The shop was rather... Sparse. It wasn't a particularly large shop, but the space that they did have felt bigger than it was simply because of the dearth of goods on display. There were a couple of shelves and a couple of racks full of clothes, but not nearly as many as the place could have fit. Behind them all there was a counter, and behind that there was a guy. He was...
Beautiful was a good word for him. Like so many of the people in this town, he looked about Mélodie's age. His face was soft and kind, his jaw accented by a short, neatly-trimmed beard. The top of his head was completely clean-shaven - a bit of an unusual look for someone as young as him, but he made it work. He also had four arms - that was rather notable. Two of them, the bottom pair, were folded on the counter in front of him, while the other two hung at his side. His tidy button-up shirt was, perhaps unsurprisingly, tailored to accommodate him, with four separate sleeves.
He smiled warmly as she approached. She smiled right back, and trusted her Gift to do a good portion of the work in the conversations she was about to have. "Hey," she said. "My name's Mélodie. I'm here for a walk-in interview?"
His face fell. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. That position's already been filled. We're not doing any more interviews for it."
"Oh." Well, damn. Maybe this wasn't such a stroke of luck after all. "Um. You may want to take that sign outside down, then. It says that you're doing walk-ins today."
"Yeah, the boss just made the hire a few minutes ago. Feel free to look around, though. We specialize in stuff like this," he held his four arms out in a sort of X, "but we also carry clothes for more standard body-types. Maybe we'll have something you like!"
"Right. Well, thanks for letting me know." Feeling let-down, Mélodie took a look around. There was some interesting stuff here. An entire rack seemed to be dedicated to clothes sized for a person like Vince - the rack itself was higher than all the others so that the dresses hanging from it didn't brush the ground. The prices were higher too. She winced when she looked at the tags on some of them. There were shirts and tops with holes sewn in the backs, apparently to accommodate wings. Off in one corner, under a sign that said 'Intimates', there were bras and panties. Some of them looked perfectly ordinary, but there were a good number of bras with ridiculously large cups compared to their bands.
These were all neat, and Mélodie was glad that such a place existed, but she didn't really have need of any of this, and she had other opportunities to check out. She headed out of the store...
Or at least, she was about to. Something in the Intimates section caught her eye. It was a nursing bra, a really pretty one. It had the little hooks where the cups could be opened up for easy access, but it was also decorated with a nice lace trim and an embroidered flower pattern. She had always just sort of assumed that nursing bras were all plain and utilitarian, but this one was nice enough that she could easily see herself wearing it even if she didn't have a need for the 'nursing' part of it.
Which, she now did, she reminded herself. Emptying her breasts was something that she was probably going to have to do at least once a day now. Probably more often than that. Hopefully more often than that. The thought made her giddy, and she would have actually considered buying the bra right then and there, but for two things. The first was the price tag. It was 150 dollars. Yeesh. The second was the size. The cups were big enough that each one of them could have easily fit a good-sized watermelon snugly inside. Mélodie took a look at the tag. 40Y. Yeah, she was more than a score of sizes away from fitting in the cups, and the band was too big for her anyway. Still, they might have another one that would fit her. Her eye wandered down the rack, which she realized was conveniently organized by size, and-
"Hey, Mason! I need your help back here!" There was a door at the back of the store, behind the counter, which had just opened, and from behind it a woman came out. She was short and thin and willowy, and her hair was a frizzy storm of black and grey. "The damned machine's broken again."
"Which machine?" said the four-armed guy. "The sewing machine?"
"The computer! I hooked the new screen up, but it won't turn on. I need you to fix it."
"I'm watching the store, though. What if we get another thief?"
The woman groaned. "Ugh. Good point. God, can't wait until we get that new hire. Has anyone come in for an interview?"
Mélodie looked up and immediately narrowed her eyes at Mason, who looked away from her guiltily. So that was how it was, huh? She immediately went up to the counter, all smiles.
"Hi!" she said with a wave. "I'm here for an interview. My name is Mélodie."
"Perfect!" said the woman. "Mason, I'm going to go do this interview. When I get back, I'll watch the store while you go back and fix the computer."
"Sounds good to me," he said with a cheerfulness that Mélodie would have sworn was genuine if not for the circumstances.
