Penny for Your Thoughts

[Luke Walsh]

The general pace of life in Penchurch meant that the only real sort of recreation available on a cold night was the refuge of the pub, which had a snooker table and a darts board, and a few boardgames piled on the mantlepiece above the fireplace. Most folks came for a drink and a chat, though; and there were enough steady regulars to make evenings in the Station feel cozy and familial.

"Alright, Derrick?" said Luke with a half-wave to the craggy-faced old fellow who was nodding over a half-empty pint glass by the fire, half-dozing beneath his flat cap in the warm corner.

Luke slid onto a bar stool and grinned at Janet, who was already pulling his pint of lager.

"Crisps?" she said.

"Salt and vinegar, you angel," he said, causing her to cluck her tongue as she grabbed the packet from the basket-full she kept stocked beneath the bar and sliding it towards him along with the dribble-streaked glass.

[Jim Rosdew]

Jim was pleased to get out of the cold, stamping his boots on the mat and pulling his coat off as soon as he was through the door. A quick glance over the regulars didn't turn up too many of his usual drinking companions, but then he spotted Luke sitting at the bar.

He clapped Luke on the shoulder in greeting. 'Evening. How's business?' Luke and Jim had something of a friendly rivalry in town - though neither of them worked in any official capacity as a handyman, they both found themselves busy with odd jobs and the like, and more often than not in competition together. That is, when they weren't working together.

'You got one of those waiting for me too Janet?' he said, smiling broadly at the landlady as he sat himself on the stool next to Luke.

[Luke Walsh]

"Business is good," said Luke with a chuckle over the rim of his glass as he sipped at the crisp brew. "Goin' 'round patching up the hash you make of your odd jobs...you'll keep me in business for years, Jim."

It was the sort of comfortable abuse that came from knowing each other all their lives, and being friends for most of that.

"How's your mother, Jim?" asked Janet as she placed his drink down before him. "Still got that cough?"

[Rose Chin]

Rose entered right after Jim, but took a bit longer in unwrapping. After peeking outside her window and seeing a light snowfall, she had decided that the very last thing she wanted to happen was to get frostbite on her first night out and about. And, because the weather in Calgary winters ranged from mild to red-nose-giving, ball-freezing hell, fluctuating from one to the other with extreme rapidity, she had ended up dressing in layers on layers on layers.

Now, hanging up a scarf, mittens, a hat, a massive jacket, and an under-jacket-vest, she felt like a fool. But, she told herself, that was inevitable anyways. She could tell already that this was going to be more like intruding on a family dinner than socializing. It was like a bad dad joke: a Canadian teetotaler walks into an English pub...

Too late to turn back now! She scraped the bottom of her boots against the mat one last time and then made a beeline for a seat at the bar. "Hi," she said to the old lady behind the bar, putting particular effort into a bright smile. From a cold-hearted perspective, the lady was probably her best prospect for socialization, since she got on relatively well with older people. From a somewhat less calculating perspective, the lady had a lot of laugh lines at the corners of her eyes, and that was always a good kind of person to know.

[Janet Weston]

Janet Weston had an eye for strangers like a bloodhound did for scents, and she'd spotted the newcomer the moment the young woman had walked into her pub...but of course she had said nothing, and had never been the sort to stare. The girl took a few moments to divest herself of her outerwear before she approached the bar, and Janet smiled in welcome as she said hello.

"Good evening, dear," she said, ignoring the two silly, overgrown boys sitting at her bar for the time being and focusing on this lone stranger. "Can I start you with a drink, or perhaps a menu? Kitchen's still open for another hour or so."

[Rose Chin]

"Menu, please?" Grandmas were the same everywhere. Even if this woman didn't have any grandchildren, Rose immediately pegged her as the warm, capable type and relaxed. Though she'd been trying to appear relaxed the whole time, to a sharp eye, the shift was pretty evident in her shoulders. Here was someone who would probably rescue her if things got too hairy.

She peeked over at the two men sitting to her right at the bar. They dressed to fit right in, but one of them was ridiculously "fit" (Britishism! success!) and the other was easy on the eyes too, so maybe they were cast members having a nice night out after all. Curly and Ears, as she temporarily dubbed them, also seemed to be having a jolly time with each other, so it would be probably rude to intrude. She decided to keep herself to herself and focus on the menu. "Can I have chips, please?" she asked. That much she was pretty sure of. That was something fried, and all things fried were Good Things.

[Jim Rosdew]

'Oh, right charming you are tonight,' Jim said, taking his pint from Janet and dropping a few coins on the bar with another smile. 'She's doing alright, actually Janet, thanks for asking. Been drinking that weird herbal stuff, seems to be doing the trick. I'll tell her you asked, she'll be chuffed.'

As the landlady moved to serve the newcomer at the bar, Jim's eyes followed. Definitely a stranger, that was for certain. And not likely a tourist, not in January, unless she was one of those bloody writer-types who moved down to 'find themselves'. He caught an accent as she spoke to Janet. American. Probably with the BBC then, he thought with no small amount of distaste, but he nudged Luke all the same.

'Who's that then?'

[Luke Walsh]

Janet had taken the order for chips with a smile and a nod, and as a result had turned her back while Jim turned to mutter to Luke.

