Participants:
| Scene Title | Signs and Semblances |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A high Sable comes to ask Tasha for the former and the two discuss the meaning of the latter in a philosophical sort of way. |
| Date | August 9, 2010 |
The corner of the apartment that Tasha, Colette and Tamara call home has been turned into a tiny little studio. What would be considered the dining room, a modest space of about 10 by 8 feet is just large enough to be useful for painting in. As they never really use the table for eating, it's currently covered with a sheet, upon which various bottles of paints sit, along with brushes and other tools of the trade. In the very corner is an easel, holding a modest sized canvas.
Tasha herself has more paint on her than the white canvas does — she's wearing old shorts of Colette's splattered with the garish pink the other girl had insisted on for the color of the bathroom, and rather than ruin yet another shirt, Tasha's wearing a red bikini top that she'd never be seen in at a beach. She glares at the plain canvas — inspiration is lacking, despite the Echo and the Bunnymen's rendition of "People Are Strange" playing from the stereo.
Less inspiration, more summons. Strangeness is finding its way to Tasha one way or another, and while there are no streets to be found in Gun Hill, the hallways seem awfully crooked to the paisley-tuniced figured that is inching along them. Sable is… acting weird. Moving with an obvious stealth that, considering the bright color of her top and the pale color of the wall, is totally useless. Still, she's obviously getting into it, arms splayed against the flat surface as she makes her way, step after shuffling step, towards Tasha's door. Her fingertips hit the doorframe, and then she spins out and around, standing before the door with wide eyes, peering at the number marked there.
"Oh shit…" she says, breathless, looking scared. "How th' fuck did that take so long?" She looks down at her wrist. Wait. No watch. In fact, she never has a watch. Instead she sees the fine dark hairs standing out against her pale skin. Her eyes wander to her hand, closed in a fist. Her finger uncurl, recurl, uncurl, recurl. She looks at the door, doing some basic ritual math. Smiling unsteadily, hoping this is a good idea, she knocks. Just once before looking startled. Jesus, was that as loud as she thinks it was? She knocks again. This time lighter. She grins, and starts to wrap a steady beat against the door.
If the petite artist were in the middle of anything, the interruption might be annoying, but instead, it's welcome. Nothing is more annoying than a blank canvas when the muses are AWOL. Tasha throws the paintbrush she'd been chewing on down onto the sheet-covered table and pads on bare feet to the door, just a few feet away.
The door swings open and Tasha leans against the door when she sees Sable on her doorstep. She offers a smile — the last time they spent together helped ease a little of the tension between them, as only food fights can do — but she's still a little uncertain about what role Sable can play in her life as anything more than neighbor and fellow Ferrymen.
"Hey, Sable. If you're looking for the others, they're not here," she says.
Sable's eyes are wide in wonder as Tasha opens the door, and that makes one feature clear. Her yellow irises have been reduced to a narrow border around the dilated black pools of her pupils. Something's up. Or, rather, someone is up. Way up.
"It's you," she states, somewhere between surprise and expectation, as if Tasha was a long awaited arrival. "I knew it was gonna be you!" she goes on to affirm. Her extra weird eyes play over Tasha, before settling on the splotches of pink paint. "Is that… yer not, like… bleedin'? Are y'?" Because apparently bougies bleed bright pink?
Tasha realizes that Sable is not in her completely right mind, and wonders if this means things will be easier or worse for the two of them, when compared to their normal state, which is SNAFU at all times. "I'm not bleeding. It's just paint. Colette painted the bathroom pink. Her idea," Tasha says, pointing out the bathroom being pink was not the bourgie's brainchild.
"So… did you want to come in, or do you want me to take a message? I'm not sure when they'll be back, but I can tell them you stopped by," Tasha adds, tucking her hair behind her ears as she stands in the doorframe, glancing over her shoulder at the empty apartment.
"Okay," Sable says, sounding quite relieved, "I didn't think it was but… I just had this feelin'," she looks up at Tasha, and her brows are slanted upwards in a pleading, sorrowful way, "I wouldn't like it if you were bleedin'. That'd be a real bad time f'r, like, th' both 'f us." She's quiet for a moment, taking sudden interest in Tasha's eyes. She gives her head a small shake. "Sorry," she says, "Sorta trippin' balls right now. Uh…" she glances down the hallway from whence she came. "It's just you?" Making absolutely sure. "'cause I'll come in if it's just you. Or mebbe if it's Tamara, though I ain't properly prepared f'r that. It's you I came f'r… I think. Yeah. Yeah, it's you I came for." She sounds certain of this, upon reflection. "I need yer help. I had a thought 'n' it keeps comin' back and I need Tash's help. 'n' that's you so… Y' said I c'n come in, right?"
