"And all the cubicles are taken, so you can have one of the tables in this room back here," the new boss told Carly. Young black guy, glasses; he reminded Carly of the computer hacker guy in Die Hard.
"Thanks," Carly said, forcing a smile. She sighed. 22 years old, fresh out of college with an English degree, and the only job she could find was this - processing the files of all the patients who'd passed through the Washington State Mental Health Services department. 9 bucks per hour to remove staples and place papers into neat stacks, basically.
"You'll be working next to Sam here," the boss continued. "She's been here for a few months, so if you have any questions just ask her for help."
The girl hunched over the next table seemed buried under a mass of blond curls. Her fingers flew through a stack of papers, pulling staples, removing paper clips. Sensing others in the room, she dug her mp3 player out of her pocket, paused it, removed her ear bud, turned in her seat. Blue eyes flashed.
"Hi. I'm Carly."
"What goes on?" She smiled, almost as an afterthought.
"I'll leave you to it," the boss said, exiting the room.
Carly sat at the table, adjusted her chair, and picked up the first thick folder.
"Some of those files are pretty old," Sam said. "So, you already went through the training? You know how to separate the files into the different sections?"
"Yeah, yeah, we went over that yesterday," Carly said.
"Okay, well, I'm right here within shoulder-tapping distance if you got any questions about something specific." The blond wedged her ear bud back into place. "Now, if you'll excuse me, listening to music is the only thing that keeps me sane at this job."
Carly went to work. She quickly found her rhythm, but there were things in the papers that caught her attention - phrases like "homicidal ideation," "deviant sexual fantasies," "high risk of self mutilation," "persistent auditory delusions." Sam sat off to her right, her back to Carly; Carly caught herself several times watching Sam's shoulders shift under the long-sleeved boys' T-shirt she wore. A few times throughout the morning she tapped those shoulders, asking where to put certain documents. Polaroids went back into the folders; visitor cards always went into section 7, as did all copies of prescriptions for medication.
At close to noon Sam turned off her mp3 player, wrapped the headphone cord around it, stuffed it into her pocket.
"I didn't know there were so many crazy people in the state of Washington," Carly said.
Sam chuckled. "Yeah, I know we're not supposed to stop to read the files, but sometimes you can't help it if something crazy catches your eye."
"Right," Carly said.
The blond stretched, her hands linked high above her head. "I've seen a few where the guys cut off their own junk. One guy even flushed his down the toilet so they couldn't reattach it."
"Ewww!" Carly said, laughing.
Sam dug around under her desk. "Crap! I forgot to bring my lunch."
Carly pulled one last staple, then set her papers aside. "I brought a tuna sandwich. I'll half it with you, if you want."
"You don't mind? Really?"
"It's fine."
"Thanks. I can't go without food for too long." She leaned in close to Carly, whispered, "You know how we're not supposed to eat at our desk? Well, when you see me get up to go to the bathroom, I'm usually eating a candy bar."
"You eat candy bars in the bathroom? That's gross!"
"Well, I don't eat them while I'm using the bathroom. I just don't want to have to clock out just to eat a snack."
Carly laughed, shook her head. "Well, let's clock out now so we can go have lunch."
A wooden picnic table sat under an oak tree out in the lawn behind the office building. The shade from the tree protected the girls from strength of the summer sun.
"Nobody else comes back here for lunch?" Carly asked.
"Most of them go down the road to that little café on the corner," Sam said.
Carly shrugged, handed Sam half of the tuna sandwich.
"Already cut in two," Sam said. "Nice!"
Sam finished her sandwich while Carly was still two bites in. The blond wiped her hands and mouth on a napkin, looked at Carly from across the table. "So, what's your story?"
"Oh... You know, just working here until I find something better. I might have to go to grad school; it seems the only thing you can do with an English degree is teach English."
Sam raised her eyebrows. "You have a college degree? Nice; I was lucky to finish high school."
"Why is that?"
