[Mackenzie] (fancy some company? :’) )
[Maija] (sure. :) )
[Maija] It’s too hot for the hoodie, though it’s still with her, tied around her waist. The safety of it’s covering hood has been replaced with a baseball cap, pulled low over her eyes. Without the hiding fleece of the several sizes too large sweatshirt, it’s easy to see how painfully thin she is – at 5’6″, her height is average, but if she weighs 110, she has a brick in both pockets of her threadbare and oft patched and mended jeans. Her tanktop clings to her skin, and her spine and ribs are easily traced by eye alone.
She’s sitting on a bench, near a bus stop, her boots hooked on the seat, her arms wrapped around her knees, as she watches an apartment in the distance. It’s no longer empty – but the occupants are not the one she’s looking for, either. She could be anyone, or no one. guess which one she believes she is?
[Mackenzie] Cabrini Green’s recent housing developments are not the place you want to be found after dark. In fact, it is next to impossible to even bribe a taxi to idle for you while you duck into the towering high-rise to hand deliver documents to a client because she can’t leave her house. Or won’t, as the case happens to be tonight. Perhaps it should distress Mackenzie Walsh that she spent such a great amount of her time around people in regrettable circumstances.
Regrettable.
It was a word she was beginning to loathe with every fiber of her being, if she was honest with herself. She found herself repeating it most days, or hearing it regurgitated back to her by associates at the firm, in court, by judges that sat in high dungeon above them all with their expensive robes and private quarters. In truth, it was only regrettable that they knew the word only in abstract attachment.
They knew little of poverty, and she had no cause to be a martyr, for didn’t she work among them, and dress in her pretty suits, carrying her leather-bound brief-case?
—
Maija sits at a bus stop, and she isn’t bothered because under her baseball cap, pulled down to hide her face, she’s just another potential thug in this post-code that scares the good, up-standing citizens of the city. The idling taxi across the street from her apparently decides he’s waited long enough, and takes off with a squeal of tires against old, pot-holed cement.
Not more than two minutes later, the graffiti-strewn door to the housing development is opened, and a young woman in sneakers, jeans and a faded base-ball jersey descends the steps. In the darkness it’s hard to make out precise details about her; aside that she’s short [far shorter than Maija] and has very dark, straight hair pulled away from her face in a ponytail.
She stops when she notices the taxi is gone, and throws her hands up in the air. Even across the street, you can hear the quiet cussing.
[Maija] The tire squeal gets her attention, as she flips her head around, dirty blond hair (in color, she’s quite clean, thank you, despite her bedraggled appearance) slides around shoulders only covered with the straps of her white tank top, that’s damp in places from recent smatterings of rain. She doesn’t seem to be bothered though…
…and certainly isn’t bothered by the soft cursing from the smallish well dressed woman. If anything, she might be amused, though you can’t tell that either. Any expression that crosses her face under the shadows born of that ball cap brim, is micro, and unseen at a distance. She watches anyway – chances are that woman’s going to get mugged. She don’t fit in – that much is obvious.
[Mackenzie] The petite woman checks her watch, and with a glance up and down the eerily quiet street seems to make a decision. Either she can try her luck with another cab [though she knew full well she had zero chance one would come this far out] or it was the bus for her.
She’d ridden in worse.
And, as she stepped onto the road and walked towards the bus stop, at least it appeared she wasn’t the only one waiting for it. The closer she came, the more details were clear. She was attractive, in a plain sort of way. Which was, she wasn’t precisely striking but her face had character [which was what was always said about plain people, to be quite honest]. Her nose was long and well-formed, and her face had a pleasant shape to it; the eyebrows were thin, and the lashes beneath them dark and thick to fringe the eyes set within.
They were nice eyes, as far as eyes went. Or if you were to bother to make a study of eyes at all. A very dark brown, and a match for the hair that was draped over a shoulder. Her jersey had the appearance of hard washing, the logo was cracked and faded; the Cubs not quite as full of vigor as they once were, splashed across her chest.
She didn’t fit in, that much was obvious.
But she didn’t seem precisely afraid, either. Which made her very brave, or very stupid. “How often does the bus run, do you know?” She asks, straight up, in a accented tone.
