ooc// Starts here..

bic//

A quick glance at the microwave clock tells Angeline that it's about seven, so she goes to the door to see if anyone might possibly be there. Elsie is in the dining room, setting the table. She lays each piece of cutlery down with great care, usaully on the wrong side, and lights the candles with steady, small hands.

Angeline, who has changed since she did her yoga, is wearing jeans and a red chenille sweater. The fuzzy bunny slippers add an interesting touch to the look.

In the kitchen, the chicken is keeping warm in the oven, and some vegetables are cooking on the stove. The rest of the components of the stir-fry are set out neatly on the counter. Angeline realised at some point that she never thought to ask Mr Lucien whether he ate meat, but it doesn't really matter. She can always throw some tofu on the stove if she needs to.

She looks out the window and sees an almost familiar figure on the street outside. She smiles, in a quiet, slightly satisfied way, and goes to open the door for him.

Tom hadn't changed. Though he had thoughtfully made a stop to pick up dessert, a box of Baklava from a nearby bakery he often frequented. The box was a snazy muted silver color with a big festive looking bow in green.

He walks slowly whistling as he does. When he starts towards the front door he figures it's close enough to seven. It had been quarter till when he'd cashed out at the bakery according to his receipt. He figured he wouldn't be too early or more than fashionably late if his internal clock was a tad off.

Angeline pulls the door open and gives Tom a proper grin hello.

"Good evening, Mr Lucien," she says. "Right on time. Come in." She steps back to let him step into the foyer, which is despite her best efforts littered with a half dozen pairs of little shoes, not to mention a teddy bear, a fuzzy pink jacket and three little purple mittens. Among other things. "Sorry about the mess in here," she apologises, encompassing the clutter with a sweep of her hand. "I swear the rest of the house is tidier. Can I take you jacket?"

Tom has seen messier, much messier. This is merely what happens when one lives with little folks.

He shrugs out of his coat and hands over the box of Baklava. "I brought something for after supper." he explains. On catching sight of the teddy bear he can't help but grin.

"Oh, how nice," Angeline says, taking the box in one hand and his jacket in the other. She drops the jacket on one of the coat hooks. Elsie loves baklava.

"Come on through to the kitchen and I'll fix you up with something to drink," she tells Tom, leading the way. "I forgot to ask earlier, do you eat meat?"

She sets the baklava down on the kitchen counter. One of the household cats (the little calico one, imaginatively named Meow) is purring and wrapping itself around Tom's legs. "I hope you don't mind the cat," Angeline adds. "She's called Meow. What do you want to drink?

"Meat is good." Tom replies. He reaches down to pet the little calico. Is it really a surprise he knows exactly where to pet her? Really?

"Water is fine, sparkling water is even better." Tom says regarding what to drink.

He examines his surroundings and mutters cutesey things to Meow.

Angeline's kitchen is tidy and blue and white, like something out of a magazine. She has a dark blue Kitchen Aid and there are a lot of cute little primary-school variety paintings and drawings stuck up on the fridge. She finds a glass from the cupboard and some San Pellegrino in the fridge and pours Tom a glass. She gets herself some white wine and proceeds to go about making up the sauce for the stir-fry.

"We're having chicken stir-fry, then," she tells Tom. "If that's all right? So how are you enjoying your stay in Bayfield?"

"Oh I like when I have time to mingle in the city." Tom says. "Stir fry sounds heavenly."

He likes her kitchen, and is impressed by how tidy everything is. He knows all too well that cat hair is the devil.

"Quite the art gallery you've got on the fridge." He offers smiling.

"Oh, that," Angeline glances over at the mess on the fridge. It's all so horribly tasteless and pointless, but that's what happens when you send kids to school. They produce 'art'. "Yeah, I get a lot of that. There's scads more upstairs. You can't really do anything with it. It would be bad to throw it out, so..." she shrugs and smiles. "It kind of accumulates. But I can introduce you to the artist. I wonder where she's got, anyway." She sets down her salt shaker and yells for Elsie.

"It isn't pointless if it's fun." Tom offers with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Yeah, well. I suppose she enjoys it," Angeline agrees.

