- Prologue -
"Hey - Hey - Hey!"
The shrilly feminine call of Hana echoes through the previously eerily silent living room. The hefty wooden apartment door follows after with its signature slam. Threatening to snap a stray finger, or smack an unsuspecting backside. Then along the dollar-store kitchen tiles, Hana's boots perform a tap dance to their own pirate's jig.
I sigh, leaning forward in immediate defeat, bringing all Sims gaming to a halt, knowing exactly what will happen next. It seems as though I won't be allowed to spend the next 8 hours as a hermit, cowering over an illuminating screen in the pitch darkness.
"Hey!" Hana shouts once more.
Removing my cheek from the cold desk, I hit pause on the idle alien character. "Yeah, calm your tits! I'm coming!"
Entering the kitchen area, Hana is there, from her buckled, black boots to her faux leather jacket. And in her tattooed left hand is an $8 bottle of merlot, a packet of crisps in the other. Accompanied with that, she sports a wide devilish smile upon those plum-painted lips of hers.
"You little hermit-crab." she playfully snaps, "Look at you spending a Friday night, already in your old-lady pajamas."
Playfully adjusting the knee-length nightgown, placing a stubborn hand on my hip, "What's wrong with my pajamas? I think I look real cute!"
"You look like a grandma." she deadpans.
Jeez those brown eyes can create the most bored expression I have ever seen. They make me feel guilty for already giving up on my party years to play computer games instead. Although I still let my Sims characters go out into town. It seems I'd rather see them drunkenly dance the night away, than find myself at 3:am twerking with other randoms in a strobe-light club.
Hana groans, "Here." to which she fiercely hands over the now opened bottle of merlot, "That's for you."
"All of it?"
Hana nods and then turns to reveal her own bottle of pinot gris, frosty from the liquor store fridge. She snaps up two glasses and forcefully directs me out of the kitchen, past my bedroom door and onto one of the worn-out sofas. Her strong-headed authority has the remote, the wine and the next four hours of my life in her palm. The smirk on her plump lips knows it.
"I have had the worst day at work, I am telling you!" she whines, swigging from the bottle, and slamming the power-on button, "I cannot deal with those idiots! I mean how are we even from the same planet?!"
I delicately pour a glass of red, measuring to the point in which my three years as a bartender has drilled into my system. It only reminds me of the time passed, and how I have changed with it. Nightly party girl to avid Sims player…
"What have they messed up this time?" I question just before neatly tasting the merlot. And squint my teeth and lips, oh my that's definitely the $8 bottle.
"Jen decided she would just sign me up for a two-week long course of management training," and Hana's voice rises as the rant starts, "But then I looked at the bloody schedule and outline for the course, and it's basically the same fleeping thing I completed 6 months ago! But then she tried to gaslight me into believing that it's completely different! And then! I find out that during these 'two-weeks' that I will be in training, she is doing another course, to get the certification for Angela's old job, a bloody promotion that both of us could get!"
"Hang on," I choke on the merlot, sour bitterness staining my throat, "So can't you just deny going on the course?"
"Nuh-uh! I can't do shit! Jen's all buddy-buddy with the big boss, and has convinced her that my management training isn't up to f***ing regulation!"
I take a sip of wine to process, "Shit."
"Yeah, shit is right," she huffs, furiously clicking the remote, "So now we are going to watch the shittiest reality tv-show so I can forget my problems for the weekend." and she takes one final desperate gulp from her own bottle, speaking through the pinot gris, "This'h is'h some Monday morning shizh-nit."
I grunt in agreement, starting to feel the flushy, warmth of red wine filling me up as the glass becomes more empty. Perhaps after my own week of work and life struggles, this merlot and Hana's shared emotional wreckage, I might not mind the diversion of my previous plans.
"Play that shizh-nit," I chuckle, downing the rest of the glass and reaching to fill it up once more, "I'm ready to feel a lot better about myself."