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Even if it weren't best practice for vampires to look like they eat mortal people food, Eyrgjafa has a kid in her care, and that kid does need to eat mortal people food. Which has the casually-dressed centenarian weighing up two different boxes of cereal, trying to decide which to get.
Shelby doesn't exactly blend in. Despite being a normal average human, she's dressed like a 90s vampire, all black in a black trenchcoat with three silver looking religious necklaces askew on her neck. She walks at a pace best described as scampering. It's not exactly a speed walk, it's just a walk with purpose that combined with the dark bags under her eyes and her wide pupils gives the impression of some sort of feral weirdo.
She passes the cereal aisle before reversing and casually walking in. As she passes a couple of the tiny mini boxes of cereal, she extends her arm and casually knocks one into her pocket.
Shelby gets a curious look, though Eyrgjafa doesn't bother to say anything about the shoplifting. "Excuse me, do you have any idea how good either of these are? It's been a while since I ate cereal regularly, and neither of these brands were available to me at that point."
Shelby returns the look. That's a strange statement to make. She turns her head a bit as if someone is talking to her over her right shoulder ("She's probably just gluten free, ya dumbass," says Parker who is invisible and inaudible to anyone who can't see ghosts) before turning back and saying, "oh, Celiac. I gotcha."
She walks over, very delicately slapping one of those cups of instant oatmeal that you add water to into her pocket. "I mean, my taste in cereal leans to the more sweet, so I'd go with Pops over Grape Nuts."
"What? Oh, no, I'm just not from around here originally." A shrug. "These are for a teenager, so sweeter might be better." She puts the Pops box in her trolley, grabbing another as she replaces the Grape Nuts. "Thanks for the help." The second box gets dropped on top of the first as she turns to properly face Shelby, extending a hand to the other woman. "I'm Eyrgjafa, by the way."
"Hell of a name," she mutters under her breath before shaking the proffered hand. "Shelby," she says, with a weak smile. "If you need any more help, my palette hasn't changed much since I was a teen. Just got shittier options now." She shrugs and reaches into a pocket stuffed with cereal boxes to draw out a business card for Goldstein Investigations. "Also if you need any crimes solved or ghosts talked to, I'm your huckleberry."
Eyrgjafa takes the offered business card, glancing at it curiously before slipping it into an inside pocket. "Do you get many people taking you up on that? It's an unusual pitch." She doesn't seem to be mocking or anything; just genuinely curious.
She points at her pockets full of stolen cereal. "Ma'am, if people hired me, I wouldn't be stealing from a supermarket at 10:30 at night." Shelby gives the other food in her cart a once over, thinking about it from a teen's perspective. "I don't know how fortune tellers do it. They're like almost all frauds and yet they get paid enough to go through cosmetology school. I'm the real deal and here I am stealing while being watched by a hot lady with a teen sister."
"Skill. And a great deal of luck, I suppose, for the frauds." The last couple of words get a blink. "How did you know that I was shopping for a girl? I don't remember mentioning a name, or anything else that'd give that sort of thing away."
"I'm that good of a detective," Shelby lies. She took a 50-50 shot and got lucky. "So skill isn't the issue here, obviously. It's just the world being unfair to true talents like me and supporting frauds. I'll give you some more brilliant deductions if you buy me a big bag of vegetables."
Eyrgjafa nods slowly, looking somewhat mollified. She's still going to look into Shelby, of course. If the other woman knows that much without being told, she might know more worrying information. Looking Shelby up and down, she makes a pondering noise. "What kind of deductions, and how big a bag?"
"Get me like the biggest thing they're selling here of broccoli florets and I'll tell you two things about your life that I've already deduced," she says with utter self confidence. ("Hey, boss, did you actually deduce anything?" Parker says, excited) Shelby, hoping Eyrgjafa isn't paying much attention, gives the sign language for no, to no one.
"...Do you have something you're trying to tell me?" Eyrgjafa cocks her head. "Because I don't know any sign languages."
"Talking to a ghost," Shelby says, hoping the honesty there will make her seem like less of a kook in the long-run. Or at least like a kook and not a fraud when she fails in her pathetic broccoli scam. "Actually, a spirit, but the difference doesn't really matter other than to, heh, experts like me. Here's another freebie: you've never seen a ghost before."
"Are you sure about that? I could see dead people all the time, for all you know." She grins at Shelby. "Which aisle is the broccoli in? This isn't where I usually get my groceries, but, well. The other place is closed for renovations, apparently."
"I can tell by your eyes that you haven't seen any ghosts," Shelby says. The actual reason was because anyone who has seen a ghost tells her the second they see her card. "I didn't say anything about vampires. But any more deductions are going to have to wait until we hit Aisle G7 and check out."
"Oh, please. What is this, a bad gothic novel? Nobody believes in vampires." Says the actual vampire. "G7, eh?" She checks a list on her shiny new phone. "Know if it has fruit, or are those elsewhere?"
"I'm sure vampires are real. I have some good sources on their whole organization," she half-bluffs. She has some guesses and ideas but nothing to break the masquerade with yet. "Yeah, it's got fruit too. Anything you keep under those weird sprinklers that kids love for some reason."
"Uh-huh." Eyrgjafa arches an eyebrow, but doesn't pursue that topic, instead tapping away on her phone briefly before pocketing it once again. "Lead the way, I suppose."
