Everybody Knows the Deal is Rotten {Camila}

[Era Kastrati]

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

-Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"

Era knew perfectly well that it was a bad idea to anger a police officer, especially with a record like hers, but there were some days when there didn't seem to be any possible course of action that didn't dig her into deeper trouble with them. She knew that perfectly well, too; after all, that was how she had come by that record in the first place despite her behavior being entirely unimpeachable if you cared about little things like facts.

This incident was pretty routine (as terrible as it was that this sort of thing could happen so often that she had a routine to deal with it), but dreadfully annoying nonetheless. Era had been walking home from work when some cop had confronted her, demanding to know where she was going. As usual, she had told nothing but the truth, but--also as usual--he hadn't believed her. So maybe she had gotten a little sarcastic when the cop kept pushing for her to confess to whatever crime he was out to pin on her. There was no way to construe her words as a confession, but she had apparently offended him enough that he decided that her actions qualified as "disturbing the peace." Again. Era's record made it quite clear to anyone who cared to peruse it that either she had it in for peace, or the police had it in for her.

Unfortunately for her--since this meant that she couldn't do anything about it--it was the latter case that had landed her in a jail cell again. Out of a perverse sort of determination to contradict the officer's claims about her, she was unfailingly polite to everyone she met in the station, doing her best to project the image of a gracious guest being invited to stay someplace. Within minutes, they had dumped her in a holding cell. I'm getting to the point where I can recognize these, she thought dryly. Maybe I should give them nicknames.

She sat down on the bench to the side of the cell and folded her hands politely in her lap, humming under her breath to keep herself company while she waited for something to happen.

{Here you go, Camila Isabella Duarte, sorry it took me a while to get this up! And to any mods who may see this: if you think this is in the wrong place, please let me know where the right place would be!}

[Camila Isabella Duarte]

Camila was not having the best day ever. She didn’t have enough change for a decent meal, she was considering ramen noodles, with tap water, and this starving did not improve her almost pitiful thinking. It was just one of those days, when she felt incredibly useless, stupid and unmotivated. She jumped into her car, managed to drive around the city streets aimlessly, for hours. It was raining and there weren’t many people out in the street, she did not really feel like picking people up today anyway. She couldn’t help but think that if she did not pick anybody up she would have even less money, and if she continued this way things wouldn’t get better.

She felt her stomach growled. It was acting up again. Just perfect. Even after having eaten noodles she still felt a small pit in her stomach. She needed more substance. Camila parked the car in an empty side of the street and walked out into the side walk, her pace was slow without much hurry or poise. Her hair was slowly getting wet by the drip drop of the rain.
She pulled at the collar of her sweater, she didn’t know why but the bench suddenly looked very inviting. She could sit down for five minutes right? Then try and actually make money today? Her stomach was growling even more loudly. A small gust of wind touched her face, and a shadow passed the corner of her eye. If it had not been for the strong and warm smell of food Camila would have not turned to look at the stranger. Or more like what the stranger was carrying.

Her nose turned red and her mouth watered. His thick fingers were gripping the most heavenly-smelling-delicious looking-morsel of a sandwich she had ever seen. Camila felt like her stomach was going to leap out of the eyes of her sockets. Her growling stomach intensified her senses, and she inhaled the scent of tomatoes, onions, and lettuce deeply. She gave the guy a quick going over. The guy thin complexion. Fair skin, dark blue eyes. Maybe brunette, he was wearing a hat… Hmm.

Camila gave it no more thought. She kicked the guy near his ankle grabbed the sandwich and made way for her car. The guy screamed, and took off after her spewing a huge reel of insults at her as she ran.

“Sorry!” she cackled and bit into the sandwich."Finders keepers!" It tasted real good. Food had to be her second love. She ran a few blocks, maybe she lost him? She made it to her car, and hastily opened the door. She deliberately bit into the sandwich. Looking at the back window of her car laughing to herself, she turned to see the man tapping her car window. “Stupid!” she mouthed to him. He produced a badge.
Oh no.
She rolled down the window. The policeman smirked as Camila stepped out of the car. She 9BCF5] “But, but… I didn’t know that there was a stupid parking meter over here!”[/color]
“Oh certainly!” he almost leered. He put his hat back on. Camila felt blood shoot up her face. Oh no. He laughed, obviously happy with her embarrassment. “This is mine.” He took the sandwich from Camila.
“So, you overstayed at a parking meter, you attempted theft, you kicked a policeman, and you insulted him by calling him doofus.. is this correct?”
“No it was stupid,” Camila gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth. The man chuckled and continued writing. Well this was going well. Camila began to feel desperate.
“Say..uh.” Camila looked at the officer’s badge. “John” she stepped towards him. “Lets make a deal,” she smiled. “What if I buy you lunch today, and we forget about this whooole(she moved her hands in circles) incident, ever happening..?” She stepped closer to the cop. “What do ya say, hmm?” She batted her eyelashes at him, toyed with the flap that lined the edge of his shirt pocket. The man eyed Camila. He stepped backwards.

