4/29/08 - Norah
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=NYC= Wee Book Inn - Greenwich Village - Manhattan
Warm and cozy, this place is well-named. The walls are a simple white and the carpet is an average blue, for most people never give them a second glance. What attracts attention are the shelves upon shelves of books that fill this store, overflowing with literature -- all used but in near-perfect condition, for the Inn has high standards. You want it? They probably have it. They sell harlequin romances, young adult novels, fiction and non-fiction, thick historical books, horror and mystery and erotica, roleplaying guides, children's picture or activity books, and the Harvard Classics and individual collections of all the authors therein. At the back is the reading area, only reached by passing the counter with the owner and his register, ensuring that only those with their own novels or ones that have just been paid for are brought in. The reading areas has several couches, armchairs and lamps, and is where the Inn's resident rumpled tabbycat -- Milo -- spends most of his time, curled up in the lap of whoever will let him sleep on them. An addition to the back area, a coffee bar serves coffee, iced drinks, cookies and scones.
Norah
Norah hardly sticks out in a crowd -- in fact, your eyes might just glaze right over her. She's in her early twenties, of average height. Her frame is padded with just a little extra fat, not due to gluttony but mere indolence. She's not fat; she's just not in shape either. What might be a classic hourglass figure is marred by a tendancy to the hips, though not enough to incite jokes or stares.
Her hair is dark brown and inclined to unruly waves, frizzing a little in humid weather. It's kept long, about shoulder-blade length, though with a side bang cut across her forehead. Norah's skin is naturally pale, though dotted liberally with freckles across her nose and cheeks (and a few old acne scars, slow to fade completely). Her teeth are straight and even enough to be the evident work of braces.
She's currently wearing a sky blue A-line skirt, striped diagonally with white and yellow, and a crisp white collared shirt and a yellow cardigan.
Norah does not have any extra money to buy more books. She already splurged and bought one here just a couple weeks ago. There is no need for another. But she was in the area, and couldn't resist the lure of at least stopping in the little shop for the evening. She's settled down on the floor of the history section, jeans-clad legs sprawled into the corridor between the shelves, back propped against a shelf, reading a book. Oh, sure, there are couches and armchairs for that, but what if she decided a few pages in that she wanted to read a different book? A cup of hot chocolate from the little bar rests on the floor by her hip.
There is no excuse for Det. Chris Rossi of the NYPD to be in Wee Book Inn, off-shift hours though it may be for him; the NYPD is not noted for its classical education and yet, there he stands in the religion and philosophy aisle, pulling heavy, indigestible books off the shelves -- Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology, Scripture and Metaphysics, John Duns Scotus -- and then pushing them back again with a restless poke. One book already distends his pocket, its outline distinct against the thin leather of his coat. Claiming an inexplicably misplaced copy of Aesop's Fables, he shoves off and rounds the corner. History. Classics. And -- "/Fuck/." -- near-disaster.
There is a cup of hot chocolate on the floor. The detective stops short, sways, overbalanced, and leaps a hastily long-legged hurdle over Norah's legs.
At the sound of the expletive, Norah's eyes flick upwards, her hand automatically moving to protect the hot chocolate from spillage. It's too chocolatey to waste on the carpet! She squeezes back against the shelf of books as the detective leaps, mouth drawing down in a wince. "Yikes. Sorry about that," she apologizes. "I probably shouldn't be taking up the whole aisle." You think?
"Not a problem," Rossi says, regaining his balance with relative quickness. Dignity (such as it is) follows hard on its heels, less innate; the glance down at her is green-eyed, briefly annoyed, but in the passing fashion that is more form than substance. "Should've been watching where I was going. I get your drink?" He stretches an arm as he speaks, shoving the Aesop's Fable book onto the shelves without bothering overmuch about the correctness of its classification. It is old. Classics are old. Hence it is a classic.
"No, you didn't," Norah answers, shaking her head. She pauses for a second, taking in his appearance. One can almost see a wheel spin in her mind and then settle on "cop". She immediately collects herself, drawing her legs in and moving to stand up. It's a bit tricky, what with trying to keep her finger in "The Federalist" where it was and pick up the drink at the same time. She manages, though. "You, uh, looking for anything in particular?"
Rossi pats his pocket, where the thick book smacks nicely hollow against his palm. "Got what I wanted," he says, running his gaze along the shelves -- Classics still, not History -- before he relocates the Fables, and plucks a completely different book off the shelves. Green and yellow in a peculiarly garish cover, it is a small volume that he turns in his hands, speculative, before glancing back down to Norah. Eyebrows rise quizzically. "They got couches over there."
