<div class="floatleft">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/d2/98/b3/d298b36f5af14a072972f9185ec4ec75.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Marissa Kennedy<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Pool deck party<br/><strong>Date &amp; Time:</strong>11:30ish<br/><strong>Content/Mood:</strong>Trying to open the shell; checking out the scene<br/><strong>Wearing:</strong>one-piece suit (https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2b/cf/bb/2bcfbbeb8b27d098d210fed8a4b8f9c3.jpg), beach sandals, and a towel.<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Lakresha, *Max, open.<br/><hr/><br/>Lakresha. Oddly pretty, one of those exotic names that folks seemed to be coming up with these days, especially people of color. A lot of the time, Ris thought parents just tossed darts at alphabet blocks, and wrote down whatever they hit. Made no damn sense. Some of them were effective, though, and Lakresha struck her as one of them.  Beat the hell out of yet another Brittany, or Beth. The woman was also clearly trying to be reassuring, which was...nice? Like, what had she expected, though, fangs and claws?<br/><br/>"Eighty three fourteen."  Damn. She didn't want to seem standoffish- sorta was against the whole point of the project, you know? But she'd never been good at small talk. Catch-22:<em> don't talk much 'til you get to know me, won't get to know me unless I talk. </em>"I, uh...kinda got the whole 'fore' and 'aft' thing mixed up."  A quick shrug, and she answered the question that Lakresha had asked then unasked. "I'm an artist. Sculpture, sort of. Little hard to explain. Easier to show."  Oh God. Had that sounded like a come-on?  Was it a problem if it did? Wasn't that the idea, eventually, at least? The rest of the thankfully short walk was made in silence.<br/><br/>Silence was not a thing once they were out on the pool deck, though. Dance party music was blasting away, though since it was open air, it was less skull-splitting than it would have been at a club. A handful of the other women were already there, including the two blondes who were built the same as she was.  One of them, the real tomboyish one, was hanging back a bit, seemed like, and gave Rissa an immediate flash of how she herself must appear to the others.  Seriously needed to work on that.<br/><br/>The third blonde looked as if she could leg press a pickup truck. Marissa had never really liked the Amazon thing herself, but the woman had a lovely face, and the charming lilt of her Nordic accent carried  a little bit, making the nervous artist grin despite herself.  Easing up to the bar, she smiled and nodded at the others, then claimed one of the day's signature drinks. One sip told her she would not be grabbing another. Not unless she wanted to wake up in Vegas married to three different girls and a chimp named Elvis.  Wow!<br/><br/>She didn't want to wallflower, but crashing someone else's conversation was never her style, either.  Lakresha was playing with the music system, which left the thin girl with the butch haircut.  There really ought to be a book:<strong>Twenty-One Good Opening Lines For When You're Single And Awkward At A Mixer</strong>.  Probably was, somewhere, but she'd never read it, so she had to make do.  Sidling over closer to- what was her name? Maxine, that was it, she raised her glass.  "Nice day for it, at least." Oh God, seriously?  The<em>weather</em>?  She could do better than that.  "Rissa. So do you prefer Maxine, or Max?"