Work
I reported to work on Tuesday after summer school, and the manager, Ms Clark, gave me a tour of the three floors of fabric and stuff--I would have called them accessories and tools, but she called them trims and notions--and my first task was to learn the stock and where the fabric was displayed. There were fabrics for clothes (or apparel, there were special terms I'd have to learn) as well as home decorating. Sewing was apparently experiencing a renaissance since the Return; sure there were stores full of ready-made clothing and soft furnishings, but plenty of people preferred to make their own. And within each category there were fabrics made from different fibers and for different uses. I'd be picking up that information as well, so I could better serve our customers, and I had a map to help me return the bolts of fabric to their places after cutting. After learning where both staircases were, I made a quick sort of the bolts from the cutting table, taking the ones for the top floor first. I spent all afternoon doing this, and it was both fun and interesting. The feel of the fabrics was wonderful, and it was fun to replace each bolt and tidy up that table or rack. Additionally, in response to revived interest from consumers, TV stations were rerunning old sewing and design programs as well as starting production on new ones, and the store played them on screens located in several places so I listened to them as I did my work. After my first couple of trips, I got a little hand vacuum from the supply closet and started cleaning up little drifts of threads and lint as I went along. Fabrics that had been left to trail on the ground picked up this detritus and it irritated me.
School continued to be interesting, and I loved that there were fewer students in class They weren't any nicer to me than they had been during the last month or so of regular school, but there weren't as many, so it wasn't as bad. There was more homework and we were going along at a faster pace, so I had a fair amount of school work to keep me busy. Nice because I didn't have any friends any more.
Free from having to go to Themyscira for the summer (and I wondered how Mom explained that to her mother but not enough to ask) Deri was going to Girl Scout summer camp for a month and a half with Van. I hoped they would have fun. She'd leave at the first of June. Dad and Alan took the two girls to REI to get their equipment Wednesday after work. They had dinner while they were out; Alan had left a delicious pasta salad and veggie tray with whole grain rolls for Mom, Aunt Amy and me. It was a fairly silent meal. Aunt Amy did her best to keep the conversation flowing; the city was so crowded that she was having difficulty finding a place to live.
"We love having you," Mom told her, and I suspected she even meant it, because without Aunt Amy, there'd be no conversation for fun dinners like these.
"How's work going?" I asked, curious.
"It's interesting. I'm learning more about the trees themselves, there are some insects that kill different species that we haven't been able to eliminate yet, so it's beneficial to be able to spot infestations and include that in our plans for revitalizing the park," she told me. "And how about you, honey? How's work going, do you like working in the fabric store?"
"I do," I told her. "There's a lot to learn about the fabrics and the...whattayacallum, the notions, and it's very satisfying to handle them. Next week they're going to start rotating me in on the cutting table, which will be different and a break from putting away the bolts of fabric and stocking the notions. The people there are nice, and the owners have a couple of little black and white French bulldogs who are kind of like the store mascots. Regular customers know them and they're really sweet."
"How's school going, Lys?" Mom asked.
"It's fine, it's interesting, I like the faster pace and fewer students," I said.
"Are they treating you any better?" Aunt Amy asked.
"No, but there aren't as many around and they have to work harder too to learn the material since the session is shorter than a regular semester."
"We've been talking to a couple of dance teachers at other studios," Mom mentioned. "If you're still interested, Ms Madelyn and Calvin Scopes would like you to attend a class and dance for them to see if you'd like to go there."
I considered this. "When are the classes?"
"Quite early," she said. "An hour before school, four days a week."
"OK," I said. There was no harm looking into it, although I was wary of the reception I might get from the other students. Mom said she'd call the teachers and set them up. The silence that followed was a little stiff, but it was broken up by the return of Dad and Deri, hauling in all sorts of gear. The scouts were housed in old converted barns, four girls in bunk beds to each stall on the lower level, with ranks of wooden bed frames in the hayloft; the bed frames and some shelves were supplied, but the girls had to bring their own sleeping bags and gear for any activities they wanted to do that required it, so Deri also had a backpack and tent with lightweight cooking utensils for a special week-long backpacking trip into the public lands beyond the scout camp. There was also riding, but she had boots for that already; she rode with Dad and Grandpa Damian frequently. They'd be working on badges and doing arts and crafts as well as sports like swimming and volleyball and such, and it sounds like she was going to have a great time.
After dinner, over tea and gingersnaps, Dad told Deri and me that we were getting raises to our allowances to bring us more in line with what our cousins of about the same ages were getting. We both perked up. Dad waved off our thanks and he and Mom started talking about a joint meeting of the Avengers and the Justice League to discuss going after HYDRA again. They had the organization on the ropes, at least for now, and were hoping to deliver the knockout blow. The meetings would start on Friday and continue through the weekend. That meant that essentially Deri and I were on our own. She'd hang out with Van, mostly. I had shifts at work on Friday after school and opening for the first time on Saturday. After that... I'd see. With my pod, I wasn't tied to a schedule, and my lips curved in a pleased smile.
