Chapter Text
Rust colored leaves crunch with Marcille’s steps, and so does her spine; she must’ve slept on it funny in between tosses and turns the night before. The cracked parking lot of the Circle K is positively littered with oil puddles and empty styrofoam cups blown out of the dumpster by the same wind that’s whistled against her apartment window for a straight week now. Hopefully, she thinks, it’s a sign of the first snow of the season, and hopefully, that will be a squall fit to trap her in the apartment for a day or two. She doesn’t need an excuse to cozy up and stay indoors, but having one would make her feel a little better about it.
“Good morning! You’re on time.” Laios waits, leaning against the brick face of the building by the front doors. His smile is just a bit too bright.
“How low were your expectations for me?” Marcille asks, voice still asleep.
“The last person with your job never showed up less than thirty minutes late. Here’s your key; don’t lose it or they’ll take 40 dollars off of your paycheck to make a new one.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” she says, taking it from his outstretched hand.
Laios steps aside and lets her unlock the store, then he begins a tour with all the zeal of a car saleseman.
“The light switches are behind the counter”— he flips them on, and Marcille strains to blink in the white lights—“the bathroom is over there past the milk fridge, back here is the break room, and in the corner is the mop station, and here”— he opens a cabinet and takes out an industrial sized bucket of ground folger’s— “is the coffee we put out every morning, first thing.”
“Do we need to set up the grill?”
“Haha no way, don’t touch the cook’s station,” he says as though she’d told him a joke. “He’s out of town this week, and he’ll complain if he comes back finds his stuff out of place.”
She shrugs and decides to feel grateful for one less responsibility.
Customers trickle in almost as soon as she and Laios do. The cash register is an old-fashioned chunky button model that takes some getting used to, but Marcille is nothing if not a quick learner and good with numbers. Most items brought to the counter are energy drinks, though a few people try to order eggs and pork on a muffin. Marcille explains the missing cook, and whoever asked will huff and drag their feet to the snack isle.
By 9am, the breakfast rush slows from a trickle to relative quiet. Marcille sits back on one of the milk crates kept under the counter and struggles to get comfortable on ridged plastic in dress-code black slacks. Laios joins her on another crate, and hands her a coffee cup to match his own. She sniffs at the wafting steam and makes a face.
“It’s free for us, so you’ll get a taste for it.”
“It tastes like you strained it through cardboard.”
“Interesting. I’d describe it as more of a tobacco note.”
It isn’t coffee that she could live off of, but she drinks it anyways, and eventually the flavor doesn’t register and she and Laios are sharing thoughtful sips.
“How long have you worked here?” she asks.
“Since I graduated community college. An associate’s in life science doesn’t get me many job opportunities. I don’t regret it, though. What about you?”
“Regret going to school?” she exclaims, defenses raising.
“Take it easy, I meant how come you’re working here instead of in a laboratory.”
“Oh, I just… decided that oncology research wasn’t for me.”
“That’s funny; you seemed so determined back when I knew you.”
Marcille’s ears fold back to her head as if trying to hide. If Laios has any doubts, he isn’t showing them. He’s exactly as sweet and clueless as when they took classes together.
The squawking backup alarm of a truck interrupts them, and an engine’s rumbling draws near.
“I have to sign for the food delivery; be right back.” Laios springs up and goes out the back door, leaving Marcille to her coffee and her thoughts.
“Service. Do you offer it here?” There is a loud thunk as something hits the counter. Marcille shoots to her feet and the milk crate goes clattering over. The customer who slammed down a 12 pack of Sam Adams is short, slight, and had somehow opened the front door without tripping the tinkling door bells. Her eyes narrow down at him.“Are you sure you’re old enough to be buying that?”
“Christ, I don’t have time for this,” he mutters, and passes her an ID that he had ready at hand. Marcille studies it, front and back, holds it up to the light, and tests its flexibility.
“Okay Mr. … Tims. Where are you going to school?”
