A musical cleaning lady! (Open)

[Karina Ford]

It was a Wednesday evening, and so Karina was working at Hammel.

She had cleaning shifts there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays – the rest of the time she worked at the shop. It was easy work, and it was good to have the extra income: she would never have been able to support herself on the four days a week that the shop offered her. When she had met James Campbell just after she moved to the town (she had gone to have a word with him about Jenna), she had also found herself asking about jobs, and he had been kind enough to find her this.

So at this moment, Karina was busy at work with a mop and bucket (blue overalls, hair braided over one shoulder, Jenna would have told her off for looking like this) in the classrooms. Sometimes she wondered how this much mess was created by what seemed like so few children – surely there were less here than there had been at the school she had attended at home? And yet this lot managed to get the desks and floor covered in everything from ink to food. Not to mention the odd few singed patches here and there on the floor – though presumably that was to be expected when you had a building full of meta-humans.

She hadn’t realised until working here just how many different abilities they seemed to have. Karina didn’t honestly remember meeting any metas in Chicago, although there was no way she would have known if she had just run into them on the street. They were just like normal people, after all. Well, there had been that guy who had set fire to one of the guitars in the last shop she had worked in – he must have been a meta of some sort. He had been completely embarrassed, and had paid for the damaged instrument without even being asked to. Karina paused, examining an area of the classroom window where a patch of glass had been melted into a swirl, and shrugged her shoulders. There was nothing she could do about it.

When she had first started this job, she’d had the distinct feeling that the students had watched her carefully to see if she could pass some kind of ‘test’ – but when she had failed to react with terror or anger to various spurts of water, illusionary flowers, or snowmen in the classroom, Karina felt that she had won herself some brownie points with the young people. They had probably just been nervous about having someone non-powered in the school. Karina allowed herself a wry smile – there was no way that they could know that nothing could surprise her at this point in her life. Her sister had seen to that.

A glance at the clock confirmed that it was time for her break, and Karina checked the corridor before heading to one of the empty music rooms. It had been the first thing she had noticed when she had started: Hammel had an excellent piano. Karina had developed the habit of sneaking in on her breaks to play it, just for a little while – she never did it during the daytime, only in the evening when the students were at dinner. Nobody was around, so she slid onto the seat and lifted the lid of the instrument. Back ramrod straight, fingers resting gently on the keys.

Karina closed her eyes, and [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOF2jNMe2VU
]played.[/url]

[Kateri Rivera]

When she had been a student, Kateri had thought interesting things about teachers who stayed on before and after school. When she’d been very young, she’d solemnly declared them to be vampires. Who else would stay that long in a place that was no fun whatsoever without other kids in it? Clearly, there had to be supernatural forces at work. When she’d gotten to be a teen, she’d abandoned the vampire theory. Or, at least, she had out loud. She’d said they were boring and clearly had no life. Why else would they stay behind? That relegated teachers to her long list of “losers” and they’d happily stayed that way until she’d decided to get her teaching credential, and had realized that revising the way she thought might be necessary to adjust to her new career.

To be fair, she hadn’t meant to stay behind. It hadn’t been intentional. She’d gotten a bit behind on grading work, and so had decided to stay behind to catch up. A classroom had much less distractions. So she’d fetched out her music player, had flipped it to shuffle, and had started grading tests. Next thing she knew, it was night, and she was nearly alone in the school. Oops. It was depressing to realize she’d become one of those teachers who she’d considered so dull in high school. But wasn’t that the fate? To become what you’d most scorned? Or was that just karma? She knew that she certainly had quite a bit of that from when she was younger. She’d been a right brat, and make no mistake.

Still, it hadn’t been that bad. She’d finished her work, had actually graded everything and had updated the scores for the students, and afterwards had been quite satisfied to find that she could have a nice, pleasant evening at home. Yes, it was late, and no, this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she’d first made the plans to have a nice evening at home. Not that her plans had involved much other than a movie, preferably something action-y with lots of scenes of shirtless men, a glass of wine, and something for dinner that was probably spicy, but she’d had something. Now there was no one here. Well, the students were all at dinner, and she was sure there were some staff members around, but it sure seemed empty…

The small woman paused in mid-step as piano reached her ears, and her brows climbed. Now what was that? Curious, she turned about and headed toward the sound, continuing forward until, at last, she thought she had reached the source. Curiously, she peered in. There was a woman in overalls, with her hair in a braid, playing the piano. Huh. She was very good. Kateri slipped into the room, footsteps light due to years of practicing sneaking out of the house and/or dorm room, and stopped to listen. She wasn’t very musical, but she liked the song, and she liked how the woman played. When there was a pause, she debated saying anything, but decided not to. She didn’t want to break the spell. Instead, she slowly set the bag down, then winced as it toppled over with a soft “thud.”

