2020-11-22 That's What Family is For
That's What Family is For
Location: Winters Retreat
Date and Time: November 22, 2020
Summary: Difficult calls
Mood Music: Girl in Red - "Girls"
"....well, if you're sure. I mean...No Ama, I'm not....no, I'm really not wanting you to...." Jinny sighs, exasperated, pacing the floor of the living room where she's taken up residence to do a little oil painting on canvas, a smaller one set up near one of the vents - with tiny brushes and paints, too - in case the house's resident wanted to take part. "Ama, please." Jinny says as she whirls, the cordless phone thankfully without the thing that would entangle her as surely as a lasso or a rope would and finally, she stops in front of a chair. "Okay, Ama. Tell everyone I'll be there Thursday. I'll bring some bread or something, okay? Okay. Love you too. Adios."
Hanging up the phone and tossing it on the chair where it bounces and clatters on the floor, Jinny lets out an exasperated noise; part anguish, part frustration, and part relief for being off the phone. She never told Luu about the interesting family situation she had, and this call might have exposed a bit of it to Luu, if she was where it could be heard. Crouching down, she picks up her iPhone and tucks it into the back pocket of her tight jeans and turns to her painting again, the blue of the background starting to coalesce into something that she can't quite put her finger on.
Sitting on the couch in a relaxed fashion, Luu reads from her tablet, her attention occasionally being pulled by Jinny's tone as she speaks on her phone. Tonight, Luu is a bit more dressed up than usual, as if she might be going out somewhere later tonight. A black tulle dress spotted with stars and just enough embellishments that she can actually be said to be wearing something, is paired with white boots and silvered jewelery that seems more hidden within the fabric than actually showing. Her hair has all been dyed a stark white and given a new trim and style; her body perfumed to smell of myrrh and woman.
As Jinny finishes on the phone, Luu watches quietly, almost as if she's expecting the phone to go flying, and giving the proper space for such a cathartic action to take place. Luu, for her part places her tablet gently to her side, preparing to give Jinny her full attention. Legs somewhat sprawled, and apparently freshly shaved, Luu bounces her foot slightly for a moment, before uncrossing her legs and patting the space on the couch beside her. The quiet continues for another few moments, Luu moving her lips together slightly, as if her mouth was attempting to say something and failing, or attempting to say nothing and succeeding.
Jinny's first instinct was to fling the phone at the wall but that really, really wouldn't do good things for her sanity when it came to having to find a new phone on short notice, thus why she chose the chair. The miscalculation was the bounciness of the chair and thus, the clattering fall to the floor. Her attention on the painting, Jinny's peripheral vision picks up Luu's movement and the patting of the couch and the invitation to sit and, almost certainly chat a little. Which, honestly, is what she needs most right now.
Jinny looks back to the painting, down at the brush that still doesn't have any paint on it, and succumbs to the simple, wordless summon, padding over on stocking feet to sink down on the couch next to Luu, pulling out her phone before she sits to keep from squashing it between the couch and her butt. Sure, it's supposed to be able to stand up to that sort of thing, but she's not one to push it. "I like your outfit." Jinny says softly. "It's revealing and concealing - like one of those cartoons where the mist always keeps you from seeing anything untowards." Yes, she's really trying to change the subject. Get Luu talking about fashion...
"Thanks," Luu says with a smile, glancing down at her outfit to admire herself for a moment. "The weather out is nice tonight," she explains, "and I figured I could get a little bit of air while out. Plus when working the room, showing off a little bit can be helpful for the Ars Cupididae, as long as one manages to have a way to exert control and agency over one's form. Really the outfit is just an adornment for the self, to help us in the ways we speak with our soul through our body, the proper amplifications, accents, mutes." A slight shrug as she says, "Just one of those typical LA events, I can't even remember what exactly the after party is for, I just vaguely know that it could be vaguely helpful to show up there."
Reaching to the side for her tablet, Luu begins to pick it up, pressing at the screen as if going back to reading; it seems as if Jinny's attempt to change the subject succeeded. "Speaking of revealing and concealing," Luu says, before looking up from the tablet, and pointedly meeting Jinny's eyes. Placing the tablet back down with one hand, Luu pats the seat on the couch beside her with the other, inviting Jinny to sit and talk. "What's wrong?" Luu wonders, "sounds like some obligation on Thursday, something with the art world? Opening or the like." It might take a moment to be evident, but it seems that Luu is not in fact being coy here, but is in fact disconnected with her family to the extent that the idea of Thanksgiving doesn't even register for her; not just an only child, but a lonely child.
