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jenny

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Though the dreariness of winter reminded Alexia deeply and profoundly of home in ways she was uncomfortable with, that was not the reason that Alexia found herself uncertain, if not pessimistic, about the coming spring and warmer months.

She found herself with her fingers pressed gently to her mouth as she strolled down a street downtown, lined with department stores. The window displays featured largely two things, both of which Alexia found at turns scandalous and intriguing.

The first was the bathing suits. Alexia still considered bathing in the sea to largely be a man's pleasure occupation. Which did not necessarily mean that she would not do so. She hadn't had the chance, and certainly, she would not ever wear a bikini. No! Definitely not.

The second were the athletic clothing, most in colors Alexia was fairly sure did not occur anywhere in nature. Now, Alexia was a fan of walking for health and pleasure. She did much of it, as she was doing today.

But she had not ever considered a separate wardrobe specifically for light exercise.

"I wonder how much it would cost?" she wondered aloud. Leaning closer, she checked one of the price tags. Over a hundred dollars for a pair of athletic tights (yoga pants, they call them, and Alexia surely could not imagine a yogi would ever wear such a thing.)

Over a hundred dollars.

Alexia became altogether too agitated at that.

"They must think all women truly stupid. Especially the wealthy ones."

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"They certainly seem to," Jenny says, overhearing by accident, but not particularly concerned with keeping her opinions to herself. She rarely is anyway, and on this point, she doesn't see how there could be any argument in it. Some part of her might feel just a little hypocritical for it, when her tastes have always run expensive anyway, but there's a difference between a nice dress by a known designer and something that seems to be marked up solely for the sake of it, because people will spend money on it regardless. They're just pants, and not even ones that seem like they would have many uses. "Just because someone has money doesn't mean they'd spend so much of it on something like that. Though I suppose enough of them do, for them to be able to keep selling these."

Alexia did not mind her train of thought being interrupted. She had, after all, spoken aloud, for anybody nearby to hear -- though she hadn't been aware anybody was nearby, as she'd been distracted by her mild ire.

She offered the other woman an apologetic look, folding her hands in their fawn-colored kid gloves in front of herself neatly. The spring breeze lifted long tendrils of her black hair that had escaped the french braid that hung over one shoulder.

'If one is going to spend ridiculous amounts of money on a piece of clothing, it must always say something. It should be a hat, or a waistcoat, or perhaps a pair of daring shoes. It should not be a pair of tights, and the statement should not be 'I haven't dressed myself yet.'"

"Exactly," Jenny agrees, unsurprised based on the woman's previous comment but pleased that they seem to think alike on this matter. There are some people who would probably say that no clothing should cost that much at all, and with that, she couldn't agree. For the pants in question, though, it's more than a little uncalled for. She isn't sure, actually, which is more bothersome — the price tag, or the fact that people actually would and do pay so much for a piece of clothing like this.

She looks in the display window again, and shakes her head. "I have a few things that cost as much, but none so... simple, and not to be worn for something like exercise." Expensive clothes, she thinks, should be shown off, appreciated, not worn thin and sweated all over. "It should be something nice, for that matter. I'm sure these are well enough made, but there's nothing to them."

"My wardrobe was entirely picked out by a good friend of mine, Biffy," Alexia admittedly, only very slightly bashfully. She was not prone to much bashfulness; she was simply surprised she was willing to share so much with a stranger, and further concerned about how to explain her and Biffy's relationship to one another if it came to that.

"Because I've no skill for picking out an ensemble myself, and he's quite good. Very quite good. But it does mean that I've no idea what any of mine cost. Where I come from, it was considered very gauche actually for a woman to worry herself about the cost of anything at all, let alone her wardrobe."

"That sounds about the opposite of what it was like for me, growing up," Jenny says, a warm amusement in her voice. Of course, that may have had a great deal to do with her parents in particular, her father obnoxiously frugal, reminding them at every turn that anything they bought or did had a cost, but it isn't as if that was completely atypical. Then, with David, she hadn't had to worry or pay attention at all, trusting that he'd foot the bill on anything she wanted, but that had come with its own set of costs. At least now, she thinks she's found a good middle ground. "Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking? I'm not from here, either."

