hello! I would appreciate if you'd let me know what you think at the end! Also, if you have a prompt you'd like me to write, I'd be happy to oblige! Thanks!
Edwards sure was going to get it... Why, out of all the cheap, lousy ways to discriminate her, he had a bound book of them. It was like a scrapbook, the way he shot Lana down. She should have been more persistent. She should have refused to leave his office until he gave her a story of worth. Two years into college, and she was still answering the phone for The Herald.
Lana swept her hand across the desk, slopping her belongings into her purse like she was tossing mud into it instead of crumpled dollar bills and lost-cause notes. There was nothing she loathed more than being a secretary while the newspaper went on around her. She answered calls from the office located just west of campus; most were petty conversations, which of course, she sighed through. Lana Winters wasn't meant for a desk job. It made her feel like she was living on a shelf. For God's sake, this was 1952.
The phone jingled in its socket, just another reminder of her pathetic office job, but she swiped her purse in one hand, leather bound portfolio in the other, and began to exit.
"Aren't you gonna get that, Winters?" A colleague, one Lana disliked particularly, Thomas, hissed while holding his hand on the receiver of his phone. Lana rolled her eyes, despising his thinning hair that might have been blonde once, swinging her purse on her shoulder in an almost too ladylike fashion.
"I'm off the clock." Asshole. She added silently, turning on her heel to exit the office. It wasn't a very big one - after all, The Herald was a small newspaper and she was lucky to have a job in college at all, but she was itching for something more. She could barely stand swiveling in her desk chair all day, watching the world go by. She wanted to be someone; all her life she'd dreamed of Lana Winters being a household name, and it had been hard enough to get a secretary job for a local newspaper. But her fingernails clawed at her wrists, a bead of sweat trickled down her neck at the notion of a story. Uncovering nitty gritty details was her calling, and no matter how far down she started on the latter, by God, she would pull herself up wrung by wrung.
The door jingled shut behind her. She hated the sound of that door - it was much too cheerful for her mood. She'd been answering calls for the likes of Gerald Edwards, the head of the paper, for nearly four months now, and the mere sound of anything having to do with his name made her queasy. He was a roundish man with a head of wiry black hair, and he was always yelling "Winters!" left and right. She was beginning to forget her first name was Lana around this place.
This morning, she'd marched into his office with determination in her eyes, her stupid, naiive eyes. Lana had already made up her mind weeks ago that this day would come, but she'd finally mustered up enough courage (and not to mention office hours) to face Edwards directly.
"You're good at what you do." Lana knew he'd say that. Of course he would. Damn...
"Sir, I've been sitting in that chair so long, I'm not even sure I remember how to walk anymore. I'm going to have to ask you to reconsider." When Lana was nervous, she tugged at the tweed hem of her skirt. She did so now as she stomped down the sidewalk; the weather was hazy, impossibly humid. Perfect, she could fumigate her anger.
Edwards laughed. He sounded like a sick mule when he laughed, so Lana had coughed to cover up her own snort. "Winters, I didn't hire another reporter. I hired someone to file my paperwork and pour my coffee. Hell, I didn't even need that, I was just so damn sick of all the pricks strutting around the office with their pants unzipped. Thought it might straighten them up if I hired a - female." Lana remembered that by that time, she'd begun to pull at her collar. Her toes had gone numb. Edwards didn't exactly have the foolish charm most girls were looking for these days.
"I swear, Mr. Edwards, I have a story in me if you'd just give me one chance. Please. I've got to get out into the world - that's why I applied to your ad in the first place. I thought you might - be low on staff, and eventually I'd be able to report for The Herald."
"Look, Winters," Lana scoffed. He was such a hypocrite. She thought this as her heels assaulted the sidewalk. "I can't let you out in the field. It's too dangerous. You know what happened to Phillips? Nearly tackled by police less than a few weeks ago - what would have happened if that had been you?"
"I would have gotten right back up, sir." Lana set her jaw.
Edwards had rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair to scratch his cheek. "I don't know what more you want from me. Either you type up drafts and answer the phone, or you find another newspaper that'll be less - accommodating."
He had sinister eyes. No, he didn't understand women at all, especially not Lana.
"Have I made myself clear?"
Screw Edwards, what did he know? The man didn't know the first thing about the world they lived in - he was more concerned with "stock market" and "college football" than what was truly going on in the world. If she had the first chance, she'd deck him across the face good - he always had the godawful idea that everyone woman was deathly in love with him. His conceited brain was all strawberry malt all piled up with melty whip cream and fucking -
"Oof!"
Lana's bound portfolio went sailing from her arms, colliding with the sidewalk. Her elbow suddenly wrung with pain as she realized she'd whacked it agains another's - another woman's paper grocery sacks had gone splat all over the sidewalk; what looked like a crumpled box of corn flakes, an abused loaf of bread, a half gallon glass bottle of milk that lay broken on the sidewalk, chugging the white liquid into the sidewalk cracks.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Lana cried, crouching and beginning to gather what could be salvaged of the trampled greens in her arms.