“I went to trade school 13 years ago you ass! Give it back.” He expertly swipes the card out from between Marcille’s fingers, and moves to grab the beers off the counter. Marcille siezes the 12 pack from the other end, leaning in to hiss, “I’m not gonna get busted for selling alcohol to a minor on my first day here! Where are your parents?”
Chilchuck gears up a retort but is cut off by a startling KACHUNK, followed by the walls rattling, followed by Laios shouting, “Too far!”, followed by the lights sizzling out. The ever-present hum of the drink coolers ceases, and the convenience store is cast into an uncomfortable dimness and silence.
Marcille shouts and runs outside, fearing the absolute bloody worst, but all she sees in the gravel back lot is her coworker and the truck driver studying a serious dent in the electrical box. The semi truck that put it there is barely scratched.
“Well. Shit.,” says the trucker, who immediately gets on the phone with his employer. Laios laughs nervously as the smell of burning wires begins proliferating.
“You’re gonna need a licensed electrician if you’re even thinking of fixing that mess,” says Chilchuck, leaned up against the back wall of the building and watching with a hint of smugness. “I know a guy who can get here in 20 minutes.”
Once the truck leaves and the pallet of assorted snack food is carted inside, the indeterminately-aged Chilchuck calls his guy.
“She’ll be here in 15,” he says as he hangs up. Him, Laios, and Marcille huddle behind the counter, keeping an eye on a shifty character filling their car at the gas pump outside. “I think I’ve collected enough good karma for the day,” he says, picking up the 12 pack that must be considerably warmer now than when it left the cooler, and he leaves a handful of five dollar bills in its place. “Keep the change Laios.”
“Bye Chil.”
“Now wait just a minute!” Marcille interjects, but he’s already out the door. She turns to Laios, waiting for an explanation.
“Oh, Chilchuck? He’s just short. His ID is legitemate, I promise.”
“I’m still keeping eyes on him.”
The contractor arrives exactly three minutes past the 15 promised, but Marcille forgets any snide comments regarding the wait when she gets out of her pickup and enters the store carrying a toolbag. She’s young, with a baseball cap pushing down her searing red hair and two carabiners hooked to the belt loop of a loose pair of jeans that lightly clink against each other when she walks. She’s short and fit to win a wrestling match against god herself.
“Somebody busted your electrical system?” She speaks with an angelically husky voice.
Laios escorts her out back, relaying the earlier events in unnecessary detail. The woman listens while idly rolling up the sleeves of her flannel work shirt, and Marcille has to turn away before it makes her light headed. The door slams shut, leaving her by her lonesome in the eerie dark. She checks her phone, sees a message from her mother, and ignores it. She takes a sip of acrid coffee, then fidgets with a glow-in-the-dark lighter from a display next to the register.
The door bells jangle Marcille up from her reverie.
“Woah, what happened to the lights?”
“A truck hit the building.” The woman who just entered gasps like it’s breaking news. She is only a silloutette, several inches taller and broader than Marcille.
“Nobody got hurt, right?” She asks like a fussy grandparent.
“Everybody’s okay, but the card readers are down so we’re cash only for the time being.”
“I’m not buying anything! I just swung by get something from my brother.” She walks up to the counter, carrying an airy floral scent with her, and sets a tote bag down. Her brother would be…
A generator kicks to life somewhere, bringing an obnoxious hum with it, and crimson backup lights liven up the store. Visibility remains slight, but now a red glow illuminates the face that is unmistakably Falin, startled eyes and all. The translucence of her ashy hair catches the red light, and it feathers out into a demonic halo behind the softness of her cheeks, strength of her jaw, and thunderbolts of her irises. Marcille sinks her fingernails into her leg as starved and angry feelings throw themselves against the sides of her ribcage; she grabs on to the first words she can think of before the silence speaks for her.
“Shit. Hi! Ohmygosh, you look great!” she smiles with teeth set. It’s an honest observation; Falin looks wildly different yet more like herself than Marcille remembers. Her face is fuller, she finally got prescription glasses, and she wears business casual better than anyone has a right to. Marcille crosses her arms in a sad attempt to cover up the Circle K nametag pinned to her shirt.
