method acting [kate]

10 december 2003

Edith was attempting to make an effort to not drink all the time. Living outside of London really complicated it. She was far outside, far enough that it was stupid to drink as much as she did there and rely on very unreliable trains to get her back to Liverpool when she wasn’t feeling confident (or stupid) enough to apparate. Plus, she was convinced that she could have a conversation without it. It could be possible. (And another plus: she had plans for later that night to drink, anyway, as it was Wednesday and that meant it was Trivia night.)

But she liked this coffee shop. There were those crafty coffees and teas and a small selection of vinyl from lesser known artists, weird board games from the eighties, way too many houseplants, and plenty of books featuring as many local authors as they could get their hands on, apparently. It wasn’t all good writing; dith had flipped through a book to read a page or two, but she had put it down immediately and stepped over to the records instead. She had suggested the place mostly because it was cool but also because it wasn’t in Chelsea-- Edith didn’t want to pay Chelsea prices for a cup of black tea and she was worried she would have to if she had let Kate suggest a place.

She was a few minutes early and had decided to wait to order; she was flipping through some records as she waited, pausing to consider a particularly jazzy looking cover from a Cambodian rock band. She’d come back to it later, she decided, having to figure out if it would be worth carting it around all day before she went home. She glanced up--and through some leafy foliage--and spotted her mate. Edith probably had the height advantage, looking over the plant, and she stepped around it and into Kate’s eye line with a little wave and a, “Hiya.” She felt underdressed in comparison--she had on a Man Utd hoodie, jeans, and converse--but she should have known better, knowing Kate.

But she could talk about the coffee shop instead. “This place is sound, right?” She let Kate order before ordering herself a cuppa--and yes, she was sure she didn’t want to turn that into a latte or whatever she was being asked about--and nodding toward a pair of plushy chairs near the large windows. “How’ve you been?”

@Kate Baker

Kate apparated to a shabby little corner of London she didn’t usually visit to find the coffee shop her friend had suggested for some talk time. She had no problem letting other people pick the place--Kate had a feeling that most people she spoke to or knew had ideas about the caliber of things or places she would and wouldn’t accept.

Charlie had been like that; he thought the “standards” she’d grown up with were the least she would accept and that they were what she preferred. Not so--even her three-bedroom townhouse felt too vacant and spacious for her at times. Well-worn items, spaces that looked and felt cozy or lived in, and unexpectedly good food from shoddy-exterior restaurants were her cup of tea, too, no pun intended.

The air in the coffee shop was so fresh and ozonic as she walked in to the sound of bells tinkling, and she found herself involuntarily taking a big, deep breath. The plants reminded her of California. Some of the leaves on them were big enough to look tropical, and she wondered if there was a charm in here to make the climate more hospitable for them. Probably not--knowing her friend, this was a Muggle establishment.

Edith looked cute, but Kate felt like she was wearing too many layers in comparison. December in London was cold for a girl from California, even despite all the years she’d spent at Ilvermorny in practically tundra-level weather. She was in a pair of heeled boots, a cream turtleneck, black jeans and a burnt-orange colored corduroy jacket she’d gotten some time ago. It felt much cozier in here than outside, and she wondered again how on earth the plants were thriving so well. “Hey,” she grinned in response to her friend’s greeting, and pointed toward the records she’d seen her flipping through, “anything good?”

They walked up to the counter together and Kate ordered a skinny vanilla latte, her usual, but hot instead of her preferred iced coffee. She made exceptions for hot drinks when the temperature was a certain level of frigidity, but she missed iced ones already and they weren’t even to the dead of winter yet. “I’ve never been here before, but we’ll find out. I’ve been okay, just working on a project,” Kate pressed her lips together. If she were honest, she’d been dying to tell someone about the book, and she thought maybe that Edith could be trusted, being a writer too, and all.

“How about you?”

Kate asked about the records and Edith shrugged one shoulder. “I think so. Maybe.” She was always in the market for something new, now more than ever that she had finally crawled out of that Joni-Mitchell-shaped hole post-breakup (and she could credit her dad with helping with that, singing along to Blue every time). “Just figuring out if I want to carry anything around with me,” she said, dragging her brain back to the present. She should have brought a bigger backpack; she should have ‘improved’ the size of the one she was carrying but she had a delicate relationship with magic for convenience’s sake these days.

She hadn’t been to the coffee shop before and Edith was curious if she’d been to this neighborhood--or south of the Thames at all--but that was a mean question to ask (or insinuate, rather) and Edith was sober. “It’s sound,” she said instead, agreeing with herself and attempting to reassure Kate, if that’s what she needed. They ordered and headed toward the chairs Edith had pointed out.

