Flowers and Sandwiches (Hector; Casual) DONE

[PENELOPE LAFONTAINE]

Outfit: www.angiehearts.net/v/vspfiles/photos/mjk3005f-2T.jpg

Penelope spread out the blanket over the grass, slipped off her black flats and sat down under the warm sun in the park. Slipping off the large canvas bag she had over her shoulders, she opened it and pulled out a square plastic lunch container and a can of pop. Popping the lid open, she began eating the tuna sandwich and the can of diet Coke she had packed. She slipped her bare feet across the smooth grass as she ate her sandwich, observing the gardens around her with delight. When she finished her sandwich, she closed the container, put it back in the bag, and pulled out her copy of Gaudy Night. Opening it to the bookmarked section, she leaned back and began to read from where she had left off.

[MAYOR HECTOR "HADES" TORMEI]

Hector had managed to escape the crazy atmosphere of the campaigning and the cramped space of his bookstore. Giving Luciano control over Scribe, Hector made his way to Central Park, freshly shaved and his head bowed. Central Park was such a large space it was easy to blend into the people and the space. Having not eaten lunch, Hector bought an apple from a vendor and a bottle of iced tea and ate while he walked. Tossing his core into a trash can after he was done, Hector contented himself with just walking around the park. Not looking at anyone thing in particular, the man almost missed catching the flash of red hair from the corner of his eye. Hector redirected his walk over to where Penelope sat.

"Fancy meeting you here," He said by way of greeting. He stopped beside the blanket, looking down at her. She was perfectly at home on the grass and Hector felt awkward. He wasn't at home on the grass, beneath the trees.

[PENELOPE LAFONTAINE]

Penelope looked up at the sound of an all-too familar voice.

"Hector!" She chirped excitedly, laying her book down beside her. "Well, it is funny seeing you here. Please take a seat. I'm going to hurt my neck if I have to talk to you like this the whole time."

Penelope smiled as she sat up fully and wrapped her arms around her bare legs. She noticed his formal suit and tie, impeccabley neat, and constricting to see in a park. She attempted to stifle a chuckle at this slight absurdity.

"My god, Hector. You look like a mortician. It's a lovely day. Take off your jacket and loosen the tie at least. Just looking at you makes me uncomfortble." She grinned broadly and shook her head as she laughed.

[MAYOR HECTOR "HADES" TORMEI]

"A mortician? Well, I suppose that's close enough to mayorial hopeful," Hector jibed with a smile. He lowered himself to the ground, his knees popping in protest. "I am far too old to sit on the ground. You'll need a crane to get me back up now," Hector chuckled and removed his jacket, as requested, and tugged at his Windsor. He wasn't uncomfortable but it wouldn't hurt to appease Penelope. Luciano told him just the other day that he didn't loosen up often enough. Hector hadn't felt the need for it, personally, but was willing to when requested by certain people. From his family, only Luciano held that honor.

"I hold you responsible for any and all grass stains," Hector made a fuss about folding his jacket and setting it aside primly. "The future of my suit is in your hands," Shuddering dramatically, Hector undid his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows before leaning back ever so slightly. "What brings you out here besides your obvious, and ridiculous, love of nature?" For a nature girl, she was pale. Hector noted the contrast almost immediately in the sun. Of course, Hector was full blood Greek, all dark hair and dark skin. Whereas as Penelope, so young (and obviously not Mediterranean in the least) was fair skinned and red haired. He looked like a beast from nightmares next to her.

[PENELOPE LAFONTAINE]

Penelope laughed at Hector's apparent distress over his suit jacket.

"Don't worry. Just leave it on the blanket where the grass can't get at it. Tell me, are you one of those people with a wardrobe full of countless business suits and not one pair of jeans? I couldn't live without my casuals and my comfies. It feels so unnatural." She winced at the thought of not being able to change into her jogging pants and T-shirts at the end of the work day.