"Lys, I wanted to ask which troop you wanted to join for Senior Scouts," Mom said, abruptly remembering. "There are two around here."
"I don't think I want to do scouts anymore," I said. Everybody looked at me in surprise. "The girls had the attitude at the end of the year, and besides, I'd rather go to my job instead."
"But it's so much fun!" Deri protested.
"It can be," I acknowledged, smiling at her. "But it isn't for me anymore."
"Oh, Lys," Mom said, sounding contrite. Well, that and a fiver will get me a medium almond mocha at Grandma Rose's.
"Speaking of next year, I wondered if maybe we could look into switching my school," I said, looking down into my tea and then swirling it, trying to get the loose leaves in a clump in the bottom. I hated sipping the leaves. "The kids will probably have heard, but they won't necessarily know me personally." It wouldn't hurt as much to be excluded by strangers.
"Are you sure that's what you want?" Dad asked me after a moment where he and Mom exchanged looks. I nodded. "Well, I'll look into it, honey."
The next couple of days passed nicely, with no horrible surprises. When I got home Thursday after a four hour shift at work, I went down to Grandma Alex and Grandpa Damian's house and found Alfred waiting for me. He had an array of cleaning products in a carrier and we went to the guest suite and he showed me how to clean it from top to bottom. The order mattered, and I'd thought if you dusted, that was it, but no. Windows had to be cleaned, sometimes polish applied to wood, and cleaning the bathroom was a lot more thorough than I'd been doing. The instructions I'd gotten off the web were insufficient, I realized. After the instructions on how to clean, tidy on a daily basis, and make the bed according to Alfred's expectations (it was going to take practice,) we went down to the utility room, a nicely lit workroom instead of some windowless dank closet, and he showed me how to gently heat beeswax with a small amount of olive oil in a double boiler that was dedicated for the task. "I also add a few drops of lemon oil for a faint fresh scent," he said. "But this is something that you can customize for yourself." He had several other essential oils, and one that was a blend of several oils smelled green and fresh, kind of like the green notes in the perfume Aunt Ann had given me, so we used that. The batch was smaller than the jar that Alfred had taught me with, but when he popped it into the carry, removing the lemon-scented polish, he said that with the olive oil it could go rancid and I only had my room to do so the smaller quantity was perfect. "When you run out, come down at any time and help yourself," he said encouragingly, and showed me a folder where he kept his household recipes. Most of them were for kitchen and outdoor use, which I didn't need, but there was also a cleaner for sink, tub, and tiles, one for the toilet, and one for windows. "These are all in here," he said, handing me the cleaning carrier we'd used. "When you run out, they are easy to make and refill your bottles." He also gave me a bag with a duster, sponges, and polishing cloths for the wood and windows. Thanks to him, I knew how to do it all, including taking care of the wood floor. He offered another class, how to make minor furniture repairs, also of interest because sometimes I scratched the furniture and it would be nice to know how to fix that. I thanked him profusely, which he didn't wave off because that would be rude, but said that he'd enjoyed teaching me. We had honeycakes and tea after.
"If I may ask, what led you to this interest in cleaning?" he asked. "It's not something that people generally want to learn about, voluntarily."
I thought about prevaricating, but this was Alfred. "It just seems ... I just feel kind of oppressed these days. And Alan is always on my parent's side, which I really don't need. I know they have their own issues and nobody's perfect, but I'm really tired of the disapproval and upset from all sides. So by doing my own cleaning, I have a place that's a lot more private, and I don't go back to a room where the hangers are precisely distanced from one another, my things rearranged. It already feels more like my room, where I can put things and come back to them exactly as I left. And I wasn't lying, I really don't want to be a useless rich girl. College is three years away, which is a good chunk of time, long enough to maybe become proficient at things I'll need to be able to do. I don't know what I want to study right now or where I want to go, but I do know that I want to do it a decent distance away."
Alfred nodded in understanding. "Well, to further your knowledge, perhaps later this summer I can show you the basics of wardrobe maintenance. Everyone should know how to sew on buttons, pick up hems, deal with stains and tears and such. I remember that you had some work in that for a scouting badge, but that information is more of an introduction, and there are tips and techniques you could use to improve your work if you choose."
I felt really good when I returned to my room. There wasn't really room for the carrier in the bathroom, so I set it on the top shelf in my closet.