She wanted to ask about the project Kate had just mentioned, but she had already turned her ‘how are you’ back on her. It seemed like the American brand of politeness, though she did think Kate actually wanted to know how Edith was doing because she was nice and genuinely interested (which was a little weird but not offputting). “Alright, yeah.” Edith pulled one leg up and folded it under her, making herself more comfortable. “Was up late working on a new piece.” And that meant she was a little hungover--write drunk, edit sober--but it was just a little headache, nothing her tea wouldn’t help. “Nothing new,” she concluded with a shrug because there genuinely wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

That had been enough about her, right? Edith didn’t love talking about herself (because again, she was sober, and even then it was a stretch) and Kate had said project and Edith was curious. “What’s your project, then?”

A tiny frown flickered across Kate’s brow, and she peered at Edith’s backpack curiously. Surely her friend knew how to work an extension charm; Kate had one on her own bag that had proven incredibly useful in terms of synthesizing fashion and function. “I could… put a charm on it for you, if you wanted? My bag has one, I could never fit everything I need into this useless thing,” She gestured toward it. “For looks only.”

She realized that might’ve made her sound shallow, but hopefully she’d had enough good interactions with Edith by now that she’d realize Kate was only kidding.

There were a couple of people in line ahead of them at the counter, so the barista wasn’t ready with their drinks yet. They sat down for a moment at their table, just to secure it, and by the time Edith was asking about Kate’s project again (nervous), their drinks were ready. “Oh, hold on, I’ll go get them,” She smiled, even though it was really just a thinly veiled effort to get away for a second and consider whether or not she could really trust her friend with this. She was a writer too--it should be safe, right?

Kate plopped Edith’s tea down on the table right in front of her and slid back into her seat with a noisy sigh, releasing all her pent-up stress and energy. “New piece sounds good, what’s it about?”

She was only answering out of politeness; she knew based on the questions Edith was asking she wasn’t particularly interested in discussing it--but nonetheless, she didn’t want her to feel blown off. “My project,” Kate swallowed a searing-hot gulp of latte, “Is actually--that I’m writing a book.” Probably unnecessarily, she was very quiet, leaned forward dramatically all the way to tell her.

“It’s--kind of hush hush, the whole thing. Nobody really knows about it, but I’m actually dying to talk about it because of that.”

Edith asked about Kate’s project-- and Kate immediately left. She got up to go get their drinks, but that didn’t stop Edith from trying to figure out if that was just a coincidence or if Kate had somehow manifested it because she didn’t want to talk about it. (Even though Kate had mentioned the project, that didn’t mean she wanted Edith to ask about it-- Edith hadn’t wanted to discuss the article she had been up writing the night before.)

Kate returned with Edith’s tea--”Cheers.”--before she had managed to come to any sort of conclusion and asked Edith about her work before Edith could redirect to her last question. “Oh, er--” She lowered her tea back to the table and shrugged once her hands were free. “Another muggleborn evading the law,” she said, lowering her voice a tad given the muggle cafe they were sitting in, and making every attempt to sound casual.

Thankfully they didn’t dwell on that too much, though; Kate had circled back to her new project. She leaned in, so Edith did the same, letting her eyes go wide as Kate revealed it was a book she was working on. She was amazed that she didn’t immediately blurt out that she was writing a book, too, but she was also not too amazed because she didn’t want to talk about it.

Either way, it was a good thing she hadn’t said anything, because she might have scared Kate away from saying her next bit, telling Edith it was a secret book. That begged the question why she was telling Edith, of all people, but if Kate was dying to talk about it, then Edith was dying to hear about it, because who was she kidding? A secret book had to be good.

She smiled, still leaning forward, neglecting her tea. “Can you tell me what it’s about?”

Can you tell me what it’s about? Be stupid if she’d brought it up and then refused to spill any details, wouldn’t it? She could probably get away with being moderately vague, but was that necessary? “Yeah,” Kate offered, and her eyes sparkled with something between relief and excitement, just for this to be out in the open someplace other than in her head, where it had been bouncing mercilessly off the walls of her skull for months.

“I’ve always liked to write, but. I wanted to do something outside of the music industry, since my family is involved in that, and. So was my ex,” Her tone dropped off the last part of her sentence. Talking about her career that had been explosive but on the other hand, had never really gotten a chance to take off completely, was sort of morose and depressing. Even if she decided to pursue management again in a real capacity, it was unlikely she would ever have an opportunity to manage a band like Banshee (nor as effectively) again. That wasn’t the only sad part about it, of course, but feeling like she had no real place to go had been wearing on her.