“Hey! Wow! I didn’t know that— is Laios working?”
“He’s around back. You can go through the break room.”
“Oh.. I’m not supposed to bother him when he’s not out front. I should probably wait here.”
Marcille nods, and Falin nods back, and they stew in the silence for a bit.
“How’s grad school treating you?”
Marcille swallows. “I left. It wasn’t working out anymore.”
Falin’s head tilts with utter confusion, and a maybe just a grain of disbelief.
The overhead lights and the refrigeration system chug back to the world of the living, stunning them both. Then the door swings wide to let Laios and the redheaded contractor back inside, while they discuss the finer points of invoicing.
“Address it here. And before I go, I’m obligated to tell you that the insulation on some of your wiring is worn down to shit. You’ll wanna replace those before the snow squall we’ve got coming next week.” She hands Laios a business card and picks up her things. “And here’s one for you blondie, in case you need it.” She takes another card out of her breast pocket and gives it to Marcille. “See you around.”
Marcille studies the title and phone number for the contracting company, sensing that she’s missing something.
“There’s writing on the back.” Falin points out, and Marcille turns beet red. A second, presumably personal phone number had been scribbled there in marker next to a name; Namari. She thinks very hard about shriveling up into a raisin.
“Falin! How long have you been waiting here?” Laios asks
“Only a minute. I locked myself out of the apartment, can I borrow your key?”
Laios clicks his tongue. “Don’t lose it this time. This is our third spare.”
“I’ll be careful, I promise. I found a spider in the pantry and carried out to the garden, but forgot to prop the door.”
“Was it another wolf spider? It’d be cool to see a different species for once.”
Then, at the same time, both Toudens seem to remember that Marcille is also there, picking at her nail beds and trying her best not to care whether they noticed her.
“You didn’t tell me she works here now.” Falin lowers her voice.
“Well yeah, she asked me not to. Right Marcille?”
Marcille suddenly feels quite noticed and finds herself caring very much. She grabs Laios’ clipbord from his hand to smack his chest with. “Why would you say that out loud, dipshit?”
“Because the cat’s already out of the bag and I don’t see what difference it makes?”
She drops the clipboard and rakes her fingers through her immaculately brushed hair. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want this to be weird.”
Falin shifts her weight from one foot to the other and grips the strap of her totebag. “I’m gonna go now.”
##
The next morning, Marcille clocks in and sees Laios, having already opened the store, stocked the coffee station, cleaned the floors, and counted the registers.
“Jesus, did you already do everything? You could’ve waited for me to start.”
“Well, I wanted to get ahead for both of us,” he says, bringing his hands together, “both because it’s a Saturday, and as a way of saying sorry.”
Marcille squints, tired and a bit lost. “Sorry for..?”
“Making things awkward yesterday.”
The searing discomfort returns to the pit of her belly, after she’d struggled for hours the night before to keep at bay long enough to fall sleep. “Oh, that? It would’ve been awkward anyways.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“No. Just don’t tell other people things I say in confidence.”
Laios nods as if charged with a sacred duty. “Understood.”
Every research role, internship, and TA position Marcille had occupied came with a steep training curve. It took months to fully internalize the layout of hospital hallways, the names and faces of her dozens of colleagues, and the routine minutia that took up most of a shift. By the second day at register, however, she’d settled into a groove. Greet, scan, punch a few buttons, wish a nice morning, clean up a spill, brew more coffee; it put her in something like a trance. It was blessedly low stakes work with blessedly simple people. She even started feeling amenable to the idea of scraping by with a trash retail job for a while longer, just until she returns to academia. It’ll be like a premature sabbatical.
“I’ll be right back. You can shout if things get busy again,” Laios says, taking the bathroom key down from its hanger next to the cigarette case. Midmorning had rolled lazily past, leaving them in a cold and dead November afternoon. Marcille rubs some lotion into her chapped knuckles, flexing out her long fingers when they begin to sting.
