Participants:
| Scene Title | Fingerprints in Paint |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Tasha finds out good news for the future (for once!) and Tamara and she discuss colors, pictures, and the future vision of their apartment. |
| Date | June 22, 2010 |
Gun Hill Colette, Tasha, and Tamara's Apartment
The old sheets laid out on the apartment's floor have already collected their fair share of paint splatters over past days, and today seems likely to add more. Maybe a lot more. Breakfast was a little while ago, and the weather outside is tolerable — almost cool, with the humidity down to reasonable levels. That means the ambiance inside is also decent, especially with the fans to blow air about.
Misty has already run through most of her morning energy allocation, the little dog now sprawled out in the middle of the kitchen floor, chin down on the wood. Her ears are perked towards the main room, dark eyes watching every one of her people's moves with lazy curiosity. Tired puppies are good puppies, especially on a painting day — and Tamara is currently prying the lid off a can of paprika-colored interior paint, pouring it into a tray for application.
Despite Colette's fears, she hasn't rearranged the furniture… yet.
After breakfast, Tasha had slipped out on a vaguely worded "errand" of sorts, which entailed running down to the post office where she had rented a post office box. Thanks to the uncertainty of her living arrangements, going wherever Ferry needed her, she figured it was better than giving addresses that might change every few weeks, and also a better option than having possibly nosy parents go through her mail. Especially this particular envelope.
The rest of the mail was junk mail, thrown away at the post office itself. The envelope in her hands is unopened, though she had ample opportunity to break its seal and find what the verdict was on the four-block walk. Folding it in half, Tasha slips it into her back pocket before entering the apartment door slowly, lest any wayward puppies dart out into the hallway. Brows rise as she sees Tamara readying to paint. "Hi," she offers with a shy smile as she closes the door behind her, then moves into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.
The paint can is set down as Tasha comes in, the blonde shifting her attention to the other girl — after all, Tamara did threaten her with the word with. She waits, however, watching the brunette step around Misty (who shows no inclination to move, even if she does keep a cautious eye on those feet). Tamara drops to sit on the sheet, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap, smiling faintly while Tasha goes about preparing her cup of coffee; waiting until the immediate task is done and she has a chance of getting the other's attention. Coffee is hard to challenge. "Well?" the seer prompts, brows lifting. "Weren't you going to open it?"
The younger girl is still not used to someone knowing everything ahead of time. Coming back out of the kitchen, she pauses, cup midway on its way to her mouth before she smiles and finishes the action, sipping a bit of the hot coffee cautiously. Her eyes glance down at the sleepy puppy, and then back to Tamara. She lifts one shoulder in a lopsided shrug. "It's not a big envelope," Tasha supplies, as reason for her procrastination.
"It's… that's how we joked about knowing if it was good or bad news. If you're accepted, they send you all sorts of brochures and contracts and stuff to fill out and housing information and it's like a big envelope." She holds up her hands, one open and the other still holding the mug, to indicate the size of a manila-envelope.
Her free hand drops and she pulls out the letter-sized envelope that's been folded and stashed. "These are usually 'Thanks, but no thanks.'" Of course, her situation isn't the normal situation. Applications and Acceptances were long past handled by the school. Hers was a post-deadline application handled on a personal basis due to her "extenuating circumstances," and allowed on the part of Parsons as a favor to one of Tasha's professor's back in Boston, who had put in a request on her behalf.
Tamara tips her head for a moment, then uncoils her legs and climbs up to her feet, moving over to stand in front of Tasha. She smiles wryly, plucking the envelope from Tasha's hand. The blonde turns it over, considering the markings on the front and their absence on the back; the paper rustles a bit beneath her fingers. Ultimately, she orients it so the back is facing Tasha, then holds it out to her at about shoulder level. "It was an important letter," Tamara states. "Open it." She insists.
"If," Tasha says playfully, "it's declining my enrollment but letting me know that I owe $50 for the application I didn't actually pay to turn in, I'm going to paint you paprika." She slips a finger under the sealed flap to peel open the envelope. "And your little dog Toto, too."
Her eyes drop to the task at hand, pulling out the paper within. Dark eyes glance up at Tamara's blue for more reassurance before she unfolds the trifolded sheet of paper. Her eyes move left to right as they scan the contents, the word Congratulations leaping off the page and pulling a smile from her lips. "I… they're accepting me… it's like, a personally written letter from the dean instead of the form letter thing…" which explains the lack of a big envelope, after all.
