Regina stopped stomping down the hall, hearing a phone ringing inside the closed-off security office.
Seeing that Mike, the resident security guard, was late to work and that the heavy, reinforced metal door was wide open, she minced inside, hoping for something to do.
She was much to proud to play cards or children's games like, she did for a paycheck when she wasn't bassing tables like some common, vulgar scrub.
A phone was loudly ringing on the cluttered desk, right next to the clunky monitor covered in Post-It notes.
Wanting it to stop and curious as to why it was, she carefully pulled it off the greasy receiver and pressed the speaker.
"Uh, hello hello!" The man on the phone called out in the open air. Before she could respond back, he continued, "Wow day four, uh, I knew you could do this!"
Regina decided that was rude.
Regina crossed her arms, finding an opening for snooping in the rooms she wasn't allowed to wander in as she set it on speaker.
"Uh, hey, uh, sorry, I might not be, (hard swallow) around to, uh, (loud banging) send you a message tomorrow."
She grinned, ignoring the man on the phone, starting her investigation with a heavy binder full of crinkled yellow sheets and glossy new paper. She opened to the front page, a glossy page announcing a policy change.
It was covered in accusatory scribbles.
Flipping through it, Regina was left unsatisfied, seeing that it was a glorified magazine full of quizzes and shift reports.
And it was mostly filled out too.
LAME.
Regina searched the desk for more shit to stir but came up empty. She stared at the monitors, studying the room. She could see the dining area, its rows upon rows of crisp white tables and colorful cone-shaped party hats, now in gray-scale. She watched a pouting Princess sort cards on a table.
"Look, it's been a bad night for me here, uh….."
She ignored a loud bang over the phone, snickering.
She could set up here and watch whatever goes down tonight. Might be some prime 'bargaining' material.
Regina grabbed the remote and began to flick through the cameras, watching a potentially juicy story unfold in front of her.
"Y'know, I'm kinda glad I uh, recorded these when, (cough) I did."
Regina continued to ignore the caller, there wasn't any juicy info to glean from him and his incessant rambles.
She flicked to the kitchen and was soon disappointed by an error message.
Damage feed, audio only.
On the plus side, she could hear Izzy humming and microwaving snacks or the group for when they met up in the main dining hall. Regina smiled sweetly, a rare sight no one ever saw, not even Mumsy.
"Uh, hey, do me a favor. (banging) Maybe sometime, uh, you could check inside those suits in the back room? (banging) I'm gonna try to hold out until someone checks."
She was finding that she quite liked Izzy, for as silly and gullible she seemed, she was sweet and caring, and was kind to Regina said or did to the people of this town.
Regina rarely got that, even when she played nice to the other girls in her social standing.
"Maybe it won't be so bad. (bang-bang!)"
Regina considered asking Izzy to heat up a pizza too. Regina hated pizza in general, as it was fattening and coarse compared to fine steaks and salmon, but now that her stomach was grumbling, she didn't feel like being choosy.
"Uh, I-I-I-I always wondered what was in all those empty heads back there. (chime plays)"
The toreador's march played on a music box didn't fully register in Regina's mind, still focused on getting dinner.
Stupid cheapass bosses who couldn't be fucked to pay for a meal on the ride home.
Even MacDonald's, a greasy, cheap shit house was too good for the girls to get.
The girls, excluding Regina, had seen the sign two hours into the journey home and began chanting the closer and closer they got.
Upon entering the drive through, the girls and Henry began deciding meals and fighting over who got to order. Henry had said on the ride up that they were to get three dollars or less of food, "So make it count!" and when they prepared to order…
William ordered one black coffee and drove away.
No dinner for another three hours.
Even Regina, who hated anything less than caviar and cigarettes, had had enough.
William, while admitting that he regretted his foolish decision, did not relent, even after getting a boiling hot coffee in his lap and his station wagon in a ditch.
Since they were getting free pizzas, snacks, and arcade time when they got back, so stop delaying them thank-you-very-much.
This entire rant was punctuated by lots of cussing, a red face, and two crying performers in the backseat.
Regina spent the last three hours angrily sulking, hatred seething from behind her teeth.
"You know...*deep moan* oh, no - *noises followed by a loud screech and static*"
The call ended. Finding nothing good to read, Regina left the office.