Sam chuckled darkly, looked away toward where the highway ran in the distance. "I got my GED in... let's just say, it was a special program."
"Oh."
"Yeah." She looked back at Carly, smiled. "All that bad behavior is behind me now, though. You got to grow up sometime, right?"
"Sure."
They fell silent. Sam picked at the wood of the table with her thumbnail. Carly chewed her sandwich and watched her. This small little blond with the magic hair and blazing blue eyes intrigued her, but she didn't really know what to say to her.
Sam glanced up. "Got a boyfriend?"
"Haha. No."
Sam raised her eyebrows again. "Go on."
"Well, there was this guy Freddie who lived across the hall from me. We were best friends growing up, and he chased me all through high school. I guess I finally gave in when we went to college, but... it just didn't feel right."
"You don't see him anymore?"
"God, not in about three years. I think he still lives here in Seattle, but... I just don't know what I would say to him now, you know?"
Sam shrugged. "I don't talk to any of my old friends, either."
They went back inside, where the few remaining hours of the afternoon passed quickly. At three o'clock Carly put her supplies in the drawer under her desk and clocked out.
"It's time to go," she said to Sam.
"Yeah, but I have to do this one last file to finish this box."
"Oh. Well, thanks for helping me out today."
"No problem. Thanks for the sandwich." Sam looked up from her file, caught Carly's eyes. The blond seemed to be thinking deeply about something. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
Carly pulled into the parking lot the next morning and saw Sam waiting for her. The blond had let down the tailgate of her pickup truck and was sitting on it, her ankles crossed, feet swinging in the air. She wore orange chucks, khaki cargo pants, a blue long sleeved T-shirt.
Carly pulled into the space next to Sam's truck.
"Hey you," she said.
Sam yawned. "You know, if you're going to get in a fight with someone, don't do it in one of those factories where they have giant hooks hanging on conveyor belts. That can only lead to bad things."
Carly laughed. "That's pretty random, but okay."
"It's from Cobra," Sam said, sliding off the tailgate, turning to lift it up. "You ever seen Cobra?"
"The 1980s movie starring Sylvester Stallone?"
"That's the one."
"Heck yes, I've seen it. It's even better than Over the Top."
"I know, right! What kind of guy arm wrestles someone for custody of his son?"
The girls began walking across the parking lot, toward the entrance of the building.
"So you like cheesy action movies, too?" Sam asked.
"Eh, some of them. Did you bring a lunch today?"
Sam patted her backpack. "Ham sandwich. I love ham."
They made their way to their office, clocked in, got to work. Sam, rather than take out her mp3 player, pestered Carly with questions for most of the morning, asking about movies she'd seen, rattling off titles of obscure horror movies that Carly had never heard of, ones she figured went straight to the video store back in the 80s when they were new. Carly, in turn, told the blond about her brother Spencer, how he'd found success with his art career in the last couple of years, and how he now helped her pay for a small apartment near downtown.
The boss stuck his head in the door to the office around mid-morning. "Girls, you know we technically have a no talking policy here. Now, I don't really enforce it as long as your productivity doesn't suffer, but you gotta keep it down a little." He smiled. "Or at least pretend to be talking about work."
"Sorry," Carly and Sam chorused. They giggled at each other after he left, but Sam pulled her PearPod from her pocket and stuck her ear buds in. They worked in silence the rest of the morning.
They sat under the shade of the tree again at lunch.
"I thought you meant a ham sandwich," Carly said. "Not an actual slab of ham."
"Mmmm." Sam grunted. She finished the chunk of meat, wiped her hands and mouth on a napkin, then asked Carly, "So, you got anything planned after work?"
"Not really, no; not today."
"Want to go to this bar I know?"
Carly tried to repress a grimace.
"It's real quiet... low key kind of place," Sam assured her.
"I'm not real big on drinking. I mean, I'll have a beer or wine every now and then, but..."
"So come have a beer or wine with me this evening then," Sam said. "You don't have to get rip roaring drunk or anything. Come on, kid. If we're gonna be friends, we have to something to do together."
