Marie and Jennie, Monday evening

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Marie asks Jennie to do her a huge favor - Crystal needs a new roommate.  Jennie takes less effort to convince than Marie had anticipated, but there is still some guilt on the new R.A.'s part and the younger girl is obviously feeling some anxiety.

Marie sat at her desk, staring blankly at the list in front of her.  All hopes she had for mediating the difficulty Crystal was having with her roommate had vanished the moment the girl had come by her room.  It was obvious that the two were a very bad match and no amount of talking would sort things out. Why did Ah sign up for this job again? Oh yeah…you wanted to help.

There weren't many options currently available for roommates and putting Crystal into a single room was not an option.  She needed the opportunity to learn how to live with others if she was going to survive at the mansion.  No, that would be a horrid powers match.  Not her either...maybe an older student… Her eyes finally lit upon a name that seemed like a possibility.  Grabbing a pair of white cotton gloves, she slipped them as she made her way to the suite indicated on the list.  Knocking on the door, she waited for a response.

Jennie looked up from the crossword puzzle she was currently completing.  It seemed her talent for pattern recognition extended to words as well.  Pushing herself up from where she was lying on her stomach on the bed, she smoothed a hand over her hair (the humidity was making it frizz like woah) and opened the door.  "....Marie?  What's up?"  

“May Ah come in? Ah have a favor to ask…kinda a big one,” Marie responded in a slightly anxious tone.  Being an RA was still so new to her that she felt nervous when she was doing things in an “official” capacity.

"Yeah, sure."  Jennie frowned a little.  She wondered if the powers that be had decided her and Marius' excursions were to be curtailed in light of recent events.  She hoped not.  Jennie stepped back to let Marie enter her neat and orderly room. 

 Walking into the room, Marie noticed that everything in it was arranged methodically.  She vaguely remembered someone mentioning that Jennie had mild OCD, which made her request even harder to ask.  “So how are you holding up?” she asked, deciding that she should make sure Jennie was doing ok before she explained the favor she needed.

"Fine," Jennie said warily.  She gestured for Marie to have a seat in her computer chair.  Jennie flopped herself back down on her bed.  "Is there something wrong?"

“No, no…nothing like that,” Marie said hastily while moving to sit in the chair.  “Its more of a logistical issue, really.  Ah don’t know if you’ve had a chance to meet some of the new students we’ve had enter the school recently…”

Ah.  So her blissful existence of living in a single would soon end.  She always knew it would.  Jennie sighed resignedly.  "Who is it?"

Marie bit her lip at the look that crossed Jennie’s face. “Crystal Amaquelin…she’s got dirty blonde hair, about yay high…has an accent…” she said hesitantly.  “Ah think it could be a good match.” <I>Sure, that’ll make you feel less guilty about asking her to give up having a single room right after her best friend had to be hospitalized.</I>

Jennie's eyebrows shot up.  "The pretty pretty princess?  The one who can't cook?"  The one me and Marius terrorized over the journals last night?  Oh boy.  Jennie looked around her room.  At first the amount of space had seemed daunting.  Now it was quite cozy to her.  The thought of someone else's stuff made her feel slightly claustrophobic.  

“Yeah…that sounds like her.  She’s uh…she does take a little getting used to, Ah know.  But Ah think she could really benefit from living with an older student,” Marie said hopefully.

Jennie tried not to look too thrown.  Her?  A good influence?  "Um, I dunno about this.  Like, I don't keep normal hours and stuff."  Sneaking in at weird hours was going to be a lot harder....

“As long as you don’t snore too loudly or talk on the phone in the wee hours, Ah think she’d be ok with that.” Hmm…all students should be keeping fairly normal hours with curfew…Ah’ll have to look into that later. “Moving here has been hard on her, Ah think.  She’s used to a different world than what we are.”

Right.  Like being waited on hand and foot.  She'd heard stories about Marius' older sister.  "Look,"  Jennie held up her hands, "I just don't want her to treat me like some sort of servant or anything."  And I don't want her touching my stuff. 

Marie nodded fervently. “Of course not.  She starts doing that, you come let me know, and Ah’ll straighten her out. Ah’ve been stressing what is expected of her as a student and resident here… but she may need some gentle prodding.”

Jennie considered for a moment.  If things did get too sticky, she could always have Crystal thrown out.   "Okay.  I'll do it.  But if she seriously starts to bother me, I'll do more than gently prod.  Just some warning."

Throwing up her hands in the air, Marie couldn’t help but feel relieved. This whole thing had taken a lot less convincing then she had anticipated. “Ah’m gonna pretend Ah didn’t hear that. You can try and work things out on your own first, but if things get really bad, my door is always open.  We can just do a trial period over the summer…if it doesn’t work out, then we can try and do the roommate shuffle when the school year starts.”

Jennie leaned back on her bed.  This was going to complicate her life a lot more.  Oh well, she could always resort to siccing Marius on Crystal.  She had faith in his smarm.  "When's she moving in?"

"Um...would right now be too soon?”  Marie’s gaze darted to the door and then back to Jennie’s face.

Shit.  Jennie closed her eyes and hoped Crystal wasn't standing outside the door.  Overhearing someone call you a 'pretty pretty princess' is not the best way to start a living situation. "She's not in the living room, is she?"

“No....” After all, the hallway was not the living room.  “But she’s close by and if its ok with you, Ah think she’s ready to move in.” No, that’s not an understatement at all. “Ah know its not much notice, but Ah’d owe you big time.”

Jennie scratched her head.  "Can we wait until tomorrow?  I have some cleaning to do."  Massive amounts of cleaning, sorting and organizing.  She sighed again.  She wasn't sleeping tonight.

Marie offered a sympathetic look.  Here she was, telling this girl she was getting an unexpected roommate and she wasn’t going to give Jennie at least a few hours to wrap her head around it?  Standing up, she said, “Yeah, that’s fine.  Ah’m sure she can deal for one more night…Ah know its not easy to give up a single room, so thank you.”

"Yeah."  Jennie said dully.  She looked up at Marie and smiled wryly.  "But what can you do?"  She got to her feet and began mentally indexing her room.

Marie shrugged, but inwardly she winced. Hopefully this will all work out.  Jennie was so intently focused on the room itself that Marie felt out of place, so she slowly made her way out.  Once she reached the doorway, she turned to glance again at the brunette standing in the middle of the extremely tidy space.  

Jennie shrugged at Marie, "Tell Crystal that she can start moving her stuff up tomorrow morning.  It should be ready by then."  The rest would be up to Crystal.