We could do interesting things together (tag Zara). on Library

Jessica Hayles

September 28, 2019 10:32 PM

We could do interesting things together (tag Zara). by Jessica Hayles

Jessica had filed away what Felipe had told her about Zara at the Returning Feast, but had made no effort to go out of her way to act on it. For one thing, it was only of minor importance - she and Zara, as children stuck in the middle of nowhere, couldn't really do anything, only suggest it to their parents. For another thing, she told herself, she was simply not the sort of person to go out of her way for much.

This was, of course, a much more appealing line of thought than the idea that she was simply frightened of making first moves with anyone, but especially anyone here, where she lacked the power of a large and well-connected family behind her to ensure she would be treated with respect. The feeling of absolute safety and security in her place in the world was not the thing she missed most about her old life, but it was definitely still in the top ten. She could talk to anyone she wanted to - when she had time to spare for conversation, of course - at home, because she knew it was extremely unlikely that anyone there was going to be mean to her.

The information about Zara, however, was in her head, and presented itself whenever she saw Zara, such as today, in the library.

This talking-to-people-who-didn't-speak-to-her-first-or-know-who-her-grandpa-was thing would, she thought, be so much easier if there was a fixed meaning to each of the more common ways Black women and lesbians wore their hair - if it really was always political or something, instead of maybe-political, maybe-preferential, maybe-something-else. It would make it much easier for her to tailor her approaches, if she always knew what message was being sent by someone who might or might not be automatically hostile to a paper-white, highly feminine cosmetics heiress. Fair was fair, though; Jessica didn't think there really was a stereotype for people like her, which left everyone to make whatever guesses they could based on things like her clothes and whether or not they could tell that her brows and lashes were tinted through art instead of by nature.

She had enough faith in her own abilities to trust that her eyebrows and eyelashes looked reasonably natural, however, which meant that if Zara was opposed to altering one's appearance, she might not immediately pick up that Jessica did. Not that it mattered much, of course, considering who Jessica was; altering people's appearances was kind of her family's thing. Anyone who couldn't work with that was not someone she expected to have a second conversation with. With that thought in mind, she approached.

"Hi," she said. "May I sit?"

Once seated, she said, "sorry to interrupt you, but I've really been wanting to ask about what your family does - this cultural center thing Felipe told me you have. Is now a good time to do that?"

This was more or less how she imagined her father would handle this interaction. Why, then, did it feel like she was somehow being a bit of a dork here?

OOC: Jessica's assumption that lesbians and women of color are more likely than white heterosexual ciswomen to be hostile to make-up is entirely her own, for the record.

16 Jessica Hayles We could do interesting things together (tag Zara). 1442 Jessica Hayles 1 5

Zara Jackson

September 30, 2019 10:41 AM

I'm listening... by Zara Jackson

Zara was sitting at a table in the library, her hair tamed down into the deeply political style of French braids, for the very personal reason of it really needed Dealing With but she hadn’t had time, and also that kept it out of her way. She was sketching out a really bad copy of a flutterby bush when Jessica approached.

Jessica was on Zara's radar in only the minutest increment above the default expected for being in the same small class in a pretty small school. That reason was Felipe. Zara had seen them have meals together or work together in class a few times. They seemed to be friends. That was cool. She was glad Felipe got on well with one of his housemates. It also meant she was willing to give Jessica a smidgen more credit than she might have done otherwise, as she tended to trust Felipe's judgement and she assumed he wouldn't befriend someone completely awful. Zara was not against the idea of getting to know Jessica better either, although she had not been motivated to exert any particular effort on this front. Just because they both got on with Felipe, it didn't necessarily mean that they would get on with each other - perhaps the areas of their personalities that allowed each of them to get on with Felipe overlapped with utterly differing elements of his own, like a Venn Diagram. She had not seen anything to make her think Jessica would be thrilling company, but equally she wasn't disappointed when the other girl approached her in the library.

“Sure,” she nodded, when Jessica asked if she could sit with her. “Just working on some plant diagrams,” she nodded at the herbology homework that was spread out in front of her, being glad that they weren’t marked on artistic merit. Her diagrams were clear and their labels were all going to the right places, and that was what counted.