She grabs a big bag of delicious delicious veggies and trots over to the checkout. On the walk over she takes the time to do a cold read of Eyrgjafa, hoping to get some clues for her final deductions.
Eyrgjafa pays for the items in her trolley, and anything Shelby puts on the conveyor belt at the checkout, before packing them into various reusable bags, and clearing the area for the next customer. Whenever one arrives, considering the hour. Even for 24/7 supermarkets, this late at night tends to be pretty slow. "So, what're your other deductions?"
Moment of truth time, Goldstein. She couldn't get anything just from reading her, so she had to do some actual fucking detective work. Or more accurately, just make basic guesses sound fancy. She strokes her chin in a thinking position, licks a finger to test the wind, idly mumbles "waxing gibbous" before announcing, "As a child, you never went to the dentist." This one was a pretty obvious two and two together moment. She grew up somewhere where you wouldn't recognize cereal or know where they kept fruits in a grocery store. Which means somewhere rural and impoverished. Which means no dentist. "You have to tell me if I'm right, before I do the next one."
"Wrong." She might be out of touch, but not so badly that she isn't aware someone her age and background would have had subsidised dental care as a youth. "...Do my teeth look in that bad condition?" They shouldn't - even before her Embrace, Eyrgjafa took care of them, and they're even more important now.
"Fuck!" Shelby hisses out. "Give me another shot for half the broccoli?"
"Sure thing." Eyrgjafa looks amused. "Though I'm beginning to think the bit about my sister was just a lucky guess."
"Funny you say that on account of the fact..." Shelby pauses for dramatic effect before stepping back and pointing dramatically at her. "THAT SHE'S NOT YOUR SISTER!" she shouts, hoping that the ostentation will at least warrant some veggies if her guess proves wrong. Her rationale here is that when Eyrgjafa was surprised by the sister guess she said, "how do you know I'm buying for a girl" not "for my sister". She was far less confident in this guess than the first, but she still had to have hope. Or, well, she didn't, but the overconfidence beats out her sadsackery.
"Hmmmm... half points, I suppose. Family is more than blood, after all." Especially for vampires in this city. Eyrgjafa fishes a couple of the larger florets out, passing them to Shelby. "Better luck next time."
Shelby looks down at her meagre earnings and shoves them in her oatmeal pocket. Fuck. What happened to her deductive prowess? She was normally better than this. (Parker laughs in her ear) She lets out an angry groan. "Step-sister then?" Shelby asks, staying lockstep with Eyrgjafa, "I don't suppose you want any dirt on the step-parent, do you?"
For a moment it looks as though Eyrgjafa is going to say "yes"... but then she shakes her head, sighing. "Nah. Not worth it, the arrangement we've got works fine." For now, anyway, but given that Mina's official guardians have barely noticed her absence, Eyrgjafa isn't expecting that to change any time soon.
"I assure you it's very worth it!" Shelby says, trying to upsell the best her single dot of presence will allow, "My fees are extremely reasonable and I won't upcharge you if there are ghosts, unlike most PIs! Plus photos I take will be great evidence if there's ever a divorce or a child custody battle."
"..." Eyrgjafa pauses, glancing back. "What are your fees?"
She's not kidding about her fees being reasonable. For someone who had two dead on guesses from clues gathered shopping, she probably could have charged way more. But she's charging a cut rate fee and acting like she's charging too much. It doesn't take an ace investigator to tell that she's desperate. It's almost like believing in fairy tales does bad things for your brand.
"...Look into Siobhán Westenra." Eyrgjafa retrieves her wallet from a pocket, extracting a couple of notes and handing them to Shelby. "Consider these an advance."
Shelby's eyes light up like Eyrgajafa gave her the Hope Diamond. "You are not going to regret this!" she says with a lackluster salute. "How do you want me to contact you when I have dirt?"
"I'll send you my email address." By now they've reached Eyrgjafa's car, and she pulls out the keys to unlock it, before transferring the groceries into its boot. "...You do have email, yes?"
"I'm a business owner in 2020, I have to," Shelby says, a mite indignant. "It's on the back of the card but you can also just goo-" She stops and goes bug-eyed. "Don't google me! Please whatever you do, don't google me!" she yelps out, definitely doing what she intended in deflecting suspicion and not at all making things worse.
"...Okay?" Eyrgjafa definitely arches an eyebrow at that, finishing transferring the groceries and closing the boot.
"Jesus, that came across as desperate," Shelby says, rubbing her eyes. Her temptation to double down, to come up with some bs about how there's a famous person also named Shelby Goldstein so if you google this one you get that one, but this is the first case she's had in months that isn't just spying on a cheating spouse. "I'm, fuckin' A, I was in an embarrassing youtube video. Don't watch it, it's- well it's not even that funny. Just embarrassing," she groans.
"So noted." Eyrgjafa shrugs slightly, as if she definitely isn't going to look up this youtube video the first chance she gets, now. "I'll see you around, Shelby?"
"Good. Don't," Shelby says with the most menace a dot in presence will get you, "And yeah, you will. I'll get to work tomorrow and I expect full payment once dirt has been gotten. See you then!" she dashes off and hopefully out of hearing range (but almost certainly not out of sight) starts having an animated discussion with nothing visible about how great this went. Eventually she hops into a beat to hell old honda and drives off, after the thing fails to start a few times.
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