Day 3 Part 2

Her coworkers weren't annoying, they just liked the types of things that she didn't. Namely, TV shows like Survivor and American Idol. She'd found one person to talk to about LOST, but the conversation had quickly de-evolved from the interesting topic of the numbers, to how hot the main characters were.

Even still, she would be spending nine months with these people, she really wanted to try and fit in; or at the very least not be avoided. So when they asked her to go to dinner with them on Friday, she'd readily agreed, asking for the simplest directions they could give her.

"Street names and landmarks work best," she'd smiled apologetically when they laughed at her, and thanked Stephanie when she wrote down very detailed directions and a cell number, just in case she got lost.

Now all she had to worry about were clothes- she only had the same pair of jeans she'd been wearing for the past two days, and a blouse in three different colors. Hopefully the airline would call with her luggage before Friday, but since it was already Wednesday, she wasn't holding out too much hope.

Well, maybe if she scrimped a little more somewhere else she could afford to go out and buy a decent outfit. Like maybe lunches- she could just eat the one she'd forgotten for tomorrow, and then start packing lighter lunches.

What was lighter than a sandwich? What was cheaper than a sandwich?

Thinking was hard.

She sighed and rubbed at her ankles, deciding to save her progress and leave for the day; she'd already been working for two hours longer than she was supposed to, and she really did want to go out and get that outfit tonight. That way, she could spend all day tomorrow finishing the project, and Friday fixing whatever problems came up.

With a clear plan in mind, she made her way out of the building for the night, waving goodbye to Stephanie, who seemed the nicest out of the bunch she worked with, and made her way to the shuttle (which still smelled like feet).

The bus back to her apartment was late, but it gave her time to regroup her thoughts, center herself, and decide that she would get off at whatever stop seemed to have the highest amount of stores grouped together.

OOO

She wasn't a huge clothing shopper, which stemmed back to the day when she only ever wore jeans, and they were practically impossible to find in her size. But the cathartic act of searching for just the right thing, and being victorious in her search, made her feel very much better about herself and her thus far depressing week.

She'd found a great sale on a beautiful white sundress, and since she'd saved so much money on it, had decided to try and find a pair of shoes to match; she'd wound up spending a bit more than she wanted to on a pair of brown boots, but they were the type she'd been looking for since just about forever.

The best part was that they matched her leather messenger bag wonderfully, and they had actual traction on the soles. It was practically unheard of to find such a thing.

She was still entertaining thoughts of winterizing them as she chose a soft gray zipper hoodie and matching leggings. All in all, despite spending a bit more than she had initially wanted to, she was very happy with her purchase, and she was more than willing to eat apples and string cheese at lunch for the next month to make up for the splurge.

She hopped back onto the bus and sat quietly at her window seat for the next half hour, trying valiantly to ignore the drunken man attempting to hit on her. She was no stranger to taking the bus, it was something she had been doing long before coming to DC, but the eclectic mess of people that took the public transport in this large city made her feel slightly uncomfortable.

Relieved when her stop came up, she brushed past the man, glad when he didn't try and make any sort of disgruntled move on her; and thanked the bus driver before getting off.

From here, she had to walk three blocks to her apartment complex, but it was a quiet walk and it was a nice way to wind down from an overworked day.

She was convinced Cherryl was giving her a large workload to test her, but she didn't know if she wanted to pass the test or not. On the one hand, if she passed, it would more than likely mean respect and better assignments in general. But on the other, it would also probably lead to more work, and she was already spending more time in the office than she was strictly supposed to.

Unlocking her door, she threw her bags next to her small collection of high heeled shoes; she paused momentarily to grimace at them before locking the door behind her, and sliding the deadbolt into place.

It was time to make some cookies. She really wanted to make white chocolate macadamia nut, or maybe oatmeal raisin or both, I bet the batter combined would be delicious! But she didn't have recipes for those and her cell phone was currently lost somewhere under the couch, so there would be no looking them up on the internet.

Well, I suppose it's chocolate chip then, not that it was a problem. Who would complain about having chocolate chip cookies, really? Still, she had wanted to show off, just a little, and she had also wanted to share a small part of herself- her favorite cookies- with the two people who so far had made her feel the most welcome. And they didn't even work with her.

She went to preheat the oven, but it wouldn't turn on. Frowning, she wedged it away from the wall to see if anything had come unplugged. Nothing had, and since that was the extent of her fix-it knowledge, she made to call her landlord.

