xp_logs | Topaz and Catseye || Job Hunting

Topaz goes to Catseye's deli to ask about a job, and the conversation ends up turning to biological families.

Humming to herself, Catseye finished wiping down the last chair and sank into it gratefully. The lunch rush was over, and people wouldn't start coming in for supper for at least another hour. Her head cook had just clocked out on break and the line cooks were out the back smoking. The fancy coffee machine and the snack display were the only things she expected to get regular use for the next little while, although if there was the odd customer in for a meal she would gladly make it herself.

Letting out a tired sigh, she glanced out the front windows and contemplated dragging her weary carcass outside to one of the three patio tables and chairs enclosed by a low fence, or the bench out front, to get some fresh air and sun. But she didn't feel like getting an earful from the protesters, so she stayed inside. Instead, she just waved to them, but they ignored her, faces locked in their perpetual glowers of disapproval.

Opening day seemed like a distant memory, but three protesters had remained. It didn't seem as if they'd ever left, spending most of their days at the cafe, still trying to spread the message that mutant-run businesses were the work of the devil and would lead to the end of the world. They weren't threatening enough to actually keep anyone away, so Catseye didn't try to stop them. But their doggedness- the fact that they seemed to have nothing more important in their lives than to stand outside her deli for hours on end, day after day, telling people they should hate her- unsettled her more than she would let on.

Topaz had decided to avoid opening day at the deli for exactly the reason of the protesters. Not that anti-mutant bigots bothered her - she had so many worse problems than a bunch of idiots. But emotions would have been ramped up high that day, and the resulting headache would've made trying to turn the protesters into rats a good idea.

Not that it would have worked, but somehow she got the feeling that trying any kind of magic in front of an already on edge crowd would have been bad.

Now as she walked down the street towards the deli, the yellings and preachings of the last three protesters reached her ears. Honestly, it was the middle of the day. She managed to make it to the door, and had even pulled it open, before the need to say something finally got the best of her.

"Don't you lot have better things to do with your time than harassin' people? I suggest takin' up knittin'."

"Sherry does knit," Catseye piped up, dragging herself to her feet and going to the open door to greet Topaz. "She makes lovely little sweaters for her infant grandkids. I've seen her make twelve whole sweaters since she's been parked outside my door. And six pairs of booties. How come you're not knitting today, Sherry? Are you going to switch to a more summery hobby while you stay here?" The lone woman of the group looked over at her, eyes widening, but she didn't make any indication of replying, so Catseye just grinned and ushered Topaz inside. "Amanda checked out their backgrounds for me last week when I realized they weren't going away, so I know their names," she explained Topaz when they were out of earshot. "Amanda wanted to make sure they didn't have a history of violence."

The teen had to press her lips thin to keep from laughing at the sheer panic on the other woman's face (and the spike in her emotions) at being addressed in a such casual manner by a mutant. "Still think they'd have somewhere else to be or somethin'. Aren't they cold? I don't care how much I hate somethin', if it's a choice between sittin' out in the cold and bein' inside with a heater, I'll take the heater." She shook her head, just a little disgusted. It was amazing the lengths people would go to make sure their opinions were known. "Anyways. Sorry for comin' around like this, doesn't look like it's a good time..." Catseye had obviously been taking a break.

"Yeah, it makes me sad that they think standing around outside in the cold is more important than anything else they could do. Like, why isn't that woman visiting with her grandkids? The bald man there used to volunteer at one of the museums in the city, and at the local animal shelter. It makes me hurt to think that he'd rather be here than doing those other things." Catseye admitted. But she knew there was nothing else she could do to change the minds of the protesters, so she tried to force down her sadness and think about something else. She waved off Topaz's concern that it wasn't a good time. "On the contrary! It's the best time! I don't have lots of time to chat about anything except business when it's really busy," she explained. "So sometimes after several hours of running around just talking about business, it's nice to chat about something else. Do you want a coffee or latte or a steamer or something?"

