiled thinking of her charming boutique in Edinburgh. "No I don't design for any of the department stores. I have a boutique in Scotland and one in New York. More freedom that way to design just what I want. I also get the occasional special order, which can be fun. It's nice to see one of my one of a kind designs in a magazine or TV gossip show. Free publicity is a wonderful thing."
"I'll take your word on the dangerous thing. Never really been my cup of tea. I was always a sucker for old fashion romance and true love. Probably not a whole lot of that floating around any more." Boy did she sound cynical all of a sudden. What did she want anyway? And would she every be able to let her self find it?
Magazine, TV gossip show, oh hell yes Val was dead curious about this. She’d seen Scotland, briefly but the natural wonders didn’t do much for her, not unless she was on the back of a horse. She found the topic of fashion much more interesting.
“How exclusive is your place in New York? I’m there enough with that I’d like to stop by, I lost a good dress to that ball.”
Val laughed at her passing on the danger aspect of things.
“It probably isn’t for every one. The world would be considerably less safe if it were.”
Hmmm… the old fashion romance type. That always conjured up images of Victorian gowns, gloves and lacy frilly Valentine’s Day cards. Things that Val wasn’t too keen on at all. She hoped that sense of things didn’t obscure Maeve’s fashion sense, she’d be hard pressed to find anything that would suit her if it did.
"Not sure what to tell you about old fashion romance though. I'm sure if you're looking for it, someone else is too though."
She couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her. "Well you don't need an invitation to get in the door if that's what you mean. A good credit card or lots of cash will be needed to get back out with anything of course. The place is called Gaelic Rose. It's up on 5th Avenue with the other snooty stores." She rolled her eyes slightly. "Just from the location we get tourists coming in to window shop. Not too many of them buy anything, but we get the occasional rich tourist that takes something home. Stop in sometime. Ask for Marie. She'll take good care of you."
She sighed just a bit and shook her head. "I'm not sure I'm actually looking, but if I were, that's what I'd want." Okay, enough said about that subject. She had no idea if she'd get this love thing figured out or not, but she certainly didn't think she was going to do it here.
Ugh, window shoppers; Val couldn’t stand them if you wanted a car buy the thing. Know what you want or at least that you want something but it just wasn’t nice to waste a sales person’s time. They worked on commission you know, and idle shoppers test-driving cars was thoroughly frustrating.
“Marie? I think I’ll do that, I need a new dress after the ball and it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. I can return the favor if you need something flashier just ask for Geoff.”
Quite willing to let the romance subject drop Val just smiled and nodded at the comment. No one knew what they wanted, not really; you just hoped to get something that suited you at the time.
“You know what I need? I need to go out and get a speeding ticket.”
She laughed and gave the other young woman an amused look. Did anyone really need a speeding ticket? "Can't say that's something that I've ever set out to get, but if you feel you must, I will not be offended if you need to be on your way in search of that speeding ticket."
Val was itching to go. Her contemplative mood had passed and she had that nice shiny new car to play with. There was a stretch of freeway out there just begging to be abused. She absently licked her fangs at the thought.
The Vanquish easily won out over any imagined social niceties and she practically hopped to her feet, but not before handing Maeve a card for her dealership.
“You should try it some time. It’s a great release and on a good day I can talk myself right out of it.”
Most days she could, not all the time and the increasing frequency of female officers was making it harder but Val was willing to risk it.
“Nice to have met you. Maybe I’ll see you the next time something blows up.”
Carelessly tossing a smile over her shoulder, she made her retreat. Not so much a retreat as selecting a new field of battle.
((OOC… out))
"It was nice to meet you too. Have fun searching for that speeding ticket."
She watched the woman leave, then settled back on the bench to relax a little while longer. She took some deep breaths of the cool night air and finally felt like she was ready to face the world again. With one last look around the gardens she got to her feet and headed down the path.
(ooc: Maeve out.)