“And so, I used the connections I already made in the industry to get a book deal. I wrote it under a pseudonym, and it’s a poetry book.” Kate pressed her lips together. “I actually had written most of the… ideas down after my marriage ended, I just edited them for publishing. So it’s done, actually, just waiting for some last things to get taken care of.”

She narrowed her eyes and leaned back into the safe support of her chair behind her, crossing her arms. “Are you that much into poetry? I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this, have we?” An overwhelming sense of stupidity came over her. “Probably a huge overshare, I just. Have felt so isolated and know that you write, for your job.”

Yeah. It looked like Kate really was dying to talk about it, which almost caught Edith off guard. Personally, Edith wanted to put off talking about her own book for as long as possible. Maybe even after it was published. Maybe forever. Writing about things was so much easier than talking about them-- wasn’t that why she had redirected her career toward it? But she was getting distracted, thinking about herself, so she blinked, paying attention to Kate again.

She nodded as she listened, unsure how to react at the mention of her ex. They hadn’t really talked about that, besides establishing Kate was divorced; Edith had certainly never asked. The music industry, her family, she knew about that-- but again, she avoided asking too much about it because music for wizards only didn’t exactly sit well with her and she liked being Kate’s friend, so she kept that opinion to herself.

Kate used connections to get a book deal. Edith knew that was how it worked in the publishing world--you had to know someone who knew someone who knew someone--but it still stung. She was grateful she was sober because she didn’t think she’d be able to keep a straight face otherwise; Edith had struggled to find readership, to find anyone who wanted to talk to her about the war at all, had worked so hard on everything--

But Kate mentioned using a pen name, and Edith nodded again, kept nodding at poetry. So not really a book, was it? Again she was grateful she was sober, and kept that to herself, too. But why was she sitting there being bitchy about it all? Edith should have been happy for her, not comparing Kate’s (likely) success to her own. (Edith needed to be writing and finishing her own book, not dicking around in London all the time.)

“Wow,” she said after another second, finally getting herself together, pushing the past few thoughts out of her brain, being a proper friend, she thought. “That’s sound.” She nodded again, exhaling through pursed lips and leaning back in her own chair when Kate did the same. “I’m not, too much--” into poetry, she meant, but Kate was already talking again.

Edith quickly shook her head. “No, not at all.” If anyone knew about oversharing when it came to writing, writing about things no one had asked to know about, it was Edith. “I get it, yeah.” She frowned softly, thinking. “I started with a pseudonym, too.” She raised her eyebrows a touch and nodded. “It can be so weird.” ‘Isolating’ was the word Kate had used, and it was so much more accurate, though ‘weird’ wasn’t that far off. “Not being able to talk to people about it.” That was a whole different thing from not wanting to talk about it.

She picked up her tea, finally, and took a large sip, thinking back over what Kate had said, what Edith hadn’t commented on yet. “So is it about…” She had written it after her marriage had ended, and while she didn’t think her own situation could compare, Edith was well aware of what she had written after breaking up with Elias. “Your ex?”

Kate felt extremely stupid and oblivious after revealing she’d used her connections for the book deal. She knew that some of the most brilliant writers, poets, musicians, artists, all had to start from the ground up with absolutely no help. It was true that if not for that solid foundation she might’ve taken a lot longer to get where she was, and in a way she sort of wished she’d grown up under more ordinary circumstances. Kate was a woman, she was young, she wasn’t white--all these things were disadvantages, more or less, but she felt like she’d be able to relate to her peers a bit more if she didn’t have obvious class privilege. There was something particularly intimate about sharing struggles with people.

On the other hand, though, she thought it was gauche and fake not to acknowledge the leg up she had--people could decide for themselves whether or not they thought she was really talented enough to be a serious consideration. She probably would’ve felt worse trying to commiserate with her friends in a ‘oh, yes, totally understand’ type of way when, sometimes, she didn’t. Class guilt was a superficial thing to be upset about in the grander scheme of things, she reminded herself again--and it wasn’t as though she didn’t do a lot to alleviate it. A really big chunk of her income went to charity, her sister was basically a charity case for both Kate and her parents, and it was a goal of hers to make philanthropy a serious venture in the near future.

Not too into poetry, she gathered, but that could be good, right? Might mean she wouldn’t be too picky about whether or not the material was sound, but then again it might mean she was extra picky. Normally she would’ve expected Edith to share honest opinions, but perhaps her friend would be too kind to tell her what she really thought, if it was that bad.