Tamara is quite willing to stand there and give Tasha that wry little smile until the younger girl opens the letter and reads it. Then, should her companion actually look up, the seer's smile becomes rather more smug. She steps forward on bare feet, briefly resting a hand on Tasha's shoulder — and casually pressing a momentary kiss against her hair before continuing by into the kitchen. "Told you," she declares (despite that she didn't really), stepping over Misty and getting a glass down from the cupboard.
"You get to tell Colette when she came home," the blonde continues. She got tenses half right, at least. Tamara glances back over her shoulder at Tasha. "Unless you'd rather call."
Dark eyes lift from the envelope and Tasha looks surprised at Tamara's kiss into her hair, but she doesn't pull away. The feelings of worry and fear when it comes to Tamara have all but dissipated. The visions can't possibly come true in her mind. Not now that they've been warned. She smiles. "Thanks," is whispered, before she turns to watch Tamara get the glass.
"It can wait… after all, it's waited this long. She knows I applied somewhere but not there." Of course, the name Parsons probably doesn't mean much to Colette, but the fact that Tasha is happy will be enough. She sets the envelope down on the counter that divides the space between the living room and the kitchen. "Shall we paint? Do you like the colors? We can go buy your paint later, if you like."
Filling her glass with water, Tamara shrugs at the question of colors. "It's not white," she points out; apparently that's good enough for her. Walking back out past the counter — this time with Misty pulling herself up off the floor and tagging along at the blonde's heels — she bobs her head in a nod. "We can paint," the girl affirms. She stops beside Tasha, waving the brunette forward with her glass: your lead. "Tell me about the colors?"
"About the colors?" Tasha echoes, setting her mug down and reaching to pat the puppy's head before going to pick up an unused roller brush. "I don't know. I just liked the look of them together. The red isn't too red — it's kinda … spicy red? And warm colored. And the cocoa too. I think it makes the room look a little less cookie cutter apartment, if that makes sense. And I like warm colors for the living room." She's not sure if that's what Tamara wants to know. She pours some of the paint into the pan, then rolls her brush in the off-red color. "What color blue do you want for your room? Bright, dark, pale? Or we can just go look and see what strikes your fancy." Or, more likely, what color Tamara already saw in the future.
Tamara drinks about half of the water in her glass before leaving it beside Tasha's. She nods in response to the explanation of color choices; any answer is suitable, in this case. Picking up a roller of her own, she studies the wall first, head tilted at a slight kilter; then Tamara dips it in the paint and carefully applies liquid to surface. "Too many blues," the girl observes. "Like the sky. I like watching it, and the fluffy sheep. Sometimes, anyway. Sometimes they're not so fluffy."
"And sometimes they're not sheep?" Tasha says with a grin, starting down at the baseboard and sweeping her brush up, connecting that stroke to the last stroke on the wall. She really needs to not leave the job halfway done. Might make for some color variations in the paint. "I think between two of us we can bang this out today, huh? It's good paint, supposedly one coat kind, so easy peasy." She dips the roller again and repeats the gesture. "Blue like the sky is a good color. Really, all colors are good, in their place. I used to only use like five or six crayon colors when I was a kid. I wanted only the happy colors, right? But sometimes you need the sad colors… it makes the happy ones seem happier in contrast."
The blonde giggles, grinning back at Tasha. "Sometimes!" She continues painting a swathe of wall while watching the other roller sweep up, blue gaze flicking down the rest of the wall. On the subject of whether they'll finish today — Tamara doesn't comment, because either's possible. Especially since her capacity to stick with it isn't all that great; she'll be more of an intermittent painter. But at least Tasha will have company throughout; that's worth something. Pausing between strokes, the seeress uses one foot to nudge Misty away from the paint tin. "It takes all colors," she affirms, head bobbing in a concurrent nod. "The happy and the sad, the trees and the water, sunrises and sunsets. Needed them all to make the picture — if it was a picture worth making." Tamara pauses, glancing at one of the other walls. "You want pictures, too?"
