Summary: When the Gang can't make rent, Dee comes up with a way to get out of debt.
Notes: This was originally written as a submission for the Always Sunny Big Bang.
12:43 P.M.
On a Friday
Philadelphia, PA
"Alright, payday!"
The Gang held out their hands, palms up, eagerly anticipating their paychecks. Frank walked down the line distributing them like he was loathe to see the checks go. They couldn't open the envelopes fast enough.
Once they got them open, every face fell, each person letting out the familiar sighs and groans of underpaid employees everywhere.
"This is bullshit!" Mac exclaimed. "Total bullshit! I worked twice the hours last week and I'm getting paid even less!"
"What can I do?" Frank said. "We didn't turn a profit last week. We didn't even break even."
"Are you just fucking with us, Frank?" Dennis asked. "Or are we really bleeding cash so bad you have to pay us less than the less-than minimum wage you were already paying us? My rent is due, man, and last I checked, yours was considerably less."
"You think I want you assholes complaining all the time about fair wages? If we don't get some more customers in here we're totally out of business, and then where would I hang out and drink all day?"
"We gotta come up with a plan," Charlie said. Snapping his fingers, he blurted, "Uh...uh...Cat gloves! Door to door recycling! Door to door oil salesmen!"
Mac blinked. "Those sound very familiar."
"Lobster catching! Public radio!"
"Stop naming things," Dennis said, annoyed.
"Singing contest!"
"Shut up, Charlie!" Dee snapped. "Frank, can I talk to you alone for a sec?"
Frank and Dee stepped out of earshot while Charlie continued rattling off slightly tweaked old schemes.
"What is it? We were in the middle of something."
"My rent, Frank. My landlord keeps bugging me about it."
"And why the hell should I care?"
"You're the person," Dee whispered, "who has been paying my rent for...for...Well, um, always."
"I had to cut you off sometime, and besides, you're almost 40. What the fuck is wrong with you? You keep mooching off me and we ain't even related. And Dennis gets by just fine."
"Dennis has a roommate."
"Then get a roommate. How 'bout Artemis? What ever happened to her?"
"How should I know?" Dee said shrilly. "You were the one who was fucking her!"
"The point is, you gotta make some sacrifices."
"Oh, like this bullshit pay cut?" Dennis cut in. Dee's cheeks turned bright red. She wondered how long he'd been listening.
"I already told you we don't got the money," Frank said. "So shut your mouths and open the damn bar." Frank went into the back office and shut the door, grumbling about ungrateful brats.
"You heard the man. Get to work!" Dennis barked, interrupting Mac and Charlie's brainstorming session. ("No, no, we aren't putting any heroin up our asses." "Who said anything about heroin?")
"Well I'm not taking this shit lying down," Dee said. "My rent's overdue and there's no way I can wait another week for another measly hundred bucks."
"A hundred dollars? Really?" Mac said in disbelief. "You are a terrible fucking waitress."
"Shut up," Dee said. "I've got a plan."
Some silence passed while the three men waited for Dee to reveal it.
"You don't have a plan at all, you melodramatic ostrich," Dennis said.
"Oh, but I do. Who here is up for something risky? Something that requires careful planning and could be dangerous?"
Dennis smirked and Mac nodded soberly. Charlie bounced on his barstool, pumped up for action.
"Who here is good at disguises?" Dee asked.
Charlie raised his hand. "Me! Me, me, me!"
"Consider what you're agreeing to, Charlie," Mac said. "This is Dee we're talking about. For all you know, she could be trying to sell that guava shit again."
"You know D'Antonio & Klein on Sansom Street?" Dee said.
Dennis burst into laughter.
"You can't be serious!"
Glaring at him, Dee said, "I thought this kind of stuff would be right up your alley."
"What stuff?" Mac asked. "What am I missing?"
"Oh, it is," Dennis said. "But I bet your hundred dollar paycheck that Mac and I can think of a better way to make rent and actually pull it off. By Monday."
