Yasmin stopped as she put her hand on the door handle of Incredible Edibles. Her agent, Eddie, was gracious enough to set the meeting up for her. She questioned asking him now.

She had gotten a bit of bad publicity for her new movie lately. Of course, that was all according to plan, but she was a little nervous that her staged drunken escapades might be taken offensively by the writer and his wife, who she was visiting today.

Yas didn't connect the dots on the whole thing until Mataya, her employer at the Shanachie Theater, showed up on the set to have words with the director, bringing along her baby sister and introducing her as the writer's wife. The same baby sister Mataya mentioned to Yas as being the owner of Incredible Edibles. As if the on set introduction wasn't enough, Yas would have recognized her by the food they brought to the set that morning. Yas was familiar with the Incredible Edible menu, seeing as how she had become a regular since she first visited the place with Mataya. Of course, her visits were always incognito for the shapeshifter, who would casually come in as a brunette, a redhead, a man.

Today, she looked like herself, or at least the "herself" she became more used to during her time in Rhydin. Though her features generally stayed the same, she had distinct differences with her DJ Zazzy Yas character she played on the radio for WHAM! 101.1FM in bright sky blue skin and wild, stark white short hair, and her more ?everyday' version of a Caucasian woman with platinum blonde pixie hair. She went with the simple version today. The purple sweater, gray jeans, gunmetal grey boots, and warm yellow knit scarf were relatively tame for the wild woman, but she hoped to show the restaurant owner that she could be professional, especially since one person already lost their job on the set.

Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle and walked inside.

"Wow," Yas thought, seeing the cheerful restaurateur. She certainly wasn't expecting the warm greeting. Maybe Elena didn't read the gossip columns. That would be great. Yas could just walk in and do what she came here for, to talk to the woman that inspired her role.

It wasn't that far fetched for Yas to be able to piece it together. She read the book the movie was based on, "Rhydin Nights", and there was one insurmountable truth evident throughout the entire book, Ryan's love for Roxanne. The author had to have had those same feelings of love for someone in order to be able to portray them so accurately, so painfully, so powerfully. Seeing his pregnant wife gave Yas no doubt in her mind where Roxanne's inspiration came from.

Besides, Elena played Roxanne in the first movie, "Boston Nights". She was the reason Yas decided to use the long blonde look for her Roxanne character instead of her own signature short pixie cut. Although the shapeshifter could have easily just mimicked Elena's entire look, she choose to use her own unique facial features and body type. She wasn't just simply trying to copy Elena; she wanted to use her own interpretations of the character. She knew that sometimes people were too close to the situation to be objective. Elena seemed to be the entire drive behind Roxanne; you couldn't get any closer to that. Yas was hoping to give an outsider's perspective but she thought the best way to do that was to interview the source, the original.

Similarly stunned by the offer of free food, she said kindly, "Oh um....Surprise me." Having loved everything she had so far, Yas trusted her taste.

Walking over to a booth, she sat down facing the counter. Yas had been in the day before to eat lunch at one of the tables, disguised as a teenage boy. She wanted to study Elena; how she moved around her shop, how she interacted with her staff and guests, how she put out the foods on display. Yas figured the teenage boy route was the best way to go. One could easily attribute his occasional staring of her to hormones causing a simple crush. But today was different, she wasn't here just to observe her; she was here to talk to her, to learn more about her on a personal level.

Yas smiled at Elena's cussing. She knew immediately that she was going to like her.

"Oh, yeah, things are going a lot smoother..." Yas said, involuntarily mimicking Elena's shining smile. She stopped when she realized what she was doing. She bit her lip a moment, then said, "Jonathan's really great, doing a great job, though I'll never admit that to him....or the papers." She regretted adding that last part on. It kind of opened up the gossip magazine can of worms.

Yas was really too nervous to be paying attention to Elena studying her. If she was, she would have been on better behavior. Well, "better" being the subjective word. She would have put some effort into playing the part of an alcoholic. As she was now, as her real self, she had no indications of the alcoholic issues she and her agent staged for the photographs.

She debated changing the subject before "El", as everyone else seemed to call her, jumped on the gossip column topic, but Yas didn't want to have to dance around the issue. Better to hit it straight on. "Speaking of the columns, I, um....I don't have as much of a problem anymore..."

Ok, so she was skirting around it a little. She didn't want to just come out and say the whole truth, that would work against what she had worked so hard to build up. Everywhere she went, people were talking about the movie. She wasn't exactly proud of the route she went, but she was satisfied by the results.