Dark brows quirk into their oft-worn worried look, and Tasha nods. "Just me. Um. Okay." She certainly isn't that sure it will be. The two of them alone never ends well. She opens the door wider for Sable to enter, than closes it behind the other woman once she's through.
"Sorry it's kinda a mess," she adds, gesturing to the dining room table covered with paints and brushes. Beyond, the living room looks like it always does — lived in but not too messy. Tasha and Colette save the clutter for their room, where clothing is anywhere but in a drawer or closet. "Can I get you anything?" Tasha asks, following Sable in and nodding toward the kitchen, her arms wrapping around her bare waist as if she were cold. The apartment isn't cold, but cool enough, thanks to the air conditioner.
Sable doesn't even own drawers, and her closet is as bare as a Puritan church. The only thing that prevents full on chaos in her room is her simple lack of many clothes items to begin with. Her wardrobe diversification, efforts to which have yielded her current top and pants, has done little to change this fact. Simple fact is, Sable doesn't really spend a lot of time thinking about what she's going to wear.
What others are wearing however… The former vagrant, upon wandering into the apartment, observes Tasha's self-embrace. Concern is writ large over her features, a further tinge to those slanted eyebrows. "Yer chilly," she states, sounding worried - almost maternal. And then, further, "'course y' are. Yer wearin'… oh Jesus…" Her hands go up to clap over her eyes instantly. "No no no…" she states in a rapid refrain, "I'm gonna have, like… uh… impure thoughts. No no no. I can't look without lookin'. I'm sorry! C'n I look? I can't say I won't look if I look. I can't help it! Y' know I can't!" Sounding desperate.
"No, I'm … I'm not cold, I just was painting, or you know, going to paint, and it's just easier not to get it… shit, woman, I'll put on a shirt," Tasha says, her cheeks flushing as she sees the other girl covering her eyes and talking about impure thoughts, which is really something that Tasha doesn't want to think about. She scurries down the hall to her room to grab the first shirt she finds — Buzz Lightyear, child sized from her childhood, that she wriggles into before coming back out, tugging the hem down over her waistband. Nothing is less sexy than Pixar, right?
"Okay, so what did you need my help with?" she asks, running a hand through her hair, ruffled by the pulling on of the shirt.
Sable's fingers part just as soon as Tasha explains what she was up to when she came calling, the issue of impurity completely forgotten at least for the moment, enthusiasm replacing self-chastising restraint. "Oh! I wanna watch! Can I watch? I wanna see y' work!" Tasha's offer to put on a shirt reminds Sable what she was covering her eyes for in the first place and she immediately blocks out the vision of the girl's retreating back, only peeking again when she's addressed. Yellow eyes peer into infinity and beyond, she smiles, seemingly genuinely grateful.
"Thanks," Sable says, gazing into Buzz's eyes, as if he's the one to thank. Flared pupils lift to find Tasha's eyes which, in altered-Sablevision, seem to sit in stillness within a hazy radiance. Her lips curl in a helpless smile. "First thing I thought, seein' you," she begins, "first thing: 'She's beautiful'. First thing. Not too often." There's nothing notably skeezy about how she says it. It sounds fond, actually, and carries over the gratitude of her previous words, like Tasha's beauty were some sort of gift given.
She's off track again, and her eyes wander to the bare canvas. Oh right! She wanted to watch Tasha work! Oh right, Tasha wanted to know what she needed! Sable follows mental breadcrumbs through her mental forest. "Signs. Some signs, drawn real pretty, t' hang on m' door. Had t' be you. Yer the one who can. Had t' be you." Insistent on this issue with herself once more.
"I… hadn't gotten any ideas, actually. A little blocked. My mind keeps going elsewhere. And not the good elsewhere, before you suggest I paint that," Tasha explains, a mischievous smile tipping her full lips into upward. Her arms wrap again around her waist, so clearly it wasn't simply because she was half naked before.
That she's beautiful, not too often, earns Sable both a smile and a blush, and then a head-tilt of confusion. Not too often? She's only beautiful sometimes? Whatever, Sable's high, let it go.