"You're on!"
"What's happening right now?" Charlie asked.
"I'm not sure," said Mac, "but I think we just got dragged into some kind of brother-sister pissing contest."
"Come on, Charlie," said Dee, breezing past the guys and out the door. "We're gonna rob a jewelry store."
xxx
Charlie and Dee Become Jewel Thieves
xxx
"I gotta be honest, Charlie," Dee said, on the way to her apartment. "We can't hit up D'Antonio & Klein."
"You bet Dennis you could. You gotta put your money where your mouth is."
"Uh-uh, I said 'jewelry store.' Plans change."
"Fine, who do you want to hit instead?"
Dee was silent, considering. Then she said, "Someplace with no cameras."
"Everybody's got cameras these days. That's why we're gonna wear disguises."
"Ugh, you're right. Well, we definitely can't go to Sansom Street. We'd be too exposed. There's like twenty jewelers there and tons of cops."
Pulling up to her apartment, Dee had an epiphany.
"Bella Vista."
"Where the hell is Bella Vista?"
"Here! We're in it. Didn't you know that?"
"I grew up in Dickinson, Dee. I don't know all these fancy neighborhoods."
The pair climbed the stairs to Dee's apartment.
"You don't think it's a bad idea stealing from someplace so close to our hideout?" Charlie asked.
"'Our' hideout?"
"Shouldn't we rob someplace further away so they can't track us down?"
Dee unlocked the door, groaning in frustration.
"I know what I'm doing, Charlie." Once inside, Dee threw her keys on the chest by the door and made a beeline for the fridge. She pulled out a beer, neglecting to grab one for Charlie. She took a swig, then said with a grin, "Let's get started."
Charlie sat on Dee's couch drinking beer, watching a spectacle he had never witnessed and never wanted to again.
Dee ran back and forth between her bedroom and the living room trying on various outfits, demonstrating a number of terrible accents. The worst was a member of British royalty; the second worst was a tourist from Boston.
"That's a Brooklyn accent, Dee," Charlie said.
Dee tried to reshape her a's and r's slightly differently, but the damage to Charlie's ears had already been done.
"Why can't you just be some chick from Philadelphia looking for a new necklace 'cause you feel like it?"
"Because I am some chick from Philadelphia. It's too obvious."
Charlie stood up and walked to the kitchen, stepping on clothes and props Dee had left on the floor. He grabbed a bag of chips and between bites he said, "If you don't stand out, they won't be able to recognize you. They'll be all like, 'Uhh, she was just some chick. White, blonde, Philadelphia accent,' and the cops'll be like, 'There's a million people here meeting that description.' It'll be harder to find you. These are terrible chips."
"They're Wheat Thins."
"Wheat? Ugh! Point is, you need to sound local. Maybe put on some big sunglasses that cover half your face. Wear some nicer clothes."
"You're stepping on them!"
Charlie stepped aside so Dee could pick them up and dust them off. She sighed in relief his sneaker had missed her white shirt.
"What about your character?" Dee asked. "Show me some ideas."
It was Charlie's turn to display his talent at accents, and he did his best to utilize Dee's clothes for his own costumes.
"Those are all incredibly obvious and terrible."
"Yeah, but Dee, I'm not the one palming the necklace. I'm the distraction! I've got to be as distracting as possible!"
"Yeah, but not recognizable! You can't be a pirate or a gangster or Green Man..."
"It's better with the bodysuit."
"No."
"All eyes would be on me."
"It's gotta be believable," Dee said, picking up everything they'd left on the floor and taking it to her bedroom. "You said it yourself. I've been thinking a lot about it instead of paying attention to this freak show."
"Who are you calling a freak? I had to watch your own parade of shitty ideas."
"What do professionals do, hmm? They do something believable like-"
Charlie grinned and said, "How about a heart attack?"
Dee's smile matched his own until she thought about it.
"You barely noticed me having one," she said. "And I could have died, you ignorant fucks!"