Definitely a good thought, and perfectly calculated to reveal and conceal. It wouldn't surprise Jinny to see those Lapis Lazuli earrings on, too, but the party Luu's going to more than likely would not need such a thing to be brought to the fore. That outfit is almost certainly enough to get Luu stuck in people's memories if she so chooses to let it be so. After all, alcohol and clandestine drug use combined with crippling exhaustion means a trained practitioner can likely get away with a double murder if she's crafty enough and says the right things. It's Performance Art, trust me. They're /fine!/ "The outfit is a lovely contrast with your hair, though. Actual white is kind of rare, with most people going a battleship gray streaked with lighter and darker highlights. This pulls it all together with the little hints of color peeking through. Four stars." Jinny claps politely, then goes silent when Luu asks the simple question.
"What's wrong..." Jinny repeats, leaning back on the couch and looking up at the ceiling, her eyes wide open. "I haven't told you very much about my family, have I? I mean...you know the basics, but...I mean..." She sighs and closes her eyes. "It's not an obligation to Art or an opening I've got to attend or a class I've got to teach. I've been invited to Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, with the whole family. Grandparents from both sides, parents, brothers. That one uncle who has the two pugs. Everyone. And I've got to bring bread, Luu." Her head turns slightly to regard the white-haired beauty, lightly patting the other woman's leg where she can reach, fingertips stilling when she notices Luu's shaved. She'll ask about that later. "And I want to go, but I'm dreading what inevitably is going to happen during the dinner."
Head slightly tilted to the side, Luu smiles as she receives the compliment, but really she's more gently waiting for Jinny to get to the explanation she's holding back. Enough of an entry for words to safely lands, not so much pull as to cause them to tumb forth heedlessly, a gentle and empathic shepherding of emotions. "I like guess not?" Luu responds when Jinny mentions not having said much regarding her family. If Luu were to think about it, she would probably realize she knows little about Jinny's family, but also understand that Jinny likely knows even less about Luu's family. That it did't come up much hadn't really registered for Luu, because what is there to say about one's family? Especially when one hardly sees them, least of all on Thanksgiving, least of all while growing up.
Listening to Jinny explain, Luu cozies up next to the other woman, working to soothe her by gently brushing her hair with her hand. The number of people Jinny describes seems almost a surprise to Luu, as if she knew such gatherings happened in films and TV, but in real life? It would seem Jinny has a storybook family.
"They're going to look at a lump of half-cooked dough and say, 'please, next time just got to the store, we'll all be happier that way?'" Luu jokes of making bread, in part to hopefully calm Jinny, but in part because she really doesn't know family.
It works, believe it or not. Luu's teasing and somewhat dated sitcom references get her to giggle, her head turning to let Luu's hand brush through her silky red hair. She's apparently been using some of Luu's conditioner or, at least, has started conditioning more since...well...Luu makes her want to look her best, for herself and for Luu, so the extra step, here and there, is worth it, in her eyes.
"As much as that would be a welcomed change, no, not that at all. I'm going to arrive, we're going to get seated and then the doorbell will ring and, oh, look at this, Jinny, the nice young man from somewhere that they found him. A worker at the shop, at the church, or something. And we'll get sat next to each other and he'll try to make small talk about art and will inevitably tell me about his previous relationships and how he's ready to settle down and....ugh!" She shakes her shoulders and makes a face. "I'm lesbian, Luu. I've told my parents that, over and over again and they keep trying to set me up with guys that they think would have a chance to mesmerize me to the hetero side with the power of lame conversation and deep dicking." She looks over. "Doesn't stop 'em from trying."
As she gently brushes Jinny's hair, Luu seems to recognize a familiar scent, but one she can't quite place. It takes some effort not to smell Jinny's hair, but somehow Luu manages. Hearing what the situation with Jinny's family is, Luu scrunches her face slightly, pursing her lips into an 'ooh.' This is something Luu does not have to deal with. It is hard for her to manage her family caring about such a thing, in many senses, but that it would be an uncomfortable situation is unmistakable.
"All sides of the family?" Luu wonders, "I mean is this like totally a conspiracy between relatives, or does it get extra awkward because some of the family is trying to set you up, while some of the family accepts? I mean, either way sounds ... not fun? But still trying to figure out what you're dealing with here. I mean, one against all is a bit different from one in a brawl, right?" Pausing, Luu frowns slightly, there's questions she can ask, jokes she could make, maybe things she could do, but she feels that the situation needs a little bit of room in which to properly be shit. "I'm sorry," she says after a moment, "really, that sucks."
