Lucien goes digging
Jun. 30th, 2010 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shelbyrouIt is currently 10:25 Pacific Time on Wed Jun 30 2010.
While the not-particularly-helpful receptionist at the St. Claire Weekly News wasn't all that keen on providing information on Loreen West, the name on the byline for the Lauren Steele story, he did eventually - grudgingly - agree to pass on the message that more information was requested. Late Tuesday afternoon a gravelly-voiced woman called to set up an appointment to meet, and Wednesday morning the same voice escorts Lucien into her cramped and overflowing cubby in the Weekly News' office. She's somewhere on the wrong side of forty, this Loreen, hard-voiced and hard-faced with brassy blonde and over-processed hair. She wears thick-rimmed bright red cats-eye glasses and smells of old cigarette smoke. "Jason says you want to talk about the Lauren Steele story, that right, Honey?"
Lucien is all manners and politeness with Loreen, and he responds to any cues from her in a smooth, no-nonsense manner of his own. If his teasing grates, he backs off; if he's being too dull, he smiles a little more. "That's correct, Ms. West. I'm--" He looks faintly embarrassed, and glances around them before lowering his voice. "I'm a communications major. I wanted to reference your article in a paper I'm writing for a media studies class. This would be a fantastic," he accompanies that with a fluid gesture, "thesis topic."
Lucien looks like he might have stepped out of a history book covering the Spanish rule of California. His glossy, dark brown hair falls to his shoulders when it's not pulled back into a low queue, and matches his equally dark eyes, while his nut-brown skin and faintly angular features suggest a mixed heritage of both Old and New World. He's young, maybe only in his mid-twenties, and his graceful gestures and sincere smile bring to mind a lower placed member of some ancient court of expansionist Europe.
The echo of the past blends in with the present seamlessly in the form of his business casual dress: a cobalt blue, button-down shirt, loose-fit and neatly tailored, tucks into a pair of soot-gray slacks. Dark brown Rockports and a silver watch chain complete the outfit, and he carries a sleek, gray leather jacket when the weather calls for it.
There's a half-open laptop squeezed into one corner of Loreen's desk, elbowing for position with an appointment book, day planner, and half a dozen other papers marked with removable flags, variously highlighted, and hand-edited. "Uh-huh," says she, "grab a chair," while she lowers herself with a grunt into her own. "Communications major where did you say? What's so fascinating about a nutjob, anyway?"
"The University," Lucien says, nodding to the west with a man's irritatingly accurate and unconscious sense of direction. "Third year graduate, actually." He visibly stops himself from going into a schpiel about said major, and raises his eyebrows. Disappointment lurks in his expression. "Oh--a nutjob? Not the real thing then?" He quickly explains himself. "I'm researching how to tell the real stories from the, well. The nutjobs."
Loreen grunts again and eyes him over the rims of her glasses. "First step, honey, don't work for the Saint Claire Weekly News. You want coffee?"
Lucien smiles in a sympathetic and mused manner. "Coffee would be wonderful." He starts to get up, possibly intent on getting Loreen some as well (he wouldn't presume she'd be getting it for *him*), and looks around for where it can be had.
Loreen waves him back to his seat, tips her head back and yells, "JASON! COFFEE!" The joys of cubicle living, right? "Jeez, Loreen, I'm on the phone!" the receptionist yells back, before returning to his call. Of course, the paper probably didn't give him a cell for his job, but a phone call is a phone call, right? "Be here in a couple minutes," Loreen assures Lucien breezily. "What else you want to know?"
Lucien sits back down, giving 'Jason' a dubious look, and puts his attention back on Loreen. "I was wondering--do the, ah, 'nutjobs' contact you? Or do you just get submissions and go throuh them when you need a piece?"
Loreen waves a languid hand, the flash of her rings almost distracting. "Depends. You should know this, right? Third year. Graduate. We get tips. From the public, from freelancers. Usually when the subject calls you it's shit, but we look into them anyway. This Lauren, she called us. I've written stories on Steele before, so I grabbed it. We manage to get a few pics of him in his bathing suit, they don't all have to go into the story."
