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Post by Camille Desmoulins on Apr 6, 2008 15:55:12 GMT -5
Imogene glanced up at him from being preoccupied with creating a cube of coffee cake crumbs, "Really?" she asked, immediately realizing that was a silly thing to say- since she was pretty sure he wasn't going to so 'Nope! Just kidding!'. "Huh, well perhaps Virgina Creeper is an appropriate plant metaphor for him then." Her mind immediately leaped back to thinking of some sort of cactus/ Virgina creeper hybrid. She mentally pushed it away though, since she was certain that it was impossible to cross bread Virgina creeper and cacti.
"I take it you have an interest in plants then?" she asked, sipping her hot chocolate. Which was no long 'hot' and more 'warm leaning towards hot'- which was a much better drinking temperature for those who did not want to scald the inside of their mouths.
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Post by Maximilien Robespierre on Apr 7, 2008 0:35:09 GMT -5
He shrugged. "I keep a few. The area has the right climate for most plants. Wasn't easy keeping them till I got a house out here, but well, it's nice to have something alive around the place. I don't really have time for a pet of any sort with the hours I keep. Before I moved out here, I used to work a good deal with cacti, actually. My dad kept a garden of them, you know. It reminded him of home. I'm from here. Er, originally. We moved east when I was little."
He gulped at his coffee, wondering how much it would take to revive him. "Do you garden at all?"
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Post by Camille Desmoulins on Apr 7, 2008 13:51:26 GMT -5
"My apartment doesn't get enough sun for me to be able to keep any plants myself," she said, drinking more of her hot chocolate, "But my auntie keeps extensive gardens and I help out with those on weekends when I'm not working." It was an amazing thing that her aunt didn't hire a professional gardener to take care of her plants. Imogene most likely could have simply taken care of her aunts garden as a job and most likely get paid more then she was being paid as a private detective.
"So where did you grow up, if not here?" she asked
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Post by Maximilien Robespierre on Apr 7, 2008 15:30:42 GMT -5
"I've got a veranda that's perfect for it. Well, perfect when I can keep the neighborhood cats out, that is." He shuddered at the thought of the feline brigands. "What sort of plants does she have in her gardens? I don't know where you'd get the space for any kind of garden proper. Has your family lived here a long time?" Real estate prices being what they were, he imagined they must have been, but of course, her aunt might live in Mexico if she was driving down weekends.
"New York," he answered. "My dad got a job there, and he likes the cold, a trait which he didn't pass on to me."
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Post by Camille Desmoulins on Apr 7, 2008 16:03:21 GMT -5
"My auntie moved here a good thirty-something years ago as a sort of 'screw you' to the rest of the family," she explained, "The rest of the Braith clan is in Wales though. Where it is rainy and cold and not nearly as pleasant as it is here." She paused a moment, thinking about her aunt's garden, "God... uhh..." she laughed as she realized she still couldn't name a single species of plant that her aunt kept- despite being told their names every time she was helping with the gardening, "She keeps a little bit of everything. She grows a bunch of vegetables and herbs... She's got a couple of orange trees and... and..." she wracked her brain for an example of some of the flowers her aunt grew, "I feel awful. I should know these things! She has a lot of flower gardens though and a lot of roses. And she recently started growing cacti. That was by request of my uncle though- according to him cacti are the only 'manly' plant."
"New York is... well. It's a lot like Wales actually. Except with less rain and more snow," she said thoughtfully, "Were you in New York City or elsewhere in the state?"
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Post by Maximilien Robespierre on Apr 7, 2008 20:48:34 GMT -5
"Oh, how nice," he said politely. "I've never been to Wales. Did you grow up there?"
"Kitchen gardens are so essentially British. The last time we grew them in America, it was a war effort." He paused and added, "Er, victory gardens. You know, to keep up morale during World War Two, and so they could send more to the troops, I guess. I've always wanted to keep a vegetable garden, but it's not the same growing it in pots, and, well, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be here." Because if Basil were anyone else, he'd probably fire me for sexual harassment and not without good cause.