She smiled at Hector, and suddenly noticed how starkly his dark, very Greek complexion contrasted with her exceedingly fair one. They really did look like people from two totally different worlds. She laughed at his cynical view of her appreciation of the natural world.

"Sadly, my 'ridiculous love of nature' is really the only thing I can credit with enticing me here. I thought being out here would be more exciting than staying at work or eating at home. Plus, it gives me a chance to catch up on old Dorothy here." She patted Gaudy Night next to her. She grinned and poked Hector's shoulder playfully.

"What brought you out here, may I ask? The call of the wild is a little out of your frequency, I think." She chuckled and stood up on her knees. Flipping her bare legs around his suited ones, she brought her hands to his tie, and wrapped her slender fingers around the knot.

"Lets bring this down a little more, shall we?" She deftly undid the knot and slipped the tie from around his collar. "A man with your height doesn't need a tie. You're imposing no matter what you wear. No one will think less of you, or take you any less seriously without one." Her eyes met his as she smiled again and brought her fingers to his collar and popped the first button, opening the shirt up around his neck.

"There," She said with some satisfaction, "That's better."

[MAYOR HECTOR "HADES" TORMEI]

"I grew tired of the bookstore and everything in it," Hector shrugged. He reached over to his jacket and reached into an inner pocket, pulling out a slim book. "I have Shakespeare's Sonnets with me, I was planning on reading for a bit then heading back," Hector waved the book about before tossing it back onto his jacket. It was an older copy with notes from three generations in the margins. It wasn't a heirloom from Hector's family, but he treasured like it was.

Hector hadn't the faintest idea at how to react when Penelope promptly stradled him and began fiddling with his tie. "Miss LaFontaine," He snapped, his hands fluttering just over her body, trying to think of the best place to grab hold to get her off of him. She pulled the tie away from him and started unbuttoning his shirt but Hector snatched the tie and started to redo it. "I happen to like wearing ties, intimidation has nothing to do with it," Hector scowled. Looking around, making sure that there were no curious observers, he took hold of her shoulders and gave a shove, trying to dislodge her without hurting her.

"I'm not sure if you're aware, but it isn't proper behavior to just start undressing a man in the middle of a park," Hector smoothed his newly retied Windsor and rebuttoned the top button of his shirt. Not being very happy with his body, he wanted to keep covered up.

[PENELOPE LAFONTAINE]

Penelope toppled back slightly as Tormei pushed her away. With a huff she propped herself up on her hands, and gave him a look of slight annoyance.

"Sorry," She mumbled quietly, readjusting her position and bringing her legs up to her chest again, "I forgot, you don't like being touched." She recalled their last, unusually civil online chat session. She grinned sheepishly as he redid her work with the collar and tie.

"I wasn't trying to undress you, Hector. If you hadn't noticed I only undid the top button in your collar. I think it looks better like that, you know." Her grin became a shy smile as she silently reprimanded herself for being too bold...again. Something about the dour older man brought out a desire in her to be opinionated, if only to garner some sort of reaction from him.

Penelope turned to the copy of Shakespeare's sonnets and picked it up.

"I thought you said you were a John Donne man?" She asked as she studied the worn cover of the book. "I have a rather nonspecific taste in poetry myself. I like Poe and Noyes' "Highwayman" and all that, but I also enjoy a good dose of T.S. Eliot, who's on the other side of the spectrum, really. I enjoy the way he used imagery in his works."

She thought for a moment, then spoke few lines from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock":

"Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit."

[MAYOR HECTOR "HADES" TORMEI]

Hector huffed and continued to fuss with his tie and shirt. It wouldn't ne right unless he had a mirror but he could do his best. "I prefer it this way," Casting Penelope an annoyed look, he resettled into a fairly comfortable position. "And you're right, I am a Donne man, but Shakespeare is also first rate," Hector took the book back and flipped through it, opening to a random sonnet. He read over it as Penelope recited Eliot, but was distracted by her choice in poetry.