“Oh, no problem - definitely no problem,” she smiled, her face breaking out into something like real enthusiasm as Jessica announced the reason for her visit. Her smile, with its little gap between her front teeth, faltered only slightly as she realised she didn’t know what kind of talk Jessica wanted to have with her, but again, there was the base level of trust that was established by the fact Felipe had introduced the subject to Jessica. Zara assumed that if her reaction had been horrible, Felipe would have done something about it. That, of course, wouldn’t stop Jessica coming to talk to her, unless it was supergluing her mouth shut, but again, probability suggested this was a nice visit. “What did you want to know? And what angle are you coming at it from?” she asked, so she knew how to pitch the information she delivered.

13 Zara Jackson I'm listening... 1444 Zara Jackson 0 5

Jessica

September 30, 2019 5:56 PM

Fab! Now I want to do that. by Jessica

Jessica's lightly pencilled brows drew together slightly at the questions she was asked. Angle. Well, at least they were speaking a language that sounded like one she knew something about. She wished that she knew for sure that it wasn't a false cognate, though....

"I'm interested in knowing more about it generally," she said. "And whether or not it's something I - well, my family - might be able to help with in some way."

It only occurred to her after she said that that it was possible she sounded a little crazy. Most people were not from families which could actually do much of anything, and why should Zara assume Jessica wasn't part of 'most people'? That was the problem with a uniformed school that drew from all of society. Jessica was used to people knowing who she was, or at least what she was. It was still so odd to be just...some girl.

"I should probably explain," she acknowledged. "Have you ever heard of Arvale Cosmetics? It's a...Muggle - " the word still sounded strange and stupid when she said it - "make-up brand? My great-grandma started it," she explained. "Education and cultural awareness have always been super important to us, but most of what I've read about - society - here made me think there...really wasn't any place here for anything I have to offer. It seems a lot of wizards, um, kind of don't like people like me," she said, looking for a moment at her perfectly varnished nails before deliberately raising her brown eyes again. "Just glad I haven't met any of them for myself yet," she added with a smile.

"From what Felipe was saying, though, it sounds like what your family's into might be something we could get involved with," she added, back to perky optimism. "'Muggle cultural' is pretty broad, though, so I was hoping I could hear more details."

16 Jessica Fab! Now I want to do that. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Zara

October 01, 2019 4:02 AM

Great, I'm good at talking by Zara

Help was not the kind of thing Zara expected to be offered. She expected to either be told her family was trash or to hear that this person had just been dropped into this world and was struggling to cope.The latter seemed to be more of what was happening, there was definitely more than a hint of that as Jessica talked, though the less charitable part of Zara wondered whether the little princess had real moral objections and political views here or was just thrown by the idea that someone might not automatically love her precious little self. She had heard, for sure, of Arvale cosmetics, and her own utterly unmanicured eyebrows had made a considerable move towards her hairline at hearing that… well, basically the girl in front of her had just said ‘daddy owns the company.’ It was hard not to imagine that a certain type of personality went with what Jessica had just said.

Still, from what Jessica was saying, her family seemed to possibly okay, at least politically speaking. If Jessica thought they might enter into reasonable dialogue with a family like Zara’s, that at least put them a long way ahead of a lot of others. It was a bit odd that Jessica was talking like she and Zara might be choosing the directions of their respective institutions. Sure, it was a possible future to get involved in the Center, but eleven year olds did not go around making deals. This was so outside of her scope of experience that she more parsed the question as Jessica wanting to know about what the center did, and that the other girl just framed her questions in a really odd, overly formal kind of way.

“Okay,” she nodded, deciding to just focus on the intro spiel version of things and take it from there, “Well, first off we say ‘non-magical.’ The word ‘Muggle’... well, its origins are disputed but one suggestion that it comes from a ‘mug’ - someone who is easily fooled or hoodwinked. And it’s just… even if that’s not accurate, it’s such a dehumanising word. Of course, plenty of Muggleborns still use that word, and we’re not in the business of telling people what they should or shouldn’t be called. But the point is, if it’s personal choice, there should be a choice, not just the words that are handed to you by the people who are trying to keep you down. While we’re at it, I am not ‘halfblood’ - I am not half of anything, or missing anything,” she stated pointedly and fiercely, “So, there’s magical-heritage, non-magical heritage and dual or mixed heritage.

