afternoon tea

[walk_ins]

Janet's apartment is a studio, but it takes the casual visitor a moment to realize that; she's set up almost-ceiling-high bookshelves to create the semblance of internal walls, partitioning off a closet-sized "bedroom" from the only slightly larger "living room" next to the kitchen. They've had full meetings here before, but not often; the abridged space can seat twelve people, but not comfortably.

When Greg arrives, stamping snow off his boots in the hallway, Tara's already ensconced on the couch with her hands wrapped around a mug of tea. "Todd can't make it," Janet says apologetically as she stands aside to let Greg in. "He called about a half-hour ago."

Comments

[walk_ins]

"Oh, damn." He hang up his coat. "I wanted to talk to him."

Not that he doesn't want to talk to them, but.

[walk_ins]

"Hey, Greg," Tara waves from the couch. "Any particular reason?"

Janet's already moving to the kitchen (barely deserving of the name; "kitchenette" might be closer) to get Greg his own mug. There's an electric kettle on the trunk that serves as a coffee table, along with an assortment of tea, instant coffee and instant cocoa.

(It's fucking cold out.)

[walk_ins]

"Hey." He sits. "He talked to Michael last, I think. He just mentioned it in passing, but I wondered if he had any kind of---bead on him."

He's worried.

[walk_ins]

"Like his state of mind?" Janet hands Greg a mug, and carefully lowers herself into the beanbag chair opposite the couch. "I don't know. I think ..."

Quiet, and sad: "I think he's just tired."

[walk_ins]

"Something changed," Greg protests. "Two weeks ago we were working that project, you know, trawling the news archives for anything connected to Minnesota lakes, and then he just--got distracted and moody."

"Todd said he borrowed his project notes and like half his reference library, too."

[walk_ins]

"Wait, half Todd's reference library? The Arthur stuff?" Tara frowns, hunching forward. "What for? Did he say what for?"

[walk_ins]

Greg shakes his head. "Todd didn't seem to think it was anything out of the ordinary."

Todd wouldn't know out of the ordinary if it bit him on the nose, though.

"But he's been so... I don't know."

[walk_ins]

"Well, you finished that project, right? And moving on to the next one?" Janet shrugs, looking down into her coffee. "Maybe he's having a hard time staying motivated."

[walk_ins]

"Yeah." Phase two of the project has been kind of discouraging; successfully contacting people who you found because they were linked to tragedies in the news to ask them about something they would consider irrelevant requires sensitivities he doesn't have. Maybe nobody has them.

He turns the mug in his hands. "I guess so."

[walk_ins]

"I think we all are, a little."

It may be true, but it's startling to hear it from Tara; Janet's glance up at her is tinged with dismay. Tara doesn't seem to notice.

"Except maybe Ethan. And Jason, but he's always been running on pure fuck-you anyway."

[walk_ins]

"I'm still onboard," Greg protests. "Speaking of which, what do you guys think about this Kindle thing? Seems kind of like a gimmick. We never got anything of The Plant, did we?"

[walk_ins]

Tara shakes her head. "Ethan still says there's some connection between it and N., but I think he's putting too much weight on the epistolary format."

[walk_ins]

"I think anything printed in a limited run format like that is going to have a limited impact on reality. Not enough people are seeing it." He grimaces.

"Of course, I can't afford a Kindle, either."

[walk_ins]

"We never really proved one way or the other that the readership has anything to do with it," Janet objects. "I mean, Roland and his tet were there long before anyone had read word one of the canon --"

[walk_ins]

Tara sits up. "I thought we settled on a factor but not necessarily the only factor. Or even the deciding one."

[walk_ins]

"Well, what about the patronage angle, then?" Greg says. "It's a pretty scary precendent. I mean, I wouldn't call it a complete sell-out, but I have to admit I was taken aback."

"It seems like Amazon is trying to harness his popularity to promote the Kindle. If they can harness more than that... yikes. Just, yikes."

[walk_ins]

Tara makes a good-natured rude noise. "If Doubleday and Viking and the rest of them haven't managed to harness anything more, what makes you think Amazon will?"

[walk_ins]

"I don't think writing about the publishing industry is the same thing as him writing a story about a magic Kindle specifically and exclusively for the Kindle," Greg insists.

[walk_ins]

"You guys, we're theorizing way in advance of our data," says Janet disapprovingly.

There's a quick pattering sound and a thump as a Siamese cat lands heavily on the arm of the couch, surveys the little group, and stalks toward Greg.

[walk_ins]

"Nice kitty," Greg says, in the ineffectual 'please go away' voice common to all polite loathers of cats.

"Well, that's the--" He winces as the cat crawls into his lap. "That's the question, though. Are we going to get one? I guess we could take up a collection."

Not having a budget hurts.

[walk_ins]

"How much are they going for?" Janet asks dubiously, and adds "Jack, down." Jack Frost twitches an ear and settles down more comfortably, purring like a blender full of gravel.

"About three or four hundred, right?" says Tara. "That's, if we all chip in ... thirty to forty bucks each." The end of it comes out a little flat.

[walk_ins]

He winces again, for entirely different reasons.

[walk_ins]

"Yeah," says Janet, and reaches for her mug.

For a moment she considers asking how people's job searches are going.

"You know someone'll probably bootleg the story, if we really need to look at it," she says instead.

[walk_ins]

Greg completes the trifecta of wincing, but says, "Jason never pays for his, right? He does all that torrent stuff."

Renegades, indeed.

[walk_ins]

Tara nods. "Though I think he paid for The Plant. Something about wanting to encourage the trend."

She sets down her mug, and reaches matter-of-factly across to pluck the cat out of Greg's lap.