She stands on her tiptoes to peek over the farthest aisles and confirms that, yes, the store is devoid of life besides her, and she abandons post to investigate the energy drink case. Quickly and cleanly, she swipes a can from the bottom shelf, and breaks the tab while she walks away. It does not taste good, but she sips slowly, enjoying the promise of caffeine plus some nostalgia for her years in the underclassmen dorm.
“Sure hope you’re planning to pay for that.” Chilchuck says as she passes the coffee station. Marcille coughs from the shock and energy drink spits from her nose. “Someone’s jumpy.”
“Of course I’m paying for it, I work here!”
“I’m messing with you. I couldn’t care less what you steal.” He seasons his coffee with a healthy dash of something from a flask, pops on a lid and takes a long, long sip. “When’s the big guy getting back?” Chilchuck gestures over to the grease-stained grilltop that hadn’t seen use in several days.
“No clue.”
He huffs and says, “He might as well be gone for years.”
“Aww, I’ll be sure and let Senshi know you missed him so much.”
“For the record, I miss his cooking. I’ve been surviving off donuts the entire week.” He sets his breakfast of champions down on the counter.
“You could always, y’know, cook.”
“Do I look like someone who gives enough of a shit for that?”
“What a divorcee mindset for you to have.”
“Who told you about that? Is Laios running his mouth again?”
“You’re always trying to fidget with a ring that isn’t on your finger anymore.”
“Don’t give me that sherlock garbage.” He puts his wallet away and seizes his food off the table like he’s afraid Marcille is going to steal it back. Laios returns from the bathroom, and Chilchuck bristles past him on the way out. “You! Quit airing my dirty laundry to your coworkers.”
Laios and Marcille watch him leave in a pickup truck that must’ve been older than them.
“What’d you say?” Laios asks.
“He accused me of theft so I called him divorced.”
“Was I not supposed to tell you about that?”
Marcille shrugs. “Maybe not, but I appreciate the ammunition.”
He sits on a milk crate and props his head up on his hands. “He didn’t say it was private.”
“Getting divorced is usually private. if someone trusts you enough to talk about it, they’ll assume you know that.”
“How am I supposed to know, if nobody says it?”
Marcille pats his head through the black uniform hat and says, “Don’t think about it so hard, you’ll overheat your brain.”
Laios swats at her hand, and she swats back, but the store phone rings before they can escalate into the full-fledged violence of a slap fight.
“Circle K Summit Road?” Laios says into the receiver. “Mhm... Yeah, that’s what she told me… You sure?… Yessir.”
“Did the GM get your message about the rotten wires?” Marcillle asks after he hangs up.
“Yeah. He told me to wrap them with electric tape.” He rustles through a filing cabinet stuffed with a bottomless suply of office junk.
“That can’t be safe. Or effective.”
“I thought the same thing, but apparently our maintenance budget is already over for the quarter, so we’ll make do.” Laios shrugs, like this is totally out of anybody’s hands, and leaves with the roll of tape and nothing else. Marcille is at least 90% sure that what’s happening is not OSHA safe, but doesn’t know the law well enough make any real assertions.
“Yeah, okay, good luck.” She says.
“By the way, Falin will stop by soon. I forgot my lunch at home.” Laios absconds just before Marcille can wring his neck for not mentioning it earlier. She takes off her hat, collapses down into her milk crate seat, and crosses her arms with enough menace to radiate through six inches concrete wall. She worries at the end of her braid and thinks to herself, I am an adult who can handle seeing an ex-roomate in public. Nevermind the heartbeat that she can feel all the way in her ears; she will be mature about this. She dusts off her slacks and returns to her station.
