Bean Scene Cafe
Bean Scene is a small coffee shop and cafe that caters primarily to a younger crowd. The cafe has always been at least a year late in joining any given fad, and in the past it's been done in western-style, set up as a beatnik hangout, a go-go disco, a fern bar, and once even attempted to cash in on breakdancing. A plaque has recently been placed above the door, and says, "No fad is dead until it appears to Bean Scene".
Case in point, the cafe has a grungy feel to it.A grey brick facade has been placed over the walls, the flooring looking more like a worn down metal grid, complete with old sewer grates every few feet. Tables and chairs set about the cafe are quite casual in appearance, made of metal meant to look rusty and splattered with multi-colored paints. Metal street signs hang from the wall amid images of garage bands. Behind the counter is a black chalkboard displaying the available items and costs.
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It being a lazy day with lots of lazy people and a lazy lazy cue at the counter, Josephine is already seated, though sans coffee, waiting for Chloe at the appointed hour. She;s her usual self: looking tired, dark circles under her eyes, And perhaps a few more grey hairs than last time, Hugo's 'accident' obviously took it's toll.
What is a lazy day for some is an extremely busy day for others. With a file folder under one arm, a briefcase held in hand and a cellular phone to her ear, the once quiet and hidden librarian has very much been in the public eye of late. "No, you'll have to reschedule that meeting until tomorrow morning. He's got an interview at three, a council meeting at four, and a black tie affair at six. He won't have time today."
Spotting Josephine she glances around the shop. "Text me when you've got it rescheduled and I'll pencil it in. Thanks Marta." Snapping the phone shut, she moves to the table.
"Poor Marta," Josephine murmurs, drumming fingers on the table. "See you moved up," she smiles when Chloe nears, "You like the new you?"
"Moved up. Moved out, whatever you want to call it." Snapping her fingers at the waitress (extremely rude but she's in too much of a hurry to go to the counter), Chloe places her order for a mochafrappelatte thing. "Not particularly, but the pay is alright. The benefits are astounding, and I get to feel the general heartbeat of the city this way." As well as working as a bit of a vampiric spy.
"So you said something about urgency? A mix up?"
"Yeah…" Placing her own order for a coffee, straight, no frills, Josephine says out loud, "Remember when you came after I'd contacted your friend « Grant » about the urgent help I needed with Hugo's condition?" Again, « William Grant ».
"Jo, it's the middle of the bloody afternoon, and I'm not afraid of having vampires as friends." Chloe sets her folder down onto the table, and nods. "I recall that he asked me to check in on things, but he did tell me to do what I thought was proper. So I did." To her, contacting Marius was more proper than waiting the week until Will returned to handle things on his own.
Deep breath, suck in cheek, stay calm. But it's probably visible that Chloe's testing Josephine's patience. Then again, what's new. "Alright, miss Care Less about secrecy. Why's Hugo now saying I owe your buddy Marius a favour instead of Grant." Even so, she keeps her voice down.
"It's Mr. Grant to you, Josephine, or Will if he's given you permission to use his Christian name." Chloe's patience is quite easily held in check. She's been dealing with Marius quite a bit and Josephine doesn't even come close to striking that same nerve within her. "Fair warning that if you call him 'Grant' to his face you will probably not like the outcome."
The coffees arrive, and the mayor's aide takes care of paying for both.
"Because you do. Just because you contacted my boyfriend, doesn't mean he was the one to set up the protection. Since Marius was already involved with this whole Tareq business it seemed prudent to have him be the one to handle it."
"He's Grant just as much as you are Cornett or I am Van den Bosch. Don't…" Squatting away her annoyance like she would a fly in the air. Breathe in. Stay calm. "Alright. And when exactly were you planning on telling me you entered me in on a deal with someone you clearly distrust - to say the least. Why, Chloe Cornett, did you not even think to mention that my obvious assumption was flawed. Do you really hate my ass that much."
"I figured you would have asked Charles where he came from." Dipping the stir stick into the whipped topping on her mochafrappe-whatever, Chloe stirs it vigorously until it is fully mixed. "Or that since I asked for the bodyguard, it would be my debt to bear."
The coffee is lifted to her lips and she takes a small sip from it, eyes never leaving Josephine's face. « About the accident with your brother… there are some complications thanks to his girlfriend. Ones that could likely mean more trouble for everyone. »
"Is it." To say the journalist tensely waits for the answer, is quite the understatement, the hand lifting the coffee stiffly, shaking a bit. « What complications. What trouble. Hell, what girlfriend. »
"It really isn't my debt, Josephine. In the end, you contacted Will for help. I merely answered the call at his behest. Therefore the debt is yours." Chloe sips from the coffee again, then eyes the woman carefully. "You're a telepath, and you don't know he's got a girlfriend? I didn't even pull it from her head, but any fool…" « witch » "that would go out of her way to attack a vampire, which by the way is quite illegal in human law as they're considered much like everyone else, isn't doing it for the fun of it."
Josephine grimaces, "So my question remains the same: why didn't you tell me. Asking Charles would've been mustard after the meal just the same, after the deal'd been struck. You sure know how to screw people over, Cornett." She drinks, grimaces again when she burns her tongue, but refuses to give into the pain. "For your information, my brother doesn't do girlfriends. He fucks 'ehm, plays with 'ehm and moves onto the next. Now witch, bitch or whatever, if she attacked him, I think she had probable cause. And I say good for her if she got a kick in."
« Josephine, you are an idiot. Watch the mouth or you're liable to wind up dead. » Chloe knows this from past experience with Marius. The only reason she is not already dead for her sass is because she belongs to Will. Even then, she's sure there wouldn't be much caring if it came down to it and she irked Marius that much. "Think about what you've just said. Asking Charles would have been after, so would my telling you. You were the one who came to me first in regards to helping your brother with this situation. It is neither my fault, nor my responsibility if things don't go the way you assume they will."
Before her voice begins to raise over polite conversational levels, she calms herself with another sip from the mochafrappe-whatever. "Do you wish to know her probable cause? I can explain it to you because she is a straight up liar, user and manipulator in my eyes and I owe her nothing." « Tareq has a 'claim' on your brother. Whether this is valid or not is not certain, at least not to me. » Sipping the coffee again she brushes some hair out of her eyes. « I was told that this vampire 'attacked' her first. This was not true. She saw Tareq attempting to take your brother out of the vehicle and attacked him first. That makes a very big difference so far as vampires are concerned. »
"You're such a snot nosed little know-it-all-better," Josephine tells her, shaking her head slightly, honest amazement filtering through her alto. "How do you make yourself believe all that shit. Remarkable." Despite the heat, she cleans her coffee and rises. « Hugo never agreed to any claim, so it's invalid. One. Two, I don't give a crap about your vampire laws Cornett, this still is a mostly human world. Tareq broke my brother's arm by pulling him out, the man's a lunatic and needs to be dealt with. Period. »
« I never said that Tareq did not need to be dealt with. What I said is that the way this witch is going about it is all wrong. She's liable to get your brother killed via her stupidity. »
Chloe rises from the seat then, coffee set down. File folder tucked under her arm. The briefcase is picked up and she shoots a glare at the older woman. "Snot-nosed, know-it-all-better? I will remember that the next time you ask me or one of my friends to help you with anything. As for believing, I believe it because I hear the truths. Whether you choose to believe them or not is not one of my problems."
Before she departs she adds, "I bear your brother no ill-will, and I wish him a speedy recovery. But I am so sick and tired of everyone trying to use me for my supposed connections. This right here, Josephine? This is done. At one point, I had thought we could actually be friends due to our similarities. Now I realize I was wrong about that."