When I got home Friday evening I was a little surprised to see the house lit up. Right. The superhero meeting. I went in through the side and up to my room to dump my backpack, clean up, and switch out the T shirt that had the store name on it to a blouse before going down to greet the guests. Nobody was in costume, but I knew them, nevertheless. We were hosting Superman, Aquaman, Flash, and Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow and Black Canary were down with Grandma Alex and Grandpa Damian, because even after the events in Egypt, Grandma Alex still clashed with the Hawk people somewhat. Too bad, because Mr Queen and Ms Lance were always nice to me. The Hawkpeople always overlooked me, but that was ok because they were kind of jerks. I got hugs from my relatives, including Uncles Bucky and Steve, who were there to give advice and information as Avengers Emeritus since they'd retired. Aunt Emma wasn't there, unfortunately; she was finishing a particularly challenging commission. But Uncle Tony was, and I saved him for last because he wanted to talk about my pod, what I thought of it now that I was settling in and had finally read the entire owners manual. He's always fun to talk to, never blows you off because you're a kid, and he's interested in almost everything. I always felt like he cared about what I had to say.
To my surprise, the Hawkpeople came up to me after the excellent dinner, and I braced myself for incoming. Deri excused herself to go to the bathroom, the coward. Or maybe I was just irritated because I hadn't thought of the excuse myself. Grandpa Damian had said once that they'd improved a lot after the Egypt mission that had revealed the ancient Egyptian pantheon, which made me wonder just how bad they'd been. "I understand from your mother that you refused to accompany her to the museum and identify objects that have been in contact with what you call the god-touched," Hawkman said to me. "I would beg you to reconsider."
I blinked at the beg part. He wasn't really acting like a supplicant, but on the other hand, he usually acted like he was expecting everyone around him to do the begging.
"The reason is this," he said before I could respond. "Pharaoh Ramesses-Ra, first of his name and the progenitor of the restored line of the rulers of Egypt, will be arriving here in two weeks and will be touring the museum as part of his visit to the UN and the President. My fear is that if he sees that there are objects of power in the collections that he might do one of two things; either make a highly public press to have these objects returned and use them as an excuse to repatriate other items in the collection as well, or serve the gods and establish temples in this country."
"Ok," I said, puzzled. "I can see why the Met wouldn't want to return its collection to the Egyptians, it's a huge draw. The Egyptian gallery is my favorite, in fact. But why wouldn't you want them to be worshipped here? Aren't they your gods too?"
"The gods are disruptive and greedy for worship," he said simply. "I believe it would be wrong to allow them a foothold in this continent." Oh. If he put it like that, I understood it better. Everybody knew about the return of that pantheon, how ruthless they could be, the damage and lost lives that had accompanied their reveal. "We have over thirty thousand items in our collection now. It would not be possible to examine the entirety of our holdings, but even just the most important ones would be a help. I am anticipating a fuss over the temple of Dendur, even thought it was a gift, not something that was taken."
"The temple doesn't have a lot of juice to it," I said. "I don't know why, you'd think with all the worship that goes on in them that the gods would be fonder of the sites where their followers gather, but the buildings themselves don't get attention from the gods, apparently, no matter how pretty they are." Hawkwoman looked interested.
"Curious," she said.
"Ok, then," I said. "I don't work next Wednesday afternoon. I could come over and look at things."
Uncle Tony, who was the chairman of the board that oversaw the museum, had come up as Hawkman spoke. "The trustees are nervous about this visit, even though we couldn't refuse the request. We could maybe appease the pharaoh by offering a selection of antiquities as a gift; maybe we could find some that would be very appealing to him but wouldn't gut our collection to lose."
"Nothing on display now has a lot of presence to it," I said. Tony nodded, and it was arranged that I'd go over to the museum after morning classes, look at the things Hawkbrother would lay out, and then I could go do my thing, whatever that turned out to be. Uncle Tony would be there too, as a representative for the museum, and he'd get the ball rolling. Uncle Tony nudged the Hawkpeople along, and as I was getting ready to go back upstairs, the party showing signs of adjourning to the bat cave, Grandpa Bruce came up.
"Good for you," he said, patting me on the shoulder. "All we don't need is more chaos in the city." Then a slightly awkward pause. "I hear you're taking geometry this summer. How do you like it?"
"A lot, so far, at least. I like it because I can see that it's actually useful in daily life, unlike algebra."
A rare smile lit his face. "I find it very useful myself," he said. "If you'd like to know more, there are a few books on geometry that have been placed in the bat cave reference library; I've consulted them more than once over both lifetimes and find them both helpful and interesting." We chatted a bit, then Alfred and Alan circulated, discreetly clearing up the cookies and napkins, and Dad directed the guests downstairs. Deri went to her room to finalize her packing as she was going to camp the next day, and I went upstairs to clean my room and bathroom.