Lunch With A Princess
Author's Note by Cassidy: Way, way back in August when Crystal was just a visitor at the mansion, she coerced arranged going to lunch with Lorna. The following is a log started way back then with the intention of being posted on time or with just a bit of backdating, but things called life happen. It was finished several weeks ago, but my brain was eaten. Set on Wednesday, September 5, 2007.
Lorna parked the car and dropped her keys into her purse, taking a moment to check her hair in the rearview mirror before getting out. "Yikes, it's bright." She adjusted her sunglasses and glanced across the top of the car at her companion. "I don't suppose you do cloud cover in addition to cooling breezes. Isn't it supposed to be early fall or something?" Possibly after four years on the east coast Lorna should have expected this sort of weather but knowing better never stopped her from complaining.
"I could provide you with your own personal cloud to provide you with shade if you so desired," Crystal said easily, then closed the car door. "However, I would not have it last very long seeing as how we are so close to the restaurant and I am quite certain that the people who run this fine establishment do not want people bringing clouds inside with them."
"Lazy," Lorna accused flippantly and locked the car, shouldering her bag. "Let's get inside quickly then. I want enough time to chat with their chefs if I can but I have hapless students to terrorize in two hours and I still need to check in on the pups." She headed for the door.
"Still going with the 'terrorize the students' option, I see," Crystal said, walking next to Lorna , not bothered at all by the weather. Without even the slightest pause, she continued, "How old are the puppies?"
"Well, I have to get my kicks somewhere, right? Students are excellent targets." Lorna tugged the restaurant door open and reflected that even though Crystal had been her student, it was entirely possible that she took Lorna's claims to torment her students seriously. She briefly considered clarifying that she was, in fact, a good teacher then decided it would be a case of protesting too much. "The puppies are about four weeks. In another month, they'll be ready to adopt."
Crystal knew that Lorna didn't really torment her students. Not always, anyway. Not all of them. Just the lucky few, and even then not really. Initial encounters could be rocky, though.
"How many puppies are there?"
"Three. They're very cute, really. Two is sort of rowdy though. Chews on everything. I've given up on my dust ruffle entirely." Lorna smiled at the hostess and indicated there were just the two of them for lunch. As they followed her to the table, Lorna went on, "We know where Two and Three are going but One still needs a home. I'm not really certain what I'll do about adopting him out."
"Numbers instead of names," Crystal mused, imagining Lorna praising or scolding "One", "Two", and "Three" or calling for them. "Have you considered keeping One?" she asked, doing her best to have the word come off as a name rather than the term which could otherwise be followed by "of the puppies."
Lorna winced and shook her head, "No. Definitely no. I don't think I could handle two dogs all the time. Why do you think they don't have names? I don't want to get attached. Sparkling water please," The last was to the waiter who appeared very suddenly by the table. "My mom gets Two. Alex is giving his friend Jared Three. One's the baby."
Crystal ordered her own sparkling water. "The smallest of the litter, yes?"
Lorna nodded, "First to everything else though. Two's the troublemaker but One always does everything first. He's a sweet heart. But you'll meet him later. How's your trip going, field trip horrors aside?"
"At the end of the day, everyone returned to the school and all participants were alive and in one piece, so all things considered, it was a normal rafting trip. Laurie was quite shaken, of course. Horrible timing, really, that and her mother's collapse happening on consecutive days."
"Hmm, yeah." Lorna's expression closed down and she spent several seconds diligently examining menu. She knew that Crystal hadn't meant to sound so insensitive, she doubted Crystal even remembered that Haller was her best friend. Telling herself that helped and she was able to look back up at Crystal again, "Other than that?"
"Other than that," Crystal told Lorna, "it's been a fairly relaxed vacation. I will stay for at least another week, I think. Perhaps I can sit in on one of your classes, for old times' sake."
"Uh...sure. Why not." Crystal would be perfectly behaved, of course. Lorna just didn't want the kids to get distracted and it was hard enough keeping their attention when they were all still stuck in summer vacation mode. "That reminds me that I need to look into that geology trip. I really think it would be useful but it might have to wait until spring when it's not getting darker by the day.
"What sort of a trip would it be?" Crystal inquired. "A geology trip, yes, I know, but to what location and what would be done during the trip?"
Lorna waved her hand, glossing details that she didn't have yet. "Yosemite, perhaps. Ideally I'd like some place with a lot of interesting natural formations that's relatively untouched but dragging the kids across the entire US for a weekend trip probably isn't the best idea. Identification of forces, activity. Fairly basic stuff but hopefully more not boring if I take them someplace really gorgeous. I'd love to drag them out to Hawaii to see the volcanic forces but I know that's not going to fly."