"But I wasn't sure I wanted to read The Federalist Papers," Norah explains, setting her cocoa onto a shelf so she can shift the book in her hands. "And so what if I walked all the way over there and then had to come right back?" She seems confident in her unassailable logic. "Also, I feel guilty using the chairs, because I'm honestly not planning on buying a book tonight. I feel better reading a book I'm not going to buy if at least I'm uncomfortable while doing so." She laughs a slightly embarrassed laugh. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it makes no sense, but there it is."
The cop shifts, his weight redistributing to a more relaxed slouch settled on his heels, and he frowns briefly at the spine of his little volume before dropping down without preamble to join Norah a half-shelf down. In the opposite direction, true, and his legs are longer than hers; still, they might serve as bookends, of a particularly obnoxious kind for passersby. "Makes sense to me," he says. Unassailable logic, yo. "The Federalist Papers, huh? That sounds familiar. John Adams or something?"
"James Madison and Alexander Hamilton," Norah answers, a little bit smug, but trying to temper it with respect. She's respectfully smug. "And John Jay, but he only wrote a handful. But, point of interest, Alexander Hamilton was like John Adams's archnemesis, so there's a connection there. Also, John Adams has been on TV lately." She picks up her hot cocoa again, bringing it to her mouth and taking a drink. "They're not a very interesting to just read straight through, but they're a great resource."
"Close enough for government work," Rossi says, excusing his historical ignorance without noticeable signs of self-reproach. Philistine American. He runs his gaze across the History shelves and flicks his finger, gesturing to -- yes, the John Adams book of fame, Now an Epic Event From HBO Films -- with the self-deprecating, "First thing that came to mind. Plus the whole Federalist thing. History's not my thing," he adds, unnecessarily. Green eyes grin. "At least, not American."
Norah's first reaction is to scold, but checks herself just as she opens her mouth. Cop. Be nice. "You should really think about making history your thing," she finally says, adopting a slightly joking tone instead of a scolding one. "It's awesome. And I really think no police officer should go without a really solid understanding of the constitution, which is what this --" she gestures with the book " -- is all about. I was just reading Federalist number eight, which I think relates to today's more militarized police force --" She pauses herself on the verge of a lecture. "It's good. You know, it's cool." She lifts her shoulders and smiles a little, awkward.
Rossi does not deny the identification of 'cop,' nor does he question it: too easy to spot, given his swagger and the Academy ring that gleams red on his finger. Deliberately provoking, he says, "I know the Miranda Code, and I know the Patriot Act." There's faint mockery in his eyes, a quicksilver glitter that suits the cynical cast of his face. Amusement, too. "What more does any cop need?"
Norah senses that she's being made fun of, but plunges on nonetheless, "An ardent love of liberty and fierce discipline," she says, smiling. But then she can't resist the joke. "Also, I hear you need a gun, a uniform, and to pass some sort of cop school. Maybe, like, a background check. It's not hard, right?"
"If you have a gun and a uniform, who the hell needs cop school or a background check?" Rossi asks, a sardonic flash crossing his face at the first of her comments. Self-directed, that. It fades, leaving lazy humor in its wake. "There're some other things -- psych exam, that sort of crap -- but otherwise, yeah. Liberty and discipline got less to do with it than wanting a steady job, a pension, and being willing to work for it. It's not a calling. It's a paycheck, with decent benefits."
"That's ... cynical," Norah says, her lips pursing as she puzzles at Rossi, thoughtfully. "I mean, understandable, but -- it's still a job that comes with a fairly serious public responsibility. Hm." What /does/ a history enthusiast do when confronted with a cop that doesn't care about the constitution? She's stumped, deciding upon a correct course of action. "Oh, and don't worry, by the way, I'm not one of those crazy people that thinks that because they pay taxes, they're your boss. Those people are annoying. I pay taxes to the city of New York, and /they're/ your boss."
Rossi's mouth slants, crooking towards a grin. "Garbage collectors have a pretty serious public responsibility," he says, the Brooklyn accent elongating across the drawled word. He draws one leg up and props his book on it: Ovid, Fasti Book IV from Cambridge University Press. A book that, if judged by its cover, contains an unripe banana. "So do teachers and subway conductors. Cops? Maybe. Only boss who gets my attention anyway is the Cap, and she only gets it because she can rip my ears off my head if she gets pissed. --So what's your story?"
"Garbage collectors never killed anyone in a no-knock raid." Norah just can't let that one go. "And their public responsibility has more to do with /conveniences/ than rights. It is not written anywhere that I have a right to get my garbage taken care of by the city. It just makes it a lot more pleasant to live here." She glances at the book's cover as it tilts towards her, her eyebrows raising in pleasant surprise. "Oh, I'm a high school teacher -- or will be one soon, at any rate. Teaching history and government, if that wasn't obvious." A self-effacing smile sneaks across her face. Yeah, she knows she's obnoxious.