It was actually kind of sad when Catseye put it that way. She shot another look at the protesters, and was just on the verge of saying she didn't understand how anyone could hate something so much that they'd give up their entire lives - but her mind turned straight to Taboo. No, she actually did understand it quite well. Had even seen it first hand.

She shook her head clear of the thoughts, smiling as she refocused on what Catseye was saying. "Um, no thanks, I'm alright. Thank you though. I actually did want to kind of talk business. Kind of. I was wondering if you were still hiring."

"Sure!" Catseye responded brightly, not even pausing to think about it. She hadn't been advertising, and she wasn't actually shorthanded or anything, but she'd been open less than a month and was already feeling like she'd aged three years in that time. And it wasn't just because of the protesters, either. Like many small business owners, she was trying to save costs by taking on more work for herself than was good for her health. But the deli was doing well so far, even with the protesters. And maybe it was just the buzz, because it was still new and shiny, but how could she keep generating new buzz if she was too tired to think of any new ideas? "Actually," she carried on, "one of the roles I didn't think I needed filled was a barista. I've been running the fancy coffee machine myself. But it's been busy. Busier than I thought it would be. Do you wanna do some shifts as a barista? Or maybe I could move one of the line cooks or cleanup people or wait staff to barista and you can have their tasks?"

Well, that had certainly been easier than she'd thought it would be, Topaz reflected, blinking. She'd figured Catseye would be willing, though. That was the reason she'd decided to talk to the RA first, rather than trying to get a job on her own merits. Even she had to admit that personality left something to be desired. Plus Catseye would be more understanding if she explained that she couldn't work an afternoon because she had magic class. "Ah...I could take a shot at barista," she said, eying the machine as she spoke. She wasn't that great when it came to food preparation, and barista was probably better than waiting on people. If that didn't work out she could clean though. "I think that would work."

"Excellent! It's pretty easy to run. The part that most people seem to think is hardest is remembering what goes in each drink," Catseye told her with a wry smirk. She knew she had to give allowances for people who didn't have photographic memories like her own, but sometimes it was just difficult to understand what it was like to not have a photographic memory. "So there's a cheat sheet on the side of the machine. Wanna try it out?"

"Sure." Topaz didn't have a photographic memory per se, but she was good at memorizing facts and things of the like. It had come in handy where school was concerned. "It doesn't look that complicated, should be be able to pick it up quick enough."

Catseye grinned and shot to her feet, energy renewed. "Cool! Let's make one of everything. Then we can drink some and give some other ones to the protesters. Sometimes the museum guy actually drinks them. One time he even said thank you. And maybe you'll make them better than anyone else here and they'll love them and never protest again!"

Topaz couldn't help but smile - the woman just had that effect - as she followed Catseye, shooting a look over her shoulder at the protesters still gathered outside. "Either that or I'll somehow poison them. Either way though I suppose your problem is solved."

Catseye waggled a hand to indicate that she wasn't sure about that. "I think I may have bigger problems than a couple protesters if people start dying at my restaurant," she grinned. "The health inspector already hates me." She wrinkled her nose and her tail flicked distastefully. "He keeps telling me the fact I can turn into a cat means my restaurant is dirty. Even though I've never been a cat in the restaurant!"

"I'll do my best not to poison anyone," Topaz promised solemnly before making a face about the health inspector. "Seriously? That's like saying, 'You can sneeze, so your restaurant must be unsanitary.' It's ridiculous. If he wants to go bother someone about animals, there was a place back home that used to let a dog hang around in the kitchen. We can ship him off and let him yell at those owners."

"Where's home?" Catseye asked conversationally as she set milk, measuring cups, and a container of unground coffee beans on the counter for Topaz to work with.