"Unfortunately," Lucien reports with some regret, "the communications departments are all about the internet these days. Facebook, moving from print to online--not as much about Journalism. You have to major in Journalism for that. And then it's not about the technology." He sounds completely put out by this segregation of topics, but doesn't go into a rant. He just nods eagerly. "So--if she's not for real, how will you know if one ever really is?"
"Do your research," Loreen advises. "C'mon, honey, you can't expect me to do all your work for you." She roots through the papers on her desk before pulling out a few with a triumphant grunt. "Like this one. Lauren. Pretty. Blonde. Exactly Steele's type." She hands over a photo similar, though not identical, to what was published. "She's pregnant, she says Steele's the daddy. This isn't Time, and I'm never going to get a fucking Pulitzer."
Lucien's mouth forms a small 'o', and he sits up. "You have a PI look into them?" he guesses, sounding fascinated by the idea. "Or, I suppose I could get to know someone who works in Licensing." He looks askance at her, openly trying to gauge if he's on the right track there, and that dovetails into a look of mild conviction. "If she was the real thing, you just might."
"Sometimes," Loreen allows. "We've got one on...," she stops, the corners of her lips curling unpleasantly, and eyes Lucien for a second. "Some people. A good story, you want to be able to find them quick."
"Before someone else gets it," Lucien guesses, eyes bright with interest. His gaze flits over the other cubicles, then back to Loreen. "Or before they go somewhere else."
"Or to get 'action shots'," she confirms, making the air quotes. "Steele's my story, nobody here would scoop him from me. They'd have to have pictures of him actually fucking somebody for Liz to take it away. He's too careful for that." A thought which makes her momentarily sad.
Lucien echoes that sadness in his own sigh; it's a genuine emotion, too. (Is someone harboring a crush?) "So it's not just the story. The 'nutjob'. It's the pictures. The visuals." He rubs his clean-shaven chin, though it's unlikely he ever has much to shave in the first place. "How insulted would you be if I asked for contact information for this one?" 'One' seems to be a pronoun for 'crackpot'.
"Keep it," Loreen instructs, flipping a hand at the photo. "Pictures are always better. Like if you have someone claiming to be the mother of Steele's babies and the tip turns out to be a 400-pound man? Yeah, going to take some tap-dancing to sell that one. Pictures make everything easier." Over behind the desk Jason is still chatting away, and it looks like he's now added YouTube to his morning workout. That coffee probably isn't showing up any time soon. "Going to take more than just a pretty face, Lucien."
Lucien narrows his eyes, amused and on the hunt. "Aside from getting that coffee from a good source," he says, as if it's understood that would be part of the agreement, "what else might interest you?" He leans back. "She might tell me something different than she told you, and I could pass it along. For a follow-up."
"For a follow-up," she repeats, arching one eyebrow. "Honey, don't take this wrong, but you're nothing. Nobody. You're not a source. Not yet, anyway. You have to produce something before you can feed me promises. No, I'm thinking something tangible." Loreen stops there, to see if he's got it.
Lucien pouts at Loreen, but it's a pout meant to indicate understanding of his situation and her request, and not any real regret. "Of course. And," his hands slips into one jacket pocket and smoothly withdraws something kept in his palm, "it's evidence I'm serious. That I'll put more than just tuition money into this career." Somehow he performs a sleight of hand that fetches money from the plain, black, leather wallet without making a show of it. Despite the double fold hiding the bills, the number '20' is in easy view of Loreen. There's a few of them there.
Loreen says with undisguised satisfaction, "I knew you were a bright boy, the moment I saw you." She waits politely, though with eyes fixed on the prize, as he pulls out his wallet, and extends a hand. "A hundred ought to cover it. That's my livelihood you're holding, after all. I can't keep producing stories, I'm out on my ass."
"That's not acceptable," Lucien declares. It seems there might be six 20s in that cluster, and he's perfectly happy to hand them over. "Your stories are important. "Now--do you like Tully's Sumatran, or the Madagascar? I can't take the acid of Madagascar, myself, but it smells wonderful."
Loreen's nails serve another useful purpose, that of rapidly flicking through money. "Madagascar," she says absently, turning to tuck the bills into the top drawer of her desk and slip a pen out. "Two sugars, black. I'll have Lauren's information for you when you get back."
"I'll be right back," Lucien assures Loreen, and smoothly gets to his feet. He's back after only a short wait, with a chai latte for himself, and the Madagascar for Loreen.
