2024-12-31 - Pre-NYE Party Extravaganza

The park is, of course, absolutely hopping with patrons eager to ring in the New Year. Some places, such as Lucky's, has a large contingent of employees that somehow managed to have the day--or at least the shift for this afternoon/evening--off. It's crowded, the alcohol is flowing, the jukebox is rocking, and everyone already seems to be having a lively, enjoyable time.

Zara is, for once, not in attire designed for her job. Usually the first to volunteer to work on holidays, she was politely 'voluntold' to take the day off. Thus, she finds herself still in the park in a black dress that is likely more suited for a ritzy gala than a night in a theme park.

She nurses a beer and watches with idle interest those that come and go, laugh and carouse, tease and play. It's going to be a good day!

Somehow managing to score the evening off, Securidad Charlie Underwood is firmly planted in a chair which is conveniently very near to Zara. In contrast to his colleague, Charlie is dressed in a flannel overshirt, dark grey undershirt, and jeans – precisely the attire someone like him should be wearing on his night off at the bar.

In spite of the bottle of coke in his hand it seems he’s having trouble getting into the spirit of the occasion, preferring to ‘keep an eye’ on the patrons instead of actually being off-duty, though he does manage to grin and raise his coke to Zara should she peer over in his direction.

Ever the observant one, Zara does indeed catch sight of Charlie with his teetotaling bottle of cola in hand. She flicks him a pair of fingers in lieu of a full on wave, but the corner of her lips curl all the same before, for some reason, one of the stools around the barrel she's sitting around, magically seems to scoot back. It's clearly an invitation for anyone watching carefully.

But she doesn't put any pressure on the man. Surely they spend enough time together on the clock and if he wishes for his time to be a bit Zara-free, who can blame him? She answers a quick message from her phone in the meantime while holiday appropriate songs rock on the jukebox. Of course 'rock', is a relative term. The crowd seems to enjoy the selections, however!

Charlie does seem the type to describe Bing Crosby as ‘rocking,’ and he returns Zara’s finger-flick with a tap of his fingers to the ‘edge’ of his forehead. Out of the two of them, Zara’s the more perceptive one, but even an idiot in a flannel can see the invitation in the movement of a stool and so Charlie takes the opportunity to lift himself up out of his chair (with a grunt, he’s an old man) and clear the half-dozen or so feet between them. Remembering to pick up his hat from the table before he leaves.

“How’d you manage to get tonight off,” says Charlie with a hint of disbelief in his voice, “I would’ve thought it was all hands on deck?” He doesn’t seem to be objecting, just surprised. He slides onto the stool easily, as if it were made specifically for his backside, and hooks the heel of his boot onto the stool’s rung with his other foot on the floor – a classic ‘ready to go’ pose that continues to indicate his readiness to get to work even though he’s meant to be chill.

Here comes the old timer and Zara can practically hear that 'unh' as he stands and moves over to join her. It causes those lips to curl a bit more. "Didn't have much choice," is all she offers at first. She's only moderately chuffed about the whole thing. "Tried to guilt me because I worked the rest of the holidays this year. Since I've been around, at least." She lifts one of those strong shoulders for a moment.

"Maybe someone else wants a bit of excitement instead. But..hey..since I'm here..." She lifts that brown bottle and gives it a little wiggle before helping herself to another quick drink. "What about you? Off? Late shift?" The coke is a clue, mayhaps! "Lucky's is a good place to be when off-the-clock anyway. Gives just as much of a chance of being first on-scene to something as otherwise."

“I get to deal with the hungover bunch tomorrow morning,” Charlie responds with a roll of his eyes. He wiggles his coke just enough to draw attention to it, clearly indicating that it is indeed a clue! Watching the movement of muscle in Zara’s shoulder, Charlie raises his eyebrows a touch, and shifts his own, smaller shoulder to mirror her, “Oh, ‘course. They’re probably sick of payin’ you holiday rates.”

He lifts the bottle to down a mouthful of the 100% real sugar cola and casts a slow look around the patrons of Lucky’s. “True that,” Charlie agrees, “couldn’t sleep with this much excitement going on, anyway.” He certainly seems the type to have trouble sleeping when he could be being productive. While he’s not as muscularly endowed as Zara, he does seem to have cultivated a sort of… presence about him. So the pair of them stuck together is liable to keep people on their best behaviour even out of their security uniforms.

Probably the worst of the shifts...the drunks/just-passed-drunks. Lips twist a little bit again. "The puke is the worst part." Isn't it always? Zara makes a distasteful face and shakes her head. "I'm hearing a lot of people are headed out for the night though. So at least, hopefully, it won't be 'our' people that are the issues. Just some guests that can get the boot for a weekend." Always easier dealing with those that have no business living in the area.

Z leans back a bit and swirls her bottle, watching Charlie for a bit. "Yeah? Not a fan of trying to crash with blasts of gunpowder going off for a few hours? Sheesh.." She snorts a bit, decidedly unladylike but grins at him. "How long have you been here again? Longer than me?" She tries to think back and looks away for a moment in thought. " I got here in..late August I think."