“Right. I know that you really love Shakespeare,” Kate offered and leaned forward to grab her cup, trying to remind her friend that she did remember things she was told, and that she wasn’t completely self-centered. “Why did you decide to switch back to your real name?” She asked, and then realized half a second later she may have just put her foot in her mouth again. Would make sense that a Muggleborn witch would have to use a pseudonym for a period of time, wouldn’t it, when she’d practically been hunted? God, what an idiot she was. Maybe it was for a different reason, though, so she didn’t preemptively apologize.

“Yeah.” Kate nodded. “I paint and draw, too, so I put some of my art in there. I haven’t ever sold or monetized anything like that, so I don’t think anyone will notice it’s mine…” Except Charlie, maybe. Or Francesca. “But yes, it’s about him. Few things here and there aren’t directly related, but… for the most part.”

Edith smiled, suppressing a laugh as Kate mentioned her loving Shakespeare. “Usually,” she corrected good naturedly. It was more of a love-hate relationship, because weren’t you supposed to hate what your parents loved? But Kate was right, anyway; it was the plays she (and her parents) liked, rather than the sonnets. They had probably had that conversation before--it was one of the most interesting things about Edith, she thought--so she didn’t bother mentioning it again.

They quickly brought things back around from the lighthearted Shakespeare talk, anyway. Why did she switch to her real name? Edith opened her mouth to say something--it was a fair question, and Edith hadn’t known Kate long enough to assume she had read everything she had written--but she closed it again after a second. It was a lot to unpack, the why, that she felt disingenuous writing about other people under a false name, that she had started using her real name when she started writing about herself. She thought about changing the subject, though asking about Kate’s ex was a good distraction. And it was.

“Oh--” Kate painted and drew, too, and there was art in the book, too-- “Wow.” Okay, that was cool. It was almost annoying, Kate having many talents while also looking like that, and also getting published. Almost, but not.

Edith hoped Kate didn’t think she was implying that she was trying to make money off of things, or how things ended, or whatever; she thought she understood doing things for money while not explicitly doing it for money. It was complicated. But she didn’t ask, more focused on the book being about him. Edith’s eyebrows creased together, an uncomfortable weight in her chest. “Does it help?” She relaxed her face and picked up her tea, feeling fidgety. “Writing about him?” Again she didn’t think it could compare--she and Elias hadn’t been married (she did not want her brain to go there)--and she had written some pages but she hadn’t sat with her thoughts--those thoughts--with the intent of publishing them. But if it helped-- maybe.

Of course it made sense that Edith would ask about Charlie if Kate had gone so far as to disclose the book was about him, but hearing the questions asked aloud really stopped her in her tracks. It knocked the wind out of her even more when someone else asked about him, because it reminded her that he still existed adjacent to her life as well, and she wished sometimes there was a way to erase all of it.

Well, there was, but… Kate really didn’t know (or hadn’t considered until this very moment, really) whether or not obliviating yourself, or even asking someone to do it for you, was legal. It certainly wasn’t ethical. What if the charm went wrong? What would her memories of the last four years be replaced with? There were too many variables, but she understood why other people, if things got bad enough or there was too much pain or grief, would do it. Like if someone had died or something. Muggles had diseases sort of like that, where they would just lose their memory in old age, but the more she thought about it, the more Kate was interested just how it would all shake out if someone lost their memory earlier.

What would happen if someone you knew asked about something they remembered and you didn’t? What if----

She remembered after a second that Edith was sitting across from her and had most certainly asked her a question, and Kate was embarrassed; her cheeks were flaming as she angsted over just how long she’d been spinning wheels in her head. Hopefully not long enough there had been anything more than a thoughtful, pregnant pause. After awhile it could get creepy rather than contemplative.

“I think so,” Kate answered cautiously, and her brow knit together as she considered. “It’s.. painful, but. Even when I would journal or write letters before, it kind of helped me to pull all the thoughts out of my head like. Tangled strings and make them into words on a page.” She smiled smally. “I guess it still does. And it almost feels like storage. Someplace to really put them. I… really didn’t intend on publishing anything, or being a published writer, but I was spending enough time doing it and enjoying it well enough that I guess I saw it being something I could do, like, long-term.”