After only a minute, the bells jingle and somebody enters. Marcille leaps behind the counter and weasels her way back to the break room, taking behind a stack of cardboard boxes that are easy to peek around. Falin (she assumes) has drifted through the entrance and vanished behind a shelf, or into a bathroom, or— then from her hideout, she sees somebody different, about as broad as Falin but much shorter and hairier, waltzing behind the counter then out from her field of view. He carries two reusable shopping bags filled with enough vegetables, greens, and bread to feed the entire city, and whistles to himself like he owns the place. She scrambles for the first weapon within reach, which is a fly swatter, and wields it high.
When she creeps out, prepared for anything, she learns that she is not prepared for him to be organizing the contents of the drawers in the cook’s station. He kneels down to put his groceries away into a cabinet, then stands up and gets an eyeful of Marcille poised to strike. The mystery man jerks back and says “Hwuh.”
“Oh, you’re the cook!” Marcille realizes aloud and puts down her armament.
He gives a good-natured snicker and says, “You spooked me! Are you a new security guard?”
Marcille hides her hands behind her back. “No, just a cashier. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t sweat it. Say, manager isn’t around, is he?”
“No, why?”
“It’s best if he doesn’t catch me buying groceries on the store’s budget again.”
“He’ll hire a cook but not give you anything to cook with?”
“Well, no. The supplies he gets delivered… do the job. But once and a while I like to whip up something special, and the people who eat here deserve fresh food with half decent ingredients.”
She awws a bit at the sentiment. “Don’t worry, I never saw you here.”
“You catch on quick. I’m senshi, what do I call you?”
“Marcille. Or Marcie, if we’re really close, but you can start with Marcille.”
He finishes putting away his foodstuffs, and leaves the store with a wave. She buzzes with the joy of being in on a little minor embezzlement, and the joy carries her until noon. Falin appears at the door, ears tucked into a beanie to ward off the cold and carrying a brown paper sack. Marcile swallows and greets her warmly. Whatever errands Falin is here to run are none of her concern, so she sits by and leafs through a celebrity gossip magazine, not noticing her drawing closer to the counter.
“Marcille.” Suddenly she is biting the inside of her cheek at the sound of her name in such sweet and airy tones. “When do you take your lunch?” She looks up from her magazine, bewildered.
“Just whenever.”
“Come outside and eat with me?” Falin holds out a homemade sandwich packed in foil. “It’s turkey and hummus.”
So the two of them eat together, sat side by side on the curb of the parking lot. The Circle K is situated on a long, long, long stretch of winding backroad, gorgeous any other time of year, and occupied mostly by hicks and deer, both of which leave them alone to their sandwiches and thoughts. Neither of them speaks. Marcille struggles to enjoy the admittedly very good lunch, while Falin stirs at the chromatic film of an oil puddle with a twig.
“Thanks for the food. It’s tasty.”
Falin looks up, and seemed to realize all at once that several full minutes had passed in quiet. “I was rude yesterday.”
“You weren’t. We just didn’t expect to see each other.”
“If you’re around my brother, you’ll be around me. I think you know that we’re a package deal.”
“I couldn’t imagine you’d want to see me again. And I’d understand.”
“Marcille,” there it was again, her name made to sound sweet and blameless, “You could’ve asked before assuming. I wouldn’t mind you being in my life again.”
“Like, as friends?” Marcille feels the healthy detatchment she’d spent the morning cultivating disintegrate like a nature valley bar.
“Acquaintances to start, maybe friends. But you should have told me you were leaving, and I wish you’d reached out before showing back up to Amherst.”
“You’re right; I should have. I”— she reaches for some justification, but comes up empty. “Will you tell me what you’ve been up to the past year?”
Falin smiles, and they make up for lost time. She tells Marcille about her tumutlous two years of schooling, marred by two changes of major and the death of a parent, then two more years doing social work that led to the present. Marcille, once or twice, nearly reached out a comforting hand, but thought better of it.
“It seems to suit you.”
Falin looks down at the cool asphalt and smiles. “I think it does. The responsibility that gets handed off to my department is overwhelming though; there aren’t many of us and we don’t have a lot of power. Because of funding, and all that.”
“Yeah, funding.” Marcille echoes wearily.