For such an innocent question, it stirred up quite a bit in Topaz's mind. Home. Her first thought went to the house she'd lived in with Luca and Alice for six years. But of course, that was long gone. "Uh, Surrey," she said quickly, realizing Catseye was waiting for an answer. She set to work, checking the cheat sheet every now and again. "Just outside of London."

"Kinda like Amanda?" the catgirl mused curiously. "Do lots of people from around London have magic mutations? Or are you two just extra special that you're both British and magicians?"

"Think we're just extra special." She almost snorted at the thought of that. "It's actually pretty uncommon for magic user to have mutations tied to their magic. Unless you're at Xavier's, apparently. Mine technically isn't either, I was studyin' and practicin' before my mutation. I just...make the two work together." If Catseye didn't stop her she was going to keep going.

Catseye, ever curious, wasn't about to stop her, but she couldn't resist interjecting with a question. "How did you get involved in studying and practicing in the first place? Was it like with Amanda and Nico? Bad adults around you?" She'd been so busy with planning and setting up the deli for so long now she hadn't been paying attention to the histories of a lot of the students that had found their way to the mansion lately, and as usual she would rather just ask the person directly than ask around behind their backs.

Her expression shifted for a moment, turning almost sad before she quickly trained it back to normal. "Ah...no. Good adults, actually." Luca hadn't always been a bad man. Back before Taboo, before the Destines, before Alice died...before everything had gone to hell. He used to be her father. "My adoptive parents were both magic users, and I guess they...saw somethin' in me. Potential. Anyways they started me with studyin' until I was old enough to actually practice."

"Neat! Good adults are awesome," Catseye nodded enthusiastically. She caught the shift in expression but didn't call Topaz out on it. Instead, she just generalized by saying "there definitely don't seem like enough of those when it comes to kids with magic and mutations. If the kids at the mansion are any indication, anyway. Not that I'd really know, though," she added with a shrug, trying to make Topaz not be sad. "I didn't have any adults at all until I was sixteen."

"Sometimes people get lucky," Topaz said with a shrug. "Billy did, he ended up with Amanda almost right off after he manifested." Which was about as lucky as anyone could get. "There are good adults out there. If you're lucky enough to end up with them, then good." Catseye's next words caught her attention, and she found herself asking, "Why?" Before she could stop herself. "Ah - no, sorry. Not my business," she added quickly, looking away.

Catseye shrugged. "Sometimes lucky people are boring," she said in a conspiratorial whisper. "I think people who aren't lucky are much more interesting," she grinned at her new employee. "And that's okay. You should probably know, because sometimes I still do things that are... strange, but now that I have a business and have to deal with protesters and health inspectors, I don't want to do strange things, so you might have to stop me from doing something strange, and I think it would be nicer if you knew why."

"I thought I was a cat for a really, really long time," she explained. "A cat that turns into a person. But when I came to the mansion I found out I was born a person. Except my mutation manifested when I was born. I could turn into a cat always," she explained. "And when I was a year old... something happened." She still didn't know what, exactly. No one in her family did. "Either I shifted into a kitten and got outside somehow, or... my fatherperson put me out there. My fatherperson won't talk to the motherperson or my brothers about it so no one knows exactly. But he hates mutants," she added, to illustrate that she had her theory about what had happened to her. "Anyway, it was a blizzard when I went outside, and then I lived in New York City like an alley cat and forgot I had a family. I lived outside for fifteen years. Except for a while when I lived with the Cat Lady. But then she died. And then Animal Control took me, except I was so afraid, I turned into a person, so Animal Control called the mansion and they took me. But it took a long time before they could convince me to act like a person at all." She was still grinning, at ease with talking about herself and amused by how strange her life had been in the past. "Do you know anything about your real parents?" she asked Topaz, since the teenager had said she'd been adopted, which was sort of the same as forgetting your real family, right?

Topaz had to smile a bit at the whisper. Partly because it was true, and partly because she could think of a few lucky people would she would never dare to call boring.