"Fantastic. Hi! I'm Linette." She offered her hand, and Mélodie shook it. "I'm the owner and head tailor of All Shapes and Sizes. Come on back to my office and we'll get this show on the road." Mélodie followed her through the door, ignoring the withering glare that Mason shot her as she closed it behind her.
The back of the store was a lot bigger than she had expected. It was a lot bigger than the front, in fact. Apparently most of the space in this place was dedicated to a... Sewing workshop? Tailoring studio? Whatever you'd call it. There were four work desks. Two of them had large sewing machines on them, and the other two were covered with patterns, thread, cloth, and scissors. A large part of the room was dedicated to forms, some for pants, some for shirts, and some for dresses, which ranged a much wider variety of sizes than they would have before the Quake, some of which had half-finished projects on them. Along the back wall, there was a massive row of shelves covered in tools and materials, including an absolutely stuffed one full of reams of fabric.
"We mostly do custom work here," said Linette. "People need clothes in such a wide variety of shapes and sizes nowadays that it's not really practical to keep as much stock as other stores."
"I see," said Mélodie. The size of the store made sense now. "Is it only you doing the tailoring?"
"I do a good bit of it, and I also have a full-time employee and three assistants, including Mason out there. Soon to be four. That's why you're here! So, this job would be mostly split between helping in the front of the store, and helping me and Aura with clothesmaking duties back here. Front-of-house duties will include stocking the shelves, tidying up the merchandise after customers move things around, helping customers try things on in the changing rooms, and, once you've got a bit of experience, making sales and running the register. Back-of-house duties will include sorting and organizing all of our supplies, doing some basic alterations, and moving heavy things around if you've got the muscles for it, because me and Aura sure don't." She giggled girlishly at that. "You don't need to have any experience with tailoring - we can teach you that stuff - but good customer service skills for the front-of-house stuff is essential!"
"I'm eager to learn!" said Mélodie. "And I'm very good at dealing with people. Can I say, I think that this is a wonderful thing that you're doing here? I've known a lot of people who have a very, very hard time finding clothes that fit since the Quake, and it must be a lifesaver to have a place like this to go to." The exorbitant prices put a bit of a damper on that, but Mélodie thought it prudent not to mention that part.
"Oh, thank you." Linette looked pleased at the compliment. "There are little shops like this one that have popped up all over the place, but as far as I know this is the only one in Blanchepierre. Sometimes it's a bit overwhelming, but it's very rewarding work." With that, she led her through yet another door, off to the side, into a small but cluttered office. There was a desk that took up nearly a quarter of the room, covered in a scattering of papers, a whiteboard calendar covered in completion dates for various work orders, and, on the opposite wall from the desk, a bookshelf filled with fashion magazines and pattern collections.
There were also two chairs. Linette took a seat in one and bade Mélodie to sit in the other. "So," she said, "do you have a resume for me?"
"I don't, unfortunately," said Mélodie, taking care to keep her tone upbeat.
"Mm, no worries. We've had a couple of folks come in on-the-spot who didn't have a copy with them. Let's start by having you tell me a little bit about yourself."
Nice and open-ended. Mélodie put on her best smile. "Well, my name is Mélodie Monet. You can probably tell from my accent that I'm not from here. I was born and raised in France." She thought about telling her more about how she had gotten here, but... Best not to go into too much detail. That wasn't what Linette was likely interested in anyway. "I have lots of experience working with people, and I'm very good at interpersonal relations."
Linette was wearing a pleasant smile. "I'd like to hear more about that. Can you tell me about your previous work experience? Why do you think that you'd be a good fit for this job?"
Here it was. Mélodie had needed to bend the truth a couple of times since she got here in order to avoid going into too much detail about her past, but there wasn't really any getting around this. She was going to have to lie. She had figured this moment would come, so she had already thought of a cover story. "Well, the only other job I've had was working for my mother." Sort of true. "She's a doctor, you see." True, technically, but misleading. "She works as a counselor who specializes in helping couples reconcile and groups of people work together, like a team therapist." Lie, but one with a grain of truth in it. "I worked as her assistant." Sort of true. "She has her own practice, and I did clerical work for her there for a number of years," Lie. "and in addition to that, many of her jobs are done on-site, where she works with the team or group who needs her help. I often traveled with her and assisted with her on these trips."