Edith wanted to know if it helped, writing about him. Mostly, though, she wanted to know if it would help if she made those thoughts public, if it would be like she was putting a final pin in it all. Edith was already writing about herself for her book, just leaving out anything about her relationship; it hadn’t felt relevant. And when it came down to it, it was embarrassing. But what was the point of her book--the truth about the lives of muggleborns--if she couldn’t be honest with herself, too. Kate didn’t immediately say anything, though, and that was enough time for Edith to start talking herself out of it.

But then Kate spoke up, and Edith met her eye over their small shared table. Nothing she said really helped with Edith’s internal struggle, but she didn’t interrupt her. She could understand how it could be painful at least; that described her entire book, why it was so much easier to approach writing with a couple of drinks in her. She nodded, thinking she understood what she was saying.

It had taken Edith a while to start writing about herself; she liked it far less than writing about others. She knew now that writing about herself gave more weight to the other things, as if it was proof that she had personal experience, that she knew what she was writing about.

“Yeah, I get that.” Edith sighed, leaning back in her chair. Writing was someplace to put her thoughts-- and she was back to thinking about Elias, specifically. Kate hadn’t really answered the question, or the question that Edith thought she had asked, or meant to have asked.

Edith leaned forward again, folding her arms together and resting them on her knees. “If it was just about writing, though, the whole book wouldn’t have ended up about him, right?” She wasn’t trying to be mean, just wrap her head around it all. “Just--” It was probably a good time to explain why she was asking, wasn’t it? “I’m writing a book, too, and it’s not about Elias but all of that--” all the Elias stuff, the main reason they broke up-- “there’s things I could write about him that would fit in the book.” Her tone of voice was a little softer, talking about him. “I guess I’m trying to decide if I should.” She sighed again. “It’s embarrassing.”

Kate’s rambling would have been different if she’d realized Edith’s question hadn’t been theoretical. The whole time she’d worked out her answer she’d thought that it was because of curiosity that she was asking, not because she needed advice. That changed things. “Oh, wow,” She replied, feeling stupid and averting her eyes to the floor, “I didn’t know that.”

Obviously she didn’t know that, that was why she’d just told her. Duh, idiot. Making friends was weird, Kate was shy, she wasn’t good at it and even though she treated the friends she did have well (under normal circumstances, anyway) she really couldn’t remember how they’d even liked her enough to begin a friendship.

“Like a biography?” Kate asked, making eye contact again while she thought (for a second time, with her new knowledge) about how to answer her friend. She shifted in her chair to scoot straight up against the back and her arms fell to her sides from their folded position to grip the edges of the seat. She hoped she hadn’t seemed closed off like that; Kate hadn’t even realized they’d been crossed.

“I think if you feel like those events are significant to your life…” She paused. How couldn’t they be? Perhaps she wasn’t normal, that she felt things like that wouldn’t ever be insignificant to her life, but if she tried to advise based on what was ‘normal’ she wouldn’t be true to herself, either, and from what she could gather that was Edith’s whole aim. “Then you should. I think it would be worse to look back and feel like there’s something missing than to be embarrassed by what you really felt.” Kate shrugged.

“Been there,” She added with a nod, not wanting to make her companion feel like any potentially effusive writings about emotions were exclusive to her. “It does make me cringe a little bit, to read old things sometimes. Especially from years ago.”

Kate said she didn’t know and Edith grimaced. “Yeah, sorry, I—“ she paused, exhaling through her nose as she scrunched her eyebrows together in thought. She wasn’t advertising it—as if she might be able to back out of it if she didn’t tell anyone about it—and Kate wasn’t publishing under her name so she could understand keeping it to herself. But was it like a biography? Kate asked before Edith could say anything else. “Sort of.” She swiped a finger under her nose then picked up her tea, avoiding Kate’s eye.

“It’s more just interviews that I’ve expanded into essays, more narrative.” She frowned, setting her tea down without drinking any. She sounded so pretentious like that, more narrative. “But more of a memoir, in the back half.” Memoir sounded posh, too. She realized she was assuming Kate knew what she was getting at. “The war, like.” It was so much more than that, but that was nearly the root of the problem.

If the events were significant in her life— Edith sighed. She wished they weren’t but here they were, being all significant and shit. She nodded because she thought she knew what Kate was about to say and— yup, there it was. “Yeah.” Kate was right. That was what Edith had figured all along—that she had to write what she didn’t want to—but it was more effective hearing it from someone else.

Edith smiled smally, appreciating the effort Kate was making to make her feel better. “Can’t imagine I’ll want to re-read anything I’ve written, at least.” Her smile went a little crooked.

She had made this awkward, hadn’t she? “What’s your pen name, then?” She picked up her mug again, blowing across the surface of her tea before she finally had a sip.