"That's all water under the bridge, Dee. I could have one like they have in the movies." Charlie clutched his chest and fell to his knees. "My heart! Euugh!"
Dee shook her head. "No, no, they'll insist you go to the hospital if you do that. What's similar that doesn't require a trip to the hospital?"
After a little while, both of them said at once, "Seizure!"
Sometime later, Dee and Charlie were peering at Dee's laptop reading about epilepsy.
"Get this. It says not to call a known epileptic an ambulance."
"Why's that?"
"'Cause they have them all the time, duh," Dee said. "You could always say you're epileptic, thank them for their help, and book it out of there."
"You sure about this?"
"I'll be trying on the necklace, the clerk will get distracted by the commotion, I'll palm the merchandise, say I'll run and get help, and then just never come back. Hopefully they won't notice the necklace is gone until I'm far enough away to change clothes and disappear."
"Disappear? What are you, magic?"
"As far as they're concerned, I'm a ghost," Dee said with a smug grin.
"Just make sure you don't take off those glasses."
Dee frowned, slamming the laptop shut.
"What am I, some kind of idiot?"
The bell above the door jingled and a woman in a large black sun hat and sunglasses that covered most of her face entered. She was clad in a faux fox-fur stole and a clingy red dress. Imitation Louis Vuittons adorned her feet with a gold "Gucci" bag to match. She looked the picture of high fashion, if she had just walked out of 1991.
Customers milled around the store trying on pieces that lay out and admiring the ones locked in their glass cases. The clerk, Sara - in actuality, the store's manager - looked up and watched the woman saunter (she actually sauntered, and Sara hadn't known what that looked like until this moment) over to the counter and clear her throat.
"Hello," she said. "I'm looking for a necklace."
"Then you've come to the right place."
Some time later, after the woman had been shown nearly every necklace in the shop, she asked about the more expensive items. She said she had tried the shops uptown but was visiting a friend in Bella Vista, wanted to take a look around, and wandered into the shop. Which seemed to contradict with the very intentional way the woman got right down to business.
The woman's mouth gaped at the last item - a 14k diamond choker - and instead of cringing when she saw the price, she smiled even wider.
"Can I try it on?" she asked.
"Of course."
Just then, a man entered the shop. Short with a beard, he wore a brown blazer, white shirt, jeans with a large gold buckle, and a cowboy hat. Sara didn't give him much thought, since she was focused on the woman in fur. The woman was struggling to see her reflection properly in the mirror.
"Try taking off those glasses," Sara said, and she did so; the delight on her face was even more evident without them. Sara thought she looked somewhat familiar.
"This will do nicely," she said. After a beat, she repeated, more loudly, projecting over her shoulder. "This will do nicely."
"Yes, it certainly will," Sara started to say, but a loud commotion in the corner drowned her out.
"Oh, oh I feel like I'm gonna-Bleeeuggghhh!"
The bearded man in the cowboy hat collapsed to the floor, convulsing. Customers backed away in shock, and Sara reacted right away. She had never seen a seizure in person before and rushed to the man's side.
"Give him room!" Sara told the bystanders. "Someone get me a pillow, or something to put behind his head."
"I'll go get help!" a voice said, and Sara was so worried a customer might die or severely injure themselves in her shop that she didn't take note of who it had been. It wasn't until the man stopped convulsing that she really looked around the shop to see the woman in fur was gone.
"What the hell happened?" the man asked, sitting up.
"Oh, thank God you're alright! Do I need to call an ambulance?"
"No, no, I-I should be okay, so you can just..."
"Can I get you some water? Do you have any medication you should take? For epilepsy, or-"
The man tried to climb to his feet, rising on unsteady legs. He sat back down.
"Oh, um, I left it at home. That's...that's probably why this happened, actually. Sometimes I forget. After so many seizures, my memory's pretty much shot."
"I'm so sorry," Sara said, though she wasn't sure why she was apologizing. "I'll get you that glass of water."
