Title: The Help Wanted Ad
Author: Dru
E-mail:
Website: http/bloodstains.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: With Rebecca in L.A. and Langly back in D.C. they both think that they've seen the last of each other. That is until the Gunmen place a help wanted ad and get a surprising applicant. Langly/OC
Disclaimers: However much I may wish, I do not own our favorite conspiracy theorists, nor do I own the city of L.A., not that I would really want to. Still, the only things in this story that I do own are Rebecca Morris and the plot. Part Two in the 'Objects out of place' series.
The shop was well lit, which was good because there was nothing Rebecca Morris hated more than darkness. Maybe there were a few other things that she hated more, but darkness was pretty high up there on the list. She paused outside the shop, glancing inside through the large display windows where books with titles such as "What the government doesn't want you to know" and "The Confessions of a Real Alien Abductee" where placed in prominent positions.
For a moment she considered just turning around and leaving, going back to her apartment that she couldn't afford to live in anymore and forget all of this craziness. That, however, was only a fleeting thought as her curiosity overwhelmed her and she pushed open the doors and walked inside.
The sound of the busy street traffic was muted inside the shop, giving it a surreal feel. Almost immediately she noticed the absence of anyone else in the shop besides herself. She wondered who was running the shop and where they were. Idly she began to browse, looking for one particular item.
How hard could it be to find one little newsletter, she wondered as she wandered around completely lost. Still there was no one in the store and she retreated further into it's depths, walking past row after row of bookshelves filled with books everything from the Grassy Knoll to Project Bluebook.
"May I help you?" the voice from behind made her jump. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to scare you," it said in an apologetic tone.
"It's okay," Rebecca turned around to see what could have only been the shopkeeper. "I wasn't paying attention,"
"That happens to me much of the time. It's so easy to get lost in here," he smiled. "So, can I help you find something? You seemed lost,"
"I was wondering if you have any copies of something called The Lone Gunman," she explained, remembering how Jimmy had told her about their newsletter.
"The Lone Gunman? Of course, I have it. I keep all of the copies in the back room. I'll go retrieve one for you," he retreated into the back of the store, disappearing down one of the shelves and leaving her standing there in the unfamiliar territory of the dusty shop.
A few moments later, with Rebecca still standing there rather awkwardly and waiting for him to get back, he returned with a copy of the paper tucked under his arm. He was cleaning a layer of dust off of his glasses with his hands while trying to hold the newspaper at the same time.
"Here you go," he finished cleaning his glasses and handed the slightly dusty paper to her. "Sorry about the dust, I haven't cleaned the back room in a while," he said apologetically.
"It's fine, I'm not bothered by dust. There's enough in my apartment to make an army of dust bunnies," she kind of half giggled at her own statement, taking the newspaper from his outstretched hand. "So how much?"
"Two dollars, come to the register this way," he lead her back into the front of the shop, to a counter that was covered in advertisements for seminars and lectures and probably a couple of UFO hunting parties. While he rang up the purchase she idly glanced at a few of them. 'The Truth Revealed: a lecture by Max McAllister alien abductee', 'John Sinclair autographing his new book, What the Government would kill you if you knew' and 'Wanted: UFO hunting crew' were just some of the colorful titles proclaimed on the multi-colored leaflets proudly displayed. "You know it's funny," the shopkeeper's voice caused her to look up. "You must have really done your research. Not many people have heard of The Lone Gunman,"
"No I would suppose not," she smiled, taking the receipt as is popped out of the printer.
"If you don't mind me asking, how exactly did you hear about it?"
"A little baboon told me,"
"Government Monitoring Unsuspecting Public," Rebecca read the headline to herself in her favorite semi-crowded coffee shop, Java Hut. A pleasant coffee and cinnamon aroma drifted through her nostrils, mixing with the strong smell of newspaper from her copy of The Lone Gunman. She ignored the two people who stared at her after reading the headline, even though she was beginning to feel rather foolish. The four guys hadn't seemed crazy, but looks could be deceiving she figured after reading a couple pages of the Lone Gunman.