There was a bit of truth in there, enough that Mélodie didn't feel like a complete heel saying it. "So I have experience talking to and working with people."
"Interesting." Linette steepled her fingers. "Is your mother still practicing?"
"She retired this year, and so no longer needs my assistance. This is why I am looking for a new job."
"Retired? You're pretty young, I can't imagine that your mother is much older than me."
"I'm twenty-six." True. "My mother is fifty." Big lie. Mélodie shrugged nonchalantly. "She made lots of money at her job and was very frugal, so she was able to retire early."
"Ah, if only we could all be so lucky," said Linette dreamily. "Why Missouri, of all places?"
There was another question that Mélodie had expected, and had prepared an answer for. "I have family here, and I wanted to try living in a small town for a while. I lived in Paris for my whole life before this month. The big city life can be wearying, you know?"
"Ah, don't I know it. I lived in Chicago for a few years, and I never really got used to it." She clapped her hands together. "Well! Why don't we give you a practical? I'm more interested in seeing what you can do than hearing about it."
Mélodie leaned forward in her seat, eager. "Fantastic! Tell me what you'd like me to do."
"Let's start with this: See if you can fix the computer." She pointed to it, sitting there on the desk. It was a dinosaur - the tower was beige, yellowed with age, and it still had a floppy disk drive. The monitor was new, a flatscreen, but still not particularly impressive, especially since it didn't seem to want to display anything. Mélodie tried moving the mouse and pressing enter on the keyboard, but nothing happened. The computer was clearly on, so she tried the power button on the monitor. Nothing.
"It looks like it's not even receiving power. One moment..." Mélodie traced the power cable from the back of the monitor... And immediately saw the problem. It wasn't plugged in. She remedied that, and the monitor immediately turned on.
"You fixed it!" said Linette. "Excellent! Now I won't have to call Mason back here."
"Piece of cake," said Mélodie with a grin. "Do you have another challenge for me?"
She did. Over the next half-hour, Linette had her do some simple tasks around the store. They were all fairly easy: she had her put a ream of cloth away in its proper spot among the rest of them in the storage rack, which wasn't hard because they were all very obviously organized by color and type, then she had her write up and print out a price tag and apply it to an item, then she had her identify the correct place to put it in the front of the house, and, finally, Linette ran her through a few hypothetical scenarios where angry customers came in with complaints that Mélodie had to deal with.
She felt like she did excellently in all of them. It didn't take a genius to discern the organizational practices of a clothing store, the label machine was easy, and being polite but firm and confident was pretty much always the way to deal with an angry person trying to get something from you. When it was all done and they were seated back in her office, Linette looked pleased. "Well," she said, "that's about all I have for you. Do you have any questions for me?"
She thought, for a moment, about telling her that Mason had tried to prevent her from interviewing. The idea was appealing, but probably not a good one. She had no reason to believe that he wouldn't just deny it, and she had no idea who Linette would believe in that situation. So she just went with a simple question instead: "Is this a part-time or full-time job?"
"Part-time," said Linette. "If I hire you, you would get around twenty-five to thirty hours per week."
"Excellent." Or not-so-excellent, depending on how much money that represented. "I hope it's not too gauche to ask what the pay is?"
"Oh, not at all. I'm looking to hire someone on at $12.50 per hour."
Mélodie did some quick math in her head. That was... $375 per week, so about $1500 per month. That should be enough to cover all of her expenses, right? It was hard to say, without knowing exactly how much all of those expenses would be. She didn't know how American taxes worked, either, so who knew how much of that she would actually be able to keep? And all that was assuming she got an even 30 hours per week anyway.
Oh well, it was a start. "Sounds good to me!"
Linette steepled her fingers again. Apparently that was something that she did when she was pleased. "Wonderful. Do you have an email address, Mélodie?"
She gave her the one that she had created in the café yesterday, which Linette wrote down on one of the many bits of paper scattered around her desk. "So what'll happen next is I'm going to send you an email with a link to do a background check. You'll just fill that out, along with the application that I'll send in the email. It's just your name, contact info, references, that sort of thing. Once you do all of that, you'll be in my list of candidates, and once a decision is made either way, I'll let you know. You can expect to hear from me in a week or so. Sound good?"