See your obnoxious, raise you native Brooklyn-born cop. "You ever been stuck in the middle of a garbage strike?" Rossi asks, tilting his head back to grin at Norah under thick black lashes, the expression bizarrely boyish for all the hardness of his features. It does much to youthen his face, the silver at his temples notwithstanding. "It'd take the entire NYPD working overtime for a solid month to shut down the city the way one garbage strike walkout could in a week. You're a history buff. You got stuff in those books about sanitation and disease? You should share that with your students."
"You --" Norah raises a finger to point at Rossi -- not really at his chest or in his face, just in his general direction. It's an irritated finger, not a threatening one. "Are -- " She cannot find the word. And she hunts for it for a couple of seconds, long enough that finishing the sentance becomes futile. "Yeah, who are you, anyway?" Note how she declines to talk about garbage.
"Irritating as all fuck?" Rossi suggests, not unkindly. Outright laughter surfaces in his eyes, reflected in the dragging baritone voice though it fails to reach the relaxing line of his mouth. He straightens a little from his slouch against the bookshelf, offering Norah a callused hand etched across the back and fingers with a tapestry of thin white scars. "Chris Rossi. You can call me a shithead if it'll make you feel better. Don't want to keep it in, or you might pop something. You?"
"Cavalier! The word I was looking for is cavalier," Norah says, laughing as she reaches to shake the offered hand with a good solid grip. A job interview grip. "And then I was going to say some stuff after that, too, it was going to be awesome. Oh well. Irritating probably would've worked, too." Upon retrieving her hand, she picks up her hot cocoa again. "Norah Benson. And I'd say you could call me shithead, but ... I'd really rather you didn't. Please don't call me shithead."
This is actually rewarded with an answering laugh, the briefest of sounds that still transforms the man entirely from cynical cop to -- someone far more human and approachable. Man, not Cop. "Shithead's off the table," Rossi promises, sinking back against the bookshelf to mold his spine to its support. His arm, retrieved, settles itself on top of the platform of the Ovid. "I got a lot of other words in my vocabulary. I'll pick something else if I need to. High school teacher, Christ. You licensed to carry?"
Norah laughs as well, a bright, happy peal. She's very pleased that the joke went over the way it was supposed to. "Unfortunately, no," she says when her laughter has faded away. "Apparently public schools are supposed to be a gun-free zone, which is retarded. I did interview at a private school, though, and if I end up working there I might seriously think about it."
"Not that things are all that much better in private schools," Rossi says, wry in professional assessment. His head tips back again to join his spine, his eyelids once more lowering so that his gaze is reduced to slivers of bright green. Curious green, directed at Norah. "They still teach history and government in high schools? Thought it was all--" A hand gestures, aimless. "--Computers and interwebs and ... log cats or something."
"Wow, you're like a cranky granpa," Norah says, her tone teasing. "Are you going to tell me next how life was better in the old days?" He agreed not to call her shithead, she can joke with him now. "Yes, they still teach history and stuff. In fact, I'm hoping to teach the advanced levels, so the kids will have to -- well, they'll have to know who wrote the Federalist Papers was in order to pass." Zing!
Rossi's mouth tugs towards a crooked half-smile. "John Adams, wasn't it? --I was educated by nuns and Jesuits," he thinks to add, lifting the book on his knee to gesture with it. "They were more interested in -- older shit. And teaching me not to say 'shit.' Not in that order. So what's the big deal with history? You just like grubbing around in the past?"
Norah levels a look at Chris, a particularly teachery stare. It suggests that if he is joking about the author of the federalist papers, then it is not funny, and if he really did forget, she feels particularly hopeless about his future. It is a patented look. "Mostly I just like it," she then says, teacher moment passed. "It's an area of study with a lot of -- I don't know -- depth and breadth and application. The past is prologue, like they say. Things just keep coming around. Also, I grew up near Washington, D.C. It's an area designed to deep-fry a person in history and politics and so forth. It's hard to avoid it."
"Always preferred the chorus and the coda," Chris says, propping his head up on three fingers, handily applied to temple, cheek, and jaw. His mouth twitches back towards a smile, or perhaps a grimace; self-mockery flickers again behind his eyes. "I grew up in New York City. It's an area designed to deep-fry a person in crime and mutants and so forth. It's hard to avoid it."
Norah can't really hide a little flicker in her eyes at the mention of mutants, a more keen interest. She redirects it down to her cup of cocoa, however. All gone, so sad. She frowns at the cup and then sets it aside on the shelf. "And so you ended up a cop, and I ended up a history teacher. I guess that solves the nature-nurture conundrum." She smiles wryly. "Nurture for the win."