Carly smiled at her new friend's enthusiasm. "Okay, I'll come with you."
The bar was one of those quiet, dim places with dark wooden walls and faint golden light. The girls sat in a corner by themselves, nursing bottles of locally brewed beer. Sam ordered a basket of chicken wings.
"I love fried chicken," she explained.
Carly laughed. "You just love food."
"And you can't help smiling at everything," Sam said, herself smiling.
They sat quietly for a moment, sipping beer, eating wings.
"So what are you listening to on your PearPod all day?" Carly asked.
"Oh, right now a lot of Neutral Milk Hotel, Sparklehorse, Built to Spill; you know, just a bunch of weird indie rock." She tossed a bare bone into the basket. "I also have a lot of Cuddlefish."
Carly sat up. "Oh? I love Cuddlefish! They're my favorite band."
"Yeah?" Sam said, digging around for another wing. "Well that's one thing we have in common."
Another long, awkward moment of silence stretched on.
"So, what do you do most evenings?" Sam finally asked.
"Right now, not much of anything." Carly sighed. "I don't really have much of a social life. All the people I used to know are... Well, they're not around anymore."
"That sucks. But hey, I'm in the same boat."
"Yeah," Carly said. She played with her bottle cap, running it back and forth along her fingertips. "We should start a web show."
Sam, chewing a piece of chicken, swallowed. "Why a web show?"
"Because I want to do something. I'm not..." She paused, searching for the words. "Just going to work and coming home; that's not enough. Settling down and getting into a routine is not what I want to be doing with my life." Carly leaned forward, latching her dark eyes onto Sam's blue ones. "I want to see the world, Sam. I want to be famous, but I want to do it on my terms."
"And how would a web show..."
"Because I could do whatever I wanted. Becoming famous any other way, you'd have to meet someone else's standards. You know?"
Sam set her wing down. "You've thought about this a long time, haven't you?"
"It's something I think about."
"What would it be about?"
"Whatever. We could have Spencer on there to show off his art. We could have local artists come on, bands and writers and such. We could do comedy sketches. I've always felt I had a different sort of sense of humor." Carly noticed that Sam was watching her intently, not eating or drinking, but focused solely on her. "What do you say? Want to do a web show with me?"
The blond shrugged. "I don't know, Carls. I've done a lot of wild stuff in my life already. Settling down is kind of what I'm looking forward to."
Sam was already there most mornings, sitting in her truck, waiting for Carly to arrive so they could walk in together; though sometimes, when Carly got to work first, she would wait for Sam to drive up. Sam brought VHS copies of 80s horror movies for Carly to borrow on most mornings - Chopping Mall, The Video Dead, The Being. The girls would go inside and get to work while discussing whichever movie Carly had watched the night before, or read crazy passages from their files to each other, or just listen to their PearPods. They still ate at the picnic table in the back lawn every day. They would walk out together every afternoon, and usually sit in the parking lot for a while talking before driving home.
Within a month the girls had a weekly ritual - they would go to the bar every Tuesday, eat, have a few drinks; on Thursday, Sam would come over to Carly's apartment. There, they would fry chicken, curly fries, mozzarella sticks in Carly's deep fryer.
"I eat healthy the rest of the week, but sometimes you gotta indulge," Carly explained.
Because Sam could not afford hi speed internet at her place, she would stay until late on Thursday, using Carly's to download music or watch videos. The girls would sit together on the couch after eating, and go hours without talking while playing on their laptops. Some nights they would watch one of Sam's movies.
Before Carly knew it, she'd been at the job for two months, and it was the end of summer, and the nights came earlier, and the wind was chilly one Tuesday evening as they walked back to the parking garage after leaving the bar.
"You want my hoodie?" Sam offered when she noticed Carly tucking her hands under her arms.
"No, thanks. We'll be there soon."
"Come on," Sam insisted, unknotting the arms of her hoodie from around her waist and holding it out to Carly. "I've got more padding than you do. I don't get cold as easy."