“I can deal with puke,” Charlie counters with a grin, “Once you’ve had a baby throw up in y’mouth, a bit of puke on y’boots is nothin’.” He chuckles softly, then, at the idea of booting out guests, “Yeah. Dealin’ with our folk is the worst – y’gotta look ‘em in the face for the next six months knowin’ that they’ve got a real colourful vocabulary under their professional demeanour.” Curious to think that, in all the time Zara has known Charlie, he’s never once used a word worse than ‘damn.’

He downs another mouthful of coke and rubs his chin with his free hand, “I ain’t got a problem sleepin’ with explosions goin’ on, I can sleep anywhere any time. Jus’ not when I could be doin’ somethin’ productive.” He’s cavalier about it, but his face has ‘workaholic veteran’ all over it. If you know, you know. “Hmm. I started when this place was still a couple of ol’ double-wides. Keepin’ an eye on the construction gear at nights, that kinda gig. So I reckon I’ve been here longer’n most, on an’ off.”

Zara looks at him with a not-at-all-faked look of disgust, but she does make a faint, faux-gag for a moment before laughing softly. "Jesus..." She shakes her head and shudders, wetting her lips and taking another drink of beer as if that'll be enough to get that mental 'taste' out of her own mouth. But thankfully conversation moves on and she nods right along with him. "Yeah, well..usually if they cross our paths like that, they're dumb enough to use the same few words in that vocabulary and don't have much of a professional demeanor in the word place."

She gives him a nod and sniffs a bit before looking around. She runs a hand through her hair as the jukebox changes to another song. "Ah, yeah. I get you. Kinda help when you have our job, I think. It never really gets old. I feel bad for some of the performers...doing the same stuff every night for weeks? How they don't get tired of it, I'll never know."

"Ugh, you were checking in shipments at the gate? How fun.." She laughs but hey, look at him now! Clearly made his mark into something way more interesting.

There’s nothing like the stories of early parenthood to fill one’s friends and colleagues with disgust and dismay, and Charlie revels in the moment with a shit-eating grin rapidly forming on his rugged features. It disappears quickly enough to avoid earning him a slap, but the corners of Charlie’s lips stay upturned for a while yet. “True,” he says about the colleagues’ vocabulary, “but when you live with people a while the veneer wears off, especially when they’re stressed, or tired. Then you add alcohol… I don’t take it personally.”

He rubs his chin again in what is apparently a thoughtful expression when Zara mentions the performers. “I dunno, I guess it’s kinda like theatre. The audience is different, so the ‘energy’ is?” He shrugs his shoulders, “Sorta like how we might patrol the same spot for a week, but we’ll interact with different folk so it’s not exactly the same every day.”

Of course, now it’s Charlie’s turn to let out an unladlylike snort, “Checking in and out.” He nods his head faux-proudly, “Not to mention wandering around the place at night to make sure the very big, loud, heavy construction equipment doesn’t get stolen. Off an island.”

There's another nothing like stories of early parenthood that can make this childless person particularly pleased to be so, but Zara's also not an ass about it. She can take as good as she gives, especially with Charlie. "Gonna have to tack on a few years before I get to that point, I guess.." She grins and finishes up that first beer, pushing the bottle back afterwards.

Z watches him while he tries to explain it and while, sure, it might objectively make sense, she still shakes her head. "Maybe..." She doesn't sound totally convinced, and that's okay! She doesn't have to be. Maybe it just needs to marinate for a while.

It's at the very end though that she laughs aloud which is decidedly unusual for her. Eyes crease and lips peel back as the image of him protecting expensive machinery from getting yoinked off of an island is firmly implanted in her head. "Doing the Lord's work, I'm sure." She runs her tongue along the inside of her bottom lip and giggles again before sighing. "What'd you do before you came here?"

Of course Zara is childless: She’s basically a child herself; so the idea of her having a child would be like a toddler with her dolly gone very, very wrong. “A few years, and maybe you’d have to find that miracle person who’d put up with you long enough.” While they’re not exactly ‘besties,’ Zara and Charlie are complementary enough (with her as the strong silent type, and he as the polite charming type) that they’re often assigned to the park’s trouble spots together – time enough for the pair to have some level of banter privileges.

Her lack of convincement about the performers earns little more than a shrug from Charlie. He’s not a performer, unless you count the mask of professionalism he wears, so it’s not really his domain to comment on with any authority. “Or maybe they’re doing their high-wire act stuff while thinking about their taxes. Backflip, backflip, do I need to file a form 1040 or a form 14581-G…”

Charlie lets out a soft sigh when thinking about the good old days of the park pre-opening. Things were perfect before people started showing up and messing with it. He sucks his teeth for a moment and downs the remainder of his coke. “I was a deputy for a while, before that I was in the service.” He upnods in her direction, “What about you? You’re practically a newborn, this your first full-time thing?”