“The Center aims to serve both communities - magical and non-magical - as much as it can. Obviously the non-magical side can’t know we exist, but people of non-magical heritage who still want to access and celebrate their culture, or who need help knowing how to integrate their identities and be part of the wizarding world… We have access to phones and computers, and we screen movies - just a couple of examples but like… little things, that it’s hard to keep access to when you’re magical. It’s nice for people to be able to call extended family, who maybe can’t know so much about them being magical, or to just… go on dates the way they always imagined they would, especially if they’re dating a magical person and want to introduce them to their culture. We also do a lot to try to educate the magical community. We have an exhibition space and we also teach classes so they can learn about non-magical things.” That was the main info. She wasn’t really sure if it was what Jessica wanted to know. She wasn’t used enough to thinking in business terms to bring it back round to Jessica’s offer of partnership and help. “Any questions?” she asked instead.

13 Zara Great, I'm good at talking 1444 Zara 0 5

Jessica

October 01, 2019 12:33 PM

And I've been to some active listening seminars. by Jessica

Listening was something Jessica had been quite literally taught to do - Daddy had brought her to active listening seminars a few times and insisted she take notes. She was also expected to read books for girls about how to perform various roles to win friends and influence people, and she was quizzed on them. She had always done very well on the quizzes and was deemed likable by most adults she performed for, too, which was why it puzzled Daddy that she had really never had intimate friends her own age other than her sister.

Jessica couldn't answer that one, either. She did everything just right - she actively listened, she never complained (or hadn't, before Sonora), she was always cheerful and optimistic (on the surface), she worked hard on every project and in every club, but every year, she ended up sitting in a little pool of solitude at her birthday parties while everyone else around her had a good time, and often felt sad when writing the polite little notes to thank them for coming to her party afterward. It was pathetic, and one reason why she secretly preferred things like this, where she wasn't expected to do anything other than perform.

And so perform she did. She nodded when the etymology of the stupid-sounding word for normal people was explained, then again when Zara remembered that of course it wasn't her place to tell anyone else what to call themselves. She briefly slipped when Zara got animated on the subject of not being 'half-blood' - she sat back slightly, half-raising her hands to indicate that she had not intended to insist, or indeed really remembered having run across the term before - but quickly got her game back on point, aside from a flash of surprise at the casual mention of telephones.

That filthy old hag, she thought, flashing back for a moment to that first awful full day here and the moment she had realized they really were either so backward that she couldn't contact her parents or else so determined to keep her institutionalized that they were pretending. It took an effort of will to stop her hands from fishing her tinted balm out of her handbag and applying it just to help force the old anger and panic back down. One did briefly rise and run over the delicate plique-a-jour ivy leaves of her necklace, but she forced it back down, too.

"That seems pretty straightforward," she said as Zara finished up. "What sort of exhibits and classes do you have? I'm sure I could get Daddy to loan things for - I don't know - how advertising and business work for us, or get something from Grandpa about culture and history in the South." Daddy, though Jessica tried not to admit it, was only second generation Georgian and so basically still an outsider to a lot of people. God knew how he'd managed to marry Rosalie Groves, whose grandfather was probably the first member of their family to even count as halfway reconstructed. Maybe Mommy's jokes about the Louboutin allowance weren't really jokes at all, though Grammy didn't exactly wear cheap shoes, either. "He knows it's driving me crazy, not being able to do anything because of - well - " she shrugged.

16 Jessica And I've been to some active listening seminars. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Zara

October 03, 2019 5:16 PM

That's....neat by Zara

Jessica seemed to be genuinely interested. Apparently Zara’s tone of voice was a little too much for her at one point. Zara’s heart bled for her. It had to be really hard hearing how casual racism had upset another human. Still, in terms of blood status, Jessica was now in the same boat as her, kind of. She should probably get used to getting angry about it. As far as Zara was concerned, there was no point censoring your feelings for people who were trying to spit on you. It pissed her off that people were like that, and their attitude was crappy and inexcusable in this century. They deserved to know it.