"What kind of signs?" she finally asks, nodding to the living room sofas so that Sable can sit.
For all her fears of dirty thinking, Sable looks pretty confused as Tasha mentions 'that'. Her thoughts try and follow what Tasha might be saying. A good elsewhere? Sable imagines a strange, magical place. Electric Ladyland. Pepperland. Terrapin Station. Elsewheres full of music and beauty and…
Oooh.
Sable grins, what she means to be wolfish, though it's a little too dopey, too mingled with the upswell of emotion the psilocybin is causing in her. "You tryin' t' lead me down a path, beauty?" she says, "Not gonna work. Beauty's too beautiful," a flash of realization in her eyes, "I know why y' can't paint right now! Y' can't be th' artist 'cause yer busy bein' th' art." This is, right now, more than a clever thing to say, and more than another volley of disarming flattery - she believes it, as some sort of real ontological observation.
Which is actually a decent segue into the answer to Tasha's question. "Startin' a business," Sable explains - wait for it, it's a real segue, "First thing I need is a sign, says… uh… hold on, lemme recall…" assuming Tasha holds on, Sable takes a moment to remember and then, lifting her fingers to frame the sign she sees in her mind's eye, "One side 'The Sage is IN', other side, 'The Sage is OUT'."
"Nooo, no path leading, I swear," Tasha says, a little amused as she goes to sit on the corner of a sofa. She sorts a bit at the mention of her being too beautiful to paint. "I hardly think that's the case, but thanks for the thought. It's a nice one. I'm better at making it than being it, that's for sure. If I were a piece of art, I'd probably be something small and practical and utilitarian, not art for art's sake. l'art pour l'art," she murmurs.
When Sable starts talking about signage, Tasha raises a brow, reaching for her sketchbook and a pencil on the coffee table, jotting down the words. "A business? What kind of business? Kinda reminds me of Lucy in the Peanuts cartoons. You want just text, or images, too?"
"Just text. But alllll fancilike. And old timey. I see it on nice paper, sorta… browny yellow like an old movie. Real old movie." The words she wants but doesn't know is 'sepia tone'.
Sable teeter over to the couch and drapes herself over the arm. This is much, much less comfortable than she imagined it would be, and she makes a face before clambering onto the couch entirely, her feet sticking out behind her, resting on the arm that wasn't comfy enough for her tummy, her arms folding under her chin, propping it up so she can look at Tasha.
"You talk French? That's French, right? Yer fuckin' kiddin' me…" Sable says. This time she tires to give Tasha a 'straight talking' look, which comes off about as clean as her lewd grin. "How many times a day does she tell y' yer beautiful? Do y' ever listen t' her? Do y' think she's lyin' t' y'? Or that she just can't see right?"
"Nah, I don't know French. Spanish, and bad at it. But some art stuff, it's in French so I gotta learn it. Like… trompe l'oeil, that means to deceive? Like when they paint a window on a plain wall that doesn't have a window. But I don't speak it really. Just the art terms. Like music terms are in Italian a lot, right?" Tasha explains.
"Old fashioned writing and fancy — like, what era do you think? Like, baroque or Old English or Gothic or Victorian, you know?" she asks, ignoring the talk of beauty and the implied Colette, thinking it's safer to keep that out of their interaction.
"Arpegggggggio," Sable says, smiling her agreement as she rolls the word around in her mouth. She wiggles a bit closer to Tasha, undulating like a caterpillar, socked feet (she decided upon leaving that her shoelaces looked way to daunting for her) tapping in a tiny freestyle kick against the arm of the couch. "Dunno. Somethin' not too square. Somethin' groovy."
Distractable though she may be, and moreso now, she is not going to be stopped from musing. "Mebbe y' think 'cause she loves y' she can't be tellin' y' th' truth or, like, what she says can't be taken t' heart 'r somethin'. That's stupid. That's stupid every whichway. It's stupid in ways I c'n think 'f but can't think 'f words f'r. When she says it, listen t' her. I mean…" she rubs her nose with a thumb, "Does it make more sense t' believe it when I say yer beautiful? That yer art for art for art? D' y' believe me 'cause I don't love y'?" A pause, "I take it back, that ain't true. I do love y'. But I ain't in love with y'. But y' know what I mean, eh? Even if I'm talkin' a touch topsy turvy?"