"Oh, no, upstate New York. Rochester, actually."
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Post by Camille Desmoulins on Apr 15, 2008 20:51:57 GMT -5
Imogene couldn't help but smile as he offered his explanation of Victory Gardens. "Actually, I grew up here," she explained, sipping her hot chocolate (which was now leaning towards lukewarm) "My parents sent me to live with my aunt when I was five, I'm still not sure why." She shrugged; she really didn't mind. As far as she was concerned she'd gotten the better end of the deal- her aunt was much more suited for being a parent then Imogene's mother was. If she was a less creative person her parent's method of childcare might have worked, however as it is was Imogene's aunt had ended up being a much better mother figure and her Uncle a far better father figure.
She frowned a little as he mentioned not being here much longer, "Are you thinking of moving then?" she asked.
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Post by Maximilien Robespierre on Apr 15, 2008 22:08:40 GMT -5
He smiled at her. "You don't miss home, then?" he said. There could hardly be two places more different than Wales and Southern California. He wondered how often —if ever— she got home. Maybe, her aunt paid for the trips. It wasn't as if Imogene would have to ask her boss if she could take time off from work, anyway.
Caden looked up from his coffee, mouth suddenly dry despite the recent gulp of hot liquid. "I— I hope not," he said. "I like it here. I might be moving nearer my, er, college, though. I'm not sure." He stared fixedly at the murky liquid, willing it to swallow him, instead of him swallowing it. What had possessed him to— No, no, much too late for that.
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Post by Camille Desmoulins on May 2, 2008 17:36:36 GMT -5
Imogene shook her head, "Oh no, not anymore. When I was a kid I used to get homesick. However, I've been in Shawl for so long now that I hardly think of Wales as being home anymore," she said, "I only go out there maybe once every two years or something- if that. Airfare is expensive and my parents aren't ever really... thrilled to see me anyways."
She looked at him as he talked about moving closer to his collage and raised an eyebrow, "You're lying, or at the very least avoiding the truth," she informed him. A good chunk of her job was figuring out when people were hiding the truth, and Caden was outwardly displaying all the signs. Not meeting her eye, stammering, the tone of his voice. These were all things that made it very easy to tell he wasn't telling her the whole truth.
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Post by Maximilien Robespierre on May 3, 2008 23:34:50 GMT -5
It had never occurred to Caden to be homesick. He loved his parents, but really, this was home. New York would never be, well, home. He smiled. "I guess if they were that far away, I wouldn't visit too often either. The exchange rate is vicious these days," he said.
Caden bit his lip. Well, I could stick around here or I could not be a total dick and go fuck off to Los Angeles where Basil won't have to deal with my sad ass. "I'm not a suspect, you know. You don't need to interrogate me." And it isn't as though you didn't lie by omission in your previous sentence.
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Post by Camille Desmoulins on Jun 1, 2008 22:18:56 GMT -5
Imogene laughed, "I'm not interrogating you," she said, "I was just pointing out a fact. If this was an interrogation I think I'd have to have some very bright lights to shine in your eyes and a tape recorder and I'd have to be much more aggressive. " She waved a hand, as if to dismiss this topic, "But I'm sorry, that was force of bad habit kicking in- people have a tendency to not tell the truth in my line of work. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
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Post by Maximilien Robespierre on Jun 1, 2008 22:24:00 GMT -5
Caden wished that he had thought twice about it. He didn't. Not for a moment. "I think I'll pass, thanks," he said flatly. Standing up he said, "Yeah, it's the idea of developing that impulse that keeps me out of the interrogation room. I leave that to Basil and Jason. They're—" and he smiled as he said it, "—better with people than I am, I guess." He refrained from commenting on the dubious legality of her interrogating anyone. After all, if she kept a little more crime out of Basil's office, who was he to stop her? Basil needed any kind of vacation anyone else was willing to give him because he so rarely took any himself. "Thank you for the company. It's been very nice. If you feel the need to interrogate me again, you know where I work." He gave her a strained smile and walked pointedly out.
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