Not even three days, and she was already the problem tenant.

He wouldn't be able to fix it until Saturday, which was disappointing, but she reminded herself that the man had a life and other people with other problems that needed to be fixed, as well.

Before hanging up, she asked if it would be ok to paint the walls; she'd never had an apartment before, and she also hadn't read that particular section of the papers she'd had to sign.

Apparently making a fool of herself was an ongoing thing, because he made a big deal of pointing out that he had specifically said when she moved in that it was perfectly fine, so long as she painted everything white again when she moved back out.

Well. Fine then.

After having a cup of noodles for dinner and fishing out her cell from the dark recesses that constituted the underside of the couch, she didn't know what else to do. It was barely even nine, and she refused to try and fall asleep again; she was convinced that going to bed before ten two nights in a row made you either sick or old.

Deciding to wash her clothes with the small washer provided in her apartment, she dug through her previous day's purchases and pulled out some detergent.

No time like the present to try and figure the damned thing out- it was as old as dirt, and half the settings had been worn away so all one could see were estranged letters here and there. She was terrified that the lone 'b' once belonged to something menacing, like obliterate.

Once again proving her lack of foresight (she preferred to call it that, as apposed to the alternative- idiocy), she realized she had still yet to buy any pajamas, or, worse yet, replacement underwear.

She decided to wear her large t-shirt from the flight over while her two-day pile of dirty clothing was washed in the machine of questionable merits and age. While the shirt was large enough to go down to mid-thigh, and she had all the blinds closed, she still felt awkward walking around the place essentially naked; it still didn't feel like her place, and so she had the weird feeling that someone was going to barge in on her at any second.

To distract herself she went back to the odds and ends she had purchased the other day, and pulled out the small selection of nail polish she had decided would be fun. She didn't know how Cherryl would react to something so juvenile, but Shilloh didn't really care. She had already sacrificed her health and comfort in the form of those atrocious shoes, and she was going to do whatever the damned well else she wanted.

Hopefully it wouldn't result in another poster job- she had been assigned one this morning on top of the brochure, which was why she had stayed so late at work. Luckily the poster was a lot easier to do than Cherryl had made it out to be, and tomorrow all she really needed to do was make a mock-up of it to ensure that the bleeds and margins weren't messing anything up. She really was abysmal with printing.

She decided to go with a soft green color on her toes, and by the time she was done with them she was able to switch her clothing over to the dryer. Noting happily that the lone 'b' had not, in fact, completely ruined her pants or shirts, she now turned her fretting over to the dryer; hopefully it wouldn't attempt to melt anything.

She was sure her home-ec teacher hadn't said anything about dryers melting clothes, but she hadn't really paid much attention in that class. And besides, if anyone could prompt a dryer to do the impossible, it would be her.

The dryer bumped and rattled soothingly, and she smiled softly. If it didn't do anything horrible, she would deem it worthy of a nick-name; the washer was still suspect, though, she thought, eyeing it carefully.

Waiting for her clothes to dry she decided to paint her fingernails, too. They would look lovely with the lavender blouse she had purchased; maybe she should wear some jewelry tomorrow, too.

Luckily, she always packed her small bag of jewelry in her messenger bag when she went on planes, since most of what she owned was too sentimental for her to want to trust with strangers.

Perusing through the small pile of belongs she'd squirreled away in her messenger bag, she idly thought about how incredibly pathetic she was. She lived in her living room- as in, she hadn't even looked in the bedroom. Everything she currently possessed was strewn about between the main door and the front of the couch, with a couple things thrown hastily into the bathroom the day before.

First paycheck she got would be used for hangers for all her clothing, and some hooks for her jewelry. Wishing she had enough to spend on more than just those essentials, she thought about everything else she'd have to use the money on, too; all the boring, adult essentials- food, water, electricity, phone… rent. God, rent. That was going to be a big one. She sighed and looked at the bag holding her brand new dress, still shoved over by the front door. She really shouldn't have purchased that.

Hey guys. Don't get used to me posting this often. I'm mostly just doing it to get to the next bit that has a lot more of the characters in it. Also, I just realized that the dividers I originally had aren't showing up on ff.n, so I'll be re-posting chapters 1-4 here in a little bit.

Oh, and because I'm lazy, I'm pretending that this is "modern" time (as in September 2010), because I make the occasional reference to video games or movies, and I don't want to try and remember/look up what would be accurate for a 2005 setting.