Chris lifts two fingers, then three, and then thoughtfully lifts another one. He studies their tally with distant interest. "Four generations of cops," he says, and rolls his head, letting his hand drop back to his side with a lifted eyebrow at Norah and a twitch of the mouth for himself. "Nature and nurture. You wade around in history a lot when you were growing up? Or were your parents teachers?"
"Oh, so you were doomed either way, then" Norah says, eyebrows raising. "No free will for you /at all/. No, my parents aren't teachers. They get paid significantly more, I'm the family disappointment. My dad's a liaison for the State Department -- he works mostly with China, busy guy these days -- and my mom interprets for several embassies." She shrugs. "Mostly, I was quiet and awkward, which meant that I read a lot of books, the books led me to history -- so did just living in D.C., like I said -- and I liked it, so I stuck around."
"I'd call that nature," Rossi says. He draws his other leg up, finding that the aisle is too cramped for full extension, and runs splayed fingers through the rumpled wing of his hair. "Your parents try to make history, you teach it -- same game, different team. Like cops and criminals." A lurking smile reappears, directed elsewhere: inward, rather than outward. "My girlfriend teaches history. Taught," he amends. "Who the fuck knows what she's doing now."
Aaand click. He's /that/ Chris. There have been e-mails. Norah's eyes widen with recognition. "Oh! Are you the Chris that Ms. Munroe is dating? Was dating? I'm not really sure of the current status on that. Or if you're the right person." She squints a little at him, sizing him up. Her expression seems skeptical; maybe he's not the person she thinks he is.
'Was' makes Rossi's eyebrow slide up, quizzical. "Is," he says, "unless I missed a phone call. Yeah, I'm dating Cadbury. You know her?" There's new appraisal in the squint he directs towards Norah, as though somewhere on her person there might be a label: Xavier Graduate, perhaps, Beware - Here Be Dragons. "Let me guess. You're one of Chuck's graduates?"
"Huh," Norah says, peering at Rossi again. She just can't juggle the pieces together in her mind to make them fit, it seems. "I thought you'd be different. And you call her Cadbury?" She hesitates, then, but the cat's already about three-quarters of the way out of the bag, just through association. "Yeah, sort of. I was only there for a year, and I stayed out of the way and out of trouble."
"Cadbury eggs. Dark chocolate on the outside," Rossi explains, his mouth quirking. "Creamy filling. I was on drugs when I came up with that one, I swear. --Out of the way and out of trouble doesn't sound normal for that nuthouse, but Christ, maybe you weren't there long enough to end up a disaster. Small world. Hey," he says amiably, flicking his fingers in an offhand gesture. "I'm your neighborhood MA cop. Nice to meet you."
"Hey, I was a good kid," Norah says, defensively. "Honestly, I didn't start breaking the law until college. Um, nice to meet you too, I guess." She looks a little unsettled, clearly unsure of what to make of this new development. "Oh, and Ororo, like, just barely got back into town. So she's picking up the history teaching thing again."
Eyebrows rise. Back in town. "Really?" Rossi says, surprised, then grimaces. Eyes tighten in a quick pinch of irritation, then relax, though the telltale signs that the mood has not left are there for the observant to see, in the shift of shoulders and small tension of jaw. "Well, fuck," he says agreeably. "Maybe 'was' is the right word."
Well, Norah stepped right into that, didn't she? "I don't think it's was," she quickly assures. "I mean, I know I'm the one who /said/ was, but it was a question, and the only reason that gave me any doubt at all was that you didn't know she was back. When she talked about you it was totally in an "is" sort of way. I'm sure she's going to get in touch any minute now. Seriously, she like, just came back very recently."
Uh huh. Rossi's eyebrows are slowly lowering; his glance at Norah is made smoky by the frown couched behind it. Her hasty assurance sparks amusement, at least. "Don't worry about it," he says, and his mouth slides back towards the earlier smile, less humorous but still easy for all the sense of restless physicality stretching beyond the boundaries of the body. "We're pretty casual as it is. She probably has a lot of shit to clean up now that she's back."
"No worrying," Norah agrees, nodding. "And that is the usual state of things at the school; there's always something to clean up." She pauses, breathes out slowly. "Well, anyway, I should probably head out before I break my resolution not to buy anything here. But it was nice to meet you, shithead." She grins brightly. He /did/ give her permission to call him that. "Seeya later." She picks up her empty cocoa cup and deposits her book back on the shelf before leaving.
Rossi may be buying his. He remains lazily seated on the floor, redistributing himself to sit at an angle now that there is no reason to respect Norah's space. One leg extends itself to its full stretch. "Later, platypus," he says cordially, lifting his chin in acknowledgment before cracking open the small book. Greek on one side. English on the other. He squints down at the pages, rakes a hand through his hair, and begins to read.
