Difference between revisions of "A Light Emergency"

"Thank God!" They're the first words from Victoria's lips when the door to her house is opened and it's Zach on the other side, guest in tow. "You will not believe the trouble I am having! Ugh!" her tongue pushes out for a moment, "Oh, hi, Alma. Side hussle? That's fine. I need literally all the help I can get with this. You will not believe the day I've had." Dressed, as ever, as if she's about to step into a photoshoot. This one maybe about a cool Millennial from the upstairs apartment. A leather jacket and fitted chinos, little beanie cap and everything. But she doesn't have much time for introductions, turning quickly to lead them through her house. Pace setting her heels to a machine gun rhythm against the hardwood.

"I'm, like, in a total panic and I knew you'd be able to help. I'm just... It's the worst, seriously," Tori pronounces over her shoulder as she leads through the twisting chambers of the old house. Finally leading them to what looks to be a library. One wall entirely windows, each of them arched and nearly nine feet tall. The other three walls covered in built-in bookshelves. Brimming with leather-bound volumes and smelling of dust and paper. The hardwood giving way to a faded, but once elaborate carpet. The furniture, though, is extremely modern. Pale greys with right angles, or brightly colored with sweeping, Swedish design.

Zach's suspicion about how 'emergency' this all is starts to climb, but all the same he follows. After all, there /might/ be an actual bomb. The library's a thing he appreciates, even as he's nearly power-walking behind Victoria's trot. His hands are in his pockets, his head is on a swivel - this place changes a fair bit and there's a lot of it, so even though he's here semi-frequently to do work, it's good to refresh the mental map whenever possible

Alma trots along behind everyone but slows down when they pass the library. She looks way way up to the top shelf and looks for one of those rolling library ladders. To no one in particular, "Oh my god this is the best" just comes out without thought. "Look at those windows!" She reorients herself and draws close to Zach again to hear what the emergency is. Hopefully nothing is threatening to flood the library! She looks up at the ceiling.

"Ugh, they're a nightmare. Like, just buy a Kindle or literally any phone," Victoria dismisses the library, even as she turns around. "Alright! So. We need to take all the books off the shelf," she demonstrates, "And put them back the other way." The book she took off slides back into place, this time with its binding and spine facing to the back of the shelf. Exposing the paper of the aging pages and little else. "And we need to do it before the light from these windows goes bad. And then we move all the original furniture back in and set up the shot."

That's it? That's the emergency? Zach's eyes drift shut and his shoulders sag a little bit. Whether it's because of the creative definition of 'emergency' she uses, or because he's going to relent and perform the task she lays before him. He shakes his head in the next moment, brings his gaze back up and fixes Victoria with it. "It's a good thing - for you - that you're cute," he says, finally. That's a yes, then. "I'll get started on the up." He gestures towards the ceiling.

Alma looks really puzzled for a second and then bursts out laughing and laughing. She gives Zach a really funny look and starts helping with the books she can reach. Rich people are weird.

Victoria's lips part. Her lashes flutter. She has no poker face- broadcasting genuine puzzlement at their reaction to her predicament. Not quite processing their lack of urgency over the situation. The light was fading! It was a north-western exposure! In June! But none of this makes it into words. Instead, as Zach commits to help, her smile perks into place. "Fantastic!" her fingers bloom, popping out with excitement. "Where should I start? Oh! Or, I could go get drinks! I have both kinds of water!"

Zach is, perhaps, familiar with that Victoria helping looks like; he's already up a ladder and within the parameters he's been given, he's flipping books a dozen or two at a time, rolling them ninety degrees until they're spine down, then flipping them again in the same fashion (but with a bit of additional support and in smaller sub-batches of six to eight) until they're as indicated. It's not a violent action - but it is swift, and the books being upside down is irrelevant, since they're page-edge out. Like this he can convert a whole shelf in less than a minute.

Alma laughed, but she's no slouch. She's really in to this and is turning chunks of books around. "I like water," she says cheerfully and with a full on dopey smile at Victoria. She agrees with Zach, too. Turn, turn, turn. She pulls out a few books at a time and turns them around and reslots them. She checks out Zach (he's up a ladder in a really great position) -- then notices his technique. Tries it out. Not bad. Her hands aren't as wide so she doesn't get as many. While she's doing this she mentions the furniture, "But do you want to start moving furniture around while we do this? So that we get it all done before your light changes?" Throughout all this she has a really dopey grin.

"Which kind? Mineral or fizzy?" Victoria asks about the water. "You know what? I'll just bring both! Oh, thank you so much, this is really, like, exactly what I needed," but she's already half way across the library. Talking mostly to herself. The sound of her voice replaced with just the echo of her heels as she reaches the hallway and turns toward the kitchen. Occasionally bits of self-chatter rise enough that get a sparkle of her voice from a few rooms away.

Zach tackles a set of shelves three high, sliding left as he needs to. He doesn't half ass this in the slightest, no matter how trivial it all might seem to him. Once the challenge was accepted, he's pushing through it. There'll be time to have a conversation about it later; especially if the moment is as ephemeral as advertised.

Alma keeps toggling chunks of books, as requested, as quickly as possible.

It's a few minutes before Victoria returns. Now she pushes a little cart, clearly intended as a bar, and clearly just about as old as the library. Right down to the wooden caster wheels and intricately inlaid woodwork. The top has a few glasses, and several tall, narrow bottles of water with labels in seemingly any language except English. Everyone knows French water is best. "Thank you, again! Oh my gosh, you two are so good at this. You should go into business together. You could be professionals."

"I'll add stage tech to my resume," Zach promises wryly. In minutes he can probably finish the whole of the top three shelves about the room. He's taller than Alma, so simply moves down to the next three. Water can wait until he's finished. "I'm guessing you've got the furnishings already planned out?" His tone suggests that he's not necessarily expecting this, but is politely leaving the assumption in the record as the benefit of the doubt.

