Claire Thomas was a woman full of culture yet somehow managed to stay humble through her years.
She came from a financially privileged background with immediate family members maintaining to the arts.
Her father was a well known author who wrote books about self love and how to communicate with others properly.
Her mother was a part of the local arts society, always raising awareness on local lower income households and constantly using fundraisers by selling art to help out in donations to those in need.
Her older brother, Brandon was a wonderful musician. He could play any sort of instrument and whatever he didn't play, he could learn very quickly. Brandon also has his degree in producing music and his current occupation was working in the music producing department at Quackwerks from his reputation of being able to perform beautifully with the plethora of instruments. He is well known for working on a multitude of albums with various artists within any genre of music.
As for Claire, like her brother she was musically inclined however she was not one to play or produce music like he was able to. However, she could sing. And what a range she had. She has her degree in music, she spent all of her school years even in college traveling around the world learning all sorts of music and singing. Sometimes with a choir and other times by herself.
Her family tried over and over to get her to further herself into the arts but she saw in the long run how it managed to somewhat destroy lives. Constantly being told what and what not to do. Hardly any privacy. That wasn't for her, she decided into her adulthood that being in the public eye as much as her family was and throughout her childhood wasn't the life she wanted.
She was fine doing what she does in the current moment. She was a coffee server to working floors at Quackwerks. She worked at StarDucks during her college years while she was getting her degree in music arts.
She enjoyed being able to create designs on coffee for the employees. She enjoyed the smiles of amusement that would come across faces whenever she handed them their coffee. She was perfectly content with where she was at right now.
Claire's morning work routine was getting everything ready for the coffee cart. Most of the time, each cart would do for about five to eight floors at a time. Depending on how many orders were made during time periods. Then she would have to run back down into the main lobby and restock on items again. It was very demanding but she enjoyed it. It kept her busy.
Usually whatever floor needed service was paged to her telling her in text what floor needed service. The first page she received was floors 27, 47 and 89. The page she received stated that only 1 coffee delivery was on the floor 47.
She figured she would do the other two floors first considering there was more people requesting. Most of the time, each floor normally didn't take longer than 10 to 15 minutes. Depending on how many on the floor had requested for coffee delivery services.
After doing the other floors she finally got to the 47th floor. One bad thing about the pages she received was that it never bothered to tell her who had requested. So she always just went to the floors with her cart and had to ask.
Once she got to the 47th floor she walked around looking to find a open space so she can have room to do the coffee. She spoke out, "I got a request for a coffee service?"
She didn't know why she placed that in a question. There was a moment of silence and she thought that perhaps she didn't speak loud enough.
That was a constant note she made to herself that was something she needed to work on. Considering all of these floors are huge. People probably couldn't hear her maybe due to the loudness of everyone talking and typing away at their keyboards.
A few more moment passed and still nothing was stated. It was embarrassing for her to be loud but she decided she needed to do it in order to get the service completed. "EXCUSE ME, THERE WAS A COFFEE SERVICE REQUESTED." She shyly coughed after her loud statement.
"Pssst over here!" she saw a stuffed animal shaped as an elephant raised over a cubicle. She was instantly amused at the sighting.
She immediately grabbed the handles of her coffee cart and headed in the direction where the stuffed animal was.
A few steps later and she was taken off guard at the man who requested coffee service. It was a man who had a jester hat. One side being blue and the other being red with both sides having small bells at the end. He had a pleasant smile on his face. She took note that he must have been amused as well with placing the elephant to grab her attention.
Another thing she noticed was his smile. And while that was odd to her, she didn't mind it. It was nice.
She didn't usually see the smiles often till after she gave their coffee. Not in this place. Which was understandable considering they overworked their employees and it was well noted that not a lot of them were treated fairly.
She also took note that this had to be an interesting man to be wearing that jester mask and for him to be smiling the way he did.
She figured she would start a light conversation, she thought best to be apologetic towards the fact she brought his coffee later.