[Log ends]
=NYC= Wee Book Inn - Greenwich Village - Manhattan
Warm and cozy, this place is well-named. The walls are a simple white and the carpet is an average blue, for most people never give them a second glance. What attracts attention are the shelves upon shelves of books that fill this store, overflowing with literature -- all used but in near-perfect condition, for the Inn has high standards. You want it? They probably have it. They sell harlequin romances, young adult novels, fiction and non-fiction, thick historical books, horror and mystery and erotica, roleplaying guides, children's picture or activity books, and the Harvard Classics and individual collections of all the authors therein. At the back is the reading area, only reached by passing the counter with the owner and his register, ensuring that only those with their own novels or ones that have just been paid for are brought in. The reading areas has several couches, armchairs and lamps, and is where the Inn's resident rumpled tabbycat -- Milo -- spends most of his time, curled up in the lap of whoever will let him sleep on them. An addition to the back area, a coffee bar serves coffee, iced drinks, cookies and scones.
Norah
Norah hardly sticks out in a crowd -- in fact, your eyes might just glaze right over her. She's in her early twenties, of average height. Her frame is padded with just a little extra fat, not due to gluttony but mere indolence. She's not fat; she's just not in shape either. What might be a classic hourglass figure is marred by a tendancy to the hips, though not enough to incite jokes or stares.
Her hair is dark brown and inclined to unruly waves, frizzing a little in humid weather. It's kept long, about shoulder-blade length, though with a side bang cut across her forehead. Norah's skin is naturally pale, though dotted liberally with freckles across her nose and cheeks (and a few old acne scars, slow to fade completely). Her teeth are straight and even enough to be the evident work of braces.
She's currently wearing a sky blue A-line skirt, striped diagonally with white and yellow, and a crisp white collared shirt and a yellow cardigan.
Norah does not have any extra money to buy more books. She already splurged and bought one here just a couple weeks ago. There is no need for another. But she was in the area, and couldn't resist the lure of at least stopping in the little shop for the evening. She's settled down on the floor of the history section, jeans-clad legs sprawled into the corridor between the shelves, back propped against a shelf, reading a book. Oh, sure, there are couches and armchairs for that, but what if she decided a few pages in that she wanted to read a different book? A cup of hot chocolate from the little bar rests on the floor by her hip.
There is no excuse for Det. Chris Rossi of the NYPD to be in Wee Book Inn, off-shift hours though it may be for him; the NYPD is not noted for its classical education and yet, there he stands in the religion and philosophy aisle, pulling heavy, indigestible books off the shelves -- Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology, Scripture and Metaphysics, John Duns Scotus -- and then pushing them back again with a restless poke. One book already distends his pocket, its outline distinct against the thin leather of his coat. Claiming an inexplicably misplaced copy of Aesop's Fables, he shoves off and rounds the corner. History. Classics. And -- "/Fuck/." -- near-disaster.
There is a cup of hot chocolate on the floor. The detective stops short, sways, overbalanced, and leaps a hastily long-legged hurdle over Norah's legs.
At the sound of the expletive, Norah's eyes flick upwards, her hand automatically moving to protect the hot chocolate from spillage. It's too chocolatey to waste on the carpet! She squeezes back against the shelf of books as the detective leaps, mouth drawing down in a wince. "Yikes. Sorry about that," she apologizes. "I probably shouldn't be taking up the whole aisle." You think?
"Not a problem," Rossi says, regaining his balance with relative quickness. Dignity (such as it is) follows hard on its heels, less innate; the glance down at her is green-eyed, briefly annoyed, but in the passing fashion that is more form than substance. "Should've been watching where I was going. I get your drink?" He stretches an arm as he speaks, shoving the Aesop's Fable book onto the shelves without bothering overmuch about the correctness of its classification. It is old. Classics are old. Hence it is a classic.
"No, you didn't," Norah answers, shaking her head. She pauses for a second, taking in his appearance. One can almost see a wheel spin in her mind and then settle on "cop". She immediately collects herself, drawing her legs in and moving to stand up. It's a bit tricky, what with trying to keep her finger in "The Federalist" where it was and pick up the drink at the same time. She manages, though. "You, uh, looking for anything in particular?"
Rossi pats his pocket, where the thick book smacks nicely hollow against his palm. "Got what I wanted," he says, running his gaze along the shelves -- Classics still, not History -- before he relocates the Fables, and plucks a completely different book off the shelves. Green and yellow in a peculiarly garish cover, it is a small volume that he turns in his hands, speculative, before glancing back down to Norah. Eyebrows rise quizzically. "They got couches over there."