"Groovy, not square," Tasha repeats, jotting down notes as if taking an order — which she sort of is. "I'll come up with some designs and see what you think of them. I'm not like an expert in text, you know? But I can see what I can do."
Sable is making Tasha's plan to ignore discussion of Colette difficult, but the teen just shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders at the same time. "Beauty's something personal to everyone. What you find beautiful, someone else might not, but that doesn't mean it's not beautiful. Someone idiot, I forget who, said beauty's objective, that it's a fact, that everyone can look at something and say it's beautiful, but I don't buy it. I mean, even if you think of something like a rose — most people might think it's pretty. Someone else might think about the aphids on it and the fact it makes them sneeze and that makes it ugly to them, right? Aesthetics are personal and there's no one true fact about it. If she thinks I'm beautiful, it's true for her. If you think it, it's true for you. And thank you, it's nice of you to say," Tasha rambles. It's probably the most she's said to Sable in months. "So sure, I believe that people might think it — do I think I am? No. But that doesn't mean you're wrong." She shrugs again, the blue Buzz t-shirt puckering a little with the motion, too-small as it is.
Sable's brow wrinkles. Something about what Tasha has said has upset her. Something about what she has said makes Sable reply: "That's terrible. That's fuckin' awful. That's a crime. A crime. I thought y' might be better but yer as bad as her. Just as bad," which isn't a very nice set of things to say, particularly without any context whatsoever, and is pretty much a ticket to discord as it stands. As luck would have it, though, Sable carries on. Making things worse, or better? Remains to be seen.
"You look in th' mirror 'n' y' think 'I ain't beautiful'? I don' care 'bout all that. Yer right, but yer right in yer words. Y' ain't right in yer spirit. That's all… logic. Tactics 'n' logistics. That's all bullshit," Sable says, and she sounds like she's getting worked up, her brow furrowed with deep lines, "You look in th' mirror 'n' I don't care what y' see with yer eyes. You look in that mirror, I'm tellin' you, you actually see yerself, 'n' you'll see yer beautiful. Yer beautiful 'cause people love y'. Yer beautiful because y' make love, y' take love. Because y' feel it 'n' y' are it. 'n' because those that love y' know y' better than y' c'n ever know yerself 'n' what we see is th' truth 'f y'. 'n' you better believe it or it's a fuckin' lie yer tellin' yerself. You knock it off, yer as bad as she is. Thinkin' ill 'f yerself ain't modesty. It's foolishness. 'n' the wrong kind. Th' sad kind. Yer beautiful. It pains me t' think y' won't let yerself see it."
Lips parting to argue, Tasha's brow knit as well, and she closes the sketchbook, ready to end the spontaneous interview before things get (as usual) out of hand. She shakes her head, closing her eyes to take a deep breath, to remind herself that Sable is high, that there's no reason for this to be another fight.
When the rant continues and becomes something less condemning and more pitying in a way, Tasha's eyes open again, and she shakes her head again, but this time smiles. "I'm not saying I'm ugly or that there's nothing beautiful to be found in me, Sable. I'm not sitting here wishing I was taller or curvier or had blue eyes, you know? I'm okay with how I look because it's not what's important. What I see in the mirror isn't who I really am… it's just what I look like. It's just the surface," she says quietly. "I know, kind of dumb, an artist talking about just the surface, when that's all there is — physically — to art, but the ideas… the ideas are what's important, and not all ideas in art are beautiful, but they're all important in their own way."
Tasha tosses her sketchbook on the coffee table. "I know I'm important to her, and beautiful, too. I'd rather be the first. The second's just a bonus. It's better that way — if I was worried about just aesthetics, I'd worry that everyone prettier than me would be more important, and this way I don't have to worry. Much." She pushes the sock-clad foot lightly. "So don't worry about me, feeling pretty or not."
It's sort of hard to tell if Sable is listening to Tasha, or even hearing her. Her eyes, those pupils wide as saucers (figuratively), have a sort of amazed openness to them that makes it hard to believe she's reacting to Tasha's words. And after Tasha is done speaking, there is a long pause in which there may be some doubt as to Sable's ability to pick up the line of conversation that, to be fair, she so insistently pursued.
But then there is a gleam in those dark pits, a sign of life, and she opens her mouth. Which is never a good sign.