[Maija] Her face is a careful study of neutrality, of one well used to hiding anything and everything, including herself when the situation demands it. This situation has yet to reveal if that’s necessary, and as such, she turns her gaze downwards once Mackenzie gets close enough, so as to hide her features even more. Her shoulders stiffen, slightly, and while she doesn’t outwardly appear to move, she is inwardly already searching for exits, watching the area, watching any passers by, hyper-alert.
Her eyes are dark, as dark as the night itself that surrounds them, and only a glitter of the lone working streetlamp gives them any definition at all, on the rare occasion she allows them to be seen.
Mack is either brave or stupid – which one remains to be seen. Maija doesn’t make much of a study of anything, which is patently obvious when she answers the question. “Ain’t gotta fuckin’ clue.”
There is no accent to speak of – nothing to pinpoint her origin. It’s a mess of anywhere and everywhere, mingled with awful grammar.
[Mackenzie] She tucks her hands in her pockets, the sleeves half rolled up to her elbows and rather than taking offense at the words, or otherwise seeming anything but a touch put out with her taxi she merely nods her head once as if she agreed somehow with Maija’s not having a fuckin’ clue and tilts her head forward to examine her toes in her sneakers.
Dark hair falls over her cheeks and one hand slides from a pocket to tender it back behind the lobe. There’s a tattoo on the inner wrist that seems a little out of place against that pale, smooth skin. It almost seems a little out of place on a woman like Mackenzie, to be honest. From the look of it in the putrid light the bus-stop light throws its some kind of tribal design.
It could, but it’s not, even be a Chinese symbol.
After about five minutes of absolute silence the smaller of the two women apparently decides she’s had enough of standing and sits down on the edge of the bench; reaching into her back pocket to pull out a creased notepad with spiral binding at the top and a little stump of a pencil. She flicks it open, and licking her finger, thumbs through the pages until she finds the most recent. It’s covered with writing, some of it underlined and about mid way down its length are a collection of badly drawn musical keys.
Apparently unfazed by the locale, or the girl’s silence beside her, she begins to harmonize a section of notes.
[Maija] The woman sits down, and Maija tenses a moment, two, but as the silence continues she relaxes a little bit, too. Barely. She glances at the notepad when it makes it’s appearance, seeing the musical notes, but doesn’t make a comment on how badly drawn they are. Her own notebook is back in her room, and she is left with nothing really to occupy her hands.
So she leaves them clasped around her knees.
She also notes the tattoo, but there is no recognition there, really, nothing that suggests it’s anything out of the ordinary. She doesn’t have any of her own, of course, but that means nothing in the long run – as there’s a lot of things she doesn’t have. Jeans without holes in them, money, more possessions of her own that fit in something larger than a backpack, whatever.
Mackenzie doesn’t fit in.
Maija blends in.
but finally – she asks. “th’fuck someone like you doin this side of town so late anyway…”
[Mackenzie] She’s shading in a C sharp with the edge of her pencil and her fingers are going to be terribly stained by the time she’s done. Maija finally bursts out of her silence with a question; it’s blunt and not exactly politely worded but the most the Black Fury Kinswoman does to demonstrate her surprise is to raise her eyebrows, and turn to glance at Maija with a mild expression that is neither terribly startled or fearful.
“Oh, I was just dropping some documents off to a client. She’d have come get them herself but her hip is aching and she had no-one to mind the baby.”
Mackenzie’s hands are very delicate, she has long fingers better suited to an artist’s occupation than her own, she seems very at home, blending and then smudging down with a press of her forefinger against the page, rubbing away the excess lead. “I didn’t mind to tell the truth, but now I regret not driving. I forget how little you can trust the taxi’s around here.”
[Maija] Her question is rude, and out of the blue. She doesn’t care, and tthat surprise and raised eyebrows doesn’t garner any real reaction. Nor do the explanations. Until the last sentence, of course.
That gets a snort that mighta been amusement, but you can place your bets on any expression, because really? It’s hard to tell. “Ain’t a good idea t’trust anythin’ or anyone round here.”
