(2016-08-14) Amanda Meets Hope Summers
Amanda Meets Hope Summers
Summary: Amanda Sefton has just been to Lincoln Center. She is headed home when she comes across a hungry Hope Summers and takes her for a meal.
Date: 2016-08-14
Related: None
NPCs: None
Scene Runner: NA
Social/Plot: Social
Players:
amanda-sefton..hope-summers..

With the ballet in town, Amanda has happily spent the evening attending even though it meant going alone since her friends were all busy or out of town. Now she's coming out of the Lincoln Center to look for a cab to take her back to her side of town. Or maybe she'll just decide to walk. It's not that far after all.


The Upper West Side, especially this fancy corner of the city, tends to draw a specific set. That set? The moneyed, well-heeled sorts who spend their days in glass towers and their evenings in five-star restaurants where they serve vegetable mousse and laser-cut meat on huge white plates. They are rarely redheads staring up at the buildings from a busy sidewalk, at least cognisant enough to pack herself next to a bench where a collection of party-girls in tiny sparkly frocks complain about their ride not showing up. She most definitely is not one of them, this particular redhead, biting her lip and drawing her eyebrows down in thought. She stands opposite The Leopard, earning the occasional odd look, not the least because of her choice of attire. It's not every day someone actually wears a -cloak- in the city, but at least the jeans and shirt underneath give a hint of normalcy. Hope huffs out a breath and ignores the stares from the partiers, trudging along with the pedestrians and then cutting over to the Leopard. Given the hour, the building is closed, but that doesn't stop her from tugging in futility on the door.


It's oppressively hot even at night but that has not stopped Amanda from wearing her formal jacket along with her fancy attire tonight. She's walking casually down the sidewalk when she notices the redhead tugging on the door of the closed building. She calls out across the way, "Do you need help?"


A formal coat in New York's drenching summer humidity ought to gain an award of some kind. A cloak is no more forgiving. Hope tugs once more upon the locked door, the dim interior scarcely visible through the tinted windows. Even at the height of day, it might be difficult to ascertain if the exclusive place is open to receive guests or shut by the incomprehensible laws of entertainment. She drops her hand from the handle, throwing a look over her shoulder at the approaching woman. It's less deer in the headlights than doubtful, her shoulders squaring. "I thought they might be open," she murmurs, almost lamely. A nod goes to the business. "I'm keeping you from being somewhere, aren't I?" A puzzled pause follows. "Sorry. That hardly seems fair."


Amanda Sefton smiles pleasantly as the redhead explains herself, "Not at all. I'm just leaving the performance not going in. You didn't answer the question, you know. If you need help, I might be able to arrange it. I have some friends who do that sort of thing."


The redhead utters a low chuckle, devoid of excess mirth, failing to ignite the intense green of her eyes. "Getting any kind of food in this area seems to be tricky. Other than those places where they serve everything in bite sizes upon skinny little skewers, and charge a hundred dollars for it," she says, the edge of amusement starting to creep in around the blase expression. A look over to the party-girls hobbling on their skinny sky-high heels away to a cab ends up back to Amanda, where Hope measures her offer. "I don't know if I need help, that's the thing. Food seems like a good idea, but where do real people eat food if they do not have a plastic card?"

That's what she names it. A plastic card.


Amanda Sefton slowly arches a brow, "Do you mean a credit card?" She gestures for hope to come with her, "The Upper West side would not be my first choice of places to look for affordable dining, no." At the moment Amanda is one of those girls in skinny high-heels but she does not seem to be hobbling. Indeed, she makes them look both comfortable and graceful. I was going to catch a cab home, but I don't mind walking down into midtown with you. Do you have any money at all?"


"Yes, the ones with the metal bird on them." A nod follows suit, and Hope shrugs her shoulders to let the matter go. "I do not know which way leads to the cheaper options for dining. The subway probably leads to the right spot but I thought the notion of randomly stepping out at a station a poor one." Her smile lifts and fades in a moment or two, resuming back to considering the buildings around them. "I have a few dollars in my wallet. I'm not sure how good it will be, though. Probably best to find…" Her brows descend, knotted for a moment, and the thoughts fade away again. "…friends."


Amanda Sefton gestures her on the south-bound sidewalk, "Let's go this way. I know a good Irish pub down this way that probably has more affordable fare. Are you from out of town?" She turns out to actually be walking down the sidewalk along Broadway at the moment.


"I haven't been here for a long time," Hope manages, and any traces that might set off someone's sensitivity for falsehoods are weak indeed. She paints a line with her hand towards the street. "Some of these landmarks look familiar. Others are entirely foreign." She gazes up at the cacophony of neon signs warring for attention and shining lights burning late into a summer night, her face reflected with the distant reflection of their radiant colours. "No doubt I never noticed back then, or they crept along and replaced what I might have recognized. It's a very disconcerting situation, I assure you. A statue I swore was in another park ended up being smackdab in front of a big building." Another shake of her head couples with the dry chuckle, and she tucks her hands in her jean pockets. "Anything sounds good. I'm hungry."