Background check? That filled Mélodie with a sense of dread. That might be... Complicated. Quick might be able to help her pass it, but there was a good chance that it could completely kill her chances at this job. "Yeah, sounds good!" she said cheerfully, regardless. "Thank you for your time."
"Before you go-" Mélodie had started to rise, but she sat back down, "-what is that perfume you're wearing? It smells wonderful."
"It's just me," she said casually. "What's it smell like to you?"
"Like the tulips that my grandmother used to grow in her garden when I was little. I've been reliving my childhood since you walked in."
"Good memories?" She already knew the answer, of course. It was good to know her Gift had been working this whole time. It affected everyone a little differently, and might have accounted for why the actual interview part of this interview had been so short. Or maybe that was just how Linette did things.
"Yeah," she said dreamily. "Anyway, it was nice to meet you!"
Mélodie shook her hand and made her way back to the front of the store, where Mason was giving her the stink eye, all four of his arms crossed. For a moment she considered confronting him, but decided against it. That conversation could happen if she was hired. For now, she wanted to check out that magic shop. She wasn't sure if she'd want to work there, but it wouldn't hurt to try for another interview, and also take a look at the wares. Odds were that everything in there that claimed to be magical was actually bunk (real magical objects were slowly starting to disperse themselves out into the world, but they were still fairly rare) but it might be interesting nonetheless.
As she approached it, she was surprised to discover that a small crowd had gathered around the front of the shop. She could just make out the tip of a pointy black witch hat beyond all the gathered people.
"If you thought that one was impressive, wait until you see my next trick!" came a grandiose voice. Mélodie made her way past the crowd until she saw the speaker. It was a woman, the wearer of the witch hat. She was...
Beautiful was a good word for her. She had a round face and soft features, brilliantly green eyes, a cute, button nose, and a dusting of freckles on her face. Her long, wavy hair was brilliantly red, and she wore it loose all the way down to her waist. She was tall, though not as tall as Mélodie, and rather heavyset, with thick thighs and big hips. She also had four breasts - that was rather notable. Her witch's costume was very obviously custom-made for her. It was all black silk and gossamer lace, very beautiful, and it possessed the unique quality of having two necklines. Or, rather, it had one neckline cut rather low, showing off just enough of her top pair of breasts to skirt the edges of the line between acceptable and scandalous, and then there was a hole cut in the outfit just below that so that she could show her second pair, just below the first. So she had two cleavages.
Witch Girl clasped her hands together as the crowd clapped. "Thank you, thank you! Now, for my next trick, I'll need a volunteer from the audience."
A few people in the crowd tentatively raised their hands, but Mélodie stepped forward and said, "I'll do it." Because why not?
"Excellent, excellent!" said the Witch. "Come up here next to me." There was a small table next to her, atop which there was a deck of cards. "What's your name, sweetheart?" she asked, once Mélodie had taken her place near it.
"Mélodie."
"What a beautiful name! And what a beautiful accent you have! Where are you from, Mélodie?"
"France."
"Ah, beautiful country, France! Have you ever been to Paris, Mélodie?"
"I lived there, yes." She expected magic, not questions about herself. Where was this going?
"Beautiful, beautiful city, Paris. The City of Lights! Home to le tour Eiffel, le arc de triomphe," she put on an exaggerated and very bad French accent to say these two names, "where even the dogs smoke cigarettes, and there are scam artists on every street corner!"
What was she going for? Was she working an insult comic angle? Mélodie found herself annoyed - she liked Paris - but she decided to lean in to it. "I see that you've visited," she said, which instantly got a good laugh from the crowd.
"I'm just joshin' ya, Mélodie," said the Witch with a grin and a nudge. "Thanks for being a good sport! Now!" She picked up the deck of cards from the table. "For this trick, just so that you all know there's no funny business going on, I'm not going to touch the deck of cards at all!" Murmurs through the crowd. "Go ahead and take this deck, Mélodie. Look through the cards, show a few to the audience if you want. It's a perfectly ordinary deck of cards, right? No tricks in there?"
Mélodie looked through them. Seemed to be a perfectly ordinary deck to her. She had a finely-tuned instinct for feeling the presence of magic, and there was nothing about these cards that told her that they were anything other than mundane paper. "Looks fine to me."