Yasmin had modeled the character after her quite a bit, even down to the long, blond hair she decided to use. It was long before she made any real life connections to the character and the woman that inspired her. Yas simply wanted to use Elena as a model since she played the first Roxanne in "Boston Nights" and wanted there to be some consistency between the two parts. Although, Yas was adamant that she keep her own facial features. That was due to her own selfish reasons, though. In her role of Professor Vincent Harris-Fawkes in "Getting Over Alyson", by playing a guy, she got zero recognition for the role. To a rising wannabe star, recognition was everything. She didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

Thanking the hobbit for her lunch with a smile and a nod, she picked up her coffee with two hands and blew on it lightly.

Elena was right. She should probably make the character based on her own interpretations. But that was just the problem; she couldn't understand the premise of being an alcoholic. It wasn't that she was immune to alcohol or anything like that; it was just that she didn't care for the stuff.

Yas tried several times to get drunk just to see what it was like for the role, but she was lucky enough to get buzzed. She just hated drinking. It burned her nose and throat. Eventually, she learned if she exhaled before drinking it, it wouldn't burn as badly and she was able to take a bigger sip. But the rewards weren't even that great. At best, it was a mildly dizzying fun, like riding a tilt-a-whorl spinning ride at a carnival. But that only lasted for about a half hour at most, or well, it only lasted that long since that was as much as she could get down.

She understood it in theory. It was supposed to make people feel better, like medicine. And like medicine, it came with a price, like liver damage. It also had its own side effects that were different for each person. It made some people mean. It made others even more depressed, which was completely counter-intuitive to her.

"Yes, I wouldn't even be able to understand how it would be a constant battle," she said. She never would be able to recover if she fell into that hole, seeing as how she was around booze so much for her jobs. She still did part time guest deejay gigs every once in awhile at local bars, and sometimes WHAM would even take her out on location to a local club. She would be surrounded, and sometimes literally covered, in it some nights.

"But what I still don't quite understand is what would bring someone to that point,? she said, trying to ask without trying to pry. She wanted to know how it could build up to such a debilitating force in their lives. That sounded like a very severe thing, to have someone by killed in front of you. But it couldn't have possibly started out that bad. If so, no one would ever let it get that far. She couldn't quite connect the dots between that first sip and the extreme it could lead to.

"Too bad the book's blurb didn't sound like that," Yasmin thought, sipping lightly on a spoonful of soup while she listened. It was a lot to take in.

It wasn't that it started with just one sip. It started long before that, and was already on a downward spiral long before that first drink. It wasn't that alcoholics were trying to be self destructive; they were actually trying to get better, but the route they chose led to its own drawbacks. In Elena's case, it seemed to keep her in a numb coma that she didn't see how far she was in, until it was too late.

Yas couldn't help wonder if she was following that same path, not with alcohol, but with fame.

All she ever wanted to be was as famous as the faces she saw in radio and in the movies when she arrived in Rhydin. She broke into each area, gaining as much ground as she could, desperate for the next big break, for the next publicity stunt, for the next....fix, just like an addict. She didn't care if she hurt herself along the way, though she drew the line at hurting others. At least, she kept telling herself that. The last stunt she and Eddie pulled had Eddie calling in false quotes from the cast of the movie. Just like Elena, she only realized it when it was too late, and in print. Of course she told him she didn't want them to go down that road anymore after the fact, and he accepted her concerns. At least Eddie always respected her limits....probably only because they were so far and between.

Surprised by the fact that Elena was a child actor, Yas had quite a bit more in common her than she initially thought. She understood the pressure, and the rush, of performing at a young age. She grew up in a traveling gypsy caravan, moving from town to town. The children sang and preformed to draw in the crowds in the market squares while the women told false fortunes and the men sold snake oil potions. In reality, it wasn't so clean and simple. The children performing in the streets were pickpockets. The women weren't only reading palms but also closely analyzing which townswomen had real gemstone rings and which townsmen had real gold pocket watches. The men standing patiently, occasionally selling a bottle of false expectations, were actually scouts. They would closely watch the people learning their routines, when they went to work in the fields or their shops, when the men went to sleep with their neighbor's wife, and when their wives would slip out to sleep with the butcher. The final score was what the gypsies would make off with when the townfolk were out doing their own evil deeds. They would disappear into the forest outskirts, moving on to the next town.

Yas was taught that townsfolk were bad people, and they weren't doing anything wrong by stealing from bad people. But when they would come around towns that had been burned before by other gypsies, she could feel their hate and she didn't like feeling it. She was ashamed to be a part of them.

