Family Issues

[nmartin]

Even though Natalie had what most would refer to as a traumatic experience just the night before in the exact same area at nearly the exact same time, she returned to her favored Mae's Cafe in order to get her late night fix of caffeine. A coffee all in order to keep her up until the late hours of the night, even though she'd have to be back in class by 8:00am the next morning. Already it was very close to 11:00pm, and yet here she was.

Entering the cafe with her laptop case slung over one shoulder and her purse clutched in hand, she came in and didn't make eye contact with anyone immediately, instead focusing on the menu above the bar area. Not like she needed to, anyway. She knew what she was going to get, and the owner probably did too. It was always one of two things; a cafe mocha or a caramel macchiato, depending on her mood. Generally the macchiato was for when she had more work to actually accomplish, and the mocha when she was on the go and only stopped in for a drink. Given that she had her stuff with her, it was more likely that she'd go for the macchiato.

However, upon getting to the counter, her habits shifted slightly. "Hi," She said quietly, and grinned at the owner, "Can I just get a medium cafe mocha?" Never actually making eye contact with the woman, she looked down at her purse and pulled out enough money to cover the charge of the drink and a little bit of a tip. As she reached for her money though, her phone began to ring. The tone was relatively quiet and not all that disturbing, but her expression turned sour at the notice of who exactly was calling her. Pressing a button on the side of the phone silenced the ringer, and she looked back to the woman, paying for the drink and walking down to the end of the bar to wait for it.

As soon as she had her drink in hand, the phone began to ring again, and it was given the same sort of treatment. Silenced. A quiet sort of scoff was given this time as well, as she looked around for a table to sit at; one in the far corner was nice. A darker portion of the cafe that was away from the main area. Again however, her phone began to ring as she sat down. Turning it off wasn't an option, as she could possibly expect a call from her workplace if they needed her for anything, it being a 24-hour pharmacy.

Setting the coffee down and putting the phone on the table so that it was within reach to silence if her mother continued to call her, she put her elbows on the table and ran her hands through her hair tiredly, resting one hand on her forehead and glaring down at the phone as it began to ring quietly for the fourth time in within five minutes. Not only was it annoying, but it was embarrassing. This time, she picked it up, obviously frustrating me.

"Mom. Stop calling me. I have work to do." She said coldly, quietly into the phone, and hung up immediately, setting the phone back down on the table a bit harshly as she pulled her notebook out of her laptop's case, along with a text book that went along with her Brain and Behavior course.

[megan]

It may go against conventional wisdom for anyone to drink coffee at this hour, but then again East Gotham isn't necessarily a normal place. A large portion of Margaret's customers are on a different schedule than the rest of the world in order to take advantage of the nighttime hours. The number of them that are around at this hour tends to fluctuate wildly, but there's generally enough that she's only just begun putting a few things away for the night and won't be done for awhile yet. The few scattered customers are quiet, more interested in their food or their paper than they are in each other.

Margaret glances up from where she's wiping the counter when the door opens. She's seen this young lady a number times and has always felt that there was something a bit... off about her. The mere fact that she's willing to venture into this part of Gotham at this hour is a bit strange, and so is the girl's expressions when she looks at people. Then again, she's also far from the strangest of Margaret's customers.

Walking over to where she's standing, Margaret merely gives a confirming "Mmm" to the order. And if Margaret thinks the one she's picked is strange, she doesn't say so. Instead she silently waits to be paid, ignoring the interruption of the phone as if it never happened. Quickly putting the money away in the register, she has the drink made and in the girl's hand with the quick timing of someone who may literally have done the same thing a million times before. And then she goes back to cleaning the counter.

However, she doesn't miss that the phone continues to ring, nor the words spoken when the young lady finally answers it. A slight frown creases Margaret's already tired face and with a few last strokes she finishes cleaning the counter. And then she begins cleaning the tables, just happening to start with the empty one nearest to the corner where the girl sat. As she starts wiping she doesn't look up from the table as she asks, "Why don't you want to talk to your mother?" Which is probably the longest sentence that Margaret's ever said to the young lady.