"Can you extend the trip a few days, perhaps?" Crystal asked Lorna. "Maybe even hold it during one of the vacations during the school year? It certainly sounds like an interesting trip even if you have to leave Hawaii out of the equation."
"The trouble is making sure that we'll have decent weather throughout. Bribing Ororo works even less well than you think." Lorna paused again as the waiter came back for their orders. She asked him a couple of questions about ingredients before ordering and turning him over to Crystal.
Crystal placed her order for pad Thai, then turned back to Lorna after the waiter left. "An outdoor field trip is not came the same, though, if you know for certain that you will not be bothered by inclement weather, is it?"
Lorna shrugged, "I grew up in California. We didn't really have inclement weather, so it wasn't a concern. 85 and sunny was sort of the order of the year. Except January. January was cloudy."
"That was to be expected, though," Crystal said. "That was what the weather condition was supposed to be there. Had there suddenly been a blizzard or the usual warm temperature suddenly plummeted, people would have known that something was amiss."
Lorna nodded, "Well yeah. My point was just that we didn't have weather really so it wasn't so much a question of 'will it be nice enough to do something'. Unless that something was go to the beach. It really isn't 85 and sunny on Christmas in California and anyone who tells you that it is tells lies."
"Didn't you just say '85 and sunny was the order of the year' with the exception of January?" Crystal asked. "Christmas occurs in December."
"Slight exaggeration." Lorna demonstrated how teeny with a pinch of her fingers, "Really summer is 90s to triple digits, spring and fall are 70s and winter is 50s-60s. It's never precisely inclement and really only January sends rain or other weather. But yeah, I'm certainly not going near the Pacific in winter. It's icy cold as it is."
Crystal nodded, not sure how much longer they could keep talking about the weather, especially the weather in California, and being quite afraid of the answer. "So. You moved out of the mansion. Quite a bold and unusual move for someone with your jobs and often unpredictable work schedule."
Lorna had been wondering the same thing but it wasn't like she'd had tons to talk to Crystal about before the whole two years gone thing and she was strangely incurious about the goings on that has caused it. The topic change was welcome. "That was sort of the idea, actually. The mansion is sort of a strange environment. It's its own microverse and it lives and breathes basically nothing beyond its walls. I wanted something that wasn't quite so claustrophobic and...oh, I don't know if isolationist is the word but that's kind of what I mean." She gestured vaguely, trying to sum up something she couldn't define, "There's a whole world out here. People and things and...I mean, do you know that for the first time in years I've gone on dates that didn't have to be security screened? That weren't based on the idea that my first responsibility was to protect my students? I...well, I'm sure you know. It had to be like that to a certain extent while Attilan was gone. The sense that you're missing out on the rest of life? I could have lived and died inside those walls--just being a teacher and an X-Man. But there's more out there than that and it's okay to have it."
She fell silent and twirled her water glass, "All of which is to say that I'm not sure I didn't screw up and I'm not sure that it wasn't a childish move. But I wanted the independence. And I'm enjoying having it."
Missed out on life. Had she missed out on life? Crystal certainly hadn't thought so. She'd been perfectly fine with being away from it all. But she was here now, wasn't she? Something had made her want to leave Attilan, if only temporarily. The young princess studied Lorna for a few moments, suddenly seeing her former teacher in a new light. "Being an X-Man, being a teacher, and being responsible for the safety and welfare of the students are three separate ideas," Crystal said. "They can go together, but they don't have to go together. Your life is yours to live; you should decide what you want to do with it, and it looks as if you have." She smiled for a moment. "I'm very glad that you are enjoying your life and newfound independence."
"I get secret glee out of writing the rent checks, I gotta tell you. It's kind of a sick rush, knowing that I'm the one responsible for it." Lorna grinned and leaned back while the waiter dropped off their food. "They're all different areas but I've chosen them all. I don't want to give them up, that wasn't the point. I just wanted my own life at the same time. It's made things complicated in some ways but so far it's been a positive experience."
Crystal nodded. "The best of both worlds, yes?"
"A little bit of everything, really. Some good, some bad. Having to do my own repairs is sort of annoying, I definitely miss having Cain around." Lorna picked at her seafood curry, doing as much arranging of it as eating it. "It's a question of trading off conveniences."
"Your own repairs of what?" Crystal asked before taking her first bite of lunch. Had something been broken or gone wrong already, and wasn't it up to the landlord to fix things?
"Oh, just the usual little things, stuff needed to be painted and the gate was wobbly. I guess I could have called the landlord but I'd be a pretty pathetic magnekinetic if I couldn't drive a few nails into a piece of wood." Lorna made a face, "and then there's the gardening. I so want to hire a gardener."
"Are you allowed to hire one, or can you ask your landlord about finding someone he can approve for you to use?"