One day, a traveling circus came into the town they were visiting. While the gypsies were scorned by the townspeople, the circus was welcomed. Curious, she snuck off one day to see what it was all about. It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. Their fortune tellers had elaborate booths with glowing crystal balls and hovering tables. Their freak exhibits featured the scariest things she could have never imagined. Their gambling tables were glamorous and fun. When the day came that the gypsies planned to do their last score on the town before their grand escape, Yas made her own escape.

She was the little girl who ran away and joined the circus.

The Giantess took her in and soon the others accepted her, teaching her their tricks of the trade. She was disappointed to find that the glowing crystal ball and floating table were all simple mechanical and lighting tricks. It was never the same when she found out that the freak exhibit was full of fakes, like a "mermaid" that had the top half of a monkey sewed to a fish. And she felt just as disappointed in her new circus family when she learned that all of their gambling booths were fixed. But her mentor, the circus's magician, explained to her that they, unlike the gypsies, were not thieves. They were con men, yes, but they worked for everything they received. They earned their money through performance. He was right, people were always happy with the sights and sounds and everything else that the circus had to offer. She learned a lot from him and inherited his love of performing for the art which was why she was here today.

"I just have to say," Yas started, realizing she hadn't said anything yet, and in awe of the complete summary of Elena's life, "Between your chaotic childhood, your sorry excuse of a boyfriend, your supportive family, your loving husband, and the most amazing love story that inspired your baby....I am honored to play you." She probably should have said that she was honored to be playing Roxanne....but no, she meant it as she said it.

When Elena pointed out that she and Michael almost didn't happen, Yas didn't hide her surprise by almost spitting out her last bite of soup. Soon after, Yas smiled with her. She knew some of the best loves had rocky starts.

Yas wouldn't be looking into the case or the incidents that followed. She didn't go digging into anyone's past, not when she wished to keep her own private. Besides, she felt as though she already knew more than she should, just from reading the book. It only proved how incredible it was that Michael would write so much that came from their real life experiences. But at the same time, that was why the book was so amazing - because it was so real.

Elena was right, though. Yas didn't need to mimic her to be able to invest in the role.

"Yes, that's very true," Yasmin said before taking the final sip of her coffee. "But I am still very glad I came here to meet you and here about the life that inspired Roxanne from the person that lived it. Even in the book, that is Roxanne through Michael's eyes and storytelling, but to hear it from you gives it another depth. Thank you, not only for seeing me, but inviting me to your lovely establishment. The food is delicious. It's like you can taste the love and care it was prepared with. The environment is so casual and inviting, and the service is so friendly and sweet. And just seeing how you react with your staff and your customers, of all ages, I know you will just be an incredible mother."

Yas would have blushed with embarrassment from her sudden onslaught of compliments, but the shapeshifter had mastered how to control the hue of her skin long ago, though the embarrassment was still evident with a slight wince of her bright blue eyes.

Yasmin smiled and nodded, then said "Thank you? to the kind offer. Sliding out from the booth, she then stood up and began to pick up her dishes. "I would be happy to help clean up." It was the least she could do for the delicious free food and drink.

Though the offer to help clean up might have been an unusual one, Elena showed no real sign of surprise as she rose to join Yasmin, gathering her own empty plate, bowl, and cup onto one arm. "A woman after my own heart," she teased the platinum blonde bombshell warmly, jerking her head toward the counter. "Come in, then, my pretty, and get a look at the chaos behind the scenes."

Chuckling, Elena lead the way into the kitchen, offering Yas a rare glimpse into the world behind the pristine counter and affable hobbit server.

A few moments of gracefully meandering around counters and narrowly avoiding getting into Liza's way put Yas on probation. At least that's how she felt whenever the cook would glare up at her from her cooking and baking. Yas tried to take in all the sights on the mini tour, but the smells where definitely the most memorable. The deep earthy scent from the freshly baked sourdough bread, the deliciously pungent smell from the gorgonzola cheese, and the soothing aromas from the coffees brewing. And she hadn't even made her way to the desserts yet.

While Elena explained some of her favorite parts of the kitchen, Yas eagerly looked over the previously prepared desserts. Lemon drizzle cake, raspberry cheesecake, chocolate brownie, and many other tasty treats were ready to be served up.

Yas leaned over to the cook and simply offered a minor suggestion, but her idea of offering more blue desserts wasn't received as warmly as she intended. Yas could swear Liza's continuous glare got a little bit harsher as she picked up her wooden spoon. It was then when Yas thought it would be best for her to make her retreat. She thanked Elena graciously and headed back out to the dining area, though not without Elena first giving her a piece of the raspberry cheesecake to go. Yas smiled as she headed out the main door and onto the city street making her way back to her apartment in the marketplace. She would be back again, but she probably wouldn't show this particular face of her's for awhile.