“We try to keep our topics varied,” she answered, “Arts and sciences I guess covers a lot of it, but that covers such a huge range of things. For the exhibits, I mean. The classes are around using tech, handling money, transport… Life skills stuff,” she shrugged. She was aware it sounded kind of dumb to someone who had grown up with it that someone might need lessons in how to operate a ticket machine but well, if Jessica thought that way she could go suck it. If you didn’t grow up with stuff, it could be hard to get your head around, and if Jessica was going to be patronising towards magical people who struggled to use a telephone, she was little better than the Purebloods who tried to put her down. The only advantage that Jessica had was that she was being a butthole purely of her own, independent volition rather than representing systematic oppression. She wasn’t showing signs of that, but Zara was wary. She’d met enough buttholes on both sides to be cautious.

“I guess he’d need to talk to my dad about that,” she shrugged, when Jessica offered what sounded like some really boring, and probably super white exhibition subjects. Zara wasn’t quite sure they fit with the general vibe of the center but she wasn’t the one in charge, so it wasn’t up to her to judge. Still, if Jessica wanted to play brand ambassador grown ups with her, Zara was more than capable of giving her a fair run for her money. “We try to keep our exhibitions pretty diverse and intersectional,” she added, “How well do you feel your materials would fit with that ethos?” she challenged.

13 Zara That's....neat 1444 Zara 0 5

Jessica

October 04, 2019 2:33 PM

Everything about my life used to be very tidy. by Jessica

'Diverse' and 'intersectional' were words that Jessica was familiar with, broadly, though not from home. Instead, those were concepts she had picked up mostly from times she had been allowed to sit in on meetings with PR or the Advertising department.

The concepts were actually fairly grim, and she knew they annoyed Daddy in particular - it cost money, a lot of money, to walk the line between pissing off the people who really cared about those concepts and pissing off the people who had been using Arvale for decades, and one wrong move could lead to pissing off both groups, with a painful impact on their profits. However, Jessica had always loved sitting in on Advertising more than any other department. Part of that, of course, was probably that it was easiest for Advert to humor her - to ask, with a straight face, what she thought about their work, and to listen with straight faces as a six-year-old girl tried her best to echo whatever it was her father had said, all while still clinging to her coloring book and pencils. More than that, though, was that she found advertising fascinating. It really was an art form, to appeal to the broadest audience possible while, ideally, not obviously pandering to anyone at all.

"The political side of the family probably doesn't," she said matter-of-factly. "They've been on the right sides of things, but Grandpa and the Governor and Uncle Jason - well, I guess Uncle Jason isn't an old white guy, but...yeah. Though Uncle Jason would kill me if I didn't say that knowing how to participate in your democracy is an important life skill," she added. "High turnout was really important to his campaign."

"Still, art and science - that's Arvale all the way. Ooh, I bet if we sent someone down to SCAD, they could - get someone to make an art piece using product for materials, sounds like the kind of thing they'd go for...."

Abruptly, though, her face fell. "Except they'd probably want to see the installation, and as far as everyone at the company knows, I'm dying and you don't exist," she said. "So this whole conversation was a complete waste of time. Sorry about that." God, she hated this place so much. "I might be able to get Daddy to give you some money anyway, maybe," she added, feeling compelled to not offer someone something and then just completely drop the possibility. Seemed rude, somehow, when she hadn't been treated rudely first.

16 Jessica Everything about my life used to be very tidy. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Zara

October 12, 2019 7:31 AM

You are strange by Zara

Zara barely had time to process the things Jessica was saying - to wonder whether that was 'right' as in 'correct' or as in 'wing,' and to wonder what the point was of smearing make up on a canvas and calling it 'art' - before Jessica was declaring that none of this mattered and it was all a waste of time. Well, geez, that was nice. Zara was still not entirely sure what Jessica had wanted to get from her, but it was clear enough she was trying to get something. But that she had just realised that she wasn't going to get it, and thus Zara was a waste of breath. She was still vaguely trying to say she'd get her daddy to throw some money at the situation. Uh-huh.