"But I wasn't sure I wanted to read The Federalist Papers," Norah explains, setting her cocoa onto a shelf so she can shift the book in her hands. "And so what if I walked all the way over there and then had to come right back?" She seems confident in her unassailable logic. "Also, I feel guilty using the chairs, because I'm honestly not planning on buying a book tonight. I feel better reading a book I'm not going to buy if at least I'm uncomfortable while doing so." She laughs a slightly embarrassed laugh. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it makes no sense, but there it is."
The cop shifts, his weight redistributing to a more relaxed slouch settled on his heels, and he frowns briefly at the spine of his little volume before dropping down without preamble to join Norah a half-shelf down. In the opposite direction, true, and his legs are longer than hers; still, they might serve as bookends, of a particularly obnoxious kind for passersby. "Makes sense to me," he says. Unassailable logic, yo. "The Federalist Papers, huh? That sounds familiar. John Adams or something?"
"James Madison and Alexander Hamilton," Norah answers, a little bit smug, but trying to temper it with respect. She's respectfully smug. "And John Jay, but he only wrote a handful. But, point of interest, Alexander Hamilton was like John Adams's archnemesis, so there's a connection there. Also, John Adams has been on TV lately." She picks up her hot cocoa again, bringing it to her mouth and taking a drink. "They're not a very interesting to just read straight through, but they're a great resource."
"Close enough for government work," Rossi says, excusing his historical ignorance without noticeable signs of self-reproach. Philistine American. He runs his gaze across the History shelves and flicks his finger, gesturing to -- yes, the John Adams book of fame, Now an Epic Event From HBO Films -- with the self-deprecating, "First thing that came to mind. Plus the whole Federalist thing. History's not my thing," he adds, unnecessarily. Green eyes grin. "At least, not American."
Norah's first reaction is to scold, but checks herself just as she opens her mouth. Cop. Be nice. "You should really think about making history your thing," she finally says, adopting a slightly joking tone instead of a scolding one. "It's awesome. And I really think no police officer should go without a really solid understanding of the constitution, which is what this --" she gestures with the book " -- is all about. I was just reading Federalist number eight, which I think relates to today's more militarized police force --" She pauses herself on the verge of a lecture. "It's good. You know, it's cool." She lifts her shoulders and smiles a little, awkward.
Rossi does not deny the identification of 'cop,' nor does he question it: too easy to spot, given his swagger and the Academy ring that gleams red on his finger. Deliberately provoking, he says, "I know the Miranda Code, and I know the Patriot Act." There's faint mockery in his eyes, a quicksilver glitter that suits the cynical cast of his face. Amusement, too. "What more does any cop need?"
Norah senses that she's being made fun of, but plunges on nonetheless, "An ardent love of liberty and fierce discipline," she says, smiling. But then she can't resist the joke. "Also, I hear you need a gun, a uniform, and to pass some sort of cop school. Maybe, like, a background check. It's not hard, right?"
"If you have a gun and a uniform, who the hell needs cop school or a background check?" Rossi asks, a sardonic flash crossing his face at the first of her comments. Self-directed, that. It fades, leaving lazy humor in its wake. "There're some other things -- psych exam, that sort of crap -- but otherwise, yeah. Liberty and discipline got less to do with it than wanting a steady job, a pension, and being willing to work for it. It's not a calling. It's a paycheck, with decent benefits."
"That's ... cynical," Norah says, her lips pursing as she puzzles at Rossi, thoughtfully. "I mean, understandable, but -- it's still a job that comes with a fairly serious public responsibility. Hm." What /does/ a history enthusiast do when confronted with a cop that doesn't care about the constitution? She's stumped, deciding upon a correct course of action. "Oh, and don't worry, by the way, I'm not one of those crazy people that thinks that because they pay taxes, they're your boss. Those people are annoying. I pay taxes to the city of New York, and /they're/ your boss."
Rossi's mouth slants, crooking towards a grin. "Garbage collectors have a pretty serious public responsibility," he says, the Brooklyn accent elongating across the drawled word. He draws one leg up and props his book on it: Ovid, Fasti Book IV from Cambridge University Press. A book that, if judged by its cover, contains an unripe banana. "So do teachers and subway conductors. Cops? Maybe. Only boss who gets my attention anyway is the Cap, and she only gets it because she can rip my ears off my head if she gets pissed. --So what's your story?"
"Garbage collectors never killed anyone in a no-knock raid." Norah just can't let that one go. "And their public responsibility has more to do with /conveniences/ than rights. It is not written anywhere that I have a right to get my garbage taken care of by the city. It just makes it a lot more pleasant to live here." She glances at the book's cover as it tilts towards her, her eyebrows raising in pleasant surprise. "Oh, I'm a high school teacher -- or will be one soon, at any rate. Teaching history and government, if that wasn't obvious." A self-effacing smile sneaks across her face. Yeah, she knows she's obnoxious.