[nmartin]

Hardly any attention is paid to Margaret as she begins to clean off the tables in that section of the dining area, but when she speaks up, Natalie is caught somewhat off guard. Was she even talking to her? Of course she was. The question she asked was clearly directed at her. Which, that in itself is certainly.. odd, at best. Instead of answering right away, Natalie glances up at Margaret, and narrows her eyes slightly. Even if the woman was just trying to make casual conversation, the fact that she heard some of Natalie's words that weren't directed toward her has her slightly peeved.

It takes her a moment to answer the question, since only a few seconds after she ended the call does the phone begin to ring again. This time, from her father's separate line, It's a source of unending annoyance on Natalie's part, and she decides at the last moment to turn the phone completely off, regardless of whether her work called or not. They had only done so a few times before, knowing her school schedule. If she missed something, she'd deal with it another time.

"I don't have anything to say to her, I'm busy." Natalie said quietly, and opened up her notebook to a blank page, flicking the pages in her textbook to a particular chapter; something to do with memory and the bits of the brain that go along with it. A dull subject that she'd been used to since her entry into the psychology program at the university; but noes needed to be taken regardless.

[megan]

If just those few words that Margaret actually indicated that she'd heard were enough to bother Natalie, then she'd surely be outraged to know how much Margaret hears without seeming to. Very little happens within the walls of Mae's Cafe that the owner of it is unaware of, even though any indication of this is rare. In fact, if she hadn't heard the word 'Mom', then Margaret would have been a lot less likely to be talking to her about it now.

The initial silence that greets Margaret's question doesn't seem to bother her, though she steals a glance out of the corner of her eye just to make sure that the young lady is going to answer rather than ignore her. The irritated look she receives is completely ineffective, however. She doesn't care if she's bothering this girl any more than she cares about the criminal record of the man sitting near the other end of the cafe.

"And what's more important than talking to your mother?" she asks immediately when she gets a response, still not looking up from the table. Her tone is completely casual and conversational, even betraying a bit of the tiredness she feels after having spent another long day running the cafe. Normally she could have one of these tables cleaned in just a few moments unless the previous customer had made a real mess of it, but this time Margaret takes her time and does a very thorough job of it.

[nmartin]

What's more important than talking to your mother?

That question made Natalie grin, and she even laughed just a little bit at the absurdity of the question. Of course, the owner of the cafe didn't know her mother personally. Didn't know how utterly useless the woman was in her life now. "Lots of things." Natalie said simply, and took another sip of the coffee, looking away from Margaret and back down into the book, jotting down a particularly important paragraph quickly.

A few second pause went by before she looked back up, and let out a sigh. Natalie was going to become a psychiatrist, so she was well aware that bottling up things (that weren't harmful to actually talk about) wasn't really a good idea. She wasn't mad at her mother or her father. She didn't have anything against either one of them. There was just no real reason for her to speak to them. They'd only ask her how she was, if she was okay, how school was going; meaningless conversation when that time could go into her research.

"Like this. If I talked to her, the time I wasted would only put me behind, and I have too many other things to do than talk to her at.. 11:00 at night." Even though she didn't quite appreciate the lady butting into her business, Natalie still wasn't being outright rude to her. Just answering questions that were asked, all the while still avoiding eye contact by looking down at her book every now and then, writing a few words down at a time.

[megan]

Once the table has been very, very thoroughly wiped, Margaret throws the rag over her shoulder so that she doesn't have to hold it in her hands, and suddenly she's not making any sort of a pretense about why she's in this particular corner of the cafe. Her eyes shift to look directly at Natalie with what is probably an uncomfortable level of intense scrutiny, whether the young lady chooses to look at her or not.

"I suppose you're old enough that ya don't need anything from her," Margaret allows after a few moments of silence, "But has it ever occurred to ya that she might need something from you?" And there's a certain edge to the old woman's tone as she asks that question that simultaneously dares the girl to try to argue that point and insists that Margaret is the only one in this conversation who has a right to an opinion on that.

But she doesn't give the young lady enough time to respond before she asks a different question: "When was the last time ya actually talked to her?" she asks but, sensing the need for clarification she adds, "Now I don't mean like just now, telling her not to call, but I also don't mean anything more than a few minutes to tell her how you're doing and a little of what you've been up to." And the look on Margaret's face as she asks this is sharp, as if she's challenging the girl to give her a satisfactory answer.