Amanda Sefton tilts her head at Hope and makes a tiny gesture with her hand to try and read the dimensional energies clinging to her to see if it matches the ambient energies of the one they are standing in. She's not trying to tell where she came from, just to confirm the suspicion that the other woman isn't from around these parts. "Oh I know what you mean. New York is always changing isn't it?" It really helps to be able to sit home and scry out the city to find everything. Amanda cheated. Despite her heels, she picks up the pace as they get to Columbus Circle. She wants to get to the pub before last call.


The movement is easy enough to measure, though the gesture hardly warrants a second look from the redheaded teenager. More significant is the energy signature around her: blackened, full of sparkles, torn and twisted into a thousand shredded angles that simply do not quite line up where she is. They should meet, and yet the cooling ragged fragments of energy around her aren't a perfect fix. Nope, not from around these parts. Or it should be she is, but ended up on a far orbit around the sun that happened to fall into a few other quantum areas.

"New York is that, changing and lovely." She sighs softly. Hope hurries her pace along, having little trouble keeping up.


Amanda Sefton nods with understanding, "You know, I have a friend who would love to meet you I think." She offers her hand a little belatedly as they walk, "I'm Amanda by the way. Amanda Sefton. And you are?"


"Hope," the girl answers without hesitation. "Amanda? It's a pleasure to meet you. Do you prefer Ms. Sefton or Amanda or…?" She trails off, hovering on the edge of certainty on that front. Being polite means making the effort rather than blowing off the effort. She reaches out her hand a bit tentatively for a shake; this is not exactly in the spectrum of expectation, maybe. "Uh, Hope Summers." A hesitation lingers there, because it's not exactly like her name goes without weight in certain circles. Not when there are entire bandwagons beaten suggesting she's a prophet or harbinger of some kind. "This Irish place sounds promising. What do you recommend there?"


Amanda Sefton pauses half a step at the name Summers. "Amanda's fine. It's nice to meet you Hope. You wouldn't happen to be related to an Alex or a Scott would you? I don't mean to pry. I just know the name." They reach 55th street and Amanda turns down it toward the pub in question.


"I don't know about an Alex. I know Scott, though. Sort of." Her nose wrinkling, Hope says, "He's related to me, though sort of distant. I'm not sure he got along so well with my dad." The easy way of explaining a very complicated situation boils down to a few choice statements indicative of the redhead's age and grasp of nuances. "You know him then?"


Amanda Sefton chuckles softly, "Know would be a strong way of putting it. I used to date one of the X-Men so I know my way around out there." She stops in front of the pub, "I understand if you don't want to specify who your Dad is."


"It's not that I don't like naming him. He just…" Her shoulders droop a fraction, jaw set in return. Hope says lamely, "Passed. It's still hard to talk about him as if he's not here anymore." Her eyes close for a moment, the answer scripted in the tightening at the corner of her eyes. "You dated an X-Man? I hope that didn't end badly for you." Never know what you're walking in to, do you, girl?


Amanda Sefton is immediately sympathetic. "Oh I'm so sorry to hear that." She leads the girl down into the pub where Amanda's attire quickly gets them seated. "It didn't end the way I wanted, but we're still close. Do you mind if ask how you're related?" She's just trying to help. "And order whatever you want so long as you're legal."


The teenager gives a tiny shrug of her shoulders, delicate beneath the fall of her cloak. "Don't be. The best I can do is live well, you know?" Hope's smile tips up for a brief moment, fading away. "Scott Summers is related to my dad. Cousins, he made it sound like, but they never got along that well. That's the best he left me with." The Summers family has the weirdest of trees, this is well and truly known. What else can someone do? She settles into a seat, gratefully sinking back. "Anything? I… hm. I don't know what to have. Recommendations welcome because everything looks pretty tasty."


Amanda Sefton nods, "This time of night the burgers are likely your best and quickest option. The fries are excellent here." When their waiter comes by she a molten chocolate cake with an Irish coffee instead of food since she ate right before the ballet.


"A burger, then. Fries with…" A look around finds the telltale red bottle. Hope taps it with her fingertip. "Oh, there's the right thing. Ketchup and more ketchup. Everything on the burger would be fine." A thankful grin banishes a bit of the sleeplessness about her. "So how did you end up with the … uh, family? And the X-Men."


Amanda Sefton smiles, "I grew up with Kurt Wagner. That made ending up affiliated with the X-Men almost a certainty. I'm sure you'd be welcomed out at Xavier's. If you want I could arrange a trip out there tomorrow."


Hope looks down at her napkin and slowly unfolds it, toying with the edges. "I would appreciate it. I don't quite remember how one gets there. The… school would be a good place." The levity in her voice falls with a leaden thud, hitting the proverbial ground harder than a ton of bricks. Reaching up, she pulls the tail of her hair around her shoulder and stuffs the reddened locks under her cloak, possibly just to keep them out of the way.


Amanda Sefton nods, "That's what we'll do then. When you finish up with dinner, you can crash on my sofa and then the morning I can get you out to the school. Even if you don't know them, you're family. That means something." The food wasn't long in coming and Amanda nursed her dessert patiently until Hope was done before getting her home and settled in to sleep.

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