Hopefully, she hadn’t just gotten caught eavesdropping…

[Karina Ford]

When it came to music, Karina was easily distracted. She could listen, absorbed, to a new piece – and not realise until it had finished that she had been neglecting something, from a customer to a dish cooking on the stove. People who knew her found it amusing: it was rare that Karina wasn’t concentrating intently on everything happening around her. Distracting as listening to music was, when Karina was playing something she found it almost impossible to think beyond the music. Maybe that was why she had always turned to the piano as something to distract her – she could lose herself playing a piece of music in a way she found impossible with anything else.

Which was why, when Kateri entered the room, Karina didn’t hear her at all. The notes of the piece died away, and she took a deep breath, feeling strangely calm – as she always did when she was satisfied that she had played well. Then the quiet ‘thud’ of the bag dropping reached her.

Karina had never really understood the expression ‘I jumped out of my skin’, but now she experienced it first hand – she gasped, her heart jolting and her hand flying to her chest, as if she would calm it. Turning around, she stared at Kateri. The other woman looked just as shocked as she did, and Karina couldn’t deny the comedy of their mutual expressions. A smile overcame her. A giggle bubbled up from her chest, and soon she was chuckling uncontrollably, aware that she probably seemed like a madwoman to this teacher. ‘I’m so sorry!’ she managed to say between giggles, one hand resting on her abdomen where the laughter was starting to make her ache. ‘We both looked so scared!’ That set her off again, and she chuckled helplessly.

Karina didn’t have giggle-fits like this one often, but when she did she found them very difficult to stop. It was probably a reaction to her being serious most of the time.

When she had a grip on herself, Karina looked back up at Kateri with a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘Sorry about that,’ she told the other woman, doing her best to remain ladylike as she swung her legs over the side of the piano stool so that they were facing one another. ‘It’s just – all the students keep trying to scare me, and the only person who manages is a teacher…’ She grinned. If only the young people had known: they could change into animals as often as they wanted, but all they really had to do was sneak up on her when she was playing the piano. Getting to her feet, she held out her hand to Kat, suddenly aware that she was a cleaner, and this woman was a teacher.

‘I’m Karina,’ she said, a little awkward now that the laughter had worn off. After all, laughing at people higher up in the food chain than you was probably not an advisable idea. She touched her overalls, as if to explain: ‘I’m the new cleaner. I’m sorry if my playing disturbed you.’

[Kateri Rivera]

She hadn’t really meant to startle the other woman like that. She’d just been enjoying the music. The other woman really did play well—she would have recommended her for a music teacher. Although she would admit that she’d never been much of a person for music, she had enjoyed it very much. She hadn’t been expecting the woman to start as she had when she dropped the bag, and nearly jumped just as much when the woman whirled around, her hand to her chest.

And then she started laughing. And, to Kateri’s surprise, she found herself grinning right back. She hadn’t ever been much of a giggler. She enjoyed a good joke, but she tended to smile more than laugh outright. Still, as the woman lapsed into a giggle fit…well, she couldn’t help it if she kind of went along, could she? Her lips twitched upward into a smile of her own, and then her shoulders started shaking in laughter as well.

She managed to make herself stop after a time, although she was still grinning, and she shook her head at the other woman’s address.

“It’s fine,” she said, still grinning a bit as she rubbed at her chin. “That was…you know, I really enjoyed that, actually. I’m very sorry for startling you. It wasn’t my intention at all. I was just enjoying the music…” She really hadn’t meant to startle her. But she supposed, as it was, that there was really nothing for it. And there were worst ways to meet talented people. At least the woman had a sense of humor. She could have yelled at Kateri for eavesdropping. She wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. “You play well,” she added.

Unfortunately, it seemed like the woman was going to get uncomfortable. She couldn’t imagine why. It wasn’t exactly like they were that different along the food chain. She said the students kept trying to scare her. Well, they’d scare her too, if it wasn’t for the fact that her temper tended to make the skies turn black and rather menacing.

“Oh, they always do that to anyone new,” Kateri told her with a grin. “They tried it on me, too, but I was too scary for them.” Yes, in spite of the fact that she was barely over five feet, she could still be intimidating. Mind, it had taken a lot of practice and just a bit too much of a natural temper. “But please, don’t get all uncomfortable now. Things were going so well! I haven't laughed that much in ages. And I loved your playing.” She took the woman’s hand and grinned. “So it’s not like it was a bother at all. I’m Kateri. I teach math here. Where did you learn to play like that? It was wonderful.”