The man replied, "You're too kind," and she got up to fetch a bottle of water from the back room. On the way, she noticed something.
The necklace was gone.
Congratulating himself on a successful mission, Charlie exited the shop and took a left. As he was walking past the nearby Starbucks he bumped right smack into Dee.
Somehow, she was more upset than he was, and for all the wrong reasons.
"What the hell were you thinking, Charlie? I thought we were meeting up back at the apartment?"
"What the hell was I-What the hell were you? I found you two doors down ordering a frappa-mocha-chino..."
"Mocha Frappuccino."
"...with a $15,000 bracelet in your purse..."
"$1,500 necklace."
"...when you should be booking it outta here as fast as possible."
"Okay, Charlie, look," Dee said. "You're right, I should have headed straight home. But who's really the asshole here, right now? You are. Because you are drawing attention to us."
While she was saying this, Charlie glanced past Dee's shoulder. "Oh, shit," he said.
"What is it?" Dee whispered. "Cops? Have you attracted the cops, you dick?"
"No. Worse."
Dee looked behind and saw the store's manager, who she'd been chatting with moments earlier, walking towards them. Not with any urgency, but swiftly enough to spot the two of them in a few more seconds.
"Go, go, go!" Dee said.
Dee dropped her Frappuccino, sun hat, and fur stole in a trash can. She grabbed Charlie's cowboy hat ("Hey!") and chucked it in as well. The pair powerwalked down the block - Dee doing the best she could in heels - until they found an alcove they could hide in.
"Maybe we should make out," Charlie said. "So she doesn't see our faces."
"Maybe you should shut up."
The jeweler walked right past the alcove, but with their backs turned, Dee and Charlie were unrecognizable.
When the danger seemed to have passed, the pair ducked their heads out and looked up and down the street. The jeweler was nowhere to be seen.
"Where'd you park?" Charlie asked.
"You remember where I parked. You were there."
"Oh, right. You parked kinda far, too. With no escape-"
"We can always just change our clothes."
"Too risky. With no escape, we gotta sit and wait it out somewhere."
Dee thought leaving Charlie behind and taking the car would be a far better plan than whatever Charlie was thinking, but hiding out might be a good excuse to get a drink.
"There's an Indian restaurant right over there we could hide in."
"Perfect!"
"This isn't what I had in mind," Dee said. She was standing beside Charlie at the mouth of a shadowed alleyway between two restaurants.
"Shh! Quiet!"
"Don't tell me what to do!"
The kitchen doors were open just enough to allow the smell of food to waft their way. Dee detected the scent of hamburgers from one kitchen and what might be chicken vindaloo from the other. The scents masked the smell of garbage spilling from the dumpster at the end of the alley. That is, until Charlie took Dee's hand and dragged her closer.
"We gotta hide in the dumpster."
Dee twisted out of Charlie's grip.
"You cannot be serious!"
Charlie turned around. "They'll never find us here." Dee rolled her eyes. "Do you really want to get arrested?"
"No. No I don't."
Dee held her nose and cautiously approached the dumpster. She shuddered when Charlie climbed into it. He held out his hand to pull Dee up and she reluctantly took it. Dee fell into the dumpster and let out a shriek when she felt something scurry past her legs.
"Are there rats in here, Charlie?! Are there rats?"
"Uh, possibly. I wouldn't worry. Your shrill voice scares 'em off."
"I hate you. You know that?"
Charlie shook his head.
"No you don't."
Dee reached into her purse to check on the necklace. She held it up in the dim light.
"This will look so good on me."
"I doubt it. But here, let me see you try it on." Charlie reached for the necklace.
"Um, Charlie, I don't want to lose it."
"Don't worry, you won't."
Dee reluctantly handed the necklace to him. Charlie sat behind her to carefully place it around her neck. Dee held up her hair so he could fasten it. Lightly touching the diamonds, Dee turned around.
"How's it look?"
"You didn't already look at the store?"
"Just tell me what you think."
Charlie shifted to sit on another trash bag, so he faced her and could appraise Dee's new look.
