Plastics

“So you haven’t actually seen either Metropolis, have you?”

“No, sorry.”

“We’ll need to fix that. Any interest in a double feature tomorrow?”

“It’s a date.”

Courtney stared at her phone aghast. Why the fuck did she just send that, Lauren was going to think she was flirting. Fuck, Brooke was gonna think she was flirting as soon as she saw the group text. Talk about a record for sabotaging a friendship.

So busy was Courtney panicking that it took her a moment to notice the next message to come through. From Brooke.

“See you then.”

...What the fuck was that supposed to mean?!

“Courtney.”

Courtney jumped at the voice, phone falling from her fingers to clatter against the floor. Panicked she scooped it off the ground, the moment of worry making way for relief as she failed to find any obvious cracks on the device. It was then that she remembered the voice and turned. “Sorry boss, I-” She stopped, eyes flickering over her boss in concern. ”Are you alright? You look… not good.”

That was an understatement. Sandra, a woman roughly two years Courtney’s senior looked bad, with skin both pale and clammy. Her breathing sounded labored, and her eyes stared without focus. She was hunched over, and swaying slightly side to side.

“Sandra?” Courtney tried again. No answer. She reached over to touch her boss on the arm. “Hey, are you ok-”

At Courtney’s touch Sandra sprung to life, hand wrapping around Courtney’s arm and trapping it in a vice-like grip. “Hey!”

“The transmitter,” Sandra croaked in a rough, strained tone, as though she were fighting to get every word out. “You have to destroy the-” All at once, Sandra’s demeanor changed, the woman standing straight and tall. She released Courtney. “Wagner,” Sandra reached into her pocket and handed her a set of keys. “I need you to open the store this week.”

Courtney gazed at the set of keys in her hand. “But… I’ve never opened before. And that’s too many hours!” She’d barely get her final assignment turned in on time as it were.

“You have your orders,” Sandra intoned, then turned and started walking away. 

“Wait,” Courtney called after her, “What was that about a transmitter?” But her boss didn’t answer, and soon enough the other woman was out of sight.

‘I need less hours, not more!’ Courtney was of half a mind to clock out and leave right then and there, consequences be damned - but she needed the job, and couldn’t afford to quit, not now that there was only one income covering the apartment, not this close to fucking Christmas - 

She was interrupted from thoughts when the faint sound of screaming reached her. Alarmed, Courtney followed it, quickly coming to the front of the store. There, a dozen feet away from the entrance a crowd of people stood all gazing down over the glass barricade that ringed the malls’ hollow center. Filled with a sudden sense of forbidding, Courtney pushed her way through the crowd to look over the edge.

Sandra gazed back lifelessly from the food court floor.

–

Lauren and Brooke remained silent as Courtney finished relating her story, only moving to sit beside her. Each reached out to take a hand and give it a squeeze. For a moment, Courtney almost believed that it was a different pair, each blonde, comforting her so, but the moment was quick to fade.

“Jesus fuck Courtney,” Brooke muttered. “I’m not even gonna ask if you’re alright because God knows I wouldn’t be.”

“Yeah,” Courtney let out a harsh little laugh at that. “Yeah I’m pretty far from alright.”

“I can imagine.” Lauren agreed. “Actually, no I can’t. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling. Do they know why she…” she trailed off, but it was obvious what she had been about to say, and Courtney shook her head in the negative.

“Suicide rates skyrocket at Chrismas time,” Brooke mused. “So much extra pressure from different sources… she didn’t sound well, from what you described.”

“She didn’t seem well,” Courtney admitted. “Fuck. I just keep thinking about it, wondering if there was something I could have - should have done. I was just so upset about the keys...”

“What’s going to happen with that? Are you going to be opening the store?”

Courtney nodded. “I talked to my boss’s boss. They can’t get a new manager out this close to Christmas so… the store’s closed tomorrow to give us all a chance to mourn or whatever, but then they want me to open until Christmas. There’s a backup keyset that another employee is going to use to close.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m gonna need to figure out a new bus schedule…”

“One of us can drive you,” Brooke interjected. “It’s only till Christmas.”

“Thank you.” She meant it. “What are you two doing for that, anyway? Visiting family?”

Both of the other women’s faces darkened at that question. “My parents don’t recognise me,” Lauren explained. “They have a problem with me, as I am.”

“And my folks… well, they preferred me having a boyfriend, if you can believe it.”

Courtney could. Her own parents were homophobes of the highest order, and hadn’t spoken to her since she and Taylor had first gotten together. So for both Lauren and Brooke to have parents who couldn’t live with their daughter being gay (or bi, at least in Brooke’s case)...

Yeah. She could believe it.

“Let’s do something here then,” Courtney suggested. “Unless you two had plans on your own?” Shit, what if they did have plans of their own, and here Courtney was trying to invite herself like some kind of parasite-

“Like dinner and a movie? I'm always up for that. Brooke?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Courtney wiped at her eyes. If any tears came loose, neither other woman said anything. “That'd be awesome. Hey, speaking of movies, how about we get started with that marathon?”

Lauren and Brooke glanced at one another. “I’m not sure we should do Metropolis tonight,” Lauren admitted. “There’s a scene where a character sort of…” She raised one hand flat and pantomimed the other falling off it.

 “Oh.”

“We have a lot of other stuff we can watch though,” Brooke suggested. “Ever see Planet of the Apes ?”