While the not-particularly-helpful receptionist at the St. Claire Weekly News wasn't all that keen on providing information on Loreen West, the name on the byline for the Lauren Steele story, he did eventually - grudgingly - agree to pass on the message that more information was requested. Late Tuesday afternoon a gravelly-voiced woman called to set up an appointment to meet, and Wednesday morning the same voice escorts Lucien into her cramped and overflowing cubby in the Weekly News' office. She's somewhere on the wrong side of forty, this Loreen, hard-voiced and hard-faced with brassy blonde and over-processed hair. She wears thick-rimmed bright red cats-eye glasses and smells of old cigarette smoke. "Jason says you want to talk about the Lauren Steele story, that right, Honey?"
Lucien is all manners and politeness with Loreen, and he responds to any cues from her in a smooth, no-nonsense manner of his own. If his teasing grates, he backs off; if he's being too dull, he smiles a little more. "That's correct, Ms. West. I'm--" He looks faintly embarrassed, and glances around them before lowering his voice. "I'm a communications major. I wanted to reference your article in a paper I'm writing for a media studies class. This would be a fantastic," he accompanies that with a fluid gesture, "thesis topic."
Lucien looks like he might have stepped out of a history book covering the Spanish rule of California. His glossy, dark brown hair falls to his shoulders when it's not pulled back into a low queue, and matches his equally dark eyes, while his nut-brown skin and faintly angular features suggest a mixed heritage of both Old and New World. He's young, maybe only in his mid-twenties, and his graceful gestures and sincere smile bring to mind a lower placed member of some ancient court of expansionist Europe.
The echo of the past blends in with the present seamlessly in the form of his business casual dress: a cobalt blue, button-down shirt, loose-fit and neatly tailored, tucks into a pair of soot-gray slacks. Dark brown Rockports and a silver watch chain complete the outfit, and he carries a sleek, gray leather jacket when the weather calls for it.
There's a half-open laptop squeezed into one corner of Loreen's desk, elbowing for position with an appointment book, day planner, and half a dozen other papers marked with removable flags, variously highlighted, and hand-edited. "Uh-huh," says she, "grab a chair," while she lowers herself with a grunt into her own. "Communications major where did you say? What's so fascinating about a nutjob, anyway?"
"The University," Lucien says, nodding to the west with a man's irritatingly accurate and unconscious sense of direction. "Third year graduate, actually." He visibly stops himself from going into a schpiel about said major, and raises his eyebrows. Disappointment lurks in his expression. "Oh--a nutjob? Not the real thing then?" He quickly explains himself. "I'm researching how to tell the real stories from the, well. The nutjobs."
Loreen grunts again and eyes him over the rims of her glasses. "First step, honey, don't work for the Saint Claire Weekly News. You want coffee?"
Lucien smiles in a sympathetic and mused manner. "Coffee would be wonderful." He starts to get up, possibly intent on getting Loreen some as well (he wouldn't presume she'd be getting it for *him*), and looks around for where it can be had.
Loreen waves him back to his seat, tips her head back and yells, "JASON! COFFEE!" The joys of cubicle living, right? "Jeez, Loreen, I'm on the phone!" the receptionist yells back, before returning to his call. Of course, the paper probably didn't give him a cell for his job, but a phone call is a phone call, right? "Be here in a couple minutes," Loreen assures Lucien breezily. "What else you want to know?"
Lucien sits back down, giving 'Jason' a dubious look, and puts his attention back on Loreen. "I was wondering--do the, ah, 'nutjobs' contact you? Or do you just get submissions and go throuh them when you need a piece?"
Loreen waves a languid hand, the flash of her rings almost distracting. "Depends. You should know this, right? Third year. Graduate. We get tips. From the public, from freelancers. Usually when the subject calls you it's shit, but we look into them anyway. This Lauren, she called us. I've written stories on Steele before, so I grabbed it. We manage to get a few pics of him in his bathing suit, they don't all have to go into the story."
"Unfortunately," Lucien reports with some regret, "the communications departments are all about the internet these days. Facebook, moving from print to online--not as much about Journalism. You have to major in Journalism for that. And then it's not about the technology." He sounds completely put out by this segregation of topics, but doesn't go into a rant. He just nods eagerly. "So--if she's not for real, how will you know if one ever really is?"