Luke let out the tiniest of growling yelps, as he'd been in the process of sipping his drink at the precise moment Jim decided to thump him between the ribs with his elbow. Steadying his pint, he cast a glance down the bar, idly curious in the way anyone in such a small village might be.

"Search me," he said with a shrug before he turned his attention back to his crisps. "Girls have been known to eat chips from time to time, Jim," he pointed out, catching sight of the furrow in his friend's brow.

[Rose Chin]

Right. This big plan in seven parts (yeah, she'd made a spreadsheet, so what?) was doing quite badly. Other than exchanging a few smiles and words with the lady behind the bar and besides introducing herself to her new landlady, Rose had made absolutely no headway in the socialization department. Her prospects were as follows: an elderly lady who appeared to be asleep in front of a massive plate of what had once been fried fish; two knots of fishermen who appeared to be entirely distinct from each other for reasons beyond her knowledge; and again, these two young men, the only ones her age, really, who were talking in tones too low to properly eavesdrop on and--did one of them just glance at her, or was that her imagination? More out of determination not to have wasted a cold and wet trek than out of a desire to actually connect with anyone, she raised an eyebrow in their general direction.

[Bee Rosdew]

It had taken approximately one conversation with her baby sister to get Bee sounding about as Penny as ever, with all the verbal inflections and deep, rounded vowels that entailed. For lack of anything better to do, and with a catchup on the horizon whether at home or out, the pub was settled on as the natural extension of their dinner at Julia's flat, and they clattered in from the cold, noisy and bright-eyed and red cheeked. "Mm... cider, please, Jules," Bee directed Julia, and immediately went to greet one of the knots of locals, who had heralded their arrival with a few unfriendly nods that might have intimidated a lesser woman (or just one from anywhere else).

Julia was the sweeter sister by far, but that didn't stop her from flicking the back of Jim's head after she'd ordered drinks from Janet with a pleasant smile. "Luke, Jimmy, got someone to see you," she greeted, and having done that, immediately waved Bee over.

Bee's head popped up from where she'd leaned to speak to the old-timers, face lighting up when she spotted her cousin. "Jim!"

[Jim Rosdew]

'Juuules!' Jim said, rubbing the back of his head in exasperation more than anything else, before his scowl gave way to a look of childish surprise. 'Bee!'

He stood quickly, moving to hug his cousin tightly but briefly, the other newcomer entirely forgotten as he focused on his cousin. He hadn't seen Bee in...God, how long was it? She hadn't changed a bit though - still blonde, still smiling, still a good few inches taller than he was. He wasn't entirely given to public shows of affection, but he was smiling as he stepped back from her.

'What in God's name are you doing back here? Thought you'd buggered off out of here for good.'

His words were only faintly accusatory.

[Luke Walsh]

Luke could only laugh, shaking his head as he nodded to Julia and Bee.

"Good t'see you," he said, the words no less warmly genuine for being so commonplace. He'd been years ahead of the others in school, but he'd known them all since they were kids, and all the Penchurch children tended to form a kind of unholy clutch of extended family, simply by virtue of being Pennys.

As he turned back to pick up his pint again, the strange girl down the end of the bar seemed to be glancing at their group with some curiosity, and Luke merely offered her a smile, a shrug, and a wink as he sipped from his glass.

[Janet Weston]

Despite the elegant wire-rimmed reading-glasses which perched on the tip of her nose or hung on their delicate chain about her neck, Janet Weston's eyes were still keener than most when it came to things out of the ordinary, and no sooner had the Rosdew girls entered the bar, but she was rounding the end of it and making a beeline for...well, Bee.

"Bee Rosdew, well of course your mother told me you were coming home, but goodness, it's good to see you again!" Janet had to reach up and stand on her tip-toes to fold the girl into a hug, as the differences in their heights put her face rather unfortunately squarely at the same level as the girl's considerable bosom. But to welcome Bee Rosdew back to Penchurch with anything less than a hearty hug was unthinkable--even if they were English. Penchurch was practically family.

[Rose Chin]

A smile, a shrug, and a wink? That wasn't a direct invitation, but it wasn't /nothing./ Rose looked around, found a paper napkin, and produced a small golf pencil from her jeans pockets. (All her jeans had deep pockets with bits of candy, string, tiny pencils, mints, and the like. Maybe a horse treat or two. You never knew what you'd need or when you'd need it, and she loathed purses.)

Assumption | Right | Wrong
that was nothing | nothing | Major embarrassment of the lasting kind, self-loathing increased
not nothing | nothing | Am coward, have failed night's mission, now considered socially inept by Curls

Rose frowned down at the napkin. That didn't exactly help, because the probabilities weren't the same. See, she was /pretty/ sure that a smile, a shrug, and a wink was not nothing, but the consequences for assuming that and being wrong were worse than if she'd made the mistake the other way round. And yet.

Fine! Fine. She'd wait for more information; that was the way. If every member of that group was wholly engaged in their reunion of sorts, then she would mentally wish them a pleasant evening, finish her chips, and go home. That wouldn't be too terrible--the chips really were the best fried things she'd ever had in her life (other than dumplings.) And if there was any way for her to tell that Curls wasn't going to be mortally offended by a chat, then she would do that.

This would all be so much easier if she had a beer.