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The girl has bright pink and baby blue hair on the ends of her blonde pigtails, she can't be more than 25 riding across the way from Pamela on a lonely, warm early summer night.
While she had entered the subway car with a maniacal grin and laughing all the way, her friend with short hair that she addressed as 'Kitty' when speaking to her as long as possible.
Not that Pamela was listening or anything.
Just curious.
The blonde had on a very rainbow tank top, socks of the same pattern and little colorful stripes painted on under her eyes. Which she reaches up and touches, frowning when the paint doesn't come off with the soft gesture.
Gotham Pride had been going through the streets all day and this short, tattooed girl is not the only going home after a long parade and afterparty. Pamela herself had stopped to watch the floats passby her shop window around noon.
She rubs more furiously, groaning when it only flakes the paint.
The redhead, still wearing her 'Ivy's Gardens' apron and hair in a loose braid down her back, decides then to show some pity on this soul today. Taking a moment to convince herself she stands up and abruptly steps across the moving car to look down at the blonde.
The blue eyes are casted down and follow the long line of Pamela's tanned legs, eye level torso and stop when they make contact with an unfamiliar set of vibrant green ones.
"Tissue?" Her mother had once said she did not do well in social situations, not natural institution of when to smile, when to make small talk. Pam prided herself on that fact she was blunt, to the point. At the hesitant look she tries vaguely, "They're moist. Probably will take off that paint better than your palm."
Looking stunned (why did she keep staring at the taller woman like that? Mouth agape, opening and closing as a blush comes forth under the smudged colors adorning her cheeks.) The girl quickly offers as Pamela gets bounced with the train movement, "You can, uh, sit down if you want."
She does.
"I'm Harley, pleased to meet ya." The blonde introduces herself, taking the pack of tissues from her new acquaintance, moving too fast for the woman to blink and taking the hand previously outstretched to give the small offer in a soft handshake.
"Pamela," Says the other, looking at her own hand oddly after Harley drops it, "Pamela Isley."
"These work wonders, geez thanks." Harley dramatically slouches in her seat, her shoulder touching Pamela's shoulder even if the cab is nearly empty. "Don't know what I woulda done without ya."
"Washed it off at home?" Pamela's eyebrow raises, earning a wispy giggle from Harley.
"No thanks, Puddin' would kill me if he saw it!"
Her voice is odd. A mixture of Boston, Long Island and a helium balloon. It does not bother Pamela as much as it should.
"Puddin'?" She repeats.
"My boyfriend!" She says with a smile on her lips, but there is a flash of fear in her eyes as she speaks the title, a sort of warning sign. "He isn't really big on my gay side, he sorta doesn't know 'bout it..." She trails off, chewing her nails.
Pamela looks down at the girl's shirt, a obvious question in her head as she asks, "The shirt will not give it away?"
"Shoot!" She jumps, as if realizing that she's wearing the apparel. "Oh, crap on a cracker I'm screwed. Why'd Kitty talk me inta changing at the parade?"
Pamela doesn't like the way she curls in on herself, the way her fingers go to rough scarring around her wrists and rub circles. It does not look like the self inflicted kind.
"What's your stop?" The redhead asks suddenly.
"Two more."
"Good. You can borrow something of mine."
___
Pamela's apartment is quiet, with little potted flowers and vine-leave type plants on nearly every surface, including the floor. The kitchen is small but open to the living space, next to it two doors. Bedroom and bathroom.
Harley shuffles her feet in the enterway, watching Pamela put down her purse and make way to one of the doors,
"You really don't have ta-"
She's cut off by drawers opening out of site, followed by the taller of the two coming back and handing the blonde a simple white tee shirt.
"You may keep it." Is all Pamela says first but upon the look she receives adds, "I have many like this. They tend to stain with soil and grass and it is easier to buy in bulk."
Harley blushes, asks politely before darting off to the bathroom and leaving Pamela to carefully check all her babies are rightfully watered. As always, they are.
She returns redressed, hair down and surprisingly wavy, "Thanks again, I owe ya one."
"It is the least I can do other than remind you your socks…"
Harley dumbly looks down at her feet, grimacing at the striped socks. "Shucks, and I really liked these too."
She kicks them off and bends to pick the pair up, not seeing how Pamela turns red at her ass in the air, clad in black booty shorts.
"Uh," Harley steps closer, "You've been real nice, Red. As in your hair. It's really pretty. I'm rambling."
Pamela actually finds herself smiling, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. Harley awkward hands her socks over with another quiet thank you.
She walks the near stranger to her door, leaning out when Harley starts slowly walking backwards down the hallway. "Oh, and Harley?"
"Yup?"
"Whenever you drop that boyfriend, come over and get your socks."
The blonde laughs all the way out the building.
But shows up on her doorstep two weeks later.
They exchange looks, but the butterflies flying in between them, the spark feels electric in the space as Harley carefully asks, "Coffee?"
Pamela nods,
"Coffee."
(Harley never gets those soft, warm socks back, but they look better on Red anyway.)