Elsie appears in the doorway. She seems to be wearing a toga that's made out of a pink sateen bedsheet, and her hair is full of paper clips. Angeline has to laugh.

"Mr Lucien, may I present my daughter Elsie? Elsie, this Mr Lucien, say hello."

Elsie gives Tom a solemn looking over, eyes wide. "Hello, Mr Lucien," she says. She offers him a hand to shake, a small hand with a Hello Kitty rub-on tattoo fading across the back of it. "Pleased to meet you."

Tom can't help but smile. "I'm please to meet you too Elsie." he says as he shakes her hand. He can't help but wonder what's the special occaision for her choice in attire.

"Elsie," Angeline says, patiently. "Go get changed for supper, love. It's just about ready."

Elsie scampers off again. Angeline is spooning the stir-fry into low black bowls, the insides glazed a bright red. "Can I get you anything else to drink," she inquires, picking up two of the bowls and carrying through to the dining room. Elsie has put a bowl of water on the table, coloured leaves and rose petals floating on the surface.

"Perhaps, is there something you think will enhance the flavors of the meal?" Tom asked. While he does like alcohol he doesn't want to over power the meal so he can't appreciate it. Tom is whenever he can be a coniseur of the human experience, taste, smell, texture.....It's all very important to him.

"Maybe a little wine, then?" Angeline sets the plates down at the table, glancing around to make sure that everything's in order. "Sit down," she says. "That's your seat..." she points, heading back to the kitchen for the last plate and for the wine. "Elsie gets the Hello Kitty chopsticks."

His place has thoughtfully been set with a knife and a fork, in addition to chopsticks. Some people just can't manage chopsticks.

"If it compliments the meal certainly." Tom says regarding the wine.

"Hello kitty chopsticks." He murmurs, they really do make everything. He sits where he is told, the obedient guest.

"Of course it does."

Angeline wouldn't dream of serving anything that didn't compliment a meal. Angeline's life is all complimentary, all in order. Elsie reappears, now wearing striped tights and an a red velour dress. She slides into her seat and grins over at Tom.

Angeline comes back balancing dishes, and sets down the wine glasses and the bottle of wine. "You may pour," she tells Tom.

The orderliness shows, though it seems to have it's place here in her home. As bidden he pours careful not to bruise the bouquet of the wine as he does so. He compliments the vintage, and the smell of the meal before him now.

When the wine is poured, Elsie folds her hands and says grace.

"Wait until you taste it," Angeline suggests, laughingly, "before you say anything too nice."

"Do you teach at the school to, Mr Lucien?" Elsie wants to know. She is attacking her chicken expertly with the Hello Kitty chopsticks, but her eyes are concentrated on Tom.

Tom nods at the suggestion on tasting it. He decides he likes her laugh.

"No, I work outside of town most of the time. I deal in antiques and rare books." It's not entirely untrue, he lives at an antique shop as a cat, and has vague memories of being around such things before his curse.

"Antiques," Angeline repeats, twirling noodles around her chopsticks. "Fascinating. I'm a historian, Mr Lucien, so perhaps we have a common love of old things."

Elsie, wisely, decides not suggest that this is perhaps because they are both so old.

Tom is older than he looks, in his eighties really. He does tend to gravitate towards older things. He finds that nowadays, things are so disposable, often discarded for the latest and greatest version before they're even worn out. It saddens him to dwell on, better to appreciate those tasteful bits left from bygone days.

To his surprise he can use chopsticks quite deftly, it must be something he can't remember. There are a lot of things that have faded from memory to be replaced with cat memories.

He waits until his mouth is empty before speaking. "I do find myself more charmed by things with history than I ever will be by all the mass manufactured and marketed gadgets and such."

Elsie looks moderately horrified at this slur on Hello Kitty. Her eyes get wider than usual, but she doesn't comment.

Angeline smiles. "It's like books," she suggests. "I work with a lot of old manuscripts, and it feels so real and immediate. When you actually have the text, the thing that someone wrote a hundred years ago - it's as if you've established a direct link between you and them." She shrugs. "Of course, it would be so much better if we could just have a time machine. But that's the Science Department's responsibility, not mine."

