ArchivedLogs:Mooching Lessons

Mooching Lessons
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Melinda	2012-12-06 How to win friends drinks and influence people.
Location <NYC> Green Carnation Pub - Gramercy Park
The Green Carnation Pub is a pub that has one very special rule that differentiates it from its competition - and, indeed, from any other bar of any sort. At this pub, drinks cost you half price... if, and only if, you buy them for someone else at the bar who you didn't come with. As such, the drinks at the Green Carnation Pub tend to be more expensive than they are everywhere else, but you get more free booze. Their food is quite tasty, for a pub, if not exactly haute cuisine. The interior is decorated with light colored wood, and a long, polished wooden bar table lined with stools. There are booths and tables for guests who would rather not sit or eat at the bar, as well as couches to rest on, but all are arranged to give as wide as possible a view of the rest of the restaurant. In many ways, the Green Carnation Pub is one of the least private bars you are ever likely to visit. The evening is growing late, though in this sort of establishment that only means more bustle as people pack in to booze their evenings away. Or, at this particular establishment, booze other people's evenings away, too. Conversation flows freely around the room, both with the people clustered around its tables and those cozied up to the bar. Lucien is currently neither of those; the young man sits on one of the couches, a cocktail glass on the table in front of him. He has just plucked the olive from it, twirling it slowly on its slim plastic spear as his green eyes drift around the room, curiously. Only slightly curiously, though; before long he turns his attention back to his olive, tapping the tip of the plastic stick against his teeth but not actually eating it. Dressed casual, today, he sports dark jeans and a cable-knit sweater, dark as well. Melinda wanders in a with a small group - a couple and her, to be specific. They look like they've been on the town for a while at this point, the male leaning heavily against the other female, Mel's hands a little clumsy as she sheds a heavy knit coat. Underneath, pink and orange mingle in a nod to some 70s flashback, the modest cut hem hanging a little short on her long legs. Black knee high boots complete the ensemble while her hair, dark, long and straight, parted in the middle, gives the whole look more authenticity. She doesn't seem to notice as her friends lead each other away, some sort of couple vibe sectioning them off from the rest of the world. Mel, folds her coat over her arm and surveys the room, lips pursing in thought. Perhaps it is the colours that catch Lucien's eye, his gaze drifting towards the newcomers with a hint of amusement lighting his expression. He slips the olive into his mouth, clamping his teeth down to slide the stick out again clean. The room is crowded enough, though by Lucien there is space on his couch -- and on one adjacent, as a couple sitting knee-to-knee there get up to vacate the pub. Melinda fetches herself a drink first. When she tears herself away from the bar, she's carrying something inky and blueish purple, her coat still over her arm. As the room is crowded, the space near Lucien becomes more appealing, perhaps even magnetic. Just before choosing a place to sit, she eyes the occupant of the couch, noticeably, taking in hair style to foot wear, blankly, before sitting down on the couch next to his. She almost sloshes her drink, but latent feline instincts correct the glass at the last second. She sips out of the straw and scans the room once more before uttering a flat, "Hi." Hairstyle: spiky, tousled, in that /purposeful/ way that means he spent quite a long time making it look like he just got out of bed. Shoes: Ferragamo loafers, brown leather. Smile: small, easy, perhaps a little moreso as he watches her almost-mishap sudden-correction. "You should not get drinks here," Lucien says, in lieu of a greeting. "I shouldn't? Are they that bad?" Brows arch high as Melinda pulls her drink to her nose and takes a whiff. The conconction may smell a teensy bit fruity, but heavily laced with alcohol. "You're drinking here." Eyes glance to his glass, then back to his face. "They are excellent." Lucien answers her, quite seriously. "But you are obtaining them all wrong. Watch closely." He picks up his drink, lifts it out towards the rest of the room -- perhaps it is some sort of toast; it comes in tandem with a quick flash of smile before he drains the rest of the half-full glass, and sets it back down. He carefully puts the empty olive spear back in the glass, and settles back. It takes a minute -- then another -- then a waiter slips over from the bar, with another martini, a small slip of note tucked beneath the glass he sets down. Lucien turns up his hand, slanting his glass sidelong towards his new couch-mate with a half-smile. "Patience," he says lightly, "will spare your wallet a heavy hit. Your colours are eye-catching. I doubt you would wait long." He lifts his glass this time to Melinda. "Oh, well. That." Embarrassed, Melinda watches the display as she sips from her tiny straw. "I have yet to perfect the art of other people buying me drinks. I still imagine that I have to have the first one in hand in order to get a refill." She stuffs the befringed coat behind her and leans against it as she cradles her Grateful Dead in her lap. Brows rise again as she glances at Lucien. "Do you know what they're celebrating?" "Look pitifully drinkless. Catch a few people's eyes. Toss in a smile here and there. This pub makes it quite easy for people to be generous." Lucien slips the note out from under his glass, unfolding the scrap of paper to read it thoughtfully. He slips it into his pocket and shifts on his seat, turning slightly towards Melinda with his knee crooking up onto the sofa cushion. "Celebrating?" His