Garrison and Adrienne

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Garrison and Adrienne attend a charity party together.

Sipping at champagne, Adrienne scrutinized Maillol's The River as people circulated through the sculpture garden at the Museum of Modern Art. She frowned at the piece, taking a few steps to one side to see it from another angle, enjoying how the fairy lights strung up all around the garden were reflected in the water the sculpture was draped out over. "I should really get to work on finding someone to make my nude sculpture for me so I can display it in my garden just like this," she mused.

"You don't have a garden. You have a patio. With dead herbs on it. I don't think dead herbs count as a garden." Garrison said, looking around the room. He wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but modern art was not really his forte. Like all good Canadian boys, he'd been subjected to eight years of the Group of Seven in school, and deemed that more than enough.

"It's November, everything's dead. And I have a garden in Boston," she pointed out, doing a good-natured imitation of a pout. "Assuming I still have a house in Boston, that is. I haven't been there in months. Someone would tell me if it burned down or something, right?" she joked, snagging two crab puffs from a passing waiter.

"Nothing is to be trusted in Boston. If it burnt down, they already sold the land illegally to put up an IHOP or something. Your garden is now where the grease buckets are stored. If it helps, though, I can argue to have them give you a discount in return." He took one of the crab puffs and wolfed it down.

"That helps immensely, yes, thank you." Bored with the naked woman sculpture, Adrienne headed towards Picasso's She-Goat, pausing to exchange pleasantries with a magazine editor before turning back to Garrison. "You know, I thought it was a little shifty the way the house next to mine had that carbon monoxide tragedy and two days later it was turned into a parking lot with an IHOP sign in the middle of it," she mused with a straight face. "But at least I can get a discount on international pancakes, so it all works out."

"You need to learn to catch these signs of impending danger. Especially with regards to incrouching IHOPs. Fortunately, our government passed a law that says we're allowed to shoot on sight if we see an IHOP north of the border." Kane washed down the crab cake with a sip of wine and gestured. "Picasso. Ever get the feeling that the poor man wasn't a brilliant artist at all and just badly needed glasses?"

"Yes, yes I do," Adrienne giggled. "You know, it's nice to come here with someone who doesn't try to impose pretentious 'I-could've-been-an-art-critic-because-don't-I-say-clever-things-about-art?' crap on me. Not only did Picasso need glasses, but I think Dali used to just throw a bunch of junk he had lying around the house into his sculptures. I don't want to hear about surrealism and how such and such item was supposed to make this impresson on the viewer when looking at the sculpture as a whole- it looks like he threw a bunch of junk together," she muttered, searching around for some more food.

"Wow, I was expecting to get chastized for not understanding it being a brilliant manipulation of negative space or something." Kane shrugged. "I don't mind any of this, I just don't really get it that much. My art classes ended in grade nine or so."

"I don't know why 'getting' it the way scholars do is so important," Adrienne said with a shrug. "You know what you like, you might even know why you like it, why isn't that enough? I don't have to articulate the merits of negative space to feel like something's pretty, or stupid, or a goat. Of course," she added with a smirk, "I own a modeling agency, so you might say I make a business on thinking shallowly."

"And hey, everything I know about art I learned from copping feels of paintings and sculptures in art galleries and museums around the world."
"That's not legal, is it? Because I've seen the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, and it's got about a foot of armored glass in front of it."

"You need to carry your Mountie hat around with you and put it on whenever you're going to ask me a question about something being legal, because I can never tell when you're going to 'cop out' on me," Adrienne joked, amused with her own pun.

"Very funny. Besides, I was told wearing the badge and hat in polite society made people nervous. The guilty expressions, all wondering what corrupt illegal things they're in the process of doing to stay the upper 1% of the population that controls all the money." Garrison was only mostly kidding, his eyes always tracking faces and reactions, filing them away. It might have been the police that refined it, but the habit was initially taught to him by Pete Wisdom, who no doubt had different applications for it.

"I think they'd appreciate it if you overlooked the corrupt, illegal things for tonight and focused on the fact that they're donating money at this charity event," she smirked, gesturing towards the silent auction table. "You know, you make me so glad I stopped doing corrupt, illegal things after Steven's death and went straight. Because now that it's been more than seven years I can't get audited on anything sketchy with my books."

"I'm glad to see it was the moral imparitive that motivates you." Garrison's wry reply wasn't without a trace of rebuke. The biggest class challenge that they had faced was the disconnect between Kane's solidly middle class Canadian and her own wealthy Bostonian upbringing. The idea of bribery, intimidation and legal harassment as part of day to day business was completely beyond him.

"Well, it motivates me now," she replied quietly, a little guarded but trying to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. She wasn't going to apologize for doing what she'd considered necessary to get her company on the map in its early days- which didn't mean she didn't regret her decisions, but she couldn't change them now. "And I don't mean 'now since I met you' now. Maybe I had other motivations for going straight after Steven's death, but ever since I decided to become a teacher I've been motivated a lot more by morals, because I believe teachers should be held to certain standards when they're responsible for influencing the minds of kids."

"I think people should be held to certain standards all the time. It explains the badge." Garrison replied, taking another sip. "Think about it, Adrienne. All of these people have hundreds of analysts, lawyers, middlemen who's entire purpose is to stretch, dodge or corrupt the system in order to gain an advantage. All of that effort which could almost be as profitably rechanneled into a legitimate method instead. And to salve their conscience, they spend, what, less money than they personally earned in a week at a charity event, which translates into free publicity for them anyway. If you have to duck the system to be successful, than the system is broken."