Carly laughed. "Thanks," she said, slipping into the oversized sweatshirt. It hung loosely from her thin frame.
They cut through a quiet residential neighborhood, staying on the sidewalk that ran in front of rows of nice townhouses with neatly trimmed lawns. Once the girls stepped aside for a cyclist speeding their way along the sidewalk.
They stopped at the corner, in a pocket of darkness away from the streetlights. The street was deserted, silent. A sudden gust of wind whipped at them.
"Whoa," Sam said, almost losing her balance.
Dead leaves rained down on them from the tree overhead. The leaves that lay on the parallel sidewalk began to rise up and roll forward, coming toward them in measured movements like footsteps. The clouds of leaves reached them and began to spin, catching leaves in their hair, swirling like a tornado of leaves around them. They were caught in its vortex, and the stars overhead, despite the lights of the city, sparkled in the clarity of the dying summer air.
Sam pulled Carly close to her, shoulder into shoulder, as the wind faded and the leaves drifted away.
"What was that?" Sam asked.
"Magic," Carly said quietly. "Your whole life should be made of moments like that."
Spencer called late Thursday night, after Sam had left.
"I've got a job all lined up for you in the publishing department at the Institute, kiddo," Spencer said.
Carly closed her eyes, sighed.
"Hello?" Spencer continued. "You said you needed a new job. I know you're barely making it now even with me helping you out."
"This is all true," Carly said.
"Then why don't you sound super excited? You'll be making twice as much money, and get health benefits!"
Carly sighed again. "It's Sam. I suddenly have a best friend; I mean, really she's my only friend. But we're only friends because we work next to each other, you know? I like her, but we don't have very much in common."
"Yeah," Spencer said softly. "It's hard for people to stay friends without something in common. Just being fond of each other usually isn't enough."
Carly sighed again. Spencer gave her the details about the new job, where to go Saturday for the interview, et cetera.
"You'll just have to find some thing you guys can do outside of work," Spencer said before hanging up.
"Yeah." Carly sighed again.
Sunday night. Carly knocked on the door to Sam's apartment.
"Hey Carls, what are you doing here?" Sam said, opening the door and ushering Carly into the small flat.
"Just dropping by to tell you I'm not going to be at work tomorrow," Carly said, looking around the cramped living room. She'd only been here twice before, and each time the room seemed smaller.
"Oh, really? Weird, cuz I won't be able to make it to the bar with you this Tuesday. I've got to go see the dentist."
Carly spun to look at her. "There's a dentist who will see you at night?"
"Yeah, apparently they have those." Sam smiled, moved past Carly and into the kitchen, where she picked up a wet rag and began wiping the counter and around the stove top. "So why won't you be at work tomorrow?"
"Because I got a new job."
Sam froze. She stared down at the dirty rag in her hand, would not lift her eyes to meet Carly's.
"Sam?"
"I have a daughter."
"What?"
Sam still would not look up. Her hand stayed fixed at the edge of the stove top. "She's... five years old now."
"Oh my god, Sam. Where is she?"
"With some couple out in Spokane."
Carly said nothing for a long moment. "You have her up for adoption."
Sam looked up. Her blue eyes met Carly's. "I knew I wouldn't be able to take care of her, and I sure didn't want to be to her what my mom was to me. So yeah, I gave her to someone who could take care of her. And you don't know how that changes you. I got my act together and stopped doing drugs and getting in trouble because, in the back of my mind, I always thought I might be able to see her again someday and... I didn't want to be a disappointment to her. And for the longest time, that's the only thing I had in my life." She looked down again, tossed the rag into the sink. "And then you came along."
Carly moved forward, rested her hands on the bar counter that separated the living room from the kitchen. "Sam, I really did think about staying at this job, just because... because of you."
The blond girl turned away, looked at the refrigerator, refused to meet Carly's eyes.
"But this is something I have to do," Carly continued. "This is like the first step toward something greater. Look at me."