"No, I should be sorry!" The other woman exclaimed, hands dripping with the spilled milk as the already broken bottle slid from her hands again, rattling in the sidewalk. "I wasn't paying attention, I -"
"No, it's -" Lana paused, rolling her eyes up slowly to the eyes of her victim. For the first glimpse, suddenly, she forgot why she was angry in the first place. Her soft doe eyes already stared at her - stared, she realized was too harsh of a word. Admired. There was a glossy warmness to her brown eyes, a gold tint that flickered in the unseasonably hot night. She crouched as well, her dripping hands propped on her knobby knees, and humid pieces of her brown curls tumbled into her face without dry hands to brush them away.
"I wasn't watching where I was going." Lana finished, grasping for one of the I damaged paper grocery bags with shaking hands, shoving the greens into them. The other woman giggled lightly, carefully placing the other worse-for-ware items in the bag. The rest of the milk had escaped the cracked jug and was inching towards them. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She was so forgiving. Her crooked smile lit up the humidity - it might have lit the cloudy sky ablaze. "I saved most of it, no problem."
Lana rose, holding tightly to the crumpled grocery sack. "I'll buy you some more milk."
"Oh, I couldn't think of letting you. After all, you've been through an ordeal too." She smiled again, wiping her hands on the front of her yellow blouse. She held out Lana's leather bound portfolio, giving a soft and breathy huff. "I believe this is yours."
"Oh, uh," Lana shifted the groceries in her arm, "Trade ya."
"Thanks." She carried the bag out in front of her instead of on her hip, her shoes scuffing the ground with each step. Lana walked beside her, strolling nonchalantly. "I'm really sorry, again. Goes to show, I shouldn't do my shopping last minute." She paused, looking towards Lana almost shyly. "I'm Wendy."
"Lana." She extended her hand, only to realize Wendy could not shake while carrying her grocery bag. "Can I help you carry those or something?"
Wendy shifted the grocery bag to her other arm and shook her head, chocolate curls bobbing as she did so. She was a mousy woman, so loose and hint she appeared fragile, and her ears stuck out. Her lips were in the shape of a shell. "I'll be fine. Walk me to my bike? It's just down the block."
Lana nodded. It was the least she could do - after all, if she'd been paying more attention, they wouldn't have collided in the first place. "Why'd you park your bike so far away from the store?" Every now and then, she visited the supermarket herself. Lana hated to admit it, but she often forgot to eat, and when she remembered, she was ravenous. But she found herself wondering why Wendy would rather walk her heavy groceries all the way down the block.
"Oh, you know..." Wendy sighed, making a whistling sound between her lips. "Why not enjoy the last few nights of summer before school starts up again? It's a beautiful night, isn't it?"
"It is." Lana half fibbed. She didn't know why the other woman could find beauty in a cloudy, humid night. She walked her to her bike, which was propped against the post office wall. There was a basket on the back, and Wendy carefully placed the bag in the bed, walking her bike slowly beside Lana silently.
"Are you sure you don't want me to replace your milk?"
"I mean, if your life depends on it." Wendy smirked, and Lana couldn't tell whether she was joking or being serious.
"I should be heading back towards my dorm." Lana turned to leave, sighing internally and externally. Her roommate hated her guts, she knew. Not because she was a bad person, but she was constantly typing instead of socializing and that apparently was "intolerable", as she told her friends. Lana didn't mind - her dorm was a place to sleep, and she didn't do much of that these days, so it didn't matter what her money was paying for.
"Wait," Wendy lopsidedly grabbed her hand whileholdong onto one nike handle, yanking her back with surprising force. Lana's pulse fluttered in her neck. "What were you storming away for? I'm sure you couldn't be stomping away from the laundrymat, because if that's true, I've got plenty of quarters." She grinned - her teeth were surprisingly perfect, in a weird way.
"I-" Lana began, contemplating the stranger. Well, she wasn't a stranger exactly. They attended the same college, after all, but she'd never seen her before. Perhaps she was new this semester. Lana never paid much attention to her classmates.
"Are you hungry?" Wendy let go of her wrist and shuffled her bike from side to side, adjusting. "We could go somewhere - I mean, I owe you, I got milk all over your binder." She frowned, eyeing Lana's leather folder, which was tucked under her arm.
Lana had been so distracted with trying to seperate the asymmetry of Wendy's crooked, brunette curls, but she cleared her throat and refocused. "There's nothing important in there, but you'll have to let me buy you dinner. It might make up for the milk."