"Yes, exactly, there's a personal connection with the craftsmanship of older things, hand made, and not stamped out of piece of presswood, with instructions from IKEA on how to put it together." Tom said nodding.

He completely missed the wide eyed mortified look over his slur on Hello Kitty.

Angeline has to suppress a grin at this point, because quite a bit of the furniture in her house came from IKEA. "You're quite right," she tells him. "Of course, I wouldn't be one to belittle IKEA in any way. It's affordable but durable and aesthetically acceptable."

"Like Hello Kitty," Elsie chimes in, slurping her noodles.

"But aesthetics can be impersonal, without personality in many cases. Makes it all too easy for people to mindlessly duplicate what they see on display in store while never really developing any taste of their own. It's perfectly fine to look nice and be affordable, but I get hung up on cookie cutter things, like manufactured homes....." He sighed. "I'm babbling."

"Nah, there's no reason," Angeline points out, "not to babble. Not if there interested people to listen to you. You're perfectly right, of course. It does run the risk of homogeneity." She smiles, smile mildly tinged with both sadness and irony. "I know Mrs Russo across the street has exactly the same coffee table as we do. But somehow my living room looks completely different to hers. I suppose we can conclude that as usual, moderation in all things is the rule of thumb. I'll have to show you the house after supper, we have some nice antique pieces around."

"Your home so far is lovely, there is personality here, rather than bland imitations of taste and culture." he offered graciously glad that she hadn't taken offense to his babbling. He liked that she seemed to get his point completely.

"Just wait till you see Elsie's room," Angeline says, humorously. Elsie's room has gobs of personality, as long as you understand personality to pink and shiny. She is managing her chopsticks deftly. "Would you like some more water? Or wine?"

"More wine, please." He declines to comment on seeing Elsie's room, it's going to happen, but he isn't in suspense over it or anything.

There are any number of things that are going to happen, but none of the people at the dining room table know about them and so none of them are holding their breaths. Instead, Angeline is pouring Tom more wine and thinking how nice it is to have someone over for supper. Someone who isn't going to get into an all night tirade against the administration or the falling IQ of the students.

"So," Angeline asks, wondering if she has asked this already, "are you originally from Bayfield, Mr Lucien?"

Tom doesn't really know where he came from originally, though he rather suspects, that it isn't Bayfield. "No, no, grew up all over. Lots of traveling in my life." He tells her. Too bad he only has vague memories of most of it. "And there is no need to be so formal, everyone just calls me Tom."

"We travel all the time," Elsie adds. "We got to Montreal and Toronto and Ottawa all the time." She says Toronto like traaawna, like she spends far too much time there.

"My family all live fairly close," Angeline explains, "so we spend a lot of time shuffling Elsie between doting grandparents." She smiles at Tom. "I suppose you could call me Angeline, then."

"It must be nice to be able to spend time with family without a tremendous commute." He says smiling. He nods, "Angeline it is then."

He sips at his wine.

"Sometimes it's nice. Other times you wonder if they couldn't ever come visit you." She grins. Her relatives are all moderately terrified of Bayfield. After all, it's clearly a wild, uncivilised place. You just have to look at how it corrupted Angeline.

"Oh, I don't know, when relatives visit it's sometimes entirely unanounced, I'd think the lack of intrusion might be nice." Though his voice is joking tone, he's not entirely serious, more trying to look for the silver lining. Tom would rather find things to be possitive over than dwell on negatives.

Angeline supposes Tom has a point, but under most circumstances she would be happy to see her family. They are her family, after all. "Can I get you any more stir-gry?" She inquires, noticing he's mostly done with his food.

"Mum, may I be excused?" Elsie wants to know. Angeline nods. "All right sweetie, but there's dessert, so be sure to come back."

"I'd love more, quite good." he tells her at the offer of seconds. Tom rarely turns down food.

He gives the child a polite nod as she goes off from the table.

Angeline smiles her thanks at Tom, getting up to get him some more the stir-fry. "So, is there a Mrs Lucien hidden away somewhere?" She inquires from the kitchen. Call this a conversation starter, rather than just blatantly obvious.

"Not at all." he replied with a soft chuckle. Tom cannot recall ever being anything but a bachelor.