She was vaguely annoyed at Jessica talking at her in this way - there was obviously some kind of melodrama in her life where people thought she was dying. Zara was torn between curiosity about what the heck was going on there (well, vague guess, Statute if Secrecy Issues). She got that, on the surface of it, Jessica was someone she should care about helping. She was having trouble transitioning to her new life or whatever. But the thing was, that wasn't Zara's job. She did not have a job, because she was twelve, and what she was hearing that Jessica was basing Zara's worth as a human being on whether what her parents did was going to be advantageous to Jessica's. Call her crazy, but when Jessica had come over, she had assumed she maybe wanted to talk homework, or make friends, seeing as they had a mutual one.

"Do you always talk at people in terms of their business potential?" she asked, "Is that why you get on so well with Felipe?" she added, not conveying the sudden suspicion that had occurred to her, but worrying all the same what things exactly this ruthless girl saw in someone with acres of land, useful crops and piles of money.

13 Zara You are strange 1444 Zara 0 5

Jessica

October 12, 2019 11:29 AM

As a fish up a tree, yeah. by Jessica

Jessica was surprised by the sudden question, and it showed.

"Not really," she said with a slight shrug. "We both - well - our families' businesses don't really overlap." A private fiefdom in the middle of nowhere was much more a Groves thing than a Hayles thing, and the thing about private fiefdoms was that they didn't really overlap with each other either. Plus, Mommy much preferred to pretend that wizards didn't exist, so there was that. "We're in kind of the same position, because we were pretty much born with jobs, though. After Felipe told me about what your family does, I kind of assumed it was the same with you?" she said, raising her intonation slightly at the end to make it a question.

"I really am sorry for wasting your time," she said again, faint spots of pink appearing on her cheeks as she looked down again. A lock of her red hair wound around one of her fingers. "It just seemed kind of cool, you know, and I got carried away thinking - oh, here's something to get involved with! I can still do something!"

I can still do something. I can maybe convince Mommy and Daddy that my whole life before this wasn't a total waste of resources after all, and stop disappointing my parents....

"Got...carried away," she concluded. "And now I've interrupted your homework. Sorry." She felt the urge to say something else, something away from how she had just embarrassed herself and Arvale here. "Good drawing, by the way," she said. "I've been trying to trace a picture, because I cannot draw at all - " at least not to her own standards of what constituted 'at all' - "but it's kind of hard when the picture moves and stuff."

16 Jessica As a fish up a tree, yeah. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Zara

October 25, 2019 7:44 AM

Well.... good luck with that by Zara

Hm. Either Jessica was a good poker player or less of a threat to Felipe than she seemed. It sounded as if they had bonded over some genuine common ground - that of being kinda highly strung, judging by what Jessica was saying. That was not a total surprise, given their house, but not necessarily something Zara thought was particularly good for them to encourage in each other. It was better than Jessica just being after Felipe as a source of organic mangoes and cocoa butter and whatever else she could harvest from him for over-priced face creams, but it still wasn't super healthy, and Zara had not ruled out the possibility that that was Jessica's plan, or that it wouldn't occur to her in the future, at which point she was likely to storm in there with all the tact and sensitivity that rich, entitled white people used when exploiting someone else's resources.

The possibility that Jessica was an accomplished liar seemed to become less and less likely as she basically just spilled a huge stream of consciousness mess onto the table. Zara was cynical enough to wonder whether Jessica was just faking vulnerability to try to get Zara onside, but if she could blush to command that was pretty impressive. Also, if it was all fake, it suggested she didn’t know Zara well enough to play her.

“My parents do a thing,” she shrugged, “I like what they do, and I can choose to do it too if I want. But they’re not expecting me to go out securing… whatever for it or judging my worth based on whether I’m ‘contributing’ at age twelve. I’m sorry if yours are, cos that sounds like a pretty crappy thing to do,” she stated bluntly.