[nmartin]

At the moment, Natalie had chosen not to look at Margaret. Instead, apparently she had found another very important paragraph in the textbook and was writing it down, her eyes shifting from her own handwriting to the printed text that she was copying down. The few moments of silence were a good thing to Natalie, as the whole conversation was a bit.. awkward, at best. She'd seen this woman countless times and spent hundreds of dollars at her shop over a period of time, and this was the first real conversation they had.

"She's old enough that she doesn't need anything from me, with that logic." Natalie counters, and looks up at Margaret, looking just past her. She always did have trouble making eye contact with people. Not that she had a problem with talking to them, but looking them in the eye was a different story.

"Christmas." She answered the second question flatly, and truthfully. Even then, Natalie didn't speak much to them on that day, either. She watched her younger cousins open their presents, totally disinterested in what they got but showing at least some form of kindness anyway just because she felt it was expected of her. Her parents gave her a multitude of gifts too, things that she didn't ask for or need. Most of them were returned, the store credits she got in return more useful that way.

[megan]

If there's one thing that Margaret has plenty of, it's patience. And as long as the young lady she's talking to doesn't ignore her completely, the extended pauses between statements aren't nearly enough to bother Margaret. She merely waits through them in silence, standing there watching the girl with those sharp eyes and with her arms folded almost authoritatively.

No, what's bothering Margaret about this conversation in nearly everything the young lady is saying. And she's very quick to answer with, "No, see for her it's different. She's a mother, not a daughter. And a mother has a need to know that her children are all right, no matter how old they get: not just that they're alive, but that they're doing okay. Cause if they don't know, then they can't stop worrying, no matter how much other evidence they get that you're fine. And it's not something I suppose you'd really understand - you're not a mother. But I am, and I do."

And though Margaret's tone is relatively mild as she explains all of that, there's a certain depth of emotion to her voice that's generally even lacking during the rare times that she has conversations like this. Because she knows exactly what she's talking about from her own experience rather than conjuring up wisdom based on something she's only observed. It comes across as an absolute certainty that every word that she's saying is absolutely true. And though the answer to her second question gets no verbal reply as of yet, there's a displeased frown on Margaret's face to indicate that she's unhappy with it.

[nmartin]

"Sounds like a classic double standard, to me." Natalie replies back, picking up her coffee cup and taking another sip of the macchiato, the caffeine in it not quite perking her up the way she'd hoped it would. While she did ingest a lot of the substance, she hoped that she wasn't in fact becoming immune to it's effects. Looking back to Margaret, she noted the crossed arms and the fluctuating tones, and pushed some of her bangs away from her eyes.

"Would it make you feel better if I said I'd return her call at a better time?" She asked hypothetically, since Natalie knew very well that she wouldn't call her mother, or her father for that matter, for any reason whatsoever. Even if she was in an emergency situation, she'd rely more on people she knew here in Gotham rather than hours out of the way back home in Kansas.

[megan]

The first response that Margaret gets goes in one ear and other of the other. This young lady's opinion about what she just said is completely irrelevant. She knows that it's true, regardless of whether or not someone's uncaring daughter doesn't want it to be. Or even regardless of whether or not the feeling makes any logical sense or not. Why do all the smart ones try to apply logic to their emotions anyway?

But while the first part is ignored, the second part is answered quickly, "No, because a 'better time' wouldn't appear in your busy schedule, would it?" That's another thing about the smart ones: always assuming that she's an idiot just because of her place in the world.

But now that Margaret has taken some time to really study the girl's behavior and relate it back to what she remembers from the many other evenings she's visited the cafe, the old woman has gotten a very good picture of her. Not that there aren't a few gaps in it, but she doubts that there's any truth in such an implied promise from this one. And since Margaret's expression doesn't change and she doesn't move except to say those words, there's a definite implication that it will take more than that to get her to go away.

[nmartin]

Finally getting a little more irritated than she probably should be with the woman, Natalie frowns visibly, and shakes her head. "Probably not." She muttered, and let her head tilt to one side, crossing her arms in front of her and resting them on the table. "Why are you so interested in if I talk to my mother or not, anyway?" Natalie asked, though she had a few different theories floating around in her head. Theories that she thought of and worded in her head in the most cruel of ways that she wanted to say out loud to get the woman to leave her alone, but instead she just kept quiet for a moment.