"You heard her, folks! It's a perfectly ordinary deck of cards. Go ahead and shuffle that deck for me, Mélodie. Yeah, just like that, get them nice and mixed up. Now! You've all seen the trick where an audience member chooses a card, the magician shuffles the deck up a bit, and then pulls that card back out again, without ever looking at it, right?"
A few of the audience members muttered in agreement.
"Well, that's boring! It's old news, nobody wants to see that anymore. What I'm going to do is have Mélodie do the trick for me! Now I just want to emphasize that Mélodie and I have never met each other before in our lives. She's not a plant, are you Mélodie?"
"I don't think I am," said Mélodie, amused. "I've never seen you before. I would have remembered." She glanced very obviously at the Witch's four breasts at that, which drew a giggle from the audience.
"Of course you would have!" She put her hands on her hips and proudly thrust her chest out. "I'm twice as memorable as the average girl, at least!" A laugh from the crowd. She was good at this. "Now, Mélodie, starting from the top, I want you to reveal the cards in the deck to me, one by one. Keep going until I say to stop, and that will be the card that I choose. Got it?"
Mélodie did as she asked, showing the cards to the Witch one by one. All the while, she made a big show of hemming and hawing over which one to choose, muttering "Mm, not that one. Nope, not that one either. That's a good one, but no," in a loud stage whisper. Finally, she said, "Stop! That's the one. That's my card." She grabbed it from Mélodie's hand, making a show of squishing all four of her breasts up to her chest and tucking it neatly between her top pair without showing it to the audience or to Mélodie. They were big enough that she was able to make it disappear completely. "I like to keep my cards close to my chest," she said with an overly-dramatic wink. Another laugh.
"Now, Mélodie! You didn't see the card, correct?"
"Nope," said Mélodie. It was true, she hadn't.
"Well, you're going to use your magical powers to determine what card it was!"
"And how will I do that?"
"Easy! Put those cards back on the top of the deck. Square 'em up nice and neat, just like that. Now, one by one, I want you to take cards off the top of the deck and put them in two stacks on the table here. Alternate between them, so first one goes in a stack right here, second one goes into this other stack, third one goes in the first stack. Yeah, just like that. Now, you're the magician here, Mélodie, so I want you to put as many cards in these stacks as you want. Just keep going until you don't feel like it anymore."
Okay. Mélodie pulled twelve cards, alternating them into the two stacks. "Is that good?"
"Looks good to me! Now, Mélodie, you may not know it, but you've actually already determined what card I chose."
"I have?"
"You have! What I want you to do is flip both of these stacks you've made over. If you did the trick correctly, the card on top of the first stack will match the number of the card that I chose, and the card on top of the second stack will match the suit. Are you ready? Flip 'em!"
She did. The card at the top of the first stack, the first one she had put down, was a four of diamonds. The one on the top of the second stack was the ace of hearts.
"The four of hearts, ladies and gentlemen! Is that the one that I chose? Why don't we have Mélodie show us?" With a grin, the Witch stood on her toes and pushed her chest out towards Mélodie.
"For real?" said Mélodie. "You want me to just reach in?"
"If you're comfortable with it," said the Witch.
"Well, alright..." Mélodie delicately stuck her hand between the Witch's top pair of breasts to grab the card that she had placed there earlier, except... It wasn't there. Her breasts were warm and slightly sweaty and wonderfully soft, but there was no card between them.
The confusion must have shown on Mélodie's face, because the Witch grinned widely and said, "What's the matter? Can't find it?"
"It might have slipped further down," said Mélodie. She would have been happy to dig around in there until she found it, but she felt like that would probably not be prudent to do in front of an audience of people.
"Oh, I think it slid way further down," said the Witch. "Try the other pair."
"If you say so," said Mélodie with a shrug. She reached in. It was an odd sensation, feeling the softness of her bottom pair of breasts against her hand while the top pair pressed down on them from above. And there it was. She pulled the card out and showed it to the audience. It was the four of hearts.
The crowd cheered and clapped. "Thank you, everyone!" said the Witch. "Take a bow, Mélodie! You've been a good sport! That's the end of the show, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for watching!" She took her pointy hat off and held it up. "If you're feeling generous, a little bit of change in the hat goes a long way towards helping my pay my rent, folks! And of course, don't forget to check out this lovely store right behind me for more weird and wonderful things! Check out the books section, we've got guides that show you how to do everything you just saw me do here today, so you can be a magician too!"