See your obnoxious, raise you native Brooklyn-born cop. "You ever been stuck in the middle of a garbage strike?" Rossi asks, tilting his head back to grin at Norah under thick black lashes, the expression bizarrely boyish for all the hardness of his features. It does much to youthen his face, the silver at his temples notwithstanding. "It'd take the entire NYPD working overtime for a solid month to shut down the city the way one garbage strike walkout could in a week. You're a history buff. You got stuff in those books about sanitation and disease? You should share that with your students."
"You --" Norah raises a finger to point at Rossi -- not really at his chest or in his face, just in his general direction. It's an irritated finger, not a threatening one. "Are -- " She cannot find the word. And she hunts for it for a couple of seconds, long enough that finishing the sentance becomes futile. "Yeah, who are you, anyway?" Note how she declines to talk about garbage.
"Irritating as all fuck?" Rossi suggests, not unkindly. Outright laughter surfaces in his eyes, reflected in the dragging baritone voice though it fails to reach the relaxing line of his mouth. He straightens a little from his slouch against the bookshelf, offering Norah a callused hand etched across the back and fingers with a tapestry of thin white scars. "Chris Rossi. You can call me a shithead if it'll make you feel better. Don't want to keep it in, or you might pop something. You?"
"Cavalier! The word I was looking for is cavalier," Norah says, laughing as she reaches to shake the offered hand with a good solid grip. A job interview grip. "And then I was going to say some stuff after that, too, it was going to be awesome. Oh well. Irritating probably would've worked, too." Upon retrieving her hand, she picks up her hot cocoa again. "Norah Benson. And I'd say you could call me shithead, but ... I'd really rather you didn't. Please don't call me shithead."
This is actually rewarded with an answering laugh, the briefest of sounds that still transforms the man entirely from cynical cop to -- someone far more human and approachable. Man, not Cop. "Shithead's off the table," Rossi promises, sinking back against the bookshelf to mold his spine to its support. His arm, retrieved, settles itself on top of the platform of the Ovid. "I got a lot of other words in my vocabulary. I'll pick something else if I need to. High school teacher, Christ. You licensed to carry?"
Norah laughs as well, a bright, happy peal. She's very pleased that the joke went over the way it was supposed to. "Unfortunately, no," she says when her laughter has faded away. "Apparently public schools are supposed to be a gun-free zone, which is retarded. I did interview at a private school, though, and if I end up working there I might seriously think about it."
"Not that things are all that much better in private schools," Rossi says, wry in professional assessment. His head tips back again to join his spine, his eyelids once more lowering so that his gaze is reduced to slivers of bright green. Curious green, directed at Norah. "They still teach history and government in high schools? Thought it was all--" A hand gestures, aimless. "--Computers and interwebs and ... log cats or something."
"Wow, you're like a cranky granpa," Norah says, her tone teasing. "Are you going to tell me next how life was better in the old days?" He agreed not to call her shithead, she can joke with him now. "Yes, they still teach history and stuff. In fact, I'm hoping to teach the advanced levels, so the kids will have to -- well, they'll have to know who wrote the Federalist Papers was in order to pass." Zing!
Rossi's mouth tugs towards a crooked half-smile. "John Adams, wasn't it? --I was educated by nuns and Jesuits," he thinks to add, lifting the book on his knee to gesture with it. "They were more interested in -- older shit. And teaching me not to say 'shit.' Not in that order. So what's the big deal with history? You just like grubbing around in the past?"
Norah levels a look at Chris, a particularly teachery stare. It suggests that if he is joking about the author of the federalist papers, then it is not funny, and if he really did forget, she feels particularly hopeless about his future. It is a patented look. "Mostly I just like it," she then says, teacher moment passed. "It's an area of study with a lot of -- I don't know -- depth and breadth and application. The past is prologue, like they say. Things just keep coming around. Also, I grew up near Washington, D.C. It's an area designed to deep-fry a person in history and politics and so forth. It's hard to avoid it."
"Always preferred the chorus and the coda," Chris says, propping his head up on three fingers, handily applied to temple, cheek, and jaw. His mouth twitches back towards a smile, or perhaps a grimace; self-mockery flickers again behind his eyes. "I grew up in New York City. It's an area designed to deep-fry a person in crime and mutants and so forth. It's hard to avoid it."
Norah can't really hide a little flicker in her eyes at the mention of mutants, a more keen interest. She redirects it down to her cup of cocoa, however. All gone, so sad. She frowns at the cup and then sets it aside on the shelf. "And so you ended up a cop, and I ended up a history teacher. I guess that solves the nature-nurture conundrum." She smiles wryly. "Nurture for the win."