"Pretty good."
"Just 'pretty good'?"
"Yeah. I dunno. It's...sparkly?"
Dee sighed.
"I look like shit, don't I?"
Charlie shook his head.
"Nah, nah, just a little grungy. Like me."
Dee rubbed her fingertips over the diamonds in little circles. She stared somewhere past Charlie's right shoulder. Her eyes narrowed.
"Are you sure there aren't any rats in here?"
Charlie looked around.
"I don't think so. Stop worrying. I'll just bash 'em if they come near you."
Dee chuckled.
"How thoughtful," she said sardonically.
Dee was just getting used to the mushy trash bag serving as her chair, as well as the stench of rotting food, when she felt Charlie's hand tucking her hair behind her ear. She jerked away.
"What are you doing?"
Charlie withdrew his hand.
"Nothin'. Just didn't want your hair caught in that necklace."
Dee ran her fingers over the diamonds again. She reached for the clasp and said, "I'd better put this away." Having trouble unfastening the necklace, Dee grunted in frustration. Charlie slid behind Dee and pushed her hair aside, easily undoing the clasp and handing the necklace back to Dee.
"Thanks," she muttered. Even once the necklace was safe in her purse, Dee could feel Charlie's presence behind her. She turned around to glare at him, and to her surprise, this brought their faces close together.
"Dee."
"What?"
"If you ever wanna, uh, ya know, steal something again sometime..."
"What did you have in mind?"
"I dunno, just consider it an open invitation. To work together again. Or hang out, or whatever."
"Like a date?"
"No," Charlie said. "A totally platonic not-date. Between friends."
"Oh. Sure."
Charlie's breath smelled terrible, but the heat of it on the back of her neck was doing strange things to Dee's stomach. Kinda like butterflies, but...No. No way. This was Charlie!
"Stop breathing on my neck. It's gross!"
"Hey, Ron!" came a man's voice from outside the dumpster.
"Yeah, what is it?" said another. "I was just tossing this bag of scraps."
"Oh, no!" Dee whispered frantically. "Shit, shit, shit! He's gonna dump a load of trash right on top of us! I hate you! I hate you so much!"
"Calm down, Dee. He's just gonna chuck the trash bag. It's tied up and everything. Trust me."
"Trust you? How often do you hang out in dumpsters?"
"Get back in here. We got another rush order," said the first man's voice. Dee and Charlie heard a sound somewhere between a thump and a splat. They listened as the two male voices faded away as they re-entered the kitchen.
Unable to stand it any longer, Dee stood up and looked around. She clumsily climbed out of the dumpster and let out a pained, "Fuck!" when she hit the ground. Charlie followed her.
"That's it," she said, "I'm done with this! I'm going back to Paddy's."
"Fine, Dee. But if we get caught, it's on you."
"Fine!"
For a while the two of them just stood there fuming, Dee glaring at a pouting Charlie, until her expression softened and she let out a tired sigh. Dee brushed off the dirt and bits of food scraps that sullied her dress.
"Anything stuck on the back?" Dee asked, turning around so Charlie could see her buttocks.
"Umm, uh..." Charlie shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable.
"What?" Dee said. "You've never looked at my ass before? Give me a break."
"It's really nice. I mean, it looks good." He coughed. "I mean it's not dirty. Well, not noticeably."
Dee secured her purse across her shoulders, feeling for the necklace to make certain it was still there. She laughed and replied, "That's all I needed to know."
"Tomorrow we'll pawn it," Dee told him later, once they were back at Paddy's. Charlie's disappointment clearly showed on his face.
"But it's so pretty," he said.
"We need the money, Charlie," Dee said. "That's why we stole it!"
"It's not why I stole it."
Dee took a sip of her beer and almost replied that Charlie's reasons for doing anything were usually impractical and asinine. Then she thought better of it and kept her mouth shut.
"I might keep it," Dee said, and Charlie visibly relaxed, taking a swig of his own beer. "I dunno where I would wear it, though."
