Page 36 of Keeping Time

Panel 1: Elena motions for Daniel to follow her, smiling brilliantly over her bare shoulder. Her halter top's straps are tied in a cute bow around her neck. She says, "Not at all! Follow me. I'm Elena. On paper, I'm the bartender."

Panel 2: Elena gestures towards the stage behind her. The grand piano's lid is already open, and the piano bench sits empty. The stage is softly lit by a blue-tinged light, though it's not as intense a light as we've seen earlier, in the Now, when Daniel was performing. Elena continues, "In reality, I do everything around here but own the bar or sit at this piano. Have a seat."

Panel 3: Daniel does what he's told, and begins to sit down at the piano bench. He's now lit beneath the blue light. The stage is just a raised platform at the end of the room, maybe a foot or so off the ground. Elena is standing on the floor, but she's tall enough that she's practically eye level with Daniel still. With her hands on her hips, she says with a smile, "So, Daniel. Tell me about yourself! What made you want to work here?"

Panel 4: Daniel rubs his nose with his hand unconsciously, his smile still nervous. Hesitantly, he answers, "Ah, well... I just moved back into town..."

Panel 5: Elena's smile is bright. She replies, "Oh? A homegrown son returns?"

Panel 6: Daniel's hand now grips the fabric of his jeans, betraying his nervousness. He answers, "Yeah. I went out of state for school, but I just graduated, and somehow I've found myself up back home..."
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Page 36

SITE NOTICE, Aug. 3,5:10pm PT: It shoooould be fixed now.

SITE NOTICE, Aug. 3, 11:10am PT: Hi folks, if the site looks busted to you, I'm so sorry! Something funky is going on with the app I use for comments, so I've temporarily disabled it until they push out a fix. If you're on a desktop, to fix the funky site, please do a hard refresh (Command + Shift + R for Macs, Ctrl + F5 or Ctrl + Shift + R for Windows. If you're on mobile, you're probably gonna have to go into your mobile browser's settings and choose to clear out caches).

 

A few (treasured!!) people have been leaving comments like, "I wish Elena was my boss" and I just have to say: HARD agree.