eyebrows raise, uncertain. "Oh. Well." Brief confusion fades into contemplation, "I thought that you were toasting a group in particular - one that might take your salute as camaraderie, but I don't have my legs in this bar yet." She follows the note while attempting to look disinterested. She straightens up and sips again. "Hope you don't mind, but I'm taking mental notes." "Toast noone in particular. Or many people. You have to make everyone think it is /them/." Lucien sips at his drink, too, and then sets it down on the table. "I do not mind at all. It is a worthwhile study to apply yourself to." There might be a slight curl of amusement colouring his quiet tones at this, pushing his soft Quebecois accent warmer and easier. "I picked it up from many long years of not being able to afford my own drinks." "Ah, so necessity inspired all of this. Good to know." Melinda withdraws the straw from her drink and takes a longer pull from the glass itself, the ice cubes settling and shifting as the liquid decreases around them. "I'm going to give this a try in a minute, if you wouldn't mind critiquing my approach. That is -- when I am a little closer to finishing this one. Should I also appear alone? I could appear like I'm ignoring you. Or would that just bring people over too?" "That is a judgment call you will have to learn to make after gauging the temperature of a room." Lucien turns up his hand in a shrug, his fingers spreading. "Certainly, do not look like we are a couple. But looking alone or looking with friends will both attract notice from different people. Friends make you look sane. Social. They make people think your company might be enjoyable." Lucien sits back slightly, head tipped a little to one side as he watches Melinda. Critically. Melinda nods as she gulps a little more of the drink down, dabbing lightly at one corner of her mouth when she is done to remove a small bead of escaping alcohol. "I sat by you mainly because you looked like you were enjoying yourself with or without company." She mentions, glancing at him as the liquor loosens a smile from her lips. "I planned to use you to get my friends to think I was okay and go shack up, or whatever it is they want to do. It's been an awkward third wheel evening." She then turns her gaze back to the rest of the room and attempts the toast, smiling brightly before and after finishing the drink. "I find my own company quite enjoyable." Lucien's voice is deadpan, his face unsmiliny -- in his lips, at least, though there is a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. He lets his gaze drift away, towards the friends Melinda came in with. "They certainly look shack-up-ready. /Are/ you okay?" His eyebrows lift slightly, returning his attention once more to scrutinize the woman beside him. "I would hate to think you had traded awkward for lonesome." There are some return smiles to Melinda's toast. It takes a short while, but eventually a drink /is/ sent over, the server quietly indicating a woman in black sweater and grey skirt seated by the bar when he delivers the mai tai. It comes with a note -- a name (Lisse) and a number. Melinda snicks at Lucien's interest, amusement growing due to libations in her system. "Oh, I don't know. How ever will I survive the night without an entourage?" The pair does cast glances in Mel's direction from time to time, but the frequency lessens the longer she seems to hold her own. "No, no, I will be fine. I can carry on." Her resolute speech is cut short as she finds a prop. "I have my friend..." she sniffs the drink, "Mai Tai here, all the way from the tropics, and she and I will have a fabulous time making new friends." The note with the number is smiled at and stuffed under her neckline into her bra strap. "How about you? Have you two met?" She presents the glass for toasting clinking. "Mai Tai? Oh, well, it has been many long years since we have been in touch." Lucien lifts his own martini, clinking it lightly against Melinda's glass. "Martini hails from domestic shores. Not quite so exotic, I admit, but he has many steadfast acquaintances here." Behind the rim of his glass, his lips curl into a smile, and he takes a long sip. "You do seem like the type with fortitude. You should fare well, having been dislodged from the other two wheels to roll free on your own." "I am life's unicycle." Melinda boasts the comparison. "I may teeter from time to time, but I rebalance easily and can turn on a dime." She pauses to consider the analogy. "Speaks well of my versatility, don't you think?" She pulls the glass back to her lips and smiles brightly, then drinks deep. "Life's unicycle." Here Lucien's smile widens, and he laughs once, quiet. He lowers his drink, fingers curled loose around his stem. His other hand lifts to pluck up /its/ olive, too, twirling the bright blue plastic skewer between thumb and forefinger. "That was a far more eloquent -- a far less /crass/ way than I might have finished a similar metaphor. Versatility, though. That is a trait to prize highly. Where do you exercise it when you are not collecting drinks?" "At a little coffee shop in SoHo." Melinda announces the location matter of factly as she smiles and rises. "Thank you so much for your tutelage, but I'm afraid that I really have to call it a night. Martini's friend was my companion at the last bar and he doesn't seem to be a big fan of the Grateful Dead. Plus, the lovebirds have slipped oh so discretely to the restroom, so it's my chance to get away." She smiles as she gathers up her coat. "I know you'll be fine, but I do regret having to part ways. Maybe I'll see you around some day?" Lucien tips his head in a slight nod, lifting his own still mostly-full glass to Melinda in parting. "I have no doubt," he says easily. "This is the biggest small town there is." A quick smile towards the woman, a quick sip of drink, and then he is settling back in the couch. Possibly to make many more friends through the night.