Most of the crowd dispersed back into the mall, but a not-insignificant number of them stayed to drop some change in the Witch's hat. Mélodie would have put some money in, but she didn't have any cash on her, so she sheepishly ducked away into the store.
It was... A lot bigger on the inside than it had seemed from the cursory glance she had given it earlier. It turned out that the place actually took up two of the mall's store spaces - there was an entire second half to the store hidden behind an archway in the side wall that Mélodie hadn't even noticed before. She did a stroll around the place, making sure to get at least a glance at everything.
Most of the things here failed to catch her interest. There were ouija boards, but she knew for a fact that ghosts weren't real. Crystal balls, nothing more than ordinary glass. Dowsing rods, those were bunk. A whole lot of crystals... What was it with people and crystals? They were just pretty rocks, no better or worse at holding curses or boons than any other physical object, but for some reason people had been going bonkers for magical crystals since even before the Quake. In any case, certainly none of the ones that she saw on the shelves here had any magic in them, though she did briefly consider buying a particularly stylish blue one that was attached to a necklace before she noticed its price tag of twenty dollars.
What else? There was an entire section of the store dedicated to the sort sleight-of-hand magic that the four-breasted witch had demonstrated at the front of the store - felt hats with secret chambers, trick decks of cards, ropes with magnets in them, that sort of thing. Neat, but nothing there had anything to do with real magic. There was an antiques section that caught her eye purely because it was full of things that looked interesting on their own merits - old hand mirrors, a creepy painting or two, some amulets and talismans, charms and trinkets...
But there was nothing here that was legitimately magical. Nothing in the whole store. She had been paying close attention as she did her walkaround, and she would have been able to sense it if there were. She found herself a little bit disappointed despite herself. It was, objectively, a good thing that there was nothing magical here, because really magical things attracted exactly the type of people that she was trying to avoid, but it would have been fun to run into... Maybe an enchanted sex toy or something? Anything, really.
She did one last scan of the various books that were on display before she left - she'd been focusing on sensing any magic in them the first time around and hadn't been paying attention to their titles - and, to her surprise, made an interesting discovery. It was a little mass-market paperback with the dull, straightforward title, How to Get Rid of Your Gift, by Jon Stendahl. The reason it had caught her eye was the author's name. She knew Jon Stendahl. He was one of her old teachers, in fact. That meant that the contents of this book were probably legit. She read through the blurb and skimmed through a few pages.
It seemed that the book wasn't about getting rid of your Gift permanently - that wasn't actually possible, as far as she knew - but about suppressing it. It occurred to her that Iris would probably be very interested in its contents. Mélodie was interested in it too. She had never needed to turn her Gift off before, but the knowledge could come in handy some day.
She picked up a copy and made her way to the check-out counter, where she was a little surprised to see that the Witch was manning the register. She was all smiles, conversing politely with the customers as she rang them out, and when it was Mélodie's turn she happily said, "Hello again! Find everything that you needed?"
"I did," said Mélodie. "That was an impressive show. I didn't realize that you also work here."
"Yep! The shows were actually my idea. When I was first hired this was pretty much all I did," she said as she rang up the book, "but I proposed the magic stuff to my manager, who's also the owner of the store. He was like, 'Sure, whatever', so I did it and traffic to the store, as well as sales, pretty much tripled instantly." She grinned. "It's also great for practicing my act."
"Oh, yeah? Do you do shows at other venues?"
She blushed a little bit. "Uh, not yet. But I'm working up to it! There's not much of an audience for magic shows in a college town, you know? People tend to think of magicians as, you know. Kid stuff. So the bars and clubs here aren't exactly eager to book one."
"Having me reach into your cleavage was hardly something I'd expect to see in a kid's show."
"Right? I'd like to do a really adult magic show one day. I have ideas, but I can't practice them here. Um, for obvious reasons. Oh, by the way, thanks for being a good sport about everything. I hope that I didn't make you uncomfortable?"