“Attempting to bribe an officer…” he wrote in his note pad again, and spewed something about it being a violation, and ending with “miss I am going to have to take you to the station.”
Gee and I thought you were stupid. He pulled her and Camila let herself to be put into the back seat of the police cab. The drive was a torture with the man laughing and sneering at her the whole ride. Camila’s hunger had calmed down, but she still fidgeted in her seat, the cuffs hurt. She gave the police man a few glares.

This could be the second or third time she was at the station? She stopped glaring at the policeman. She was possibly going to be stuck in the cell, and it was only three days because the officer went easy on her and did not mention that Camila had kicked him, and tried to bribe him.
Unless someone paid her bail, it was going to be three days. She was going to be tired by then. She gave another aggressive smile and stood watching the policemen leave.
“I stole a sandwich from a policeman..” she mumbled to herself. Oblivious to another presence sitting in the cell, she felt angry was she going to let him get away with making her feel embarrassed? Forgetting her shame she pulled off her coat, and threw it to the floor. “A real gentleman would have offered to buy me a sandwich! Jerk!” yeah Camila knew it was a lame comeback but she didn’t like not having the last word.

She picked up her jacket then pivoted to her right, to see a girl with a cute sun dress sitting there.

“Hi,” Camila’s thick accent seeped through. She eyed the girls protuberant but pretty features as she sat down. What was a girl dressed as neatly as her doing in a cell..? Obviously the policemen were out of their minds. “So princessa?” Camila bent and sat down next to her. “What’cha doing here?” She shrugged and gave the girl a wink.
Camila removed her heels. “Ahh these shoes are killing me..” she placed her heels next to her on the bench and threw her jacket over them.

( Era Kastrati I hope I gave you enough to reply too. Feel free to create an NPC or another character, if you need too, Koko.)

[Era Kastrati]

When the door to the cell opened, Era looked up out of curiosity. Another woman entered, and the door was shut and locked again behind her. Era looked her over, registering in those first moments that the woman was a little on the short side, with long, wavy brown hair, not too different from how Era's own had looked before she had taken to cutting it short, and a look of high indignation on her delicate-featured face. The odd thing was that the other woman started talking, but apparently not to Era, and in fact seemingly without noticing the Albanian's presence at all. Something about a dispute over a sandwich, it sounded like. Whatever it was had clearly gotten the woman worked up.

Throwing a tantrum like that was a perfectly reasonable option for Era as far as reacting to her current predicament went, and if her day hadn't previously been going all right, she might have taken it. But this sort of thing happened to her so often that she just couldn't get that mad about it every single time. So she simply remained where she was, sitting politely with her hands folded in her lap, until the other woman was done expressing her frustration and turned to greet her.

Era responded to the woman's “Hi” in kind, with a smile that she hoped would demonstrate that she understood her soon-to-be-acquaintance's frustration just fine and didn't have anything against her for it. Apparently she was coming off as friendly enough, because the woman sat down next to her, making it clear that there was a significant difference in their heights. It was still a bit disconcerting to Era how many women around here were much shorter than her when, back home, she had been a woman of perfectly average height.

“So, princesa? Whatcha doing here?”

The woman had a pretty strong accent, but it was easy for Era to understand because it was surprisingly similar to her own. She wondered where this woman was from. Although Era's accent had faded to some extent over the few years she had spent in London, she found it flaring back up in her reply. “They wanted a suspect, and it seems I have a suspicious face,” she admitted, adopting a darkly humorous tone for the observation. “It happens from time to time. The police don't like where I'm from or where I work, so they think I must be involved with anything that happens around me. How about you?” Era had already heard the little sandwich rant, of course, but she suspected it would do her new cellmate some good to vent and explain the matter to another person.

The woman's taking off her shoes prompted Era to look down at her own feet. She had left her high heels in the handbag that had been taken away from her when she was being booked in, since she couldn't walk all the way back to her dorm from work in shoes like that. Instead, she was wearing sneakers, which perhaps didn't match her neat dress but certainly made walking easier.