"Do your research," Loreen advises. "C'mon, honey, you can't expect me to do all your work for you." She roots through the papers on her desk before pulling out a few with a triumphant grunt. "Like this one. Lauren. Pretty. Blonde. Exactly Steele's type." She hands over a photo similar, though not identical, to what was published. "She's pregnant, she says Steele's the daddy. This isn't Time, and I'm never going to get a fucking Pulitzer."
Lucien's mouth forms a small 'o', and he sits up. "You have a PI look into them?" he guesses, sounding fascinated by the idea. "Or, I suppose I could get to know someone who works in Licensing." He looks askance at her, openly trying to gauge if he's on the right track there, and that dovetails into a look of mild conviction. "If she was the real thing, you just might."
"Sometimes," Loreen allows. "We've got one on...," she stops, the corners of her lips curling unpleasantly, and eyes Lucien for a second. "Some people. A good story, you want to be able to find them quick."
"Before someone else gets it," Lucien guesses, eyes bright with interest. His gaze flits over the other cubicles, then back to Loreen. "Or before they go somewhere else."
"Or to get 'action shots'," she confirms, making the air quotes. "Steele's my story, nobody here would scoop him from me. They'd have to have pictures of him actually fucking somebody for Liz to take it away. He's too careful for that." A thought which makes her momentarily sad.
Lucien echoes that sadness in his own sigh; it's a genuine emotion, too. (Is someone harboring a crush?) "So it's not just the story. The 'nutjob'. It's the pictures. The visuals." He rubs his clean-shaven chin, though it's unlikely he ever has much to shave in the first place. "How insulted would you be if I asked for contact information for this one?" 'One' seems to be a pronoun for 'crackpot'.
"Keep it," Loreen instructs, flipping a hand at the photo. "Pictures are always better. Like if you have someone claiming to be the mother of Steele's babies and the tip turns out to be a 400-pound man? Yeah, going to take some tap-dancing to sell that one. Pictures make everything easier." Over behind the desk Jason is still chatting away, and it looks like he's now added YouTube to his morning workout. That coffee probably isn't showing up any time soon. "Going to take more than just a pretty face, Lucien."
Lucien narrows his eyes, amused and on the hunt. "Aside from getting that coffee from a good source," he says, as if it's understood that would be part of the agreement, "what else might interest you?" He leans back. "She might tell me something different than she told you, and I could pass it along. For a follow-up."
"For a follow-up," she repeats, arching one eyebrow. "Honey, don't take this wrong, but you're nothing. Nobody. You're not a source. Not yet, anyway. You have to produce something before you can feed me promises. No, I'm thinking something tangible." Loreen stops there, to see if he's got it.
Lucien pouts at Loreen, but it's a pout meant to indicate understanding of his situation and her request, and not any real regret. "Of course. And," his hands slips into one jacket pocket and smoothly withdraws something kept in his palm, "it's evidence I'm serious. That I'll put more than just tuition money into this career." Somehow he performs a sleight of hand that fetches money from the plain, black, leather wallet without making a show of it. Despite the double fold hiding the bills, the number '20' is in easy view of Loreen. There's a few of them there.
Loreen says with undisguised satisfaction, "I knew you were a bright boy, the moment I saw you." She waits politely, though with eyes fixed on the prize, as he pulls out his wallet, and extends a hand. "A hundred ought to cover it. That's my livelihood you're holding, after all. I can't keep producing stories, I'm out on my ass."
"That's not acceptable," Lucien declares. It seems there might be six 20s in that cluster, and he's perfectly happy to hand them over. "Your stories are important. "Now--do you like Tully's Sumatran, or the Madagascar? I can't take the acid of Madagascar, myself, but it smells wonderful."
Loreen's nails serve another useful purpose, that of rapidly flicking through money. "Madagascar," she says absently, turning to tuck the bills into the top drawer of her desk and slip a pen out. "Two sugars, black. I'll have Lauren's information for you when you get back."
"I'll be right back," Lucien assures Loreen, and smoothly gets to his feet. He's back after only a short wait, with a chai latte for himself, and the Madagascar for Loreen.