It's a pale September. Mostly. The days are edging into October now, and she's sure the dates will blend so that she won't realize it when the new month comes. Twenty-seven-but-oh-lord-tomorrow-its-twenty-eight days gone so far. Too few, in her most humble opinion, yet there had been that feeling of weight that had been tied to her ankles the whole time - but it was just one month. Nearly six - no, near eight or ten more years are ahead of her.
She sucks in thick, thick air.
The numbers are adding up into a choking cocktail of dread.
Harleen pushes away the calculations in her head. No use thinking of that. Not right now, anyway, when she has to worry about the matter of feeding her skinny college girl self - and not getting raped. It is Gotham City. Explanation enough, she muses.
Keeping to the stifling main street traffic, dodging the welcomes of time saving alleyways, she weaves her way to her favorite Starbucks, which is her favorite for no particular reason because all the stores seem so exactly alike to her. The other patrons look up at her, at the black wool coat that wraps her, the brown boots, the leggings. They look down again - she fits in. Harleen waits for a bit, letting another girl go first, until her favorite employee is free. Saunters up and gives him the flirty little smile he always responds so fervently to.
"What it'll be today, Samby?"
Her grin widens at the false name. "The same as it was yesterday, Dylan."
The boy simpers at the familiar banter. Harleen enjoys him, even though he's awkward and naïve and acne-ridden. But he likes her. That automatically wins him Harley-points.
She pays for the drink on a card and adds a croissant to quell the growls in her stomach - she can't really afford her daily addiction, but that's a mute point. College students, as a rule, can't afford anything. But being in debt is preferable to starving.
Harleen settles herself in a corner that keeps her rather distant from the other customers. She sips her mocha as roving baby blues observe the café. There are the regulars, of course, the people with whom she shares a particular liking to come to Starbucks at exactly 7:39 in the morning. She has never really talked with any of them, and perhaps that's much the better - if she knew exactly who and what they were she probably wouldn't like them.
There's the elderly couple who sit to the left of the front window, discussing thirty year old politics and drinking piss poor black tea they certainly could have purchased elsewhere.
There's 'Mr. Ireland' in the middle of the shop, whose lilting accents travels farther than he realizes as he reads Machiavelli's The Prince aloud. He's still not done with it.
In the corner opposite hers there's the high school students, three of them, two boys and a girl, whom Harleen has never seen pay for her own drink. They cover themselves in layers of fabric and act out Shakespeare from the comforts of their seats. They just finished Hamlet and now are moving on to Macbeth, which they ominously refer to as 'The Scottish Play'. She waits for the day they get to The Taming of the Shrew.
The other people are variables. The ones who pop in and pop out, who over time look familiar without the actual familiarity to go along with it. Harleen clicks her tongue inside her coffee. She feels there ought to be some sort of domestic contentment to go along with the constancy of the other people here. Really, she muses, they might be something of a family, their faces offering a kind of loyalty to each other in the lonely pit of Gotham. She smiles at this and categorizes them immediately - the elderly, her parents; Mr. Ireland, the cultured uncle who never gives her enough money; the kids, his children and her lovable, if alienated, cousins. All of the others turn into the distant relatives who never call unless they want something ("excuse me, do you have any change? I'm a few cents short and God, I really need the caffeine today, miss…").
The rain gets started outside. Harleen feels her muscles tense, then relax again. She likes the rain, loves it, certainly has nothing against precipitation of any kind - but she anticipates the stuffiness of additional people crowding into the store because they were too stupid to bring an umbrella. Like her. She can only hope it will let up in the two hours she has until class. Its an unlikely prospect, and so she decides to hole up for a while, in the growing warmth of Starbucks, with a well-worn copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Maybe Mr. Ireland will want to discuss.
"Uh, whatcha, erm, readin'?"
That most certainly was not Mr. Ireland.
Harleen searches out the source of the voice, and finds it sitting at a little table across from her seat. Its a man, dripping wet from the unexpected weather, and he's a rather handsome one at that at first glance, with inky eyes and a strong face. But she supposes it depends on one's definition of handsome - his hair's longer than what is currently in fashion, his clothes are rumpled and his mouth is carved into a Glasgow smile he's half-heartedly hidden with a scarf. They mar the perfection in his face, keep the other girls in the shop from approaching him. They make him different.