“What about you? How’d you land at this gas station, of all places?”
“I started my residency at the Boston U… it didn’t go great, and the institute and I… parted ways. I didn’t have anyplace else to go, so I came back here and bumped into Laios at a coffee shop. He got me this job. Which I’m very greatful for, but it’s just a seasonal role.” Marcille hobbles through each phrase like they are the delicate wires of a bomb she has to defuse. That skeptical slant comes back to Falin’s smile, and Marcille asks, “What?”
“Did something happen there?”
The wrong wire has been snipped, and she feels the knot of shame beginning to unfurl in her stomach. “No! Nothing important. That just wasn’t the sort of work I’d been looking for.”
“Oh.” Is the only response that comes. Falin minutely shakes her head, and returns attention to the pavement. The shame is bleeding into panic; Marcille forces herself not to scour Falin’s face for hints of disapproval or reproach, though she has no clue what she’d do upon finding them. Sitting on pins gets tiring fast.
“I need to clock back in. I appreciate the lunch. Really.” She offers a smile, and the one she gets back is tepid at best.
“You’re not very good at hiding things.”
Lips pursed, Marcille stands up and shuffles back inside. She cracks open another energy drink to ride out the afternoon, and thinks about absolutely nothing.
##
That night Marcille takes an ice cold shower, mostly for the kick of dopamine. Hot water in the thick of early winter sounds like a blessing from the gods, but her hair will thank her for exercising self control. The rusty shower pipes squeal whenever she spends too much time fiddling with the temperature knob anyhow.
Afterwards, she does each step of her hair routine as a dreamy dance. The setting has changed; she’s only lived in this apartment for a week and a half, and still hasn’t settled enough to sleep a full night through. Clinging to rote is the best comfort she has. As a final step, she delicately twirls her damp hair into a towel and pads over the creaky floorboards into the studio to fling herself at the twin mattress on her floor. It makes a satisfying squeak as she rolls onto her back and checks her phone. Nobody has messaged her, save for a meme Laios had sent that afternoon and the wave of ‘are you okay’ texts that came in the days after she left Boston. She hasn’t responded to any, but can’t find the nerve to delete them either. She puts down the phone and bemoans her solitude, just to the empty room. She shouldn’t need anybody else, yet can’t stop wishing that attention would arrive on its own, leaving her in a lonely indecisive haze.
But somebody had seen fit to notice Marcille that day. Based on the look in her eyes when she handed over a phone number, it was for licentious reasons, but any attention from someone as attractive would do. She finds her work pants in the laundry hamper and fishes the business card from its pocket.
Hey
Is all she texts. A minute goes by, and then, upon realizing that it might be worth elaborating:
Its Marcille from the gas station
The response arrives quickly after:
Hey cutie ;)
What’s happening
Nothing
My day off is tomorrow, do you want to get drinks
I’m all yours after 5
I’ll take you to Lacy Biggs
And I’m buying
Marcille’s heart gives a queasy little flutter. In her 7.5 years of medical school she’d considered herself too busy to properly date, and what experience she has is mostly secondhand. But here and now it seems suspiciously uncomplicated. “I am a well adjusted girl in her 20’s having normal girl experiences.” She exclaims to her empty room. The recent lack of a roommate in Marcille’s sleeping space had been messing with her.
She remembers, and adds:
See you then
<3
Second thoughts nag at her, as if a <3 were too forward, but she squashes them and heaves herself off the mattress to finish getting ready for bed. When she gets under the covers at last, with flossed teeth and wearing an over sized t shirt, she takes a pulpy romance paperback off the pile balanced next to her mattress. She tries with all her imagination to picture the stacked, red-haired contractor as the lead, whisking Marcille away from her circumstances and whispering sweet nothings into her ear, but the image won’t gel. Instead of interrogating her writhing mess of feelings about that, she puts away the book, turns out the light, and consigns herself to lay there, watching the grid of moonlight that beams through the window slats inch across the opposite wall. Sleep comes for her, eventually.