"Do you even know what that poem is about?" It didn't seem like the subject matter that Penelope would be familiar with. And why on earth would she have it memorized? Feeling the urge to rebuttal, Hector paused, trying to decide how to proceed, and decided to recite the preface in it's native tongue (one of the only things he was proud to have from his childhood).

"S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. "

Hector looked away from the girl and watched a group of joggers run by.


((Translation: If I thought my answer were to one who could return to the world, I would not reply, but as none ever did return alive from this depth, without fear of infamy I answer thee.))

[PENELOPE LAFONTAINE]

Penelope looked at Hector queerly for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. If she tried to look smart, she'd just come out looking stupid. If she admitted she didn't have that thorough a knowledge of Eliot's motivations, she'd still probably get rebuked anyway, for claiming to enjoy something she didn't fully understand. She decided to try and find the middle ground between the two.

"Well, if I'm going to be honest" She began slowly and carefully, "I can only make an educated guess, based on what I know about Eliot and the other modernists writers of the 20's and 30's. It's not particularly specific, but I always assumed it had to do with the shallowness of the Roaring 20's. The parties and the alcohol and, just the vapidity of the social culture in general. The kind of hollowness you'd find in something F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote. There is also the character of the piece, an obviously insecure older man wandering around the city at night...I always imagined he was looking for female company, so to speak." She smiled at Hector and added, rather haphazardly, "Your Italian is very good by the way."

She leaned back and let the sun kiss her face and neck as she continued to speak aloud her train of thought.

"If we only read things we could fully understand...well I at least wouldn't be reading very much. T.S. Eliot may be beyond my full comprehension, but I can still enjoy him, can't I?" She smirked to herself for a moment, and continued on.

"To be honest, I learned Prufrock in highschool. The English teacher made us learn most of the piece by heart. I really liked it, and it stuck with me, so I began reading more of his work when I started university. Not the most interesting way to pick up poetry, but you learn it when and where you can, right?"

Penelope closed her eyes as she felt the sun slowly creeping down her neck and over her shoulders and her chest, basking in the day's warmth, forgetting for a moment that she had company.

[MAYOR HECTOR "HADES" TORMEI]

Hector nodded along to Penelope's analysis, noting the common view point it took. He agreed that reading only what one understood would get quite stale after a while, but he did expand his general knowledge to suit this problem. "I hate to disappoint you, but the poem isn't about anything so romantic or socially relevant. It's about unfulfilled sexual desire and male impotence," He couldn't help but chuckle. Of all the poems for her to recite on spot. She leaned back and arched into the sun, a casual movement that didn't seem like it was correct in the present company. Hector carefully avoided looking at her as he continued, "As you where you became familiar with poetry, it doesn't really matter. It's the nice thing about poetry. It exists beyond the classroom and outside of everything else. The perfect escape, really. Hence the Shakespeare,"

Deciding, after much internal debate, to follow Penelope's example, Hector laid back on the blanket, folding his hands behind his head. "Curious thing about poetry, it always boils down to three main topics: society, sex, and death. Even the love poems aren't about anything deeper than sex. It's a bit Freudian, I know, but it's true,"

[PENELOPE LAFONTAINE]

Penelope laughed at Hector's comments on the main themes of poetry.

"Well, it certainly applies to most poets, though I'd have to say the Romantics are a little out of the way of society, sex and death. They tended to write more about nature and religion, not necessarily in that order. And some of the early post-modernists seemed to have no themes in mind at all. You know, all of that random sound and word poetry. There's no logic to it, but rather a focus on the sound and feel of language and words as they roll off our tongues."

She flipped onto her side to face Tormei, who was on his back, and began to chuckle.

"You still have a perfectly good point though. Even Donne, who was a priest of all things, new how to write to get a girl to put out for him, the sleaze." She smiled and cupped a hand to her face to keep the glare of the sun away as she spoke.

"So," she said, changing the subject slightly, "Do you read any prose, or are you strictly a verse man?" Poetry was great, but novels were more Penelope's thing. Hopefully she'd be on more even ground with Tormei on this topic.