Truer words have never been spoken. “The fuck ya drawin?” Blunt, still.
[Mackenzie] Mackenzie, with her head lowered, gives a quiet sort of breath at that which might have been laughter or at least the idea of it and certainly when she looks up her mouth is curved at one corner. “Truer words have rarely been spoken,” she says with quiet sincerity and then, with a small smile she lifts the notepad up and passes it toward the girl as if it were a joint.
“Take a look, if you want. Some of it probably won’t mean much to you,” she commentates, twisting the stub of a pencil around in her fingers and leaning back against the bench. “But I was drawing some scales, trying to work out a melody for some lyrics I wrote.”
[Maija] She looks at the pad, then takes it after a moment, studying it, and shaking her head before she puts it back. “Ain’t a musician. Draw some, but ain’t know two shits bout nuthin musical.”
She’s crass, she’s got no manners, but she doesn’t normally talk at all – which means she’s somewhat comfortable here. Likely a bad sign, as that usually means someone’s going to jump out and jump her and she’ll arrive back to the Brotherhood bloody and beaten.
Again.
“So ya do paper work, an’ ya fuckin’ write music. What else ya do? Cuz ya workin on some holy trifecta of perfection or some shit.”
[Mackenzie] She accepts her notepad back and flips the cover back over, carefully slotting the stump of a pencil inside the spiral binding. Maija is abrupt and the quick, almost suspicious manner she speaks and the protective way she holds herself (almost as if she feared recognition by the stars themselves) say much to the mild-mannered young woman sharing a bus stop with her.
“Hardly.” Mackenzie denies with a hint of a sarcastic turn in her voice. She lifts one slim shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I’m a lawyer, the paperwork sort of comes as part of the package deal and the music stuff is just what I do when I’m not hanging out on the wrong side of town.”
She raises her eyebrows, without a smile, as though the humor in her words was effect enough.
“Though I’ve always been of the opinion that you don’t really have to know two shits about a thing to enjoy it.” Another shrug, it seems her method of easy dismissal, one way or another.
[Maija] A lawyer.
There’s a hint of something in her gaze, a flash of something that is there, than gone so fast it might as well not have existed at all. She turns her head away to look at something down the road, maybe quick enough to hide that flash, maybe not. Her attention turns to the apartment building, unbidden, and then she takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it go. Steadies herself.
Only then does she reply. “Oh. What kinda lawyer?” Bland. Blunt, but bland and carefully (too carefully) uninterested.
[Mackenzie] If she sees the flash she does not reveal so, her features are set in their expression of quiet contemplation of this stranger, this girl that she does not really know from Adam and yet instinctively (or maybe because she wishes it be instinctual) feels a growing desire to unravel.
It is not the first time, nor will be the last that she feels that inkling.
It is more than her occupation, it is more than who or what she is, but she never presses it. “Family law,” she says and as if wanting to provide some tangible proof, some crumb to offer in treaty she leans back and tugs her wallet from a pocket, taking out a small card.
She holds it out between her fingers.
It’s laminated and the glossy surface feels smooth to the touch, the bold lettering reads that she is from a firm calling themselves Fetman, Garland & Associates and that her name is apparently Mackenzie Walsh, that she holds a Masters in Family Law and what her contact details are.
She watches Maija take the card, maybe glance at it. “I work with victims of domestic abuse, child custody cases, sometimes I handle divorces.”
[Maija] Family law…
That gets a glance – a quick sharp look at this stranger that sat beside her, that’s waiting for a bus that may or may not ever come, randomly drawing and talking to the [obviously broken] street rat. She reaches and takes the card, her fingers skinny, long, and pale – likely cold. IN fact, her hands are always cold, but Mackenzie doesn’t know that. (Or the one time they are warm… that was another Lawyer, another time.)
She reads the card, and just stares at it for a few minutes, before she drops a foot to the ground in front of her so that she can shove it into her pocket. The knee returns to it’s previous place, her arms wrapped around her knees again. Curled up. Protective. […wary…]
Then, suddenly. “Ya ain’t happen t’know how t’go bout changin ya name without any paperwork but an’ old state ID, do ya?”
