2
She slammed her infamous blue file shut and huffed as the idle chime echoed across the desolate meeting room. It was 10p.m. and her final video conference had wrapped with her promising the client more, more and more. She was being worked to the bone as it was, and a new group of trainees would land within two months.
"No rest for the wicked." She grumbled, downing the last of her water and hefting the empty bottle at the trash can by the wall. It hit the plaster with a hollow sound and bounded in successfully. At the same time, one of the newbies stumbled through the door.
"I'm sorry." He stammered, juggling his laptop and notebook ungraciously and dropping them down onto the table. "But I just have a few questions…"
It was well past midnight by the time she locked her bicycle into place outside her building. She had hurried home, and a thin film of sweat clung unpleasantly to every inch of her body. She wiped the fog off her lenses and yawned. It was high time for a shot of whiskey and a good read, so much so that she almost fell up the steps to the front door. Shoving her slender hand into her mailbox, she deduced that it was filled with nothing but junk and let the flap slap shut loudly.
Her phone hummed as the elevator trundled up to the fourth floor, and she struggled with her backpack searching for it. A voice message from her friend back home, detailing his escapades in vivid detail. She giggled at his familiar sarcastic tone as the doors hissed open. Her keys had found their way under her clothes somehow, and she twisted her wrist every which way pulling them out.
The next message was a text from Bret, inviting her to a club meeting at Jake's place. She bit her lip and slouched against the doorframe. After the last screening, she had ducked out quickly, too anxious to speak to any of the members, and too intimidated by some of the stairs to even say 'hello'. She had probably made impression, and they probably didn't want to see her again…
She shook herself. No. She had been in this city too long without friends. An effort needed to be made.
Cool. Plz send addr.
She stared at the home screen for a while afterwards, wondering if new friends were really worth all of this. Then came a pitter-patter beyond the door and she grinned.
"I'm hoo-ooome!"
Jake and Marlene's home was a veritable mansion; eight bedrooms, five bathrooms, a kitchen/diner bigger than her entire apartment, a pristine white parlour and a beige living room. They saw their guests into the latter, and she managed to get a whole chaise to herself.
"I, uh...brought this." She mumbled, offering the bottle of wine she had carefully chosen just an hour before. Marlene took it with a taut smile and disappeared into the kitchen, only to return with a bowl of popcorn and not a wine glass in sight.
I suppose it is a tad early to start drinking.
One by one, the other members started to file in, and she managed to strike up a conversation with one of the girls about the negative effects of the Federation on the cultures that it absorbed. Actually, it was more of a debate, which soon catapulted them into stony silence. She pulled out her phone and sent a meme to her friends back home.
A chair scraped into place by her and she started. The newcomer smiled shyly.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
"No - I mean… It's fine. I was in a world of my own."
"Any good?"
"Huh?"
"Your world?"
"Oh...em…" She checked her notifications. Empty. "That remains to be seen."
He cleared his throat. "I'm Spencer, by the way."
"Rósín."
"Raw-shin?"
She winced. "No…'row' as in 'row a boat' and 'sheen' as in...um…"
"Like the table?" He indicated the glass top.
"Yeah."
It took a few tries, and he kept stressing the second syllable instead of the first, but Spencer got it eventually. They both got a good laugh out of his terrible ear. And he accepted a glass of the wine she'd brought.
"So I take it you're not from Washington?"
Roisin made a face. "Dublin."
"Isn't that where Yeats is from?"
She guffawed. "He just spun in his grave. No. He was born in Dublin, but is home was in Sligo."
"...Wilde?"
"Yes."
"Joyce?"
"Yes."
"Berkeley?"
"Kilkenny."
He paused.
"Le Fanu, Stoker, Beckett, Brennan, Enright, Shaw…" She listed, counting each one off on her fingers.
He stared.
"Sorry I'm being a know-it-all." She took a gulp of wine.
Spencer blushed. "No! No! Actually I… It's strange for me not to be the know-it-all in the situation."
They laughed. A brief, airy chuckle. Roisin praised her decision not to give up on the club so soon. She arranged her skirt daintily before asking: "So is it The Wrath of Khan?"
He blinked. Then looked about. No-one seemed inclined to load anything into the idling DVD player. "I didn't ask. I think Marty said they were planning on screening the season finale of Discovery."
Roisin rolled her eyes.
"Not a fan?"
"It's fine its just...I don't view it as a genuine Trek series."
His smile widened and they said at once: "Bald Klingons!"
"They look awful!"
"I know, right!"