Harleen can't help it.
She stares.
"Eyes up, sweetheart." His voice is like a pendulum, and it is currently on the upward rise, pitching the endearment high.
She obeys.
There are those eyes again. The darkest, most chocolate-ly of browns. One could get lost in them, and not because they are particularly beautiful, but because of that shadowy dimness that veils them.
"So, uh, you gonna answer my question?" The pendulum swings down.
Harleen blinks. She knows he can see the cover, just knows it, but he's asking her, like he's trying to talk to her. For her this is a novelty. "The Catcher in the Rye. It's a really good book, once you get into it."
"Really?"
"Really, yeah…"
Now he stares. She finds that he's really very good at it, and withers under his gaze. She turns her attention back to her reading, trying to ignore the man she's currently categorizing as the drunk brother of one of her friends who shows up at all the wrong times…
"Hmmmm, ah, gin a body catch a body, comin thro' the rye. Gin a body kiss a body,
need a body cry?"
The words come in a sing-song voice. Harleen dares to look at him with amusement, and he smiles back, stretching out the scars tracing his cheeks. It's all she can do not to wince at the sight.
"So you've read it?"
"Course. Don't ya think, I'm, well, the type of guy who, uh, would?"
She giggles. Stupid Harley, she thinks. You don't giggle in front of a stranger you just met who happens to be kind of hot. You just don't do it. It's undignified. Surely men don't like that sort of thing?
But this man seems to be delighted. "But ah, what's a beautiful thing like you doing, reading it? I mean, don't ya like, well, Danielle Steel? Nicolas Sparks? Freaking-what's-her-name Jane? You are a girl, aren't you?"
More giggles. Damn it, Harley. "I think most of that stuff's trash. Anyway, I find Rye really interesting, I mean, what with the main character Holden, you know? He's a fascinating case study, a perfect portrait of the psychological implications of teenage rebellion, and -"
"Whoa. You a doctor or something?" He pops the 'tor' like bubblegum.
"I'm working on it," Harleen answers, swallowing the intense, blushing, flattery. She tangles a finger in a soft blonde curl. "I'm majoring in Psychology at Gotham University."
"Mmm. Fancy."
"I guess. Doesn't really feel like it though, I'm broke as it is."
"Aren't we all?" He says it like a god. Knowingly.
"What about you?" she asks with the utmost curiosity. He may have five years on her, tops. His youth is obvious. "What do you do?"
"What, I, uh, want."
"That's a little vague."
"Truth doesn't have to be, er, precise, ya know."
There's a finality in his tone. She's been barred entry into that particular conversation.
They pass the next few moments in silence. Harleen tries not to berate herself for prying, for pushing too far. Really, she thought it was just a natural extension of their talk, but how long has it been since she actually had a real tête-à-tête with someone? Perhaps the rules have changed.
She ventures. "How about your name then?" She smiles brightly as extra incentive. "Mine's Harleen Quinzel."
He snorts. He honest-to-God snorts in front of the whole shop, and when he breathes back in his laugh dissolves into a peal. "Uh, aha, aha, your parents, they must have hated you." There isn't any sympathy, and she doesn't care. He doesn't have to know he's kind of right. "Okay then, Harley… you can call me, uh, um…" He puts thought into the words, as if he's just thinking of a moniker right now. "Holden, aha." To him it's a piece of comedic brilliance.
Confusion marks her expression. "But what's-"
He wags a finger. "Ah ah ah. Can't, uh, give away the prize halfway through the game." She almost thought him smug, but his features soften into something akin to sincerity. "Ask me tomorrow, uh, okay?"
Her mind folds it into a promise. "Um, alright."
She leaves earlier than expected, into the rain she meant to avoid, thinking that she might have lied when she told him she would ask him the next day. He was a fishy sort of fellow, she decided. There were lots of them in Gotham. But he's interesting. God knows she can't resist someone who's interesting.