"It's all th' same!" she exclaims, "There ain't you 'n' then you. It's just you. Sayin' surface, 'n' sayin'… whatever else… that's a goddamn lie. We're all 'f us all 'f us. No one sees what they see. I mean… I mean…" her ideas are running ahead of her, "Magnes. Magnes said he sometimes thinks I'm seven feet tall. Me. Fuckin' tiny. But he f'rgets it 'cause when he sees me, he sees me as all 'f me. What I am 'n' what I look like… the ones y' love see it all 't once. 'n' you gotta see that th' same as well. Seein' yerself beautiful is 'bout seein' all 'f yerself beautiful, part 'f everythin' else y' are. 'cause y' know beauty grows 'r fades with knowledge. What we see is different, makes it so, dig?"
"Just like… woah…" she glances down at herself, at her paisley tunic, her good hand tugging out the hem… "I'm seein' shit like you don't even know right now…"
"Okay," Tasha says slowly, smirking a little. "Truth is Beauty and Beauty is Truth. I forget who said that, but it was something on a poster in one of my classes last year. The thing is, truth? Or, whatever someone thinks is the truth, when they see 'all of you' — it's still subjective. What you think is true, what I think is true, they're different things. My parents — well, my Dad — think I'm horrible and selfish, for instance, but most of you don't see me that way. I hope."
She chuckles as Sable checks out her shirt. "You might wanna stick to solid colors when you're high, Sable. You want me to walk you to your apartment? I don't even know what apartment you're in, actually, but if you know the number, I can make sure you get there without falling asleep on a staircase," Tasha offers.
"They'd see y' f'r who y' are if they trusted in Love," Sable insists, avidly, though she hasn't stopped gazing at her shirt. The paisley twirls are wheeling about each other, spinning and colliding and bouncing off one another in an elegant synchronized swimming routine. "I'm tryin' t' hold nothin' by love in my heart f'r all… though it ain't always easy. I'm tryin' my best t' love y', 'n' hopin' y'll love me in turn. But… that's part of it. I've been realizin'. Feels better t' be loved 't first, but it's far better to love, much better. Feels more th'n good. Feels…" she tears her eyes away from the shirt, up at Tasha and then, with a smoothness that makes it seem sudden but not abrupt, she reaches around to hug Tasha with her arm and presses a kiss right above her right eye. She leans back, smiling with a tranquil warmth courtesy only partially of benevolent fungi.
"Need other signs," she says, reaching over and snagging Tasha's notebook, pressing it back into her hands, "But I'll tell y' as y' guide me back. I want t' welcome y' into my home, were yer always welcome. Always 'n' f'rever. Dig?"
The hug and kiss is met with an awkward blink and a pat of Sable's back as Tasha gives a surprised little half hug back. "Well, thanks. I … I'm glad," she manages a little uncertainly. She is half Lazzaro after all, and affection doesn't always come easily to her — especially once her trust has been broken.
"But, maybe that's who I am," she continues to argue — which is really pointless, given Sable's state of mind — since the way people view the world is interesting to her as an artist. She stands and gives a hand to Sable to pull her up as well. "Maybe I am selfish and horrible to them. My point's that there's perspectives for a reason. One person's ugly is another's beauty. But that's okay. And for the record, you are beautiful, too, for all you are… when you're not trying to beat me up, that is. I know you're a good person. So whatever, bygones, right?"
"I'm soooorry 'bout that," Sable says, swinging to her feet, teetering slightly before facing Tasha with a rather embarrassingly imploring face, not unlike when she first arrived. The desperation of the emotionally unhinged. There may actually be moisture welling at the corners of her eyes which, really, it's unlikely Tasha wants or needs a weepy Sable… "Y' know… y' know I never meant t' cause anybody harm…" Here it comes…
But wait, no. A sort of drippy smile rises to her lips as she states: "I'm just a victim 'f circumstance!" And as if there were any doubt as to what she meant by this, she (wince) starts singing. She's got a pretty good voice, as far as these things go, but being sung at can be sort of awkward. "I never wanted trouble, but I sure got enough. I'm bad at bein' subtle but I ain't that tough…" She offers up her hand again. "See I get home safe?"
"No more sorries, Sable, for real. What's past is past," Tasha says, taking the proferred hand and heading out of the door of her own apartment in pursuit of Sable's.