She listened intently as Catseye explained her whole story, bristling a bit when she mentioned the possibility of her father putting her outside. That one hit a little too close to home. "Well if I catch you doing anything strange I promise to stop you," she said seriously as she examined the drink she was working on. It was pretty much done, and it actually didn't look poisonous. That was probably a good sign, right?

At Catseye's question her lips twitched into a humorless smile. "I don't know if I ever even met my real parents. I mean, I guess I must've at some point, my mother had to give birth to me right? But they left me at an orphanage in India when I was still a baby. Nobody ever saw 'em, they left me on the doorstep." She said it matter-of-factly. She'd long gotten over the fact that her birth parents, for whatever reason, had abandoned her. If they'd felt the need to do that, she was probably better off without them. "Lived there until I was eight."

She shrugged, looking down at the drink again before holding it out to Catseye. "Wanna try it?"

"Absolutely! Part of being the owner here means being brave and trying everything your staff offers you," Catseye told Topaz with a matter-of-fact nod and a smirk. She sipped the drink and gave the teenager a thumbs up and a broad smile. "Excellent! Good work! And to think if your parents hadn't left you at an orphanage I'd never get to drink this awesome drink," she mused with a wink, trying to make Topaz feel better. "Do you ever think you want to meet your real parents?" she questioned curiously. "I never wanted to meet mine. I still think that it doesn't matter where we came from, just where we are now." It was the cat mentality she still exhibited. "But, friends here at the mansion pushed me to find out where I came from, and now I'm sort of glad they did, because I never would have found my super awesome brother if I hadn't."

Topaz had to smile a bit at Catseye's reasoning. "I'm not upset about it, I've had a decent life." More or less. "My adoptive parents were good." For a while at least. "And now I'm here and you know, demons and other worldly beings aside it's not so bad. And apparently I've discovered that I have a future as a barista so look, I have a career path." Putting a positive spin on things wasn't really her thing, but it was hard not to in Catseye's company. At her question she pressed her lips thing for a moment before shrugging. "I don't know. Maybe someday. I mean, I'm not really interested in having a relationship with them or anythin'. They ditched me, obviously they don't care. But I mean...it'd be nice to at least know where my magic comes from." That was something that always worried her.

"I think that's a very good idea," the catgirl nodded. "Just learn who they are but don't think you have to be friends with them. Very smart. And knowing where your magic comes from is always a good idea. That way if it's Dark magic, like my witch Nico's, you can be aware. You should meet Nico. She's a witch too. I'm her familiar," she grinned. "Amanda helped her with her magic, too. And now she has a career path. Just like you! Career paaaath! I think discovering your career path as a barista deserves a dance." She'd switched gears abruptly, even for her, when she'd noticed that the protesters had gained a couple members now that peoples' workdays were finishing up.

Screw them. She'd hired a new barista and business had been booming. Life was good. She was following her own career path and a bunch of people with nothing better to do than stand outside her door weren't going to stop her. "Career-path-dance." Catseye nodded to Topaz matter-of-factly. She pressed play on the IPod in the dock on the shelf behind her. The one that was always queued up to Bamboleo. With her Most Serious Face on, she started dancing and motioning to Topaz to join her. "We dance a lot here. I hope that isn't a problem. It's only mandatory on your first day."

"I know Nico," Topaz said with a nod. She also knew Nico's history, which was a big part of the reason she wanted to find her own parents. Amanda was always saying that it didn't matter so much where magic came from as much as how they used it, but she was also always saying that they had to be careful with their magic, especially depending on the source. Like Pixie, whose magic came from a demon. Nico, whose parents were dark magic users.

Topaz was always careful, because she didn't know. And she didn't want to spend the rest of her life living in fear.

She'd noticed more protesters gathering, and it was probably that more than anything that spurred her on. "Alright," she said with a small smile. "Why not?"

And she moved to join Catseye, dancing somewhat awkwardly. But she was smiling the whole time.