"It'd look good at a ball." Dee looked confused. "You know, a gala. A party."
"Oh, right."
"A low-cut dress. Black. A gown that flows past your feet. So long you need servants to carry it. Or you could wear a really short dress, if you were planning on getting out of it quickly."
"Eww!"
"What? It's practical."
"Why would I be stripping at this ball?"
Charlie shrugged, fiddling with the beer bottle, peeling the label off with his fingernails.
"With your date? Sneaking off to dive into an alcove in the palace?"
"What...You thought I would ever...Eww, Charlie! Not cool!"
"I can't talk about your sex life?"
"Not my imaginary sex life! What the...You're not the date in this scenario, are you?"
"No, of course not!"
"Charlie..."
"I'm not. That's gross. You're Dee." He shuddered. "It's just...you looked so happy wearing that necklace. I never see you like that. You're always being a bitch. It's why we fuck with you so much. We know you can take it, but sometimes I wanna be friends for real."
"That's...touching," Dee said. She set her bottle down on the bar and patted Charlie's shoulder.
"Put it on so the other guys can see."
Hearing voices coming from outside the bar, Dee shushed Charlie and whispered, "No, don't tell them yet."
"Why not?"
"What's up, bitches?" Mac said. He walked over to the bar and drummed on the wood with his knuckles. Dee noticed he had a bit of a limp but was trying to hide it. His forehead also seemed to be bleeding. Dennis slid behind the bar to grab two beers, handing one to Mac.
"Nothing much," Dee said. "We just won the bet."
Dennis laughed. "Don't get ahead of yourself. We're the ones who won, and there was never any doubt we would."
"Yeah," said Mac. "We got the cash up front, too."
"It was probably like twenty bucks," Charlie scoffed. "Am I right?"
"How'd you do it?" Dee asked.
"We went to Sansom Street..." Dennis said.
Dee tensed, waiting for them to say they had ripped off a jeweler too.
"...and Mac jumped - excuse me, walked - in front of a car."
"That's why I'm all bruised and bleeding and shit."
Mac was, in fact, injured, but the damage wasn't obvious and was probably mostly internal.
"We confronted the driver," Dennis said, "who was driving the sweetest Bentley..."
Mac added, "You gave us the idea to go downtown where all the rich people shop."
"...and he paid us $900 in hush money right on the spot!"
"Which, plus the hundred bucks you're giving us 'cause you lost and you suck, will cover this month's rent."
"Uh-huh. Yeah. Fascinating," Dee said. "Been there, done that."
"You stole my idea!" Charlie said. "Dennis, I'm the one who taught you that trick. What the hell, dude?"
"Last I checked, you didn't invent fraudulent injuries," Dennis replied.
"Hang on, hang on," Dee said. "We bet we could rob a jewelry store, and you jump in front of a stupid car?"
"Yeah," Charlie said. "Step up your game, dude. Because we..."
"Stole a $1,500 necklace!" Dee whipped the diamond necklace out.
"Booyah!"
The pair attempted a high-five, but Charlie missed. They succeeded on the second try.
Dee held out her hand. "I'll be taking my hundred bucks, now."
"Are you sure they haven't pulled up the security camera footage and filed a police report?" Mac asked.
"Part of the bet was that you had to pull off the scam," said Dennis, "and that still remains to be seen."
"There is no way they can track us down," said Charlie. "We were unrecognizable."
"Oh, I'm sure Dee fucked it up somehow," Dennis said. "She always does."
"You're not one to talk!" Dee snapped. "How many of your get-rich schemes have worked? I'd say I could count 'em on one hand, but I'd need zero hands."
"That doesn't even make any sense," Mac said. The two men laughed.
"Come on, Charlie, we're outta here."
"Where you going?" Charlie asked Dee, following her out the door. He caught up with her outside, where she was getting into her car.
"Back to my place. Get in or get lost."
Charlie grinned and jumped in.