It occurred to her that she hadn't really introduced herself. “I'm called Era, by the way. Era Kastrati. What's your name?”

[Camila Isabella Duarte]

Camila almost giggled. “The ‘policia’ are crazy!If anything your beautiful,” she laughed. “Exotica! How do you say it? exotic” Camila stretched her arms out, enjoying the vigorous but eased feeling that spread through her back. “Well, that’s too bad, the police do not like me very much either,” She still felt hungry but her anger and embarrassment had winded down some. Camila felt curious about where this woman was from her voice had a peculiar accent, but Camila knew this woman was not from Venezuela perhaps from a neighboring country. Would she understand Spanish.

“Ah, I normally don’t tell them where I work. That alone makes them angry,” Camila smiled, then quickly looked to her right and left, then drew close to the woman’s ear. “I run a taxi, mija,” she whispered. “But its clandestine. I have no license,” she then drew back. ”I do not charge much,” Camila smiled. ”I think that is the reason why people like me, no one has ever tipped the cops about me,” she paused, then stared at the floor musing to herself. The realization alone was startling.

“The policia got angry with me today because I,” Camila took a nervous laugh. “You see I was hungry, and I didn’t have any money, and then this goofy looking guy sat next to me, and I decided to steal his sandwich,” Camila blushed roughly but continued. “I didn’t think he was fast enough. I didn’t know the man was a policia (Camila moved her hands as she talked) so yeah, I stole his sandwich, he caught up with me at my car,” Camila turned to look at her friendly stranger.

“He gave me a ticket because I had not noticed the parking meter, and I think he was still angry about his sandwich,” Camila, felt her stomach growl. “I got mad about the ticket, and… So now I am here.”
“The good news is he does not know anything about my taxi, so I can always give you a ride,” she smiled. “It was a very yummy sandwich by the way,” she paused almost laughing. “Oh and I learned that the policias name was John…” Camila rolled her eyes to the foor. She eyed the neat tennis shoes.

“I tried bribing the policia,” Camila didn’t want to go into detail about how she tried to bribe the policeman and left it at that. Desperate calls for desperate measures. Hunger was crazy sometimes.

“It is nice to meet you Era,” Camila extended her hand for a breif shake.“My name is Camila Duarte,” she placed her hand on her chest. “I come from Venezuela,” she announced. Camila was still proud of her country despite its reputation. “What about you where are you from?”
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[Era Kastrati]

Era wasn't completely sure what kind of a response she had expected to elicit with her offhand mention of her ongoing disagreement with the London police force as a whole, but she was sure that this wasn't it.

“The policía are crazy! If anything, you're beautiful,” the woman declared laughingly, much to Era's surprise, before describing her further as “exotic.” Era could only blink, mildly confused. She thought of her own appearance as ordinary, about as far from “exotic” as you could get. Trying to wrap her mind around this reminded her of exactly how far away from home she was. She liked it here, but from time to time she realized she missed where she had come from, and this was quite suddenly one of those times.

“The police do not like me very much either,” Era's new acquaintance admitted. It was the sort of thing that Era probably could have discerned from the fact that they were both sitting in a jail cell right now, but at the same time it was something they had in common.

The woman's description of her taxi service piqued Era's interest. She wondered what kinds of customers such a job would get, and how much they overlapped with the customers she served at her own job. In addition, it occurred to her that if this woman did turn out to be trustworthy, a cheap, reliable, and unobtrusive mode of transportation could be very useful to her.

When the more complete story of what had happened with the sandwich came out, Era found herself grimacing in sympathy. She had never been reduced quite as far as stealing sandwiches out of strangers' hands, but she had flirted with hunger enough that she could understand the impulse.

Era shook hands with the woman, Camila Duarte, as she introduced herself. At the words “I come from Venezuela,” Era's interest was piqued. It was questionable whether she could have picked out Venezuela on a map had there been one around to test her knowledge on, but she was sure that it was on a different continent, one that she had never been to.

In her turn, the younger woman smiled and explained, “If you have heard of my homeland, you would know it as Albania. To me, it is Shqipëri, the land of the eagles.” For a moment, she appeared to swell with pride, almost as if a red flag blazoned with a black eagle might be about to spontaneously appear projected on the wall behind her. Then Era deflated a bit. “Then again, you might well have never heard of it. It doesn't surprise me, anymore, how many people haven't. We are not a large country, nor wealthy...”