"Thankfully no, it's not a unified front, otherwise I wouldn't even be considering going." Jinny cuddles against Luu, snuggling down against the other woman, actually wrapping her arms around Luu's waist to hold her close, her eyes closed. "Three quarters of grandparents and Ama...er, mom, basically. Dad and my native American grandfather are fine with who I am. The rest want me to find a nice boy and start pumping out grandchildren and great grandchildren. I mean, maybe someday, but definitely not this Thanksgiving, and not with whoever they try to set me up with."
Jinny sighs softly and hangs on to Luu, just holding the other woman against her. "It's okay." she murmurs. "it's not your fault. It's just their viewpoint. Lorelei asked me, when she came for dinner a bit before our trip, if it was hard for me to not tell my parents about who I was, what I was, and what I was working for, and I told her it wasn't, specifically based on their view of sexuality. I mean, if they can't accept that, how well do you think Spirits would go over, or the fact that I, as a mage, can use my will to alter reality? It just wouldn't work nearly as well as it could." She chuckles ruefully. "I just think if they knew...."
Snuggling close with Jinny, Luu tilts her head and rests it against Jinny's, as she takes in a deep breath; a sigh more for Jinny than for herself. "It sounds like your family is important to you?" Luu says, and it's a bit difficult to tell if that's just her uptalk, or if she is asking a legitimate question of Jinny, perhaps wondering why they have to be that way, or maybe just what that is like. Gently, she toys with Jinny's hair, as she continue to say, "I think that it is important to recognize like what you can say to who. I mean like obviously there's somethings that you wish you could say, to like totally express to everyone, and yet there's just somethings that some people will never get, or maybe you'll just never have the right words for." Thinking about this, Luu says, "but they do know, at least like some of it, not all the possibilities, but the problem they're going to be causing for you, the impossibility they're asking from you. Really it's a matter of whether they're asking the impossible of you, or if you're asking the impossible of them. Paradoxes tend to get reconciled, that's one of the things it says in one of the Order's sleeper publications, but it is true, and it is a way to start pointing to a deeper reality.
There's a pause, before Luu wonders in a tone both gentle and sincere, "would you want me to go to Thanksgiving with you?" A beat before, she adds, "I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to change my plans." Not that she had plans.
If it's an uptalk or an actual question, Jinny takes it as such, nodding her head. "Yeah, they are important to me. Even though they frustrate the absolute hell out of me sometimes, their hearts are in the right place, and they raised me my whole life. I owe them a lot." And she does. Work ethic, beliefs that led her to art, willingness to try and step out of her comfort zone and, yes, even her first few forays into Sappho's world that convinced her she liked the same side of the coin rather than the opposite one as she was 'supposed' to, according to religion, politics, and American culture. Thankfully, that's changing but, when you grow up steeped in that kind of thing, it's kind of hard to make it just go away.
She listens, quietly, as Luu speaks, the truth of her words cutting right to the heart of the subject at hand and this is the perfect microcosm for what they're wanting to do. To ascend the world, one would have to ascend those that might not accept it or understand it, and to bring them a little closer to the light - perhaps not reaching it, but at least understanding it - would take a few steps in their direction. Going to them instead of having them come to you. There's a mousey squeak and Jinny looks up at the white-haired woman. "Would you?" Lorelei did offer to be her skirt for that sort of thing, wanting to shock the system by having Jinny show up with another girl, but really? With Lorelei, Jinny's heart wouldn't be in it, but with Luu? She gets goosebumps at the thought - hopefully Luu doesn't notice.
Listening to what Jinny has to say, Luu stays by her side offering the comfort she can. When Jinny asks 'Would you?' Luu pulls her head back a little, to focus her eyes on Jinny. "Yeah, like totally," she says, surprised that such support would even be a question. A beat as she says, "as long as you're not expecting me to bake bread that is. I mean, like, I can buy bread from the store and pretend it's mine, and even if they figure it out, it'll still go over better than my bread." Furrowing her brow, Luu admits, "I'm not even really sure what goes in bread. I feel like I'd add milk when there isn't supposed to be any, or forget the milk when there is supposed to be some, or maybe just decided that cracking eggs into milk is a step I can skip, when really I shouldn't, but I still do it intentionally, unlike like the salt, which I just plain forget."
In hopes to comfort Jinny, Luu jokes about her baking abilities, perhaps exaggerating or perhaps downplaying what they might be like, but really, Luu is in part doing this to hide some of her own feelings. She is of course happy to join Jinny for Thanksgiving, to be the support that she needs, but she's not quite sure if she just agreed to be there for support or to pretend to be Jinny's date as she confronts familial homophobia. Either way, Luu will do it, but really she wishes she was Jinny's date. For real.