Chris lifts two fingers, then three, and then thoughtfully lifts another one. He studies their tally with distant interest. "Four generations of cops," he says, and rolls his head, letting his hand drop back to his side with a lifted eyebrow at Norah and a twitch of the mouth for himself. "Nature and nurture. You wade around in history a lot when you were growing up? Or were your parents teachers?"
"Oh, so you were doomed either way, then" Norah says, eyebrows raising. "No free will for you /at all/. No, my parents aren't teachers. They get paid significantly more, I'm the family disappointment. My dad's a liaison for the State Department -- he works mostly with China, busy guy these days -- and my mom interprets for several embassies." She shrugs. "Mostly, I was quiet and awkward, which meant that I read a lot of books, the books led me to history -- so did just living in D.C., like I said -- and I liked it, so I stuck around."
"I'd call that nature," Rossi says. He draws his other leg up, finding that the aisle is too cramped for full extension, and runs splayed fingers through the rumpled wing of his hair. "Your parents try to make history, you teach it -- same game, different team. Like cops and criminals." A lurking smile reappears, directed elsewhere: inward, rather than outward. "My girlfriend teaches history. Taught," he amends. "Who the fuck knows what she's doing now."
Aaand click. He's /that/ Chris. There have been e-mails. Norah's eyes widen with recognition. "Oh! Are you the Chris that Ms. Munroe is dating? Was dating? I'm not really sure of the current status on that. Or if you're the right person." She squints a little at him, sizing him up. Her expression seems skeptical; maybe he's not the person she thinks he is.
'Was' makes Rossi's eyebrow slide up, quizzical. "Is," he says, "unless I missed a phone call. Yeah, I'm dating Cadbury. You know her?" There's new appraisal in the squint he directs towards Norah, as though somewhere on her person there might be a label: Xavier Graduate, perhaps, Beware - Here Be Dragons. "Let me guess. You're one of Chuck's graduates?"
"Huh," Norah says, peering at Rossi again. She just can't juggle the pieces together in her mind to make them fit, it seems. "I thought you'd be different. And you call her Cadbury?" She hesitates, then, but the cat's already about three-quarters of the way out of the bag, just through association. "Yeah, sort of. I was only there for a year, and I stayed out of the way and out of trouble."
"Cadbury eggs. Dark chocolate on the outside," Rossi explains, his mouth quirking. "Creamy filling. I was on drugs when I came up with that one, I swear. --Out of the way and out of trouble doesn't sound normal for that nuthouse, but Christ, maybe you weren't there long enough to end up a disaster. Small world. Hey," he says amiably, flicking his fingers in an offhand gesture. "I'm your neighborhood MA cop. Nice to meet you."
"Hey, I was a good kid," Norah says, defensively. "Honestly, I didn't start breaking the law until college. Um, nice to meet you too, I guess." She looks a little unsettled, clearly unsure of what to make of this new development. "Oh, and Ororo, like, just barely got back into town. So she's picking up the history teaching thing again."
Eyebrows rise. Back in town. "Really?" Rossi says, surprised, then grimaces. Eyes tighten in a quick pinch of irritation, then relax, though the telltale signs that the mood has not left are there for the observant to see, in the shift of shoulders and small tension of jaw. "Well, fuck," he says agreeably. "Maybe 'was' is the right word."
Well, Norah stepped right into that, didn't she? "I don't think it's was," she quickly assures. "I mean, I know I'm the one who /said/ was, but it was a question, and the only reason that gave me any doubt at all was that you didn't know she was back. When she talked about you it was totally in an "is" sort of way. I'm sure she's going to get in touch any minute now. Seriously, she like, just came back very recently."
Uh huh. Rossi's eyebrows are slowly lowering; his glance at Norah is made smoky by the frown couched behind it. Her hasty assurance sparks amusement, at least. "Don't worry about it," he says, and his mouth slides back towards the earlier smile, less humorous but still easy for all the sense of restless physicality stretching beyond the boundaries of the body. "We're pretty casual as it is. She probably has a lot of shit to clean up now that she's back."
"No worrying," Norah agrees, nodding. "And that is the usual state of things at the school; there's always something to clean up." She pauses, breathes out slowly. "Well, anyway, I should probably head out before I break my resolution not to buy anything here. But it was nice to meet you, shithead." She grins brightly. He /did/ give her permission to call him that. "Seeya later." She picks up her empty cocoa cup and deposits her book back on the shelf before leaving.
Rossi may be buying his. He remains lazily seated on the floor, redistributing himself to sit at an angle now that there is no reason to respect Norah's space. One leg extends itself to its full stretch. "Later, platypus," he says cordially, lifting his chin in acknowledgment before cracking open the small book. Greek on one side. English on the other. He squints down at the pages, rakes a hand through his hair, and begins to read.
[Log ends]