Even though she thought the ideas were completely crazy, and that none of them could write a half decent newspaper article, she continued reading. It was rather intriguing how they took the most simple things that most people barely noticed and formulated the most absurd and strange theory to explain them.
If nothing else it was interesting to find out what their theories were, as strange and improbable as they were. After finishing the entire newspaper she carefully folded it up and placed it beside her on the table, taking a bite of her cream cheese Danish.
"My dearest Becky," a voice that sounded very much like nails on a chalkboard came from behind her. She didn't even have to turn around so see who it was. Only one person she knew had that horrible a voice.
"Don't call me that Jerry," she took another bite out of her Danish and sipped on her something-cino, she could never quite remember which one it was.
"Becky, I'm hurt. And here you hade me thinking we were the best of friends," his grating voice had a false sweetness to it, and he didn't even bother to hide his false sincerity.
"And I thought that I'd seen the last of you once I left my job," she pretended not to notice when he pulled up a chair and sat uncomfortably close to her, less than a foot away.
"But my dear Becky, you did not leave your job," he had placed his elbows on the table and accentuated 'leave' with a finger jab in the air. "You were fired,"
"And just who do you think caused that to happen," she tried to sound as venomous as possible, just wanting him to go away and leave her alone.
"I'm not the one who was having an affair with the boss," he smirked, anticipating her reaction.
"I was not having an affair with our boss," she said, her tone angry and raised a bit. She slunk down back into her seat when half of the coffee shop patrons eyed her strangely. "You made that up and threatened to go public with that if he didn't fire me that moment. And here I had thought he was a decent human being,"
"That, my dear, is the price to pay for being civil with someone in the workplace," he grabbed the remaining part of her danish and shoved it into his mouth.
"Oh really? I don't believe that civility is something that ought to be punished," she glared at him, chewing with his mouth open and pieces of danish falling all over the front of his shirt.
"Then you picked the wrong profession. Journalism is a nasty world kiddo," he wiped his pastry covered hands on his slacks.
"Why are you here? You must want something," she accused, disgusted at his lack of table manners.
"I can get you your old job back," he smirked, as a confused look passed across her face. "You only have to do one little thing for me,"
"I knew that was coming," she interrupted him as his mouth stood open, him ready to speak.
"You should know better than to interrupt dear," his smirk grew larger, if such a thing was even possible since he was practically grinning ear to ear. "As I was saying the one thing you have to do for me is," he paused for effect. "Sleep with me,"
"First of all what makes you think that I want my old job back. As you said, I didn't have what it takes to be a journalist-"
"Well, I didn't expressly say that," he interjected.
"Yes, but you did imply it. And secondly I will never sleep with you, ever and that is final," now it was her turn to smirk at the forlorn look on his face.
"Bitch," he stood up abruptly, making his chair clatter to the floor which destroyed the graceful exit he was hoping for. "I'll make it my personal mission to see to it that you never get hired for another job ever again. No matter where it is," he grabbed her cup of coffee. "And I'm taking your coffee,"
"Give that back," she stood up and tried to grab the coffee cup out of his hand.
"Okay," and he flicked the top off of the styrofoam cup and threw it's hot contents onto Rebecca, which served to make her very angry.
"You bastard," she looked down at her ruined white blouse and jeans, which were burning her rather painfully. He was smirking so loudly as she viewed her clothes in horror that she could only really do one thing.
Kick him as hard as she could in the balls.
Relaxing on her couch, Rebecca couldn't help but smile at the events that had occurred earlier today. Jerry had agreed not to press charges in exchange for her not pressing charges for throwing hot coffee on her. So, all in all it had been a good day. Not even the growing pile of bills that she couldn't afford to pay would damper her mood. Okay, so the did, but not by much. She was still floating on the high of watching Jerry's face contorted in pain as he dropped to the ground. She had wanted to do that to him for so long, practically since he had joined the L.A. Times staff.