[MAYOR HECTOR "HADES" TORMEI]

"I own a bookstore," Hector couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. It seemed like a ridiculous question but then again, she had misinterpreted Eliot. "Of course I enjoy reading novels, novellas, short stories, serial novels, and any other sort of prose you can imagine," In fact, when Hector wasn't busy being the top mobster in the city, running for mayor, or running the bookstore, he was reading. Every single item sold in the store passed through his hands first unless it was too fragile to handle. Even then, Hector would have made sure to read a copy somehow. HE was good business man, even if the business was simply a front. Hector would not stand for not knowing the books and being able to give and honest opinion on them.

"I read everything I can," Hector said after a pause. It never occured to him what a voracious reader he was. His thoughts had always been occupied by his numerous roles. Two months ago he would have been trying to save his family after a rash of snitches started to out him. One month ago, Hector would have been juggling campaigning and leading. Now, since the results of his campaigning were out of his hands and since the underground had calmed down, Hector was able to turn back to the activity that saved his sanity during his childhood.

[PENELOPE LAFONTAINE]

Penelope frowned in annoyance.

"Geeze. I'm sorry I forgot that. You don't have get sarcastic over it. You'll ruin a perfectly lovely day if you keep that up." She sat up facing Hector and crossed her legs in front of her.

"If it makes any difference," she said "I'm a bookworm myself. Always was. As I kid I'd read whatever I could get my hands on, especially at the book sales at the library. They'd sell off some of their older books to make room for the newer stuff, so I'd come home with a huge bag of things to read for under three or four dollars. Of course children's novels aren't classic literature, and I must admit that I still gravitate more towards popular genre fiction in my spare time than anything of actual quality. I'm especially fond of Golden Age detective novels - you know, Christie, Sayers, Marsh."

She stopped talking and winced, hoping her prattling hadn't made her come off as silly or irritating. She sighed. There probably wasn't any hope in trying to match Tormei's ideals of maturity. To him, she would likely always be a little thing half his age. Instead, she smiled and posed a common enough question,

"So, who's your favourite author then?"

[MAYOR HECTOR "HADES" TORMEI]

Again Hector rolled his eyes. He was a sarcastic person by nature and told Penelope as much. Tacking on a note that she talked quite a bit, Hector settled in to consider her question. He didn't have a favorite author, but he did tend towards a certain era of literature. "I favor the VIctorian Era of literature the best, but I do not have a favorite author. Of course I enjoy Hugo, Tolstoy, and Steinbeck," Hector rubbed his face and then shielded his eyes from the sun. It was almost unbearably bright out but Hector attributed that to the fact that he spent most of his time inside behind closed curtain. Old texts did not take well to exposure to sunlight.

"Do you do anything besides prattle on incessantly and commune with nature?" And the biting, scathing Hector from the chat room came back full force. Really, she had asked for it commenting on his sarcasm. Once it was acknowledged, Hector had a hard time keeping it in line. After all, he was a cruel, instigating man barely concealed in a visage of manners and empathy. If the girl expected anything less from what she had known of him, then she was just as shallow and silly as he had originally surmised in their initial encounters in the chat room.

[PENELOPE LAFONTAINE]

Penelope smirked. "I like to strip naked and do a rain dance before sunrise every morning. It helps me talk to the grass after breakfast, like any good nature-loving neo-hippie does." She held Tormei's gaze in for a moment, making the silent statement that she could be just as sarcastic as him.

She lightened her smirk to a smile as she thought over the question and pondered a serious answer to it.

"If I'm not at work or helping one friend or another with a community project, I'm either reading or watching old movies. Especially the old movie musicals. There was a time when they could do it right, and real "triple threats" actually existed. Old Hollywood is like a totally different world from what we have now. I like to mix a little Astaire and Hepburn with my Depp and Portman".

She inched herself closer to Tormei until she could fully see his face, and loose strands of her hair grazed his suit lightly.