There was a small diner on campus called Curly's; Lana had been once or twice, but only for the black coffee. The diner was all hours and whenever she found herself falling asleep while working in the middle of the night, she wobbled down the street to drink a coffee. The place was usually deserted, but at five o'clock on a Friday evening, there was a small crowd. A few boys dressed in varsity jackets, undoubtedly straight out of high school. Two girls sitting across from each other gabbing about who-knows-what. There were other people, but Lana didn't pay close attention.
Before Lana could breath a word about black coffee, Wendy ordered two strawberry shakes and leaned her chin into her hands. Her grocery bag sat next to her in the seat and Lana sat across from her, her portfolio in her lap.
"I'm really sorry." Lana insisted, tapping her nails on the glazed table, listening intently to the music emmenating from the jukebox. Tuxedo Junction reminded her of high school.
"Don't even mention it again. It's old news!" Wendy tapped her toe under the table, taking a sip of her pink milkshake when the waiter set it before her. A speck of whip cream stuck to her nose, and she brushed it off. "Can I ask you something, Lana?"
"Well," Lana didn't touch her milkshake. "Shoot." The diner was semi-noisy - sometimes being in the office all afternoon made her forget what real noise sounded like. Office bustle was different, ambient. Nothing but the clack clack of type writers, the ring ring of telephones and the occasional conversation. No one talked unless they had to. There was another student who worked there, Nathan, who was studying medicine and reporting for The Herald in his spare time. He was nice enough, and he often brought her lunch, but Lana barley talked to anyone else there.
"What was making you so upset?" Wendy's lashes brushed her skin as her eyes rolled up. "I know it probably isn't isn't my place to wonder, but..."
"But what?"
"You just... Seemed really vexed. I could see it in your eyes."
Curious, Lana met eyes with her. Her insides suddenly felt like they were jumbled around like gossamer cotton candy. "What did it look like?"
"Scorn." Wendy giggled and stirred her straw in her milkshake, pushing down the frozen strawberries. "What's got your panties in a jumble, Lana?"
Lana grimaced. "Oh, just some issues with a job."
"Where do you work?"
Lana glanced out the large lass paneled wall. The street lamps flickered in the hazy heat; the air outside hung like a gloss, but fans whirred on the ceiling above, creating a balmy cool that cured the sweat on the back of Lana's neck. "The Herald. You know, the local newspaper. I'm a secretary."
"Interesting. You must hear about the news stories before they're printed! You know, I walked in there once - just once, I was lost a couple weeks ago."
"You didn't miss much, it's a shitty job." Scoffing, Lana stared at the vanilla film that had formed over her untouched milkshake. She realized Wendy might be bewildered by her sudden language, but she seemed unfazed. "But I guess I shouldn't complain." Damn Edwards. Lana had to admit that she only really hated him because he was right, at least in a sense. She wouldn't get a better position at any other paper, if any at all. Edwards made her believe she was lucky to answer his phone.
"You don't like it?" Wendy tilted her head to the side, her wavelets of hair tumbling to one side of her neck. "What about it?"
Lana tasted her milkshake cautiously. It had begun to melt and the whip cream was wilted, but it cooled the simmering anger inside of her. "Edwards is an asshole. He'd never let me get my two cents in, even if I served it on a olden platter. He hates women - well, I'm not too sure, but he surrounds himself by men and uses women like ants. They line up at his desk and present him gifts but never expect anything back." She paused realizing how she was rambling. Embarrassed, Lana pulled at her collar. "The second I ask for anything back, he threatens my job..."
"Wait," Wendy shifted in the seat, licking the ice cream from her lips. Lana watched with interest. "This Edwards... What did you ask him?"
Lana cracked her knuckles, huffing. "I want a story. When I applied for the job, I thought I might - I might eventually be able to report for The Herald instead of answer phone calls and type useless articles."
Wendy leaned forward, grinning. "You want to be a reporter? I admire that, so much. Look at all the places you could go, the things you could see? Not to mention squeezing into tight spaces. Women seem to be so inconspicuous to others nowadays."
How Wendy understood that, Lana wasn't sure, but the hint of a smile tugged at her own lips. She frowned again in spite of it. "Edwards has about as much class as a lollipop. He'd rather sit me back down where I belong. But I don't want to belong there."
"You don't." Wendy shook her head and twirled a piece of her hair between two fingers, slurping up the last of her milkshake. "Maybe he's wrong. You do belong out in the field."
Lana blushed. "What are you studying?"
"Me? Oh, I don't know. Really, I don't. There are lots of things I want to do." Her eyes rolled down to the linoleum table; Lana could immediately tell she didn't like talking about herself much.
"Like what ?"
Wendy smiled again. Lana's heart fluttered. "I've always loved science. You know, having an explanation for it all. Everything. I want to learn it all - my mother always said I was like a sponge, absorbing everything the way I do. But mi want to teach people - kids, young people,they're so innocent and I have so much to teach them. It's a tough decision. So I'm sort of studying a little of everything."
Lana couldn't help but laugh at her wishywashy speak. It was charming in a way, as was the way Wendy smiled and rolled her eyes down to glance at Lana's hands as if they were doing something more interesting than protecting her warped portfolio.
"What's in there, anyway?" Wendy questioned suddenly. Damn, it was as if she'd read her mind. "You folder, I mean. Not to be nosy. Okay, to be a little bit nosy." She chuckled.
"Oh, it's nothing important." Lana lied, tapping her fingers on the glass. The portfolio was full of newspaper clippings and secretly typed documents - not everything she wrote were self-help advice columns written by mediocre journalists, or shitty little college sports articles. There was a story brewing inside Lana Winters, and she cared to keep that storm at bag for now. "Just - work..."
"Oh, come on Lana, you've been attached to that thing since we met. It must be something important." Wendy insisted. Her expressions danced across her features, creating the illusion that the excitement bounced back and forth between her eyes, prim lips, and flush cheeks. Or maybe not such an illusion.
Luckily, before Lana could stutter an answer to her counterpart, they were interrupted by a waitress, who took her order. She noticed the way Wendy smiled, the way she treated people kindly. She regretted being an ass to Thomas for a moment, but on,he because of how sweet Wendy was to a stranger.
"Can I..." She started, glancing towards Lana's eyes momentarily, then back towards the portfolio sitting across the table. "Can I read it?"
Lana never let anybody read anything she wrote unless it was published, which was close to never. She was very private, as she always had been. Her parents sent her off to a religious university to hopefully steer her in the right direction. Lana wasn't a dummy. She understood. So she had become secretive over the years, confiding in only her writing. She sighed closing her eyes momentarily for longer than a blink.
"Okay."
Wendy held the papers very close to her eyes. She might need glasses, Lana assumed, or she had some at home. Her eyes scanned the disorganized pages with interest, sometimes disgust, and a giggle or two escaped her lips now and then. It took her nearly an hour to go through everything - typed word by word, Lana's own large and messy handwriting. She'd been gathering information for weeks now - secretary work called for a lot of free time.
"Lana." Wendy bit a French fry in half, chewing thoughtfully. Something in her eyes had changed. Damn it, I shouldn't have let her read it. It's private, anyway. "This is - this is phenomenal. Is it all true? The papers have been stalling for an article about that knife killer for weeks, you - you did this all on your own?"
Lana nodded into her second cup of coffee, bearing a smile.
Wendy laughed, leaning back. "What are you?"
"I'm a reporter."
"Obviously. The editor's a twit if he doesn't see a story in you." Wendy paused, tugging on her own curly hair again. "I can't believe you haven't been published."
"Men will never think of allowing a woman to succeed on her own." Lana sighed, shaking her head. "I'm surprised my parents paid my college tuition in the first place. I should be making love and having babies by now."
Wendy grabbed her hand suddenly, shaking her head, dark eyes urgent and warm. "No, you don't need that. Women never need that. You're going to be a reporter one day, Lana. I just know it. You've got plenty of stories in you."
Lana blushed and her lashes brushed against her reddish cheeks. An inkling of butterflies bloomed in her stomach, and for a moment, a warmth radiated from Wendy's very normal hand. "Come on, I'll walk you home to your dorm." For some reason, she could t bear to part with Wendy yet. There was an heir around her, which caused shortness of breath, weakness, which Lana somehow enjoyed.
She left money on the counter and Wendy retrieved her bike, dumping her wilted grocery bags into the back basket. Wendy walked the bike and Lana strode beside her. They spoke of nothing in particular, walking very slowly between laughs and playful pokes. Wendy would have made a lovely friend in high school.
Lana learned that she'd grown up about twenty miles outside of Boston, the same as she had. She had one sister, Lily, whom she adored and spoke fondly of. Her parents were Christians and never missed a day of church.
"I love my parents, but you know - I don't really like that whole God scene. They're hypocrites, the lot of them. They'd rather have Bible barbecues and gossip than really talk about The Lord. Mom's one of those, too." Wendy scuffed her toe on the sidewalk. "She'll barely listen to me when I mention evolution. Darwin was a genius, and she takes it as mumbo jumbo. Strange, isn't it? How people loathe things they'll never understand?"
Even the things that could never possibly hurt them. Lana added silently, and Wendy parked her bicycle in the rack outside her dorm room, gathering her groceries.
"It was nice to meet you, Lana." Wendy smiled again, and Lana suddenly felt weak in the knees, a sick puppy. "I don't even mind you spilled my milk and all." She winked and turned to go.
"Wait!" Lana called, and Wendy wheeled around, skirt swinging at her knees.
"Yeah?"
Lana tugged at her blouse, gnawing on the insides of her cheeks. "I - I, Wendy, I think you'd make an excellent teacher."