It was sort of hard to know where to go from there. On the one hand, Jessica was clearly having trouble adjusting, and Zara knew the magical world didn’t make it easy. However, it was sort of hard for her heart to bleed for the little white girl who’d been born to a business empire, or for her to feel like whatever breakdown Jessica wanted to have over that was her problem, especially if Jessica was going to keep calling having conversation with her a waste of breath. Normally, she was in favour of just pointing things out to people, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to give Jessica tips on how to manipulate herself into her good graces. She would rather know what was real.

Speaking of which… Jessica thought her drawing was good, huh? Did she really?

“You’re a good liar,” she smiled at Jessica, as if it were a compliment or a joke, though she was filing away that piece of information for future use. She was pretty sure you could use immobilus on a textbook picture - the charms on the book being stronger, it wouldn’t last forever or do any permanent damage. And she was from the house of friendly co-operation, and Jessica was new to this world, and it wasn’t like telling her was going to give her a better grade because it was an out-of-ten assignment based on whether they got their labels right. She wasn’t even sure whether tracing was against the rules, seeing as they’d just been told to complete a plant diagram. So, there was no reason not to tell Jessica…. “Guess it’s a good thing for both of us we’re not being graded on our artistic skills,” she stated, giving her a friendly smile.

13 Zara Well.... good luck with that 1444 Zara 0 5

Jessica

October 25, 2019 10:39 PM

Thanks so much. by Jessica

Jessica stiffened in her seat at the remark about her parents.

“My parents are fine,” she said, a touch more coolly. “And they don’t really expect me to do anything for them.” She had almost said ‘need either of us’ instead of ‘expect me’, but she held back instinctively; to say that would be rude. Mommy and Daddy would not approve. This was also why she bit her tongue on the comment that she was sorry Zara’s parents had apparently not taught her enough good manners to not say things like that about people she didn’t even know, or taught her enough respect for their work for her to care about it. There were times when it really sucked, having to constantly self-censor so that she could be considered a lady.

“I was thinking it would be cool to get to know more people, especially someone whose thing didn’t sound that different from my thing, and to get involved with something worthwhile since I can’t do what I would have done at home. Because I’ve always wanted to be involved. If you’re not interested, you can just say so. It’s fine.”

Provided you can do it without judging my family. She realized she was digging the nails of her right hand into her left wrist under the table and made herself relax. She was probably taking this too personally. It wasn’t as if Zara knew that Jessica’s family was in some ways...different, or was ever likely to know anything else about it at all. She was glad she had not lost her temper openly, but she had come too close to the edge of civility. Probably Zara now knew that insulting her family got under her skin, hard. That wasn’t good, especially since any hopes she’d had of their being friends were rapidly vanishing. How exactly did Felipe put up with her, if this was how she was? He at least understood about family and duty and behaving in a way that reflected well on their respective organizations. Zara acted like any work her parents had put into their business was something that could just be taken or left, depending on a whim. Like it didn’t matter. How could someone think like that?

“Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said, her accent picking up a little. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. And I'll keep at it until I get it." Instead of just settling for whatever because who cares about anything, she thought, biting her tongue again.

16 Jessica Thanks so much. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Zara

October 27, 2019 12:02 AM

You're welcome by Zara

Oh wow, so now Zara was the bad gal? Jessica had just come over with overtures of friendship which Zara had rudely rejected? That was not what she had heard in the slightest. And now Jessica wanted to play the victim in all of this? She had come in proposing what she could ‘offer’ Zara’s family, and then given up on wanting to talk to her when she realised she wasn’t going to be able to reap the benefits she wanted from her. Now she wanted to claim that Zara was not being nice to her?

“Was it really?” Zara asked skeptically, raising her eyebrows. “You have a funny way of going about that,” she stated.

Her diagram was still missing two labels but she could fill them in later. She rolled it up. Ordinarily, she would not have given ground. Jessica had interrupted her, and she could be the one to back the heck off. But she knew that a spoilt little girl like Jessica, who was so used to everyone adoring her, was just going to go crying to whoever would listen about how mean Zara had been. And Zara had a pretty shrewd idea of who that might be. She was not going to have her best friend turned against her. Which meant she needed to get in there first.

13 Zara You're welcome 1444 Zara 0 5