Lorna shrugged, "I have no idea honestly. It's not like it's something that I've ever thought about before now. Before I was at the mansion, my parents were the ones who dealt with all the details of the domestic hiring and stuff. All I knew was that once a week the cleaning lady would rearrange my desk because she thought my chi was being blocked."
"You can always ask. Worst case scenario, he tells you no... or he turns all of your possessions into sludge." She was joking, mostly; in a world where a group of people could suddenly find that their bodies had changed gender, anything was possible. That such a thing would happen to Lorna's belongings was unlikely, but one never knew with these things. You could try to escape the insanity all you wanted, but it somehow had a way of finding you no matter how far away from it you thought you were.
"That would completely suck. I like my things." Lorna smiled and speared a shrimp. "But enough about my life. What's your deal these days?"
"Right now, I am on vacation," Crystal began with a smile, "but I teach, take classes, make appearances... nothing exciting, really. It's all been very chaotic, and I have been keeping busy, but it was also very tiring, and so here I am, taking a break!"
"You started a school, that's right, I'd forgotten. Welcome to the wide, rewarding world of teaching." Lorna smiled, "I imagine you're fairly tied down there most of the time. I know how hard it is to juggle three jobs and school on top of it. Do you ever manage to find time for a life? Dating maybe?"
Crystal nearly choked on the water she had been drinking. Sitting and chatting with Lorna was one thing, but she hadn't expected to be questioned about her love life, or lack thereof. Setting the glass back down on the table, she gave a small laugh. "What I do is my life," Crystal told Lorna. "The school, representing Attilan... that is my life. As for dating, if I met someone I wished to date who was also interested in me, I would, but that has not happened yet." She picked up her glass again and sipped from it.
Lorna gave Crystal a thoughtful look, playing with her fork absently, letting the metal twine about her fingers. "Pity you're not staying. There's a event...thingy happening at the end of the month. Not your kind of thing at all, actually but I could have hooked you up with this guy I know. Kind of an ass if he's been drinking but a good guy otherwise."
If Crystal had been taking another sip of water, she would have nearly choked again, but instead she just looked across the table at Lorna and spoke after a moment's silence. "You are joking, yes?"
Lorna looked supremely amused. "So I'm taking that as a 'heck, no, I'm not interested in your weird yankee friends.'" Which wasn't actually answering the question in any way and Lorna was certainly precisely the type of person who wouldn't be joking about this.
"Oh no, I would be very interested in meeting your friends," Crystal told Lorna. "I was referring to the 'hooking up' part you mentioned."
"Serious as a heart attack. Why not? It's not a marriage proposal or anything. It's just a few hours with someone you might connect with and who you'll never have to see again if you don't. I mean...okay, so some people aren't big on dating just to date and that's cool. I'm...really the opposite right now, actually." She shrugged a shoulder, "It's fun to not worry that there are strings, you know?"
She did, in a way. That was why she was here now, when she wasn't a student or a teacher or an X-Man, and didn't have any sort of actual responsibility at Xavier's. Still, being allowing herself to act in a bit of a carefree manner, a way that she had not during her year as a student, was different from allowing herself to act in a completely careless and carefree manner. Besides... "Lorna, what is it that you had to tell me about this man? Your entire statement about him was how he is nice unless he has been drinking."
"Which he is and knows it, so he doesn't really drink. He's a lawyer--for some reason I know a lot of those these days, I have no idea how it happened. Um...I don't know. What sort of credentials would you like? Family? Fortune? Personality? He has a chocolate lab, he likes to sail. Plays basketball." Lorna frowned, trying to come up with a decent description that wouldn't sound like she was trying to auction off her friend. "Phillips, his name is Daniel Phillips."
Crystal nodded. "Well, he sounds very, ah, nice, except for when he is drinking, but as you stated earlier, I will not be here when this 'event-thingy' takes place." She was not going to let Lorna try to set her up with some random guy, and she hoped the pure logic of "I won't be here" would put an end to this part of the conversation.
Lorna started giggling, picked up her water to try to hide it and had to set the glass back down when she couldn't manage to sip without choking herself. "You look like someone just offered you a banana slug as a pet. Don't worry. I promise I'm not trying to hook you up with anyone. Like I also said, not at all your kind of thing." Crystal was, of course, much better at controlling her expression than Lorna was teasing but when had Lorna ever let facts get in the way of a good story?
Good. That was that, then, for Mr. Daniel Phillips, even if Lorna was making fun of her. Crystal supposed it was a good sign, though. Lorna was relaxed around her, teasing, as she tended to do but hadn't throughout most of Crystal's stay as a student at Xavier's. This was... an acceptable form of teasing, Crystal decided, even if Lorna's statement was not accurate at all. Besides, if she had to choose, Crystal was quite certain she'd prefer the banana slug to being 'hooked up' with Lorna's friend.