"London, initially," Alexia said, "And then for a time not London, and then London once again, before arriving, unceremoniously, here. I can say I still think that I have a preference for London."

Alexia tried not to give an impolite huff of exasperation. She did not have it in her to hate Darrow, but she resented it, and resented that it separated her from her husband and her child. Akeldama would surely keep Prudence safe, but Alexia worried that she needed her mother's more sober personality to balance Akeldama's influence out.

"It was 1875, when I left. That feels worth a mention."

"

"Goodness, that must really make a difference," Jenny says, though there's something just a bit relieved in her voice. It's not the same as meeting someone from home, or from the same time, but it can occasionally be somewhat isolating, being from a different place and time. There's always a comfort in meeting someone else for whom the same is the case. "It was 1961 for me, and that's felt like a long time. I grew up not too far from London, though."

Almost a hundred years, thought Alexia, and this woman was still recognizable as a Londoner to Alexia, in her way. How little could change in a hundred years, and how much. Alexia would be dead by 1961, but her immortal husband would not. He would get over her, Alexia thought with dull and not unpleasant certainty. He would watch over their grandchildren.

"I'm not surprised. I'm not so fanciful as to say you had the air of London about you, but you're familiar, all the same. It's engaging to have met you."

She wondered what to do next and then, because when in Rome, she held out a hand for a shake.

"Lady Maccon, Alexia."

"And you as well," Jenny replies, reaching out to shake Alexia's offered hand. "Jenny Winklevoss." She hasn't been married so long that there isn't still something of a thrill in introducing herself that way, something that she thinks is a good thing, maybe the way it ought to be. Some of the shine will wear off with time, she's sure, but for now, she's glad it hasn't. "Have you been here long? It's been quite a while, for me, but there are some things I think I'll always find strange. The price of clothing like this included."

"Months," Alexia said. She brushed her long black hair behind her neck and smoothed it down with a long sigh that tried very hard not to be impatient.

"I left behind a husband and daughter, very young. The daughter, not the husband. He was rather the opposite. I'm not happy about it, particularly, and so that does color much of what I experience here. But I don't have it in myself either to rage against whatever it is holding us here. I suppose it's not in my nature. And so, shopping it is, today."

Her lips quirked. It wasn't quite a smile.

"It is lovely to meet you, Jenny. May I use Jenny?"

"Of course," Jenny replies, nodding in easy agreement. "And I'm sorry to hear you had to leave behind your family." She'd been lucky in that regard, she supposes. At first, she hadn't thought there'd been anything at all back there for her, aside from her parents, whom she's never missed terribly much. Finding out later that she could have gone to Oxford after all was, admittedly, a disappointment, the first thing that made her miss her life there, but she tries not to dwell on that much. She still has a good life here, and is close to the degree that once seemed so out of reach. "I'm not much for raging either, but that must be difficult."

"I've been through harder, I suppose," Alexia said, with a smile that was exceedingly Victorian. She left the side of the window, peering out into the city with one palm over her eyes to shade them. Although they were both cities, Darrow was so very different in many ways than London had been. And in other ways, it was very much the same.

"But this place offers a lot of opportunity that I would never have seen, otherwise. I don't think I'm the type to overlook an opportunity when it presents itself to me, whether it's in employment or in fashion. And I'm not here alone, but with my dear Biffy. Have you got anyone here of your own?"

"No one from home, no," Jenny says, though as far as she's concerned, that's just as well. Every once in a while, she almost misses her parents, or at least wonders what they'd make of her life now — her being happily married, about to graduate university — but she doesn't think she would want them here, and there hadn't really been anyone left to her. The truth of the matter is, Darrow has given her a lot of opportunity, too, and she's tried her best to seize it at every turn. Maybe things would have turned out alright in the end, back home, but she's gotten a lot here that she wouldn't have been able to elsewhere. "But I've a husband, whom I met after leaving home, so I'm not here alone, either."

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