The books in reach of the 5'2" assistant continue to get flipped around. Everynow and then Alma looks towards the windows. How beautiful is the light? She hopes they finish in time.

Victoria, meanwhile, seems satisfied to stand and watch them at work for a few moments. She does pour herself a glass of mineral water, at least. Sipping from it as she considers what Zach asks of her. "Well, I want it to look a little stage-y? Like, that's kind of the joke is how artificial it is? So I probably want to keep it set to like, a play about Sherlock Holmes? That level."

Zach lets out a pained grunt but nods anyway. "Right then." He passes by Alma on his final approach to the end of the bookshelves she's just left behind, that disrupts his flow enough for a thought to hit and he asks, to the bookshelves, but of Victoria, "You got a violin?"

Alma continues reshelving the books glad at almost being done. She nods at Zach's comment. Victoria should definitely have a violin.

"Um, maybe in the attic?" Victoria offers, hand canting to a side, "Why?" She takes a moment, a few gears in her head turning and clicking into place. All at once, the answer to the riddle dawns on her. "OH! Right. Because of Holmes? Right." She smiles, pleased to have figured out the joke. "No, anyway, this is going to be like, super funny. It's gonna be this whole story. So, first, a few shots of all the shelves with the books around like this. Maybe a panorama?" her hands guide, gesturing over the room, "Then me, smoking jacket, glasses, whole thing. And then a shot of me in a wing back, holding up a book and reading it but I'll have, like, the cover turned toward me and the pages out."

Zach nods, when the joke finally lands after a couple of touch-and-gos. As Victoria elaborates on her vision, there's some measure of reflection of that dawning expression. Not that he has more than a shrug and a nod to express an opinion on the matter, of course. But still, he's finishing up the bookshelf reversal..... aaaand done. "Alright," he says, "What's next then?" In for a penny, after all.

Alma doesn't get the joke yet and is still trying to figure it out. "The audience is in the book? Is that why only the book is inside out?"

Clearly, Victoria was looking for a bigger reaction than she got. Her eyes turn between them both, and a little sigh escapes her. "Really? Ok, so, like, flat, mono-chrome design is super in right now. So turning your books so they display the pages on the shelves and make them mono-chrome is a super big trend on Insta. It used to be organizing your books by color, but then this is a step up. But if you turn them around like that you obviously can't actually tell what books they are. So a lot of people think it's really silly but just, whatever, all books are dumb, get a Kindle. Anyway, so, the joke is kind of like carrying that to the next level but in this weird way?"

"I recognized about half of those words," Zach affirms, nodding with a big old chipper grin about letting Victoria down once more. "Clock's ticking though, Vic. The rotation of the Earth waits for no one. Furni." It's a request dressed up like a remidnder, "where?"

"Hey, that makes sense." Alma is nodding. "That's pretty funny. I mean, with the context. Are you gonna do more books? Moby Dick? Why is it weird? What's your account? I don't have instagram. Do you have a remote control camera? How much time do we have left?" Questions just start bubbling up. "Where is the wingback?" She starts looking around for a wingback. "Do we have to move these other chairs out of the way? Where do they go?"

"Oh, I figure we'll just move this stuff to a side and bring the old stuff in. I had some movers just take it to another room a few doors down. So, we'll just carry it back in! But try not to scratch up the floors, alright? Some of them are almost nice and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get all the wood replaced." As if she didn't walk through them on stilettos daily. But Victoria beams. "And then we'll just try a few arrangements out!"

Alma gasps! "Where is your book! The one you're using!" It's an emergency.

As if Zach wasn't the one doing the replacing, too. He rolls his eyes but will do the thing. "Alright," he says, "Which end am I clearing?" He's certainly not going to assume Alma's being dragooned into the hauling, but he did just verbally commit himself to it.

"Oh, this end!" Victoria indicates what is, in fact, the northern end of the room. Furthest from where the light will be coming in. But book? "Um, I hadn't really thought about it? Why? I mean, I was just going to take one kinda at random? Why?"

"But, but..." Alma sputters, "What if someone can see that the text isn't Arthur Conan Doyle? That could ruin everything." She looks consternated.

Zach smirks as Alma invests herself and engages directly with Victoria's vision. Schadenfreude, perhaps, but it makes the trip more worth it, clearly. Furniture in the Northern End is officially on notice. There's a whisper in the air of something very Zach as the larger pieces are moved - Alma would recognize it, and Victoria might be too wrapped up in what she's doing, but a lot of those pieces look a liiiitle too large for safe one-man carries, but that doesn't slow Zach down in the sleightest.

Victoria doesn't know how much things weigh. And she's also familiar with people who are deceptively strong. But no matter the reason, she pays no attention to Zach hauling the heavy, leather and oak chairs on his own. "Why does it need to be Doyle?" she asks, "The point is faux-intellectualism, not like, an actual Sherlock Holmes thing. Oh! It should be Kierkegaard!"

"Okay?" Alma says, then rushes over to get a bottle of fizzy water. "I'll help find Kierkegaard!" She doesn't know exactly who Kirkegaard is but they start with a K? Does she need to break the bottle? Maybe not? Quick quick quick, she pours out some rocks on the floor after shaking htem in her hand and then she spins the bottle near the bookshelf. She's gonna find Kierkegaard, by god.

"You'll regret that," Zach offers to Victoria as he walks by with a chair, just after she's announced that Kierkegaard is to be the text. He's pleased with the interjection, too; Alma's outburst and enthusiasm for her chosen task gets a nod out of him. He might actually be enjoying this whole enterprise now that all others present are doing so.