One of the more random thoughts floating around in that mind of hers was that coming her after tonight might be a little more awkward than she could appreciate. The coffee was great and the price was about the same as any other place, and it wasn't too far of a drive from her apartment.. so she really hated to think about giving Mae's Cafe up just because of a little spat with the owner over something so trivial. That thought made her almost possessively take her coffee cup in and take another longer sip.

[megan]

This certainly isn't the first time that Margaret has handed out an unwanted lecture, and it won't be the last. And it isn't rare for someone on the receiving end to question why she's doing it to them. A question that she normally deflects or tosses back by explaining how much the person she's talking to needs to hear what she's saying. But for whatever reason, on a whim she decides to give this young lady the real reason: "Cause I know exactly what you're doing to that poor woman cause all three of my kids are doing the same thing to me."

But before the girl has a chance to comment on that, Margaret quickly adds, "But all three of them have a much better reason than you do. Not enough time? You're telling me that a smart young woman like you can't scrape together five minutes a week? Or ten every two weeks? Or... however much a month?" Math, beyond making change and keeping records for her business (and the latter with a calculator in hand), has never been Margaret's strong suit, and she knows not to try. "Cause I tell ya, that's all it would take to keep her from calling when ya don't want her to. Like I said, just needs to know you're doing okay." And having said all that, Margaret goes back to waiting for Natalie to say something better - asking for her motivations for demanding this hardly count.

[nmartin]

The reference to Natalie's mother as a 'poor woman' has Natalie inwardly scoffing yet again at this woman's pity on someone she didn't even know, only had the misfortune of having maybe one thing in common with her. Margaret's guilt tripping really has no effect on Natalie except to make her even more annoyed with her current predicament. Raising a brow conspicuously, the girl lets out a quiet sigh and slumps her shoulders forward a bit, exhausted with the conversation.

"I don't have the time. If I'm not in classes, I'm writing papers. If I'm not writing papers I'm conducting research. If I'm not doing any of that, I'm at work. I keep myself as busy as I can to avoid conversations with them." Finding the last bit just a little funny, she grins and shakes her head again. "My mother wouldn't be satisfied with a five minute conversation. She has it in her head that I'm in a lot of danger in Gotham all by myself. That I'm going to be corrupted by the city, or the people, or something like that." To her, the thought was completely ridiculous, and it showed in the way she said that last sentence. "It's just not worth the hassle."

[megan]

That the young lady is already so tired with talking about this can only be taken as a good sign to Margaret. People who try to hide things don't do it nearly as well when they get tired and frustrated with her, which is exactly why she's so patient and persistent when someone tries to avoid her whether it's by refusing to talk or by talking but refusing to talk about what she wants them to talk about. This girl is one of the latter, actually. And she's not trying to give the young lady a guilt trip: it's blatantly obvious that particular 'button' is broken on this one. If it wasn't, then the persistent phone calls would have worked sometime between Christmas and now. No, she's simply explained just how persistent she's going to be.

And that seems to have born fruit, because the girl finally says something that gets to the real heart of the issue.. "So you're willing to say you're doing it all on purpose? Good, that saves time," she says with her lips pursed in mild satisfaction. The rest of what Natalie says makes Margaret internally agree with what she's saying her mother thinks, but Margaret knows better than to actually say so. After all, she watched it happen to all of her kids. Instead she suddenly seems to change the subject, "So what are you studying for? What do you wanna be?"

[nmartin]

In all honesty, Natalie had lost interest in trying to convince this woman that her reasons for ignoring both her mother and her father's calls weren't necessarily to be bitter, but because she hadn't the time for their childish nonsense in her career driven world. And by the looks of it, it seemed that Margaret was about done gnawing away on that bone as well, finally. Another sip of the coffee was taken, shooting the woman another one of her excessively irritated looks before she flipped the page of her textbook, a large image of a human brain labeled with parts and whatnot exposed to any who looked at the book.

"Psychology. Psychopharmacology is my main interest." She said, but knew that for some, the word was really too big and too scientific sounding to understand, so she gave the woman a little help. "Medicinal psychiatric drugs.. that's my interest." She said through a sigh, sounding exhausted again. Really, she had so much work to do.. talking to Margaret was proving to be quite the distraction.