[Mackenzie] A car appears around the corner, and speeds by them. It slows only for a moment, and two dark figures behind the glass stare at them as bass rumbles from their speakers before the car abruptly accelerates around a corner with a squeal of brakes.
Mackenzie ignores the car in favor of considering the question she’s just been asked.
She frowns a little in consideration, lines marring her smooth forehead. “Well,” she begins, speaking slowly, gathering her thoughts as she goes on. “It wouldn’t be as easy as it would if you had a birth certificate. Which I assume from the question that you don’t, but it might not be impossible if you could prove you were a citizen of the country.”
A beat, and in the distance growing faintly louder is what sounds like the rumble of a large engine. Perhaps the bus will come, after all. The woman with the accent that places her somewhere like Australia at some point in her life watches Maija’s expressions with dark, intelligent eyes. “I could ask around, if you liked. You have my card, so you know how to contact me.”
[Maija] She watches the car, rather then the woman beside her, though every bit of her is attuned to the answer. When it come, she turns her head to look at her again, though even still she keeps her head angled so that most of her face is in shadow. She is well used to hiding, well used to keeping her thoughts away from her face, and keeping folks from recognizing her as much as she can.
She’s been on the run a very long time.
She chews the inside of her cheek a moment, the muscles of her jaw the only evidence that it’s happening, until she comes to some sort of decision. She leans up and digs in her back pocket, pulling out a tattered Washington State ID card, and shows it to Mackenzie.
“S’all I got.” a beat. “Name’s Maija.” Mi-yah. Needless to say, that ain’t the name on the ID. And she’s barely 18.
Another beat, then. “I ain’t got much cash. But if ya kin gimme a ball park, I’ll figure it out.”
[Mackenzie] The growl of the bus’s engine grows louder, it cannot be more than a block away, now. Maija takes out a tattered Washington State ID card and shows it to the lawyer. Mackenzie takes it in her hands and carefully studies it; she notes the different alias but does nothing more than lift her eyes to shake her head gently against her words about payment.
“Tell you what, let me see what I can do first. Then we can haggle about you paying. Sound good?” She inquires, with a quirk of her lips.
[Maija] She nods, slightly. “Yeah, alright.”
What Mackenzie don’t know is that she’s probably told her more, spoke to her more than she has to anyone in weeks, since Will left, since she was shoved back into the brotherhood, since she’s decided it was best to keep her head down, her mouth shut, and think about moving on again. This may give her some kind of hope that she can’t be found – or that it’ll be at least harder.
Belated. “Thanks.”
[Mackenzie] There’s a level of decency about Mackenzie Walsh. It’s nothing so clear cut that it makes you want to barf from the do-gooder vibe of it but it’s something that is there as plain as the nose on her face at moments like this. She seems, by all intents and purposes like a genuine person.
Someone without an agenda.
Or at least — without a malicious one.
The bus pulls around the corner finally and though Mackenzie’s eyes re-focus on the silver vehicle, she makes no sudden leap to her feet to stand. Rather, she remains calmly seated until it fully pulls to a stop with a hiss of air, and the doors are opened to let a stray resident out.
Maija says thanks, and that one word devoid of cussing might mean more than anything else. Perhaps to both women. “Well, you’re welcome.” She responds sincerely, and gets to her feet finally, pushing herself upright with her palms on her knees.
[Maija] She’s very accustomed to people who seem like they have agendas, who seem like they don’t but do, who seem nice, but are really malicious. She’s suspicious, but clearly her previous plan has not worked, other than the fact that she’s still in one place, and he hasn’t found her.
Yet.
The bus pulls up, and while Mackenzie waits, then gets up, Maija stays exactly where she is. Seems she wasn’t waiting for the bus after all – she has no intention of riding this one. The Brotherhood isn’t that far away, after all. Not for someone as well used to walking as she is.
She lifts a hand and scratches at the back of her neck, but otherwise, falls silent, and watches the Lawyer get onto the bus, doing her best not to have a panic attack since her life, literally, is now in that woman’s hands, along with her ID, her real name, her age, her state of birth.
This could go bad.
Very bad.
[breathe, Maija, breathe.]
“G’Night.”