"What apartment number are you in? I don't even know," she adds, her tone a little chagrined — she feels a little bad about that. They're neighbors, friends, co-Ferrymen, and she isn't even sure where the other woman lives. She shuts the door behind her, making sure neither of the dogs follow her out as they are wont to do.
I think the term the kids use is 'frenemies'. Though so far they've avoided antagonism, if only barely at one point. No harm, no foul, right? Now, what number is Sable's? She has to think about this for a moment. "Five-oh-three," she states, at length, toddling after Tasha, fulling giving herself over to the other woman's guidance. "I need more signs," she continues, as if that initial topic had never changed, picking up the dropped thread of thought from the floor of her mind's labyrinth, "Services provided by th' Sage, bein' myself. Thinkin': 'My two cents - two cents.' 'n' 'Bitch and moan - a dime' 'n' 'Release your burdens - all the change in your pockets'…"
"I'll try to remember all those…" Tasha says, as she leads the other woman toward the stairwell, tugging Sable's hand to turn her to the left once they're outside of Tasha and Colette's apartment. "Are you going into psychotherapy or something? I think the going rate's a bit more than nickels and dimes, and I think you need a diploma for your wall. But oh, hey, I can make you one of those too," teases the little forger. She's kidding of course about the therapy, though she is curious what Sable is up to. "Kinda reminds me of Lucy. Are you friends with any round-headed boys named Charlie?"
"Gotta write 'em down. Twice. Or just once if yer ready for it. Once bein' th' signs 'emselves," if that wasn't clear. The Peanuts reference doesn't seem to ring any bells. "I dunno any Charlies anymore. 'n' when I did I wasn't no Lucy. Wasn't even no Sable…" She trails off at this, though she's not lapsing into a secretive silence. Rather, her quiet is contemplative.
Sable swings around on the ball of one foot, pivoting to face the direction Tasha tugs her in, then stumbles after. She doesn't move like she's drunk, more like she's a somewhat punch drunk toddler. She seems to be enjoying herself at least, and as they begin to ascend the stairs, she looks up, up, and back, gazing at the ascending flights with gape-jawed wonder. Tasha may need to give her another tug to get her started again.
"Up," Tasha says, pulling Sable upward, keeping a firm hold of the other's good arm to get her up to the landing, going slow enough that any wobbles of balance won't result in disaster. "I'll write 'em down later and get started on the first one, check to see if it's what you're after before I start on the others, okay?" And at the landing she begins to move to the correct apartment, dark eyes glancing at the numbers until she arrives at Sable's door. "Is it locked?" she asks, reaching to try the door knob.
Up it is! Sable takes the steps one by one, the sound of her footfalls obviously pleasing her, causing her to strike her bare feet to the concrete with loud slaps that echo up and down the stairwell. That's to Tasha's guidance, no further bone breakage results from their ascent, and as they near 'home', she shakes her head vigorously, dark hair, getting shaggy from months without a trim, tossing about her head. "Never!" she states. She lets go of Tasha's hand and springs forward, her hand finding Tasha's other, on the knob, and pressing down, so both of them open the door at once. It opens up into the strangely decorated space Sable calls home.
Tasha peers into the apartment as Sable bounds in, her dark eyes curious as she takes in the decor. But just then, the cell phone in her pocket begins to ring the Jaws them, and she pulls it out, knowing its her mother without having to glance at the display. "Shit, it's my Mom. I gotta go schedule some quality time with her, you know?" She lifts a finger to indicate just a sec and presses the talk button. "Hold on a sec, Mom," she says, before covering it with her hand and glancing back at Sable.
"You okay? Got everything you need? I'll do a sketch up of those signs for you by tomorrow, okay?"
Sable finds her own room quite the wonderland as she rediscovers it, seeing it again for the very first time. She's actually non-responsive at first, the various patterns on the various swaths of cloth dancing in myriad whorls and shifting strangenesses as her brain bubbles with foreign chemicals. The colors… the colors…
But music can still reach her, and as the shark approaches, Sable twists her head, looking at Tasha with something like alarm. Landshark? Where? This at least has her looking at Tasha when the girl explains her situation. "Oh! Oh! Say hi f'r me! Wait… no… no, she'll know I'm high… fuck… uh…" she looks around, for maybe some place to hide. "I… you should go! I… uh… see you later, hon. Uh…" Despite her need to dive for cover, she takes long enough to give Tasha a parting hug before disappearing behind her door with the haste of the chased.