"I was perfectly happy with the boob stuff, but I could have done without the insults to my home city," said Mélodie, just a teensy bit tersely... But then she thought about how Yuriko had spoken about San Francisco the day before. "I guess you weren't wrong, though. There are quite a lot of smokers and scammers there. By the way, they're pronounced la tour Eiffel and l'arc de triomphe."
"Sorry!" she said, and she looked legitimately embarrassed. "I didn't mean anything by it. It was improvising. I intended it as gentle ribbing, but maybe I need to work on my phrasing and delivery."
Mélodie waved it off. "It's no big deal. Oh, also. I noticed the sign out in the front that says that you are hiring?"
Her smile returned. "Oh, yeah! One of our other guys left, so now we're short-staffed. You interested? I can probably put in a good word and get you an interview if you are."
Score! "I definitely am! Would I get to help you with your magic shows?"
"Ohmigod, would you?" Her face lit up with excitement. "I could use an assistant! I mean, you wouldn't have to, that's not part of the job description, but if you did I would give you part of the hat-money I collect. It's not an incredible amount, but it helps supplement the paycheck. Minimum wage, bay-beee." She pumped her fist in a sarcastic show of enthusiasm.
"Hell yeah. That would be fun!"
"Would you be up for talking to him right now? My boss is here, and I'm pretty sure he's just watching TV or something in his office."
Better and better. "Definitely!"
She rose from her set behind the counter and knocked on a nearby door, then opened it and peeked her head in. "Hey, Arch? I've got a person here who's interested in the open position." A reply came, but Mélodie couldn't hear it. "Yeah, do you have a moment? Awesome." She turned and waved Mélodie towards her.
This office, much like the last one Mélodie had been in, was small and cramped. Like the rest of the store, the walls were painted black, and all of the furniture was made of dark wood. Behind the room's only desk, there was a middle-aged man with a crown of frizzy black hair and a long goatee that he wore braided. "Heeey," he said as the two of them entered, without looking up from his computer screen. "What's your name?"
"Mélodie Monet. Pleased to meet you!"
"Yeah, yeah," he said, mellowly. "It's cool. It's all good. Have you seen these colors?" He gestured towards the monitor, which was facing away from Mélodie. "They're so interesting."
"Uh..." The Witch looked concerned. "Do you have any questions for her, Arch?"
He finally turned to look at the two of them. His eyes were wide and his pupils were extremely dilated. "Yeah. Why're you two flying? Get down from there!"
"Oh, Jesus, Arch, not again." Witch buried her face in her hand.
"The colors went away. Where are the colors?" He looked around frantically, until he found his computer monitor again. "Oh, there they are!"
"Come on, this isn't going to go anywhere." Witch led Mélodie back out of the office and closed the door behind her. "Jesus Christ, I'm so sorry you had to see that."
"Mushrooms?" asked Mélodie.
"That or LSD. He said that he had quit doing both, but obviously that's not true. Fucking hell, I'm so sorry," she repeated.
"I mean, without saying too much, that isn't the first time I've seen someone on a trip. I guess that means an interview isn't happening, though?"
"You still want to work here?" she asked, surprised.
"Money is money. I need a job," said Mélodie with a shrug.
She looked at her for a moment, a bit incredulously. "Alright, well. Listen, how about this. Once he comes down, I'll talk to him and see if I can get you an interview or something. In the meantime, let's exchange phone numbers. I'll text you a pdf of the application and an email address to send it to."
"Sounds good to me," said Mélodie. They punched each other's numbers into their phones. "By the way, what's your name?"
"Naomi. Does the E in your name have that little accent thing over it?"
"It does. There's an -IE at the end too, not a Y."
"Got it." Naomi looked up from her phone. "Well, thanks for being a good sport about everything. And, uh..." She looked around, and, seeing that there were no other customers within earshot, whispered, "between you and me, could you keep what you just saw on the down-low? If Arch gets busted for drug possession or whatever, I'll be out of a job."
"Sure, I won't tell anyone." She had no intention or desire to talk to police anyway. That could potentially lead them to discovering that her green card had a completely different name on it than her driver's license, which wasn't a road she wanted to go down.
"Thanks. I appreciate that. I'll text you if any opportunities come up. And hey, even if you don't get the job, I might still take you on as an assistant, if you're interested?"