With a smile at Tamara's words, Tasha nods in agreement. The world is not always good, and art shouldn't be either, if it's meant to reflect the world. "Pictures?" she says, glancing over at the wall that Tamara looks at. "Oh, like a mural or something? I don't think so, not in the main room, unless you and Colette wanted one. It's probably better plain for when we need to move. But if you want one in your room, knock yourself out. Or I can do one for you. Or we can do them on canvas, that way, we can take them with us when we go anywhere else, you know? I was going to do a mural down in the lobby, maybe. Lynette said each floor." She frowns a little at the mention of Lynette, then smiles again at Tamara. "We can also find pictures — posters and paintings — that we all like, to decorate with."
"No, no." She follows well enough that Tasha didn't catch quite what she meant. Resting the paint roller in the tray, Tamara lifts her hands to describe a rectangular in the air. "Not wall pictures. Boxy pictures." Then the girl bobs her head, because Tasha did get it in the second part of her response. Picking the roller back up, Tamara starts on another ribbon of wall. "What kind?"
"Anything you like. I'm not, like, an interior decorator, you know? It doesn't all have to be my vision, or be all matchy matchy like in a magazine. Whatever you and Colette want. Or we can all go and look and find some things together, at an art store or swap meet or something. I think there's a decent one on Saturdays over in Greenwich that we could check out," Tasha says cheerfully. "Unless you already know what we picked out?" she adds, with a smile.
Tamara shakes her head, then has to shove blonde hair back out of her eyes. "Pictures aren't like colors," she tells Tasha. "You didn't even know who was going to be there, or where you were going. There's lots more pictures than colors, even if you count all the colors ever." The roller finds the tray again, though this time Tamara lets it rest there, the better to press inquisitive fingertips against the paint-wet wall.
Fingerprints in the new paint! Tasha bites her tongue to keep from reprimanding Tamara, but nods instead at the cryptic words that she understands in gist. Pictures will have to be selected the old-fashioned way, apparently. "Well, then, we can all go together and find what we like," Tasha says with a smile, glancing down at Tamara's hand, now paprika-painted on the fingertips. "Or maybe we should get furniture first… real furniture, not lawn furniture." She glances at the plastic chairs with a grimace.
Ah, well, if they didn't have to work at something, what good would it be? Hearing the rebuke Tasha doesn't quite make, Tamara looks at her sidelong, ducking her head slightly and removing her fingers from the painted surface. She doesn't seem particularly perturbed, as she progresses to rubbing the wet paint between her fingers. Looking over her shoulder to survey the apartment, Tamara finally sets the roller down entirely and begins to walk, taking a circuitous route around the plastic chairs. "What furniture did you want?"
Tasha does a quick rollover of the area with the fingerprints in the paint as Tamara walks around the chairs. "Oh, you know, the usual. Couch, chairs, coffee table. I think if I bring my mom over to visit, she'll probably insist on buying us some," Tasha says cheerfully enough. "Though … I need to see if they're going to pay for my tuition at all." Her mother would probably happily pay it — her father, she's not so sure of lately. He would have before this last week's events, probably. "I don't really want to ask for a lot. You know. Trying to be independent sort of doesn't work when you ask for money all the time."
She doesn't know, really, but Tamara bobs her head anyway. Scooping up the puppy who was attacking a corner of sheet disturbed by her pacing, the girl walks over to one of the windows and peers out it, squinting against morning sunlight. "Furniture and things aren't bad, really. The money is the important part." Leaving the window, she comes back to stand by Tasha; Misty stretches out her neck to try and sniff the roller Tasha's using, though even with that effort it's still a bit out of her reach. "You wanted that, right? Sometimes it is worth asking."
The past tense throws Tasha for a moment, before she thinks she understands, and nods. "I do. And if they can't or won't, I'll make it happen some other way. Financial aid or working or whatever. I can do it if I have to, and if I have to, I will." She reaches to ruffle the dog's fur, laughing at its stretching. "Paint isn't good for you, Misty," she tells the dog in a playful reprimand. Finishing the wall they were working on, she glances at the third wall and smiles. "Just one more. Piece of cake. You can keep the pup out of the way and that will be a huge help and I'll be one in no time."
Tamara pulls Misty in closer, burying her nose in the little dog's fur. "Okay," she tells Tasha, as the puppy cranes her head around to snuffle at and then lick the girl's hair. "I can do that!" Given how agreeable Misty tends to be, that's easy — and much more Tamara's forte than changing wall colors one paint-roll at a time.
Colette will be astonished to find no disasters occurred in her absence, in spite of her prior doomsaying.