" Oh hello, sorry I had to shout. I just didn't want the person that requested coffee to not get it!". She looked downward. " I also apologize for bringing the service a bit later."
"Oh don't worry about it!" The man before her exclaimed. "I believe I ordered a coffee with 2 creams and two sugars?... Or was it three creams and three sugars? Got to stay energized ya know?"
Claire looked around at his cubicle and noticed how it was filled with toys and papers full of designs. She hasn't seen anything like it compared to all the other cubicles. Even in the Toy Department. This man really wasn't afraid to stand away from the crowd. 'Who is this man?'
"It was originally two of each! But since I was highly amused at the way you had me come over here with your stuffed elephant, I'll let you have three of each if you like." And with that, she handed the man the coffee with the creams and sugars.
"Oh thank you very much Mi.." he paused, he figured it would be rude to not know her name.
"Claire, Claire Thomas, the Quackwerks best barista here!" She stated as a light joke. She handed out her hand to shake his.
The man in the jester hat hesitantly placed his hand out. She could tell he all of a sudden became a little nervous but didn't really understand why.
"Quackerjack.. nice to meet you Claire" he looked downward. He tried to hide the embarrassment in his voice. He wasn't successful.
She was stunned the second he stated his name. She kept her composer though. Making sure her mouth didn't open and her eyes didn't widen.
She had seen so much about him in the newspaper and on local cable news. How he was the best toy maker in the entire world and somehow he managed to go into the world of crime. Coming up with some heavy schemes for money but majority of the time of not all of it he never got away with it. From what she understood his crimes were mostly petty larceny. It was a common theory that his business went bankrupt due to developing hazardous toys. She really didn't know but again, it was a theory.
She figured out his schemes never really worked mainly due to Darkwing Duck. Again she only knew this much due to whatever was on the cable news or in the local paper.
There has to be a reason he's here working. It's very evident he's left his ways of crime. Maybe he's trying to better himself? People change.
What other reason Quackerwerks would hire him to begin with and in the Toy Department out of all places. It's clear they placed him here for a reason. He has expertise in this field with being inventive.
She smiled brightly once more. She didn't want to bring up the conversation of his past. She knew that would be rude to bring that up right off the bat
"Ah I remember your Toys! They were genius! I enjoyed a lot of your lines growing up! My favorite was the collection of the toy keyboards you did. My brother and I enjoyed those very much!"
Quackerjack immediately smiled back at the huge compliment of his history with lines. "Ah well thank you very much! Most of the guys around the office call me Jack."
'What a delightful and friendly woman'.
He continued to look at her and noticed her hair. 'What a lovely shade of red' his favorite color.
It was then that Quackerjack was placed out of his thoughts when it seemed as if the red headed woman's pager went off.
It caught Claire off guard. Which why it did was odd she should be used to her pager going off the way it did day in and day out. She picked up the pager and sighed very heavily.
Yeah.. she shouldn't be shocked.
"I apologize that I have to cut this short, this page is from my brother, he's in the music department and he can be a bit demanding at times. He gets very cranky if he doesn't have my coffee!" She placed her hands on the coffee cart. "As hectic as my job can be at times, his can be 10 times worse. So I guess I can't really blame him for being demanding. Especially when he has so many people to work for."
"I really hope you enjoy my coffee! I have a feeling you'll be requesting a lot more from me. Like I said I'm a great barista with coffee. I'm more of a cappuccino gal myself" She said with a huge smile. "Please don't hesitate if you need anymore coffee!
See ya around!" And with that she was off to the remainder of her day.
"Bye Jacky."
Quackerjack eyes widened. 'Jacky?' But I told her the guys call me Jack around here..how did she get Jacky out of that?' He placed one his hands back on his keyboard and the other one holding the coffee taking in the taste after he mixes the cream and sugar. He felt a small smile creep up on his beak as he tasted her coffee.
'I'll allow it, the least I can do since she makes fantastic coffee.'