"I might be. It sort of depends on what job I find, you know? If I'm right here anyway, it would be easy, but if I end up working on the other side of town or something," she shrugged. "I'll get back to you on that."
"Fair enough. I'm sorry again. Like I said, I thought that he stopped doing that shit."
"No worries. Hey, before I go, have you met the guy who works at All Shapes and Sizes?"
Naomi brightened at that. "Mason? Yeah, he's my brother!"
Mélodie couldn't help but laugh. "Really? That's a funny coincidence."
"Right? It gets way weirder though! We have two other siblings. We're quadruplets! And on top of that, all of us have Gifts that involve the number four. Mason's got the four arms, I've got four boobs, our sister Olivia has these weird markings on four distinct parts of her body, and our brother Peter has this thing where he can see a few seconds into the future."
"What does that last one have to do with the number four?"
Naomi broke into a huge grin. "He has foresight!"
"Okay, that last one's a bit of a stretch," said Mélodie with a snort.
"Maybe so," said Naomi, "but I'm counting it. Anyway, it was nice to meet you, but I sort of need to get back to work. See you around?"
"Hopefully! It was nice meeting you, too. I hope that your magic show continues to grow and do well!"
Mélodie departed, her new book in tow. Well, that had certainly not gone how she had expected. Surprises abounded today, apparently. She'd come out of it with two potential job prospects, though, so she was making progress. She decided to take a break, and headed for the mall's food court.
After picking up a cheap burger and some fries, she took a seat at one of the many tables scattered about and took a moment to stop and plan out the rest of her day. It was approaching 1pm, so she had a few more hours to keep her rental car before the place that she needed to return it to closed at 5. She should, she decided, probably figure out how she was going to get around town after today, and after a few internet searches, she narrowed it down to three options.
The first was that she could hoof it everywhere. The town was a good fifteen to twenty miles wide in some parts, but her current apartment was relatively close to most places she would need to go, especially if she managed to get a job here in the mall or downtown. She found a map showing the public bus routes in the city, and while they were definitely not extensive, by using them she could probably get to anywhere in Blanchepierre with no more than... Maybe an hour and a half of walking, if she needed to. During the day. The buses didn't run at night, apparently.
The second option was to buy a bike. If she did that, she wouldn't have to rely on any buses and would be able to get pretty much anywhere in town on her own, though if she had to visit the south or east parts it would be a very long bike ride. She guessed that if she could find a used bike store she could probably find a decent one in the $200 to $300 range.
The third option was to find a moped or light scooter, like the one that she had nearly been run over with yesterday. That would be almost as good as having a car - she would be able to easily and (relatively) quickly go anywhere in town any time she wanted. After some searching she estimated that she could probably find one for $500 or so, which would make a huge dent in the approximately $700 she had at the moment, but if she wasn't able to find a job soon, it wouldn't matter anyway.
A pang of guilt tugged at her. Now that she had cooled down and was in a better mood, it occurred to her that she really sort of had been in the wrong during her confrontation with her adversary in the gym. She wished that she had some way to contact her, so that she could apologize. She would probably end up going back to that gym, so maybe she would see here there again.
Or... wait a moment, what was it that she had said? J'ai une amie qui parle français, elle a le même don que toi. Something like that. That sounded an awful lot like Mélodie's new neighbor, Rose. Did they know each other? If that was the case, it was possible that Rose could get her in contact with the Moped Bandit. She didn't have Rose's number, but she lived right next door, and it was a Sunday, so there was a decent chance that she'd be home. Maybe Moped Girl would know where to find a good deal on one for Mélodie? It was a probably a bit of a dick move to call her up and say, ‘Sorry about being kind of a jerk to you, now can you do me a favor?’ but she needed every bit of help that she could get.
-~o~-
Time's up! What've we got?
Search around for a used bike shop and buy a cheap bike.
57.14% (8 votes)
Talk to Rose, get a moped.
35.71% (5 votes)
Hoof it/use the bus. 7.14% (1 votes)
Total votes: 14
Sounds good to me! Looks like Mélodie's gonna be checking out bike shops.
Also! If you think that Mélodie should do something that hasn't been showing up in the polls, feel free to suggest it in a comment down below, DM it to me on Twitter, or send it to my Curiouscat. If I like it, it could make it into the options for an upcoming vote, or possibly go directly into a story!
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