Sam turned, met Carly's dark gaze.
"I'll be able to afford that camera and equipment to do the web show idea I told you about."
Sam raised her eyebrows. "You're serious about that?"
"Yes. Sam, I want you to come do that with me. Come host the show with me. I called that guy Freddie that I used to be friends with. He was always good with computer geek stuff, and he said he'd come be our technical producer. Wait till you meet him, you'll like him. He's..."
"Carly," Sam interrupted. Her face was drawn tight as she fought to control herself. "I don't know. Just, give me time to process all this, okay?"
They stood silently, blue eyes holding dark eyes for a long moment.
"This is more than friendship, isn't it?" Carly asked, barely a whisper.
"I don't know."
Sam walked Carly to the door. In the hallway, Carly turned.
"You'll still come by Thursday night?"
"We'll see."
"Sam..."
"We'll see," Sam insisted. "Right now, I just can't give you any more than that."
Carly stood there, studying this petite little blond with the tomboy clothes and the magic hair. Suddenly, images of Misty, Wendy, Freddie, Gibby, Griffin, and all the others floated through her mind - all the people she used to know.
"I've had a lot of good friends in my life," Carly said. "But they come and go. They're there for a while, and they're important to you, but then they drift away and fade out of your life. And I just don't want that to happen this time."
Sam closed her eyes, turned her head away, and shut the door.
Carly went to work. In between answering phone calls from clients, and fetching research materials for the art director, she wondered what she was missing at the old job. She thought of Sam turning and leaning in close, smelling of fruity shampoo and guys' body spray, showing her some crazy handwritten note from a schizophrenic or a Polaroid of a self-mutilator's handiwork.
She sent a text to Sam on Tuesday evening: How was your trip to the dentist?
There was no reply.
Wednesday night, before going to bed, she sent Sam another text: Please come by tomorrow.
No response.
Carly stopped by the grocery store after work Thursday to pick up frozen chicken tenders, curly fries, and cheese sticks. She went home and waited.
And waited.
She tried to call Sam at 6, but the phone only rang and rang, with no answer. She drove over to Sam's apartment, but the truck was gone. She drove to the bar, searched the parking lot for Sam's truck, went inside to ask the bartender if he'd seen Sam, but he hadn't.
Carly sat in her car out in the parking lot, in a panic. She sent Sam another text: Where are you?
These last few days without Sam had been torture. The people at the new job did not talk about horror movies, or weird indie rock bands, or their favorite martial artists. She thought of the time Sam made her watch an internet video of a guy getting his tongue split to look like a lizard's - she couldn't imagine anyone at this new job even knowing of something like that.
Carly bit her lower lip and laughed quietly, thinking of the time the boss had scolded Sam for taking too many bathroom breaks, and Sam had yelled back at him, in front of everyone, that she "had to change tampons, alright?"
Carly's phone beeped once. She flipped it open, read the message: At your place.
She raced through the streets, past the neon window signs and street lamps as the city lit up against the fall of night.
She parked along the curb around the side of her building, got out, ran up the sidewalk until she rounded the corner; and there, sitting on the front steps in the dim twilight air, waiting, was the familiar shape of Sam.
Carly forced herself to slow down, to walk rather than run. How she regretted these last four days; how she long to see the blond hair, the pale eyes, the oddly shaped nose of her best friend leaning in close to share a secret.
Sam glanced up from her PearPod as Carly approached, turned it off, slipped it into her pocket. "Hey," she said.
"Hi, Sam."
Carly slid in next to Sam on the steps. They sat in silence for a while, watching the light go out of the sky.
"I'm sorry," Sam said as the last orange streak of sun flare died.
"Yeah. Me, too."
Sam reached over, laid her fist on Carly's shoulder. "So... What about this web show idea of yours?"
Carly's thin body quivered with a silent laugh. She smiled at Sam across the gloom. "Come on inside and I'll tell you all about it."
Sam followed Carly up the steps, into the building, and shut the door behind her.