She sighed, thinking of her old job. It was wonderful and she loved it, but at the same time she hated it. And the worst part was that she couldn't figure out how that was possible. She had loved the writing part of it, and the fact that she usually got some of the dullest articles didn't bother her much, the part that really got to her was the politics of it. It was awful how people were doing everything short of murder to claw their way to the top. Just because she wasn't willing to put aside her morals, not that she knew exactly what they were, to get a few steps ahead in life had excluded her for a lot of promotions. Also, because she was one of the only people in her office to be civil to her boss and have him be civil back caused many to speculate that they had been having an affair.
How willing people were to believe that never ceased to amaze her. Another thing was that one of the people that spread the rumor the most viscously was the woman who was having an affair with her boss. Office politics were just insufferable.
Sometimes she wondered if getting the hell out of Los Angeles would help her. For one thing, she knew that she wouldn't run into people like Jerry anymore. Another thing was that she could escape the heat, the heat was what made L.A. seem like hell. And for her, it was starting to appear more and more that way with each rejected resume and each bill piling up on her kitchen counter.
Things had elapsed into a sort of routine for Rebecca Morris. First she would wake up in the morning and read the paper, it wasn't the L.A. Times never the L.A. Times, while she ate breakfast. Of course, for her breakfast consisted of a piece of toast and some orange juice. Sometimes she would have leftover Chinese food, but that was only when it wasn't all moldy. She was currently trying to see how long she could last by drying up her savings account and only paying the essential bills, she had no telephone anymore, and praying that one of the jobs she had applied to would accept her.
After her breakfast she usually went for a jog, of course this didn't occur when most people took a jog. Most people jog at the insanely early hours shortly after noon. However, she jogged at around eleven or noon. Since she had no job she didn't need to get up in the insanely early hours, something that she really didn't miss. She really wasn't very keen on fitness but she figured she had to do something other than laze all over her apartment and look for jobs.
Then, she would start to look for a job, sifting through endless newspaper help wanted ads and websites. She would find a few good jobs that she could apply for, and she'd send in her resume and a sample of her writing and wait. A few days, to a week later she would usually get a reply. Always they'd be refusing her, and she had figured that Jerry had gotten to them. After nearly every refusal letter she would feel even worse.
The sad thing was that all of her friends had worked for the L.A. Times and had refused to speak with her. Her mini-vacation had only served to remove her from her reality and make it that much harder to come to terms with once she returned. She felt like her whole world had come crashing down on her, and in a sense it had. She had no job, and very little chance of getting one, and all of her friends had abandoned her.
Before leaving the shop where she had purchased her copy of the Lone Gunmen, Rebecca had asked the owner when the next issue was due in. He had told her that it should arrive in eleven days and promised to hold her a copy.
"Not that it would sell out anyway, It never does. Doesn't come close," he had commented, slightly sadly.
And eleven days had passed, and she had figured that she might as well go to the store and pick up a copy. Even thought she was being especially frugal now that she was running out of money, quickly, she figured that she might as well buy another issue, she needed to be amused right now.
After buying her issue and settling in her favorite spot in her favorite shop, sans her favorite cream cheese danish this time though, she began to read intently. Not much had changed in the form of the writing style, it was still not very good for a newspaper article, and the ideas were still improbable and crazy in every way. Still, as before she was fascinated by the ideas they had managed to come up with.
Then, towards the end, and taking up almost and entire page, was a help wanted ad for a full time writer. She looked at it curiously for a moment before realizing that this could be a great opportunity for her. They were obviously against corruption so Jerry couldn't intimidate them, in fact they'd probably write a story for it. Another thing was that she would have to move to D.C. and so she could escape from L.A. where she wouldn't run into Jerry or anyone from her work. It seemed like the perfect plan. And there was no doubt in her mind about if they would hire her, what other real journalist would apply?
Less than a week later she stood inside a LAX terminal, waiting for her plane to start boarding. She had just gotten off one of the pay phones lining the wall adjacent from her current seat. She had been talking to Langly, telling him that her plane should be getting in at around 9:00 and they had promised that they would be waiting for her at the airport. Rebecca smiled as the boarding call started for her non-stop flight to Washington D.C. and perhaps to an entirely different life.
THE END...but only to this part in the series.