Adrienne opened her mouth to joke that if everyone was a legitimate businessperson then the analysts, lawyers, and middlemen might go out of business and further strain the economy, but she decided against it, knowing that when they got into these sorts of discussions joking usually just made things worse. "You're preaching to the choir, Slick," she answered instead in an easygoing tone. "I figured out a few years ago that it's actually much more of a challenge to make money legitimately, and for me it's the challenge that makes running my company satisfying. And fun. But these people are either lazy and greedy and just like making money the easiest way possible and don't find the challenge fun, or else they're too busy to take the time required to rechannel their efforts.

"Not that I'm making excuses for them," she added with a shrug, polishing off the rest of her champagne. "I've come to agree with you that people should be held to certain standards all the time- it just took moving to the mansion for me to figure that one out. But I did. That's why I'm here with you instead of one of them."

"I thought it was because you liked the uniform."

The fact that he hadn't challenged whether she'd changed from the person she'd used to be had her relaxing enough to grin at him. "I used to like the uniform an awful lot. But then you showed up in it on a horse, and now whenever I think of the uniform I think of the horse which scares the bejeezus out of me, so it just doesn't have the same effect anymore."

"We'll need to work on the horse thing. I am officially a mounted police officer, you know. The horse comes with it." Kane knocked off his own glass. "We'll get you on pony rides or something, and work our way up."

"We will?" she asked incredulously, though the fear turned into amusement, and then there was a little bit of a flutter in her stomach when the 'we' sunk in. It seemed like every time they had a debate that she got defensive about she assumed he wanted to end the dating experiment and go back to being friends, or worse.

"Well, you will. I'll stand on the edge of the enclosure and take embarassing pictures of you freaking out on top of a five foot tall animal. I'll join you once we get to real horses, eh."

"I don't think the day where I ride a real horse by myself is ever going to come, but you can dream," she snorted. "Is this a service you perform for all your friends, or is it a special reserved for girlfriends?" It was a sneaky attempt at trying to figure out what she was to him, but she'd told Morgan she would ask him about what their relationship was and this seemed the most casual way to do it.

"Only for the ones afraid of horses." Kane said, as he deftly snagged another pair of glasses from a passing tray and inadvertently failed to articulate which he meant. With a slight bow, he passed over a new glass to Adrienne.

Grinning, Adrienne curtseyed back and took the glass. "You're a dork." She took his avoidance at giving a definitive answer to mean they were friends, or that he hadn't decided yet, and let it go. It wasn't as if she was in a hurry to define things between them anyway, it had just been to try and establish some rules if they were dating so that she wouldn't have to fight with her conscience the next time she was at a Hellfire Club function. And because she'd told Morgan she would ask him so she didn't end up inadvertantly cheating. But since the next Hellfire Club function was undetermined there was no way she would end up in a situation that would resemble any semblance of cheating anyway, so she didn't need an answer right now.

"It might not be a bad idea for me to get over my fear and learn to ride," she mused after taking a sip of her new champagne. "After all, it's a very distinguished hobby, isn't it? Maybe I should take up polo or something. Do you know how to play polo?"

"Yes, but I had to quit. The horses kept drowning."

Adrienne frowned in confusion. "Drowning?"

"In the pool."

"I bet you had a lot of trouble getting swim trunks on them, too," Adrienne smirked. "You're just screwing with me now, pretending to think I'm talking about water polo and not regular polo, right?"

"Would I do something like that? I mean, really..."

Rolling her eyes, Adrienne stretched up on her toes and gave him a chaste kiss on the lips, followed by an easygoing smile. "Of course you wouldn't, Slick. I forgot, Canadians are incapable of making jokes, so you must have thought there was only one kind of polo. And in that case, you Mounties really are the cream of the northern crop when it comes to brainpower."

"You know, insulting my intelligence is a really good way to make your next trip over a border extremely interesting. Like, large Germanic woman with a rubber glove interesting. Seriously. Her name is Inga. She's very popular with select groups in England."

"What makes you think I'm ever going north of the border? This is why I have minions, Kane, so I don't have to go to the frozen northern wasteland in person!" she explained happily.

"Because the Red Sox have to play the Blue Jays at home at some point, and I happen to know the new GM of the organization. But of course you wouldn't be interested in getting on the field when, say, the Red Sox are taking batting practice, and Ms Ellsbury is knitting."

"Damn. Thwarted. He knows my secret weakness," she mumbled theatrically. "Alright, I take back my insults to your intelligence, so you can call off Inga. Unless you get off on that cavity search fetish stuff," she smirked, "in which case I may go along with it for your entertainment provided you get me in the bullpen to watch Papelbon warm up."

"If there was ever a man with a face as punchable as Papeldouche, I haven't met him." Kane said, looking around. "Alright, rich corrupt people are starting to look bored, and the bar is packing up. I'm pulling down the working class oik card and say we go get a real pint."

Adrienne drained the rest of her champagne glass, snagged another crab puff, and nodded. "A real pint sounds good to me." She'd mingled and made a couple of deals already; there was no reason to stay other than to continue torturing Garrison, which was fun, but also made her feel a little guilty. "I want you to tell me more about water polo over this pint though. I always thought horses could swim. Don't they swim in the movies?"

"Yup. They also talk on television. Proof not to believe everything you watch, eh?"