"Hang on," she said, holding up the necklace. "Put this on me."
"I'd be happy to," Charlie said, placing the necklace on her and fastening it.
Dee hit the gas, nagging Charlie to put on his seatbelt. She wasn't sure why the hell she would take Charlie anywhere after that disgusting dumpster dive.
"Oh, as soon as we get there I gotta take a shower. I stink!"
"Oh, yeah, me too. Soo..."
"Yes, you can use my shower."
"Sweet!" Charlie gazed out the window for a while, before saying, "Togeth-?"
"No!"
"'Kay. Worth a shot."
Dee couldn't help but grin, turning her head to hide it. She glanced in Charlie's direction and caught his own slight smirk.
As Dee pulled up in front of her apartment, Charlie noticed two people standing on the stoop.
"Who are those guys?"
"Huh? Who?" Dee asked, concentrating on parking.
The pair got out and approached the apartment.
"Well, well," said the tall, broad shouldered man glowering at them. "Look who it is."
Dee's cheeks turned red.
"Hey, how do you-"
"I didn't know you two were friends," said a woman, who they recognized as Sara the jeweler. She was scowling, which made her look equally menacing.
"Oh, well, we met on the way back," Charlie lied.
"Yeah, I was helping him, uh..."
"Get some medication for my..."
"...epilepsy, so..."
Dee and Charlie tried to walk past them, but were stopped by something long and metal. It was a retractable baton.
"Nice try," said the man. " We're not stupid. That was what thieves call the 'misdirect.'"
"Are you gonna call the cops?" Charlie asked.
"No, because we don't need to. All we want is the necklace."
"Here," Dee said, "you can have it! We're square now!"
Sara took the necklace and carefully placed it in a box.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Deandra."
"They know you?" Charlie said. "What the hell is going on here? Dee, you said we would be inconspicuous."
"I kinda...I kinda took off my glasses."
"She didn't need to," said the man. "We knew who she was anyway, from that annoying voice and blonde hair."
"She's a regular," Sara said.
"What?" Charlie said. "They know you? You shop there all the time?"
"All the stores on our block, yes. And we have the perfect punishment."
"It won't be as good as jail time, but it will keep her out of our store," said the man.
"You," said the woman, approaching Dee and getting uncomfortably close, "are banned from every establishment in the neighborhood."
"We're putting out notices today with your picture on them," said the man. "The most unflattering one we could find."
"Nobody will serve you," said the woman. "You cannot buy anything or drink at any of our bars."
"Or in any of our restaurants."
"Even...even the Starbucks?" Dee asked.
"Even the Starbucks."
The pair then walked away, leaving a stunned Charlie and a devastated Dee standing on the stoop.
"They took the necklace. What the hell are we gonna do for money now?"
"I really wish I'd tried all those restaurants," Dee said. "I suppose one of the guys could buy take-out and get it for me."
"We're broke, Dee, and you're crying about fancy restaurant food? We can't even afford to make Energy Balls! And we're lucky they didn't call the cops!"
"There were such cute little shops in that neighborhood, too."
"Augh!"
"I hate you," Charlie said, once they were inside. "You know that?"
"No, you don't." said Dee. Charlie silently debated whether or not to follow her up the stairs.
Finally he did, and at the top of the stairs he heard her screech as he turned the corner. At the end of the hall, Dee was repeatedly kicking her door.
"What is it? What happened?" he asked.
"Look at this!"
Charlie looked. There was an eviction notice on the door and her key wouldn't fit in the lock.
"What the fuck am I going to do, Charlie?" Dee hollered, somewhere between rage and anguish.
He felt like he'd regret this, but Dee was his friend and coworker, whether he liked it or not.
"Well, you can always stay at my place."
Remembering the time she'd actually slept in Charlie's apartment, Dee slowly turned her head to look at him in horror.
Dee gave the door one final, sound kick, then said, "I could use a drink."
"